Turkish Dinner

Saturday night, Adnan invited me to a dinner party.

Little did I know, this would be an authentic food/authentic drinking/authentic singing dinner party. Not like in our North American culture when we say dinner party it ends up being potato chips and dip. No way.

This dinner party had at least 10 dishes to start with. We all sat down at a table together. After each bite there was a lot of drinking of Raki - the traditional Turkish alcohol (45%) that tastes like ouzo. Cheers!

I resorted to just a taste and then went back to wine. I am sorry to say that I was the only one drinking wine and now I'm completely ashamed of it.

Then came the fish. That was the main course and I was full, but had to make room. It was delicious.

This was all followed by Turkish music and singing. One girl in particular had a fantastic voice (I'm sure that Raki helped in that department) sang every song and even did a little dancing.

Now - what's missing? Oh yes, the Turkish coffee. The hostess asked me to come and help her make it. She taught me how you do it properly - over coal in a special brewing container, but her kitchen wasn't equiped with coal, so we resorted to a different machine.

A spoon of coffee for every cup. Then a cup of water for each serving. This is followed by slow and short cooking till the coffee foams. Some of it is poured into the cup because Turks like foam and the coffee is brewed for a little longer and the rest is poured out.

Strong, black with a bold taste. Fantastic. She told me where I can get this fantastic coffee (on an island market somewhere) and will bring some back to Canada for sure. (Along with all the proper gear to make it).