Thankfully, we had CNBCe in our flat. CNN, BBC, BBC Prime and a business channel that showed really good movies and shows. While we lived in Bakirkoy we watched Desperate Housewives third season, day 5 of 24, My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, One Tree Hill, The OC, Without A Trace, Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck, Heroes, and a bunch of others. Our evenings revolved around what was on TV until we found a place to buy cheap DVDs. There was no video club that had original language movies, they only used VCDs, which are like burned CDs and they were only in Turkish. While it sounds pretty sad (and it was), we did see some good shows while we were there.
Steve and I would meet when he was done with work and go to the market together to pick through the limited products that were available. Beef and chicken. Carrots, eggplant, green chillies, apples, bananas and potatoes. Every so often broccoli would turn up. We were addicted to the local yoghurt, which was so creamy and rich it was almost like dessert. If we wanted turkey or my soy milk, we had to go to the Migros, where the bomb went off.
Sometimes, we would meet at a local restaurant that had the best and spiciest chi kofte, a raw meat and bulgur patty. Delicious. Steve did most of the cooking in our live-in aquarium. For some reason, every single thing I cooked just tasted awful. It was so very odd. Even the dishes I copied from Steve’s successful working-with-very-little-to-make-a-tasty-and-filling-meal didn’t work. It was eerie.
Then a few months after we were living there with our routine pretty much down pat, I started having horrible stomach problems. I would have alternating constipation and diohrrea. Wrenching intestinal cramps, night sweats. My tummy basically stopped working properly. It turned out I had developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which I believe was caused by the poor quality of the food. Istanbul is filthy, polluted, and it makes sense that anything grown anywhere near it would have all that crap in it too.
I stopped eating meat (it smelled funny anyway) and focused on rice and vegetables, vitamin supplements. What I noticed was that even the vegetables, without any garnish or spice, tasted horrible. Chemical, dirty and contaminated. It was such an awful time! That coupled with stressful travels in between to Sri Lanka and Florida made the situation worse and worse. I understood then why the Turks put sugar in every single dish they make: to cover up the poor quality of the products.
It was a shame because I know Steve really enjoyed the food a lot (as his growing waistline indicated) and most people do, but I was never able to enjoy it without horrific consequences. All the signs pointed to Istanbul not being the right place for me, or for us.
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