This is what my housemates surprised me with this morning— an amazing Turkish breakfast on the balcony. We’ve each got a little omelet with chunks of sausage (chicken sausage, of course— it tastes a lot better than it sounds), there’s a salad for the table to share, a bowl of olives (my favourite), and of course plenty of fresh bread with stuff to put on it: chocolate cream, butter spread, honey, and cheese. To drink, there’s your choice of Turkish tea or freshly homemade ayran, which is a yogurt drink, but not sweet like the yogurt drinks we get in the West.

Needless to say, breakfast was great.

As for lunch, I’ve been eating a lot of salads lately because, well, it’s summer. I’ve been craving avocados— we only get them seasonally here, but when they finally start showing up at the bazaar they are unbelievably ripe and soft and flavourful. I searched and searched on Thursday and finally found one man who had a few avocados at an exorbitant price (it’s still very early for avocados here— another month or so and they’ll be much cheaper). But a craving is a difficult thing to overcome, so I paid the 4YTL and went home with two of the most delicate avocados I’ve ever held in my life. In fact, they were so delicate I could barely handle them at all, which means they were perfect. I cut one up at lunchtime with some locally-grown tomatoes and olives, and as a special treat I chopped some of the chicken sausage into teensy little pieces and fried it until it was crispy. Voilà bacon bits substitute! Normally I’d just drizzle some olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper over the whole thing, but since I was already going the decadence route with the baconesque bits, I decided to splurge and make a dijon-mayo dressing (I love mustard on anything, but especially on salads). I served the salad with toasted bread, and it made an extremely tasty and surprisingly light lunch. I’m looking forward to having the other avocado tomorrow, and if the bazaar guy has more next week, I’ll probably buy enough that I can have an avocado everyday. We only get them for a couple of months a year, so I have to take advantage.