Food

There is a lone Asian man staying at the hotel. He leaves early in the morning to hike with his special walking poles. At dinner, when the waiter brings his food, he carefully takes apicture of each dish. Except, of course, the soup.
Speaking of food, the new food and beverage manager arrived. She's reintroducing authentic Turkish food into the restaurant to replace some of the more European dishes currently on the menu. (There are many Turkish dishes on the menu, she’s adding more.) As she ponders the new menu, she experiments in the kitchen. I have benefited greatly from her presence in that area. Last night, I had tender lamb chunks in a tomato based sauce surrounded by eggplant puree. Simple to make but so good. She told me how and I just might try my hand at it. This evening, I had grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts and currants followed by what is roughly translated as water borek. There are about a million kinds of borek, all of which I do so enjoy. This one was made with layers of thin dough, not quite as thin as phyllo, in between which was lovely white cheese. I don't want to think of the butter content. At breakfast, I have sweet and savory millefeuille borek, kind of like little croissants, with either herbed cheese or chocolate and bananas. I really don’t want to think about the butter content.