An elaborate breakfast buffet - odd pastries, cheese omelet,
some peculiar sausage things, lots of kinds of cheese and
dried fruit and numerous jams and sweet spreads. Cherry and
orange juice. Coffee, the decaf version of which was I swear
stronger than real caf coffee in the states. Also nice
tomatoes but tasteless fresh fruit. Breakfast cereal was
available. We found a similar assortment wherever we stayed.

The morning was beautiful, so we decided to spend it walking
around: down the hill, past the Galata Tower (refrained
from climbing it), across the Golden Horn on the Galata
Bridge, by the train station, and to the park around the
Topkapi Palace (which was closed on Monday, as was the
History of Islamic Science museum). There didn't seem to be
any sense sticking around, so we took the tram back to
Kabatas and the funicular up the hill to Taksim (we didn't
particularly feel like climbing all that way) for the walk
back to Beyoglu, which in the daylight looked even more
fashionable than it had in the glittering night lights.
Istiklal Caddesi wasn't so crowded as it had been that
night, so we didn't feel hurried as we poked our way
along, looking at menus and dining rooms. We ended up at
Konak Kebap-Lahmacun ve Tatli Salonu, which we later found
has a reputation as one of the best local cuisine places in
town. I had patlican kebap - grilled eggplant and lamb
chunks; lili had the standard doner, which tasted like
doners everywhere. To drink I decided to try turnip juice,
which came as "purple carrot juice" and looked like beet
juice. It was fermented and sour and salty, the taste quite
like pickle juice. Live and learn! So I needed an afters
and jumped at the chicken breast pudding, which was blander
and more unsightly than I had hoped; plus it tasted like
and had discernible fibers of chicken. This recipe is how
they used to make blancmange before there was Knox gelatin:

Chicken Breast Dessert

1 1/4 coffee cup ground rice
1 1/2 cup granulated and bleached sugar
3/4 coffee cup corn starch
7 cup milk
1/2 chicken breast
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Turkish coffee cup: 50 ml
cup:150 ml
tea spoon: 5 ml

Cook chicken in a boiling water lightly. It should not be
overcooked. Take half of the breast. Only the white breast
meat will be used. Take away the skin and fat. Breast
should be cooked such a degree so that it can be fibrilized.
Fibrilize the breast so that the yield is fibers of meat.
Wash the meat several times with hot water untill there is
no smell of meat (wash and squeeze).

Put milk in a pot on a fire. when it starts to boil pour
sugar and stir well. When sugar dissolves put salt and
remain boiling (low fire). Furnish starch and rice well in a
cup. Add warm water slowly while stirring. Add this mixture
to the boiling milk slowly while stirring. Stir and cook
until the viscosity decreases (like the viscosity of honey).
Before it reaches to above viscosity take two scoopful of
milk on meat. Stir well with fork untill it become a uniform
mixture. Add this to the cooking milk. Continiue stirring
until it cooks. After it is cooked pour in to the plates and
remain for cooling. Sprinkle cinnamon on plates. Serve cool.

Hints: To understand if it is cooked or not; take a
teaspoonful of it in a glass plate. when it cools turn the
plate upside down. If it releases the plate easy, without
remaining any resedue, it means it is cooked enough.
If not cook a little more. Washing meat, until the smell of
chicken disappers is very important.

Bon appetit
Murat Gurler, NCE 7-30-95