Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 2
(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 2 
Lunch at grandmother's: She starts us off with some red lentil soup. I think it's enriched with some polenta and of course, butter, so half a cup is already a substantial start. I add a good deal of hot pepper flakes.
Fava: A simple, yet a-hard-to-get-it-right sort of dish that is made with pureed fava beans, lots of olive oil and dill.
It's dense and very creamy.
Roughly chopped shepher's salad,
followed by olive-oil braised artichoke hearts.
Pre-empting the possibility that we might be sinning if the main dish didn't include some sort of meat, we dig into this version of Orman Kebabi,
which is chunks of tender lamb roasted with caramelized pearl onions, tomato, button mushrooms and then topped with aged cheese and lots of oregano. Did I mention...
that this was also served with some tomato-rice pilaf?)
AND some braised vegetable medley"?
A few days later I visited one of my favorite bakery / coffee shops in Istanbul with my friend Ali Riza, and his girlfriend Itir. The shop is called Beyaz Firin (White Oven). It's a bakery with overwhelming choice where you can order it off the shelf and have yourself a 3000 calorie breakfast almost instantly.
We shared: Roasted Egglplant and chicken quiche,
Pogaca with Dill (A pouch-like pastry filled with local feta cheese),
and a "mini-kol-boregi" Which is a personal-sized flake-pastry-pie filled with ground meat and onions and then topped with sesame seeds. I think the amount of butter that goes into making one of these is kept secret. It's better that way. 
We finished our breakfast off with some almond and pistachio cookies
and of course,
...tea.
