The Carnation Cafe

Well, I'm home now, but I've not said all I have to say so I'm going to keep writing. Things got rather backed up when we started bouncing around - not to mention the social life in Dubai! So...

Sometimes it's the simplest things in life that deliver the biggest punch. We tend to forget that in our over-stimulated consumer-driven world. If you can step out of the craziness of your own life, I think its possible to rediscover the simple things. Traveling really helps me do this.

Also, it’s sometimes hard to explain or even pinpoint why something appeals to you. Perhaps it was our exhilaration after seeing the amazing sites on the Acropolis, maybe we were exhausted and starving, or maybe it truly was the delicious food and charming atmosphere, but Stan and I were completely taken with the Carnation Café.

We toured the Acropolis on a Sunday morning, and this particular Sunday was a national holiday of some sort, so we were having a bit of a time finding a place to eat lunch. I remembered seeing a little neighborhood cafe a day or two earlier, with tables spilling out onto the sidewalk, but I wouldn’t have been able to find it. Stan also recalled the same place, so we were thrilled when we popped around a corner and there it was! The Carnation Café!

Try to imagine an old-fashioned, mom and pop, neighborhood type of place (they don’t exist anymore in the US, I’m convinced) that serves simple home-cooked food using fresh ingredients. That’s the place. A Greek mom was cooking in a TEENY kitchen. The refrigerated case below her workspace chilled fresh octopus and calamari (oooh, soo sorry Buddha!) One cute little Greek boy of about 25 sporting a shirt with a big red carnation embroidered on the back (bet he loved that) hustled in and out of the kitchen, waiting tables. Neighbors stopped in for lunch, a group of young people appeared to be refueling after a hard night, expat-types were reading the English daily, and a handful of tourists, like ourselves were fortunate enough to have stumbled upon this place.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch of grilled octopus (octopus is a Greek specialty) Stan’s choice, and a Greek salad, my choice. Greek salad in Greece is nothing like what we have at home. Greek Greek salad is FRESH local (not pink) tomatoes, chopped cucumber, red onion, fresh peppers, a pepperoncini or two, and a hand full of olives, all sprinkled with fresh oregano, dressed lightly with olive oil and lemon. A thick slice of amazing feta always perches on top.

A colored aluminum pitcher (like those glasses your grandma used to have) of house white wine (Greek – better than the house Turkish wines in my opinion) and a basket of that yummy Greek bread accompanied our meal. I don’t remember the particular figure, but the bill was ridiculously inexpensive. Was it our hunger? The food? The ambiance? I can’t say and it doesn’t matter. What mattered was the beauty of the fresh flavors and local ingredients. Life should always be so simple.

Athens II – The Acropolis + Mini-History

On Sunday (free admission day!) we spent the morning exploring the Acropolis archeological site. The Acropolis is the rocky mount in the center of Athens upon which the famous Parthenon (as well as other monuments) sits. It is a winding climb of at least 200 feet to the base of the Acropolis. The Parthenon (the famous temple honoring Athena) is massive up close, and truly is the impressive classical Greek structure so often imitated. Built around 450 BC, it covers the ruins of an earlier temple. The formula dictating the design of classical Doric architecture called for dimensions with the number of columns on the narrow ends (i.e. 6) to be doubled then add one (i.e. 13) to get the number of columns on the wide sides.

Sideline on history (Stan blogging now): The Parthenon would be more intact than it is today if it weren’t for the Venetians. Who knew? In 1687 Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire and the Venetians, then still a formidable world power, attempted to retake Athens, which was formerly under their control. Unfortunately at that time the Ottomans were storing their gunpowder in the Parthenon. Thus, when the Venetians commenced shelling the Acropolis from a nearby hill, a direct hit on the Parthenon ignited the gunpowder and the Parthenon was severely damaged. Subsequently, the Venetians held the city for less than a year. Serves them right! One can’t help but wonder how much more of this magnificent structure would remain intact if the Ottomans had stored their gunpowder elsewhere!

OK, 450 BC, that’s almost 2500 years old. Whoa. Kinda tough to wrap your mind around the fact there was an advanced, sophisticated, democratic society functioning at such a high level that many years ago. It’s amazing really. Here’s a way to try and put the concept into perspective: every generation a handful of people live to be 100 years old, not often, but it happens. So think about someone who was born in 450 BC and lived to be 100 and passed the baton, so to speak, to the next centurion, and the next and the next, etc., etc. So if that happened only 25 times that gets us to today. Thinking in those terms we really haven’t been here all that long.

Here’s another perspective on time to keep it all in context. Back in the early-mid 90s I (obviously still Stan!) was reading a biography of the famous US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. One of his judicial clerks in the 1920s and 30s was Alger Hiss (later a notorious figure caught up in the McCarthy red-scare witch-hunts of the 1950s.) The author of the biography (I’ve forgotten his name) was pointing out the fact that a man who was still alive today (Hiss at least in the mid 90s) had worked with and been a confidante of a man (Holmes) who had fought in the US Civil War, and whose grandmother could recall as a youngster the days of the US Revolutionary War. Only three lifetimes take us from the founding of the country to the present! We live in a young country indeed.

Here’s an Athens bonus round: there were no touts or tourist hounds harassing us on the grounds of the Acropolis or any other Athenian tourist sites for that matter, at least not on this particular Sunday. Apparently the Greek authorities have taken a hard line on this (perhaps only since the 2004 Olympics?) Tout free is a good thing, a pleasant surprise, and truly made the experience more enjoyable and authentic.

Another historical point: so there existed this fantastic and impressive society in classical 4th and 5th century Greece. What happened after that? Aside from the Venetian pyrotechnic display, not a lot more went down. During the days of the Roman Empire Athens continued to be an important city. But after 300 AD or so Athens found itself a largely irrelevant provincial backwater in the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. In modern Athens, other than the Acropolis and a few other ancient structures, the buildings and architecture are of relatively recent vintage. A few neo-classical buildings from the early-mid 1800s stand but most of the structures that comprise the sprawling modern city of Athens are less than 100 years old, and pretty non-descript, to be honest. (Lisa says they are ugly.)

Traipsing around the ruins for a couple of hours was pretty tiring. We made our way back down to the Plaka area for a coffee. Somewhat energized, we wandered the peaceful Agora, or ancient marketplace (more ruins.) A fabulous lunch followed. Lisa will fill you in on the Carnation Café, in another post.

Happy Halloween!

This year, Stan and I are masquerading as American tourists abroad!

Athens I

After 10 days in Istanbul including one week in the flat, Stan announced he was tired of Turkey. I seem to recall him stating the same thing several years ago when we decided to go vegetarian! For the record, I too, was tired of eating Turkey, but I was NOT tired of being in Turkey. I admit sharing that small apartment with a 6’ 4” guy was getting old, no matter how much I love him. But who was I to argue with exploring a new country? So, despite our original intention to visit some of Turkey’s more far-flung sights (like Cappadocia) we decamped for Greece.

It’s extremely easy to get to Athens from Istanbul, a one- hour direct flight. We were in Athens, checking into the Marriott (ah….a BIG bed and REAL shower!) in time for lunch.

We spent the afternoon wandering the Plaka area, around the Acropolis. The Acropolis is the big hill, rock, plateau, whatever you want to call it that is crowned by the Parthenon the jewel of Athens. Plaka is the old city. When I say old, however, I don’t mean ancient Greek old, just maybe a few hundred years old. Imagine a quaint European neighborhood with cobblestone streets. Unfortunately, this quaint neighborhood has become touristy, but the cafes spilling out onto the sidewalks to accommodate the tourists are nevertheless picturesque. That was enough for the first day.

Our second day, we explored the neighborhood of Kolonaki, which is very similar to the chi chi Istanbul neighborhood of Nisantashi; a heavily residential neighborhood with designer-sunglass clad pretty people posing in cafes, boutiques, and ladies lunching. Thanks to a recommendation from our friend Peter we enjoyed a delicious lunch at a sidewalk café called Kafenio. The food in Athens, surprisingly, seemed quite different to us from the food in Istanbul, even though many of the ingredients used are the same.

Our simple lunch consisted of a salad made with chopped zucchini, fresh dill, small bits of artichoke, scallions, olive oil and lemon; a small plate of eggplant salad; a piece of spinach pie; cooked artichokes in lemon sauce; fresh bread, and white Greek wine. Really.

After lunch, we rode a funicular tram to the top of Lybakaettus Hill. This perch provides a beautiful view of Athens including the original Olympic stadium and the Acropolis. A charming church is at the top, and here we lit a prayer candle for the health of our friend Jane. After leisurely enjoying the view, we walked down.

That evening we were treated to a pleasant evening by Stan’s sister-in-law’s brother John (I guess that makes him my brother-in-law twice removed? Not sure.) and his wife Dawn. They live in Athens. We met them for drinks at the spectacular Grand Bretagne Hotel. Think ex-pats and Greek Americans in sport coats drinking gin and tonics. The nighttime view of the Acropolis from the rooftop bar was breathtaking. Following drinks, we walked back to Kolonaki to dine at Oikeio. “Oikeio” means “homey” in Greek and the restaurant certainly lived up to its name. We sat outside (LOVE that bit!) and Stan and I enjoyed an arugula salad with tomato and Parmesan, stuffed red peppers then baked sardines served atop thinly sliced potatoes. Baskets of yummy Greek bread accompanied our meal, as they do every meal. I must say I prefer the Greek bread to the bread the Turks serve with normal meals – theirs is basically just light airy white bread.

So that sums up our first two days in Athens. I’ll leave you with that and post some photos.

A Fall from Grace

I can’t really even begin to explain this. But on our last day at the flat, I fell down a hovel. Picture Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

Stan and I had packed up our junk to move to the Pera Rose Hotel for one night, before flying to Athens the next day. In our possession were two large suitcases, two small suitcases, a shopping bag, and a backpack. Over one shoulder I was wearing the computer bag and over the other, my cool new Matt and Nat vegan tote bag. It was raining.

To get to the hotel with all of this crap we needed a taxi, even though the distance could easily be walked in 15 minutes. The nice guy working the Kismet market called a cab for us and we were standing in the rain, waiting.

I was loaded down with my bags, my coat, scarf, hat and umbrella. If you look at the picture on the top, from last summer, you can see where I was standing. Now look at the bottom picture. See those steps? They go down to this below street level room I’m calling a hovel. And some guy lives there. Let’s call him Mustafa. Well apparently Mustafa decided between the day last summer when these pictures were taken (he was the one who housed and fed those new kitties and their mom, by the way) and this gloomy rainy moving day, to do a little home improvement by sticking a 2” x 8” wooden plank under that corrugated tin overhang. The board looked to me like it was supporting the roof.

See where I’m squatting in the picture on the bottom? The plank comes down from the tin roof to exactly the spot where I have my foot. It looked like a support post, so I leaned against it to get out of the rain. The board was apparently just a design accessory??? As I put my weight against it, it gave way and sent me down those steps, feet flying, bags flying, fall softened by my I-Mac. I was certain the tin roof was coming down on me.

The five or six men hanging around the alley gawked at me. Stan tried to grab me, but I went right on down that hole. I feel bad calling it a hovel and a hole, because Mustafa lives there, but that’s really what it is, a dank hole.

This particular little man, who reminds me of a hobbit or a troll, seems to be sitting in this dark dusty place all of the time. Before I noisily invited myself in, he was in the process of cooking his lunch, a skillet of fried potatoes, on an open flame fueled by a gas tank. This was probably the most excitement he’d had all week. I’m sure I was the first white woman to ever barge through his open front door (the door is always open, thank God or surely he’d suffocate.)

The gypsy dad came running out of the Hamburg tea shop where he plays cards and drinks tea all day to offer me his hand and help me up. The troll came running out of his hole flashing a toothless smile. I’m guessing it was pretty funny. Ha. Look at the stupid white lady, loaded down with all that excess baggage busting down poor old Mustafa’s front porch. The hovel dweller mimed hammering a nail and was having quite a laugh, suggesting I fix his porch.

Lucky for Mustafa, AND me the roof did not come falling down. Even luckier for me, I didn’t fall onto any of the rusty nails sticking out of that board. Nothing like a nice dose of tetanus to ruin a vacation. Lucky for me there wasn’t a piece of broken glass where I caught my fall with my hand; the ally is littered with shards of glass. Really, it could have been bad. I credit my yoga with helping me keep enough body awareness to fall in a semi–intelligent if not graceful manner so I didn’t break anything.

It was embarrassing. Thank God we were leaving and not just arriving. But what was more embarrassing is I was sporting more gear than Mustafa owns. We had more in our bags than he had in his hovel. I think this is probably why I haven’t stopped thinking about that gum-toothed man. My first thought was “wow, good thing I didn’t scuff up my cool new boots.” Then, “Wow, did I rip my leather jacket? Did I break the computer?” I covered all the important questions. The more I relived the incident, however, the more gratitude I felt. Not only because I wasn’t injured, but also because it isn’t me living down in that dark hole. I don’t think I could be as happy as Mustafa.

Current Events

I’ve had inquires from several of you about the recent events in Turkey. Rest assured we are safe, but this is an interesting time to be in Turkey.

Turkey has struggled with the PKK “issue,” since the early 80’s. PKK stands for Kurdistan Workers Party, but the PKK in real terms are agitators for an independent Kurdish state (“Kurdistan”) mainly in Southeastern Turkey, but also in parts of Iraq, Iran and Syria. They have a history of employing violent means to achieve their goals. Think of the IRA in Northern Ireland.

PKK fighters have been hiding out and getting supplies from bases in Northern Iraq for some time. Southeastern Turkey borders Northern Iraq. (OK, we have a history of living in countries with unsavory neighbors!) The PKK cross-border raids into Turkey have been occurring for many years, and fighting between the Turkish military and the PKK in SE Turkey has claimed around 30,000 lives (military and civilian) over the past 2 decades. This past Sunday PKK rebels ambushed a Turkish military convoy killing 12 soldiers and taking an additional 8 hostage. This really inflamed the general population. Turkey wants both Iraq (the northern portion of which is controlled by a semi-autonomous Kurdish government) and the US to deal with the PKK rebels, or else they are happy to send troops into Northern Iraq and root out the rebels themselves. The Istanbul English language paper today talked about missiles pointed from SE Turkey to Northern Iraq where the PKK is hiding. This is a very serious issue for the Turks. Check out
www.turkishdailynews.com.tr if you are interested in learning more.

So...in general, the Turkish population (with the exception of some Kurds in SE Turkey) is strongly against the PKK and extremely fed up with recent events, keep in mind that not all Turkish Kurds are supportive of the PKK. But the recent violence along the Iraqi border has stirred things up and people are in the streets protesting. Remember that Turkey has compulsory military service, so most people will have a family member or neighbor in the service. For example, our neighbors in the apartment building next door are flying several Turkish flags out of their windows this week. It’s likely they have a son or a brother in the army and they are showing their support.

The past three days we have witnessed peaceful protests along Istiklal Cadessi (the main drag in our neighborhood) and in Takism Square, which is the Turkish equivalent of Times Square. These protests consist mostly of men wearing red t-shirts (the Turkish color) waiving Turkish flags and shouting slogans. Probably “fuck the PKK,” or the equivalent. Turkish flags of all sizes are being sold and bandied about. A heavy police presence always accompanies these protests, to ward off any possible escalations.

This entire circus is interesting for us, because we are not used to such a scene – neither that of the Nationalist protestors or the presence of police equipped with riot gear. In contrast the throngs of Turks in the streets aren’t paying it any mind. They continue to shop, drink tea, eat ice cream and generally carry on with their lives. And that’s what we will continue to do. We have no plans to join either side. I am happy to continue to blog as I am doing now, with a very neutral Turkish kitty on my lap. Stan will continue to eat simits from the simit sellers. Live and let live, but let’s hope they can figure out a solution to this strife.

I’ll continue to hope the US can learn to live and let live as well. Ahisma. It is a beautiful Sanskrit word we study in yoga. It means “non-harming.” I think we could all stand to practice a little more of it.

So for us, we’re on an early flight to Athens in the AM! We’ll spend five days checking out the sights. More from Greece!

A New Career?

My friend Mina got such a kick out of how much fun I had doing on the restaurant review with her (see A Beautiful Day 10/9) that she invited me on another run with her. Actually the restaurant choice was my idea, and since she had to leave for the US the week before her article was due, she asked me to write the review! My GOSH! Not only am I hanging out with a restaurant reviewer, I AM THE RESTAURANT REVIEWER! It’s set to run in Friday’s edition of the Turkish Daily News so be sure and check the link. www.Turkishdailynews.com.tr.
In the meantime, here’s a preview of the piece and some photos, from one visit to Simdi.

The Time is Now - To Check out Simdi

Tucked back at 9 Asmali Mescit, just a short distance off Istiklal Cadessi, in Beyoglu sits a timely little bistro, Simdi. Simdi means “now” in Turkish, and this café is very with the times. If you happen to be running a little behind, the clock out front hanging over the sidewalk tables will remind you of your lunch date. If that clock doesn’t catch your eye, the giant sized modern clock hands announcing the time on the rough brick wall up front surely will.

The café has a very comfortable and eclectic design and the menu is what you would expect from an upscale café. But Simdi also manages to provide a nice mix of typical Turkish dishes with a continental flair. A daily choice of meze, both hot and cold, are offered. On one visit, the olives were sampled, along with the marinated beets. The olives were nicely flavored with plenty of herbs; thin slivers of crispy garlic perked up the bright pink beets. Other cold meze choices were the typical stuffed peppers, hummus, and barbunya. Hot meze choices on any given day might include fried Istavrit, karnizarik, green lentils, and Turkish Royal.

The soups at Simdi are a treat. Traditional Turkish soups such as lentil and yogurt are on offer but to keep things interesting Simidi’s versions include a surprising twist. For example, the spicy lentil soup is labeled “Pakistani Lentil Soup,” and comes nicely spiked with curry. The yogurt soup (a particular favorite) is labeled as “Iranian” and includes spinach as an unexpected but welcome addition. The soups are served with an oversized, crunchy crouton on the side.

Other options on the menu (which has English translations - servers speak some English as well) are a build-it-yourself traditional Turkish breakfast, omelets, salads (the wheat salad was particularly tasty but the rocket salad was too heavily dressed with a sharp balsamic viniagrette), sandwiches, main courses and pastas, and of course desserts.

The pasta is a nice option providing the diner an opportunity to design his or her own meal. You choose your particular shape of noodle then customize your dish by also choosing from a list of sauces. On one particular visit, the spaghetti with Sicilian sauce was delicious. If that doesn’t whet your appetite, there are eight different pastas to choose from and thirteen options for toppings, including a decadent salmon with crème, which would pair nicely with the tagliatelle. Again, another opportunity to be very “in the moment.”

The juxtapositions at Simdi are truly one of the highlights. The food seems normal, yet will likely surprise your palate. The interior of the space builds on that theme. The architecture of the restaurant is what you would expect for something in this neighborhood but modern touches jump out at you, much as the curry powder in the lentil soup. The open atrium in the center of the restaurant houses a large modern oil painting. A shiny chrome retro espresso machine perks up the bar. But the crowning design piece is the back wall. As your eye glides smoothly past the muted beiges of the walls and the interesting mix of diners, it latches onto a bright turquoise tile wall. It is the contrasting glow of that wall that draws you in. The interesting food will keep you coming back; it’s only a shame the service isn’t a bit friendlier.

Simdi serves coffee and some interesting pastries, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, fresh juices and spirited drinks. The wine by the glass list is interesting, and one of the better ones available in the Beyoglu area. Check it out. How soon is now?