Turkish Breakfast

It's my first day in Turkey, I've only eaten breakfast and it was so delicious that I just couldn't help but share. We're staying with a friend who has a house on top of a mountain just outside of Marmaris, a very small village -- only 200 people. A friend of a Damla named Iman owns the most charming little restaurant, very modest but she sure knows what she's doing. The people here are so wonderful -- very hospitable, everybody knows each other, it's a completely different lifestyle than I'm accustomed to, but I'm loving it.





Gozleme is a traditional breakfast food in turkey, it's made by rolling out a soft dough until it's paper thin, then it gets a layer of wild mountain herbs and is finished with another layer of dough. It's cooked in the wood burning oven, girls start practicing gozleme at the age of six, and it takes them at least 7 years to perfect it. Delicious.




We also had the most incredible yogurt cheese, made by churning yogurt until it separates, the curds are slightly dried and seasoned with wild thyme, and the butter...don't even get me started, it's cultured, sweet, salty, impossible not to eat an entire plate with flatbread and honey. The olives are from Iman's garden, she cures them herself. Everything is so fresh, so simple, and ever so delicious. Iman, the restaurant owner, has invited us to learn how to make manti tomorrow morning -- they're impossibly tiny ravioli stuffed with lamb, served with yogurt, dried mint and paprika oil on top. Can't wait.

-Matthew