Loving Istanbul

We are preparing to head back to Boston for a week. We'll leave Jungle in Istanbul, while Jenée and I fly back for a Fraine family wedding and a full Fraine Family reunion (2 parents, 9 kids, tons of neices and nephews and grandkids - wow). Not sure if we have any great - great grandkids. I'll get back to you on that. While in Boston I'll check on some medical stuff. A crowning point of the trip for us is Jenée's son Garrett is flying in to meet with us and the family for the week. Garrett recently passed the entrance exam for the San Diego Sheriff. He will now begin the long process to follow in his Grandfather, Marlin Stapleton's, footsteps (LA policeman turned lawyer). I don't want to besmeerch the SoCal exam, but I think one of the answers in the test was; "Dude, put down the surfboard and back away!". Garrett is now at 6'6", 250 lbs, so here's to hoping he still has a great sense of humor.

In one of the recent updates I talked about Alev and Jason (Aysun) Orhon. They own a very well stocked Marine store (Horizon) next to the Setur Marina and Alev helped us track down a refridgerator repair person and proceeded to act as interpreter and coordinator over the phone between me and the repair guy. At the end, Jason came by to negotiate the final bill. Needless to say, we love these two fine folks and greatly appreciated their generosity towards us. They are quite in love as well, which we are always happy to be around.

Before leaving we decided to have dinner together. Jason and Alev took us to one of their favorite restaurants for a Turkish dinner. And what a dinner! Look at my face. That is the full giddy Jimmy face when I'm in heaven at the dinner table. It included all kinds of appetizers with eggplant, vegetables, you name it. The main course included some great steak and lamb.

Dessert was this pistachio in philo dough treat, combined with ice cream. Pretty much everything we tried was the first time for us and we loved it all. We ate most of it to boot. Merhaba! Alev and Jason's daughter is married and living in Tampa, Florida and they plan to be there full time by next year. We'll be keeping in touch.

The next day it's back to school! Turkish style cooking school that is. Jenée came upon the suggestion in a travel book and set it up. You learn to make 5 courses with master chefs, prepare all the dishes, then sit down and eat them. Here is Chef Cap'n Jimbo dicing up the herbs. Man, I can dice! Check out my weapon.

Here the class is preparing the meat wrapped in grape leaves. It's the Turkish version of dolmas only it is more meat (lamb and beef) and little rice. Quite a process to prep.

We see the class in action. All very nice folks who like to eat. Nice common ground. That is master chef Evelyn in red and Faisel in white. Very effective instructors.

These are the zucchini pancakes in the frying pan. Best right out of the pan.

This is the finished grape leaves and meat with yogurt. We also had zucchini boat salad and figs stuffed with walnuts, simmered in syrup. I make a great Turkish meal, but enough about me.

These ladies are from Dallas, Texas with the aspiring chef in the middle. Her sister to the right and friend on the left came to join in for lunch - they gave us 4 stars! OK, made that last part up. I was very helpful. Whatever they didn't finish, I did.

The restaurant/school is in a little neighborhood just behind the Blue Mosque.

Very nice neighborhood.

Just strolling around.

We decide to walk back towards the port to enjoy the street life and walk off the 20 pounds I've gained over the last 24 hours.

We make our way to the ferry port and the famous spice market. Let me tell you, they have lots of unique spices and we've used some ourselves - fantastic. Jenée also bought some unique teas.

It's time for the ferry and one last trip via this way back to Jungle.

The next morning we sail south for the Princes Islands. This group of islands is only 7 miles from Istanbul and is a Turkish hangout during the summer. Not much English spoken here.

This is the island of Burgazadasi and has a neat little waterfront town.

We strolled the streets on a hot day. Good thing we are steps from the water.

Little shops and we're loving these flowering trees and shrubs. Who knew I'm a shrubbery guy?!

Ho hum, beautiful everywhere.

Jenée spots an outdoor market.

Here we go. We loaded up on fruit.

Taxi service. No cars allowed on any of the islands, so plenty of horse drawn carts.

This particular beach is mostly rock. That's our anchorage.

Actually a mooring and that's our view. That's Istanbul off in the distance.

The next day we head for our marina to leave Jungle while we fly back to Boston. We pass a nice little set of homes. Turkey has undergone a great deal of waterfront expansion and not all of it very attractive. This works.

At the marina we find tight grouping of ducks, or a bevy of ducks, or a gaggle of geese, or a shitload of birds. Whatever works. I fed them some old bread so they dug me.