Breakfast After a Turmoil

Due to the protests in Istanbul and pretty much elsewhere in Turkey it has been hard to write or read anything protest-unrelated. News are mostly crowd-sourced through Twitter and Facebook before they appear on the media, so it has been taking a lot of time to fetch and process the bits and pieces into a story. What a lovely reason to procrastinate! And while the issues that have urged so many people to take a stand remain, the violence settles: after cleaning up a few days ago the peaceful protestors are distributing tea, kandil simit and helva at the Taksim square this very night. So I can’t have any excuse not to get back to the blogging. From our countryside house in Sapanca that is not unlike the Taksim square where unexpected turmoil turns into the utter peace and communal tea drinking.

Now when I am spending less time in Sapanca I have a very idyllic vision of it: no work, fresh air, lush greenery, peace and quiet that are impossible to experience in Istanbul. In Sapanca I am leisurely spending my days reading, playing with the dogs, chatting with my husband and sharing meals with the family. And so I had these very plans for the few days I spent there last week.

I arrived right on time for the party. The news of the town (= the farmhouse) was a new family friend, a young woman suffering from a few chronic diseases: she was found unconscious in her summer house in Sapanca after she - as we learned afterwards - decided to take all the pills she was prescribed (a lot, and 2-3 times more if a Turkish doctor makes the prescription) - at once. Mysteriously, that very night a representative of her security company tried to reach her and could not. So they called the second contact number that happened to be our farmhouse. My husband was puzzled first when he heard the last name of the women, but then he put together the woman’s name, the company they were calling from and the cause. He drove down to find the woman unconscious in her house and open pill packs and loose pills all over the place.

Followed the ambulance, police, transfer of the woman to the intensive care in the hospital of the nearby town, my mother-in-law going to see her the next day, the woman’s uncle and best friend coming from Istanbul and then all of them arriving to the farmhouse, a buffer territory where everyone could rewind. The late afternoon they all came from the hospital we brewed a huge pot of tea and served it with my mother-in-law’s cookies always handy for such occasions.

We were sitting at our restaurant terrace, sipping tea and the actors of the story were taking turns to narrating their part. The backdrop was no less than glorious. Sun generous with its last rays before going down. Our both dogs at the porch hoping they can be allowed in and (who knows?) offered some cookies. The young woman still wearing a medical cap and drained of energy and at the same time strangely full of life. My mother-in-law tired and quiet all of a sudden. I have never met anyone so generous with her help as anne is, no matter whether she knows the person in need well or not. My husband whose generosity to match his mother’s and who is not easily confused by emergencies.

The next day as the young woman gathered her bearing, and her boyfriend from Gaziantep arrived we all had a feast. Late breakfast, never ending garden work fearlessly led by my mother-in-law and the Gaziantep guest not arriving until the late afternoon meant our lunch was delayed. And characteristically following the fascinating Turkish breakfast tradition we set up a breakfast table for the late lunch.

Turkish breakfast is indefinitely expandable affair: you can have some freshly brewed tea and pastry when in a rush or a feast with dozens of delights to sample if you have more time. We pulled cheese and olives: at my mother-in-law’s house this means at least 3-4 types olives and half a dozen varieties of cheese with the compulsory ezine, a tart cheese of goat and sheep milk similar to feta, that goes so well with watermelon. Ekrem, my mother-in-laws’s helper, slaughtered a huge watermelon for the occasion and picked sweet cherries and tart unripe plums from our garden. We served mulberry and strawberry homemade jams to go with the village bakery bread and to be washed down with strong Turkish tea. Eggs with the most yellow yolk in the whole world.

And then of course Gaziantep delights brought by our guest. “Baklava is coming”, me intrigued by the local food knowledge and flavors and father-in-law who never say no to a sweet exchanged the looks when we heard about the arriving fellow. He appeared with two huge bags loaded with boxes of baklava, pistachio and pistachio marzipan, traditional treats any Gaziantep baklavaci sells. Some would think he had invaded a baklava shop. As far as I am concerned our guest has only paid his duty to the culinary heritage of his motherland and spreading it around. And let’s admit if you are from Gaziantep and come to visit empty-handed your hosts will not invite you again. I would not.

Is baklava appropriate for the breakfast table? I don’t think we need to go into a discussion here. All of us, including my husband who did not get the sweet-tooth of his dad, enthusiastically participated in finishing one box almost immediately. And you would not judge us if you were to try a piece of crispy, light baklava with large green chunks of flavorful pistachios and leaving the unmistakable goat milk butter aftertaste in your mouth. My mother-in-law focused on the unshelled pistachios - small, crunchy dry and flavorful - and everyone was happy to help. Finally, like little children we each got our share of the thin pistachio marzipan bars wrapped in the rustling plastic.

Fuss, tea being refilled, food passed around, laughter, sharing jokes with the people who were strangers just a while ago, dogs that my husband would try to keep away from the eating guests and my mother-in-law would - not secretly at all - feed under the table. There is a lot of comfort in knowing that every turmoil can be followed by a blissful breakfast.