A Great Discovery

I played hooky this afternoon. I was down to half a lira in Turkish money, and you can't change money around here on the weekend. The director of the "Preparatory School" (English language instruction) is off in Poland and the person he left in charge has a desk right next to mine. The Texas people were fine with me leaving early and the number two person was also leaving on the 1:30 PM van into town. So off I went.

I walked about a half hour down to a bank that can change money. At least this bank (Garanti -- somehow connected to GE Capital) has a "take a number system," even if they only had one teller on duty on a Friday afternoon -- there were seven teller stations. I spent my time trying to read their promotions posters and signs. Ironically, the only thing I could translate for sure was the phrase "good service." Hmmm. I probably waited about 45 minutes before my number came up. I was 838. They were at 824 when I came in but they kept jumping to numbers in the 500s or 300s. Don't know how folks got those numbers. They'd come in after I did. But I did eventually get my money changed.

When I left the bank I heard a lot of noise -- shouting -- coming from down an alley. I looked up the street and saw that there was a large covered area behind the bank building. It wasn't large enough to be a covered soccer stadium but I thought it must be some kind of sporting event. Then when I got closer I realized it was a market. It reminded me a lot of the market in Meaux where my sister Courtney used to shop. A bit more than a third of it was given over to food. The rest was clothing, every cooking utensil you could imagine, dishes, clothing, yardage and even colorful scarves.

The produce was just gorgeous. Eggplants, tomatoes, peppers in every size and shape, zucchini (which are very pale green), lettuce, scallions, potatoes, persimmons, pomegranates, etc. etc. Everything in season. There is also an interesting citrus fruit in all the markets. It's shaped like a small orange but it's mostly green. When we lived in Riverside CA I learned that oranges left on a tree will start to turns green. I thought maybe that's what they were -- wrong. They look sort of like an orange inside but they are somewhat tart. The canteen at Zirve keeps a big bowl and they will squeeze them on the spot. Very refreshing.

What caught my eye were green beans that reminded me of our Romano beans. I just couldn't resist. I couldn't tell how much they were so I gave the guy 2 lira -- about $1.25. I got a kilo of beans -- and believe me, that's lots of beans. I've been giving them to people in my building and still have a lot for myself. For dinner tonight I had a plate of beans and fresh tomatoes, with a slice of good whole wheat bread. For dessert I sliced a persimmon in half and scooped in out with a spoon. As someone said, it's almost like eating jam, they are so sweet.

I guess I write a lot about food, but the produce here is so fabulous and so reasonably priced. That's all I want to eat.