Life is an adventure

When and where I grew up, everything in the produce section was seasonal. May through June brought plums, apricots, and strawberries. July was all about watermelons, melons, cherries, and peaches. The city of Bursa in Turkey (Türkiye) is renowned for its peaches, which were large, about 3.5-4 inches in radius—a size comparable to a big fist. They were juicy, full of flavor, and especially the ripe ones smelled divine! Speaking of ripe, everything in the produce section was always ripe. However, due to globalization, you can now find almost any fruit at any time. To ensure the products are delivered intact, they must be harvested before they ripen. Unfortunately, not everything ripens after harvest; those tasteless items just go bad over time. Peaches are one such product. Back to peaches: Whenever I walk through the produce section, I always check the peaches. If I like the shape and size, I buy three, just enough for my family of three to make the following dessert. Ingredients: Three...

A little background: I ran the virtual Providence Marathon in November 2020. It was my first marathon experience, and I loved it! Then, of course, I had to do more of that, but something a little more challenging. Please don't get me wrong; the marathon wasn't easy. The day I ran the marathon, I was supposed to run 20 miles, then I would taper down the following week; finally, 15 days from that day was the marathon day (https://www.womensrunning.com/training/road/go-couch-marathon-training-plan/). So, I did some research and landed on the racingthepanet.com page. "Yes! That's what I want to do!" and I started my training 15 days after the marathon, slowly increasing weekly mileage. By February 2021, I was at the 40-50 miles/week range, and I started to feel a "pain in the butt," literally. I was limping after 2-5 mile short runs and couldn't sit after run days. So I stopped running, hoping it will go away. A friend suggested that I see Dr. Blauwet at...

    When you postpone, you might regret later. Make time and effort to do things you want to do in life, we will never know what tomorrow will bring. GT

Octopus We love to eat octopus both as a salad or grilled. Whichever form you want to enjoy you have to cook it first. I suggest using a pressure cooker as it tenderizes quickly and efficiently in a relatively less time. A friend of mine boils it 2 hours, but I cook it in my pressure cooker for 22 minutes. Clean and rinse the octopus, put it in your cooker, water to the level, add two pinches of salt, 3 pinches of oregano, 2-3 bay leaves, crack some black pepper, lemon to taste. Some put a tablespoon of vinegar instead of lemon, matter of preference, I don't. When the time is up take it from the stove, depressurize by running cold water from the top until you hear no sound, open the top carefully, take a fork, it should go with little resistance through the thickest part of the tentacle, if so let it cool in its own juice, if not then cook it 5-10 mins more.  If you are going to grill leave the skin as is, cut to desired size, drizzle a...

We were passing by a park where kids aged around 4-6 were having their soccer classes. Luckily the traffic light turned to red and we were able to watch them. All kids were trying their best, the drill was to stop the coming ball with their sole, then kick it back. I told my son that it was a good start for a soccer novice. He shrugged and said it was too easy. When there is "easy" then there is "hard". I am one of those who probably don't like to classify things as such. "Hard" may have connotations that are not necessarily helpful especially to a growing personality. I told my son that there is nothing easy nor hard. There are things that we know, have practiced, and finally have mastered and then there are things that we do not know yet or we have not practiced enough. Perception is very critical in how we accept and live our lives. I simply want to teach my son that there is nothing "hard" in life, once you accept that there are things ...

There is a kind of bun in Turkey which is called "acma". My son loves it, when we go to Turkey that is all he wants for breakfast. This past year (2014) we couldn't go to Turkey, so I decided to look for recipes for acma. To my luck, what I found for acma turned out to be a recipe for feta bun, but patisserie style, which is totally different than how you would make it at home. It turned out to be the ultimate recipe for pogaca. Here are the ingredients: 1 egg 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup water 1/2 tbsp instant bakers' yeast 1tsp salt 1tbsp sugar 3 1/2 cups flour Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and let it rise for an hour. At the end you make a small disk like shape in the palm of your hand, put crumbled feta to the middle, then fold it in such a way that the feta is inside. Put it on the tray. Once you've given shape to all, brush egg yolk on the top and sprinkle sesame seed. Bake for 30 mins at 325 degrees F.  (Picture modified from  w...