Taking a very mini-break from inputting ingredients, nutritional information, and writing descriptions for my other job as shopping researcher, I found Paperiarre‘s interview on Etsy and then this beautiful linen journal. It is coptic bound so it will lay flat, and the lace on the cover is absolutely adorable. I have to stop myself from buying it right now by thinking about the pile of waiting-to-be-written-in journals and notebooks on my table. Is it so wrong to love blank books but not write in them? Though over the last three years my finished notebooks have started to fill a whole shelf.
I’m fighting a major headache from this heat and humidity. I won’t admit to just how much I sweat last night making dinner, though I am happy to say it was Coconut Shrimp Soup! Which means, if you hadn’t already guessed, I can get coconut milk now here in Turkey! Or at least in Izmit, who knows about other places. In the last two weeks alone, now that I have a wok again, too, I’ve made various coconut curry dishes, and peanut-thai-ish food, too. The soup was one I had been craving forever, and finally was able to make. I feel like I am actually cooking again, and though my love Devrim may insist I have no such regular motivation to do so, the love of cooking is creeping back again. Does that mean some of the last strains of culture shock are wearing off? That I can feel comfortable in my kitchen again after nearly three years of struggling to make things edible, let alone tasty, is a huge step. I think sloughing off the feeling that I need make Turkish food every night of the week helped.
Other items I can now find in Turkey:
Jiff peanut butter (but wasn’t there a recall on it?)
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
Hoisin sauce
Curry paste
American Cesar Salad Dressing (yes, it says American on the label), by Kuhne
Steak sauce
Tabasco sauce
See what’s been missing in my life? A little sauce!
