a real slice of Brooklyn
Just when this New Yorker thought she couldn’t get a real slice of home in Istanbul, she discovered Brooklyn Pizza!
We recently came across a new pizza place here called Brooklyn Pizza. Their motto is “Gercek New York Pizzasi” (Real New York Pizza). So we were pretty eager last week to go check it out and see for ourselves if it is worthy of having this claim.
We were pleasantly surprised! For starters, it is the only place we’ve found that has real NY-sized pizzas. A large is 18″, a medium is 16″. Typically what you find here in Istanbul is a large equaling about 9″, so you can imagine our thrill when we saw that on the menu! And of course we had to order the large.
I’ve stopped eating red meat, but Onur’s love for it continues, so we got a 1/2 Etli (meat) and 1/2 Sebzeli (veggie). SO YUMMY. The owner who is Turkish but was living in New York for the past 6 years just moved back and opened up the restaurant. We gave him two thumbs up – the pizza was awesome. The dough tasted just like NY pizza, not like Turkish pizza crust, it passed the sturdy test – meaning when you hold it by the crust end it stays straight and doesn’t flop from sogginess. It had just the right amount of pizza sauce (usually lacking in Turkish pizzas) and the toppings were aplenty! Oh and the size of the slices were exactly how a good NY slice of pizza should be.
We loved every bite of it! But unfortunately we couldn’t finish it. So we gladly took a doggy bag home. :)
Thank you to Brooklyn Pizza for bringing a real slice of home to us! Expect us back real soon!
plenty of pastels
It seems that ever since we moved from the States I have wanted to celebrate every holiday with some extra “umph”. We did the full-on Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day, we got a real Christmas tree (albeit small) and plan on having one again next year. And now it’s Easter time. Bring on the pastels, bunnies, and deviled eggs!
It’s officially Spring and we only have eight more days left until Easter Sunday, so I thought it was appropriate to spend this morning shoping for pastels and Easter goodies. I met up with some girlfriends early this morning and drove out to this place called Euro Flora, which is a massive, 3-story have-it-all craft store. Well ok not everything – surprisingly there was not a bunny was in sight! I know, I couldn’t believe it either. But there were plenty of EGGS.
Two hours and a few hundred lira later, I felt I was pretty stocked up with Easter goods. So then I came home to have a little craft day and made my Easter / Spring decorations. Here are some of my creations that I must say I am quite proud of. :)
Happy Easter egg hunting to everyone! And hope you all enjoy your pastels this Spring as much as I am.
spring and swamped
It seems like overnight I went from being so bored with nothing to do but meet up with new friends and live a leisurely life to – BAM! – a crazed life again. Perhaps it’s a case of diving in headfirst or biting off more than I can chew, but diving or biting, it’s something that I do well. I always seem to find myself involved with a number of different organizations, efforts, new ventures, etc, sometimes too many. This time, yep I would definitely say that’s the case. I am swamped!
So why, might you ask, am I blogging instead of doing one of the million things I need to get done today? Because this gives my mind a break. A moment in time to take a little breather and check myself with reality. It reminds me of the more leisurely life I used to live here in Turkey (ok a few months ago) when I actually had time to blog. But go figure – now that I’m swamped, I am constantly thinking of new blogging topics.
Which at this point I feel like I am only ranting. So back to the grind for me I guess. Tata for now.
