We get this question a lot, and you know what the question is, "is Turkey safe?"
We're Gokce and Steve. After getting adjusted to life in Turkey,
We felt comfortable enough thanks to declining virus numbers
to enjoy a day out to try some delicious Turkish food.
Thank you to those who reach out with
questions for Steve about Turkish culture via Instagram, so today
as we're having breakfast, I'm gonna ask Steve some questions
We're here to share my experience these past few months and
my previous experiences here in Turkey, I love this country now and
I can't wait to dig into some delicious Turkish breakfast
Let's go into the restaurant
They set up the tree house in the center of the water
for us for the breakfast, I'm very excited
I used to climb up on the stairs and bother people who were dining there
when I was a kid
One of the most frequently asked question was actually about the Turkish breakfast;
So what do you think?
The Turkish breakfast, Turk kahvaltisi, is probably my favorite in the world
the opportunity to pick and choose the whole "little little in the middle" concept
of course is very unique and I love it so much
I feel like this is more like a tapas style like if you have like small
portions of everything that you wanted to have. We're going to start with sucuk
so Sucuk is Turkish sausage it's not pork based it's beef based
Another question was what was your favorite thing about
getting stranded in Turkey during the coronavirus quarantine times?
Watching Aski-i Memnu repeats
but on a more serious note, I was very lucky to be
in a country where they were willing to step up and take care of anybody here
no matter what and make everybody feel very very welcome
during such a difficult time for everyone so
thank you Turkey (cok tesekkur ederim).
Gokce now is giving out the sigara borek
which is essentially a cheese pastry. It's like feta cheese spring roll...
On to the next question, what is the most difficult Turkish word?
The letters that are not normally in the
English alphabet are proving challenging.
I still can't pronounce "Hala"
I think the most difficult word
that i don't even know if a lot of
Turkish people could say is what the czechoslovakia?
sort of like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in the English language
mostly though the words that give me the
most difficulty would be the ones that have a lot of the
really Turkish letters together and I'm mostly speaking about the uh and
letters simply because it actually hurts my mouth to really pronunciate those letters...
This is my favorite, honestly, I can never have breakfast without
tomatoes, cucumbers, and some greens...
so you've been to a lot of Turkish weddings, right?
I have, including yourself, my own Turkish wedding, yes
Have you learned how to keep up with the Turkish dances at the weddings?
I, of course, learned the Halay
very quickly, it's kind of a dance in a circle if you're not familiar with
Turkish wedding culture, of course. Took me a try or two but I got it down pretty pretty good
You just kind of follow along that was easy for me but the one
that I'll never be able to do is the more Ege region tradition
Zeybek, Ege Zeybek!
It's going to take me a little bit while longer to learn the Ege dance, but
he is good at Ankara havasi
And you know the "Damat Halayi"
Damat Halayi, of course!
The traditional dances is still in the works so we'll keep practicing
So another major part of Turkish breakfast is, of course
Turkish tea or "Cay"! Really really delicious they have
it much more frequently than coffee, they have it all day throughout the day
but it's most important of course with breakfast
One of my favorite questions was, what is the strangest experience
you had ever since you've been to Turkey?
I think the strangest experience was still when we took that mountain bus, oh yeah
some of her family lives in Kutahya, Turkey which is about four hours from
where we are in Balikesir right now.
There's a shortcut bus that goes through
the mountains, they pretty much overbooked the bus.
There were two women sitting on the stairs into the bus,
there were people sitting in the middle aisle on their suitcases and then on top of
that the bus driver was smoking a cigarette in one hand the entire time,
he was on his phone for half the trip.
It's where i saw the most strange thing in Turkey yet;
a guy was on a motorbike holding like an
actual full ladder on one of his shoulders
very strange, unique experience for me.
We have a friend here!
Yeah there's a cat underneath this couch
waiting for us to give some food...
That's another cool cultural thing about Turkey,
is how many stray cats there are, but everyone in Turkey really takes care of
all the stray animals here, very very well, stray cats stray dogs
so another question was your perspective about
Turkish music, but before I complete this question
my dad is a huge Turkish traditional music fan
and in our house we have nearly every Turkish music instruments
so what do you think about Turkish traditional music
and what do you think about Turkish pop cultural music?
for me right I've gotten a lot of
traditional Turkish music... it's like I respect that type of music
I understand people like that type of music, it's just it's not for me and
I like dance music a lot, but then I could also listen to Athena
or Duman and "Senden daha guzel", one of my favorite songs we've seen
Mor ve Otesi live in New York City before
Yeni Turku
my taste and what I listen to are very varied
but who is your favorite Turkish singer then?
Voice wise, probably Levent Yuksel, he has one of the most amazing voices I've heard
Turkish singer, non-turkish, and it doesn't matter
the first Turkish song that I learned and still one of my favorites
of course is, "Ben Boyleyim" by Athena because of course
it's "My way" in English
Can you sing it a little?
Yeah, I'm going to stop there because
Gokce and her family are the professional singers.
Me? I chase the cats away we'll leave it like that
One of Steve's favorites about Turkish breakfast
is actually honey and this is supposed to be kaymak,
kaymak is the topper layer of yogurt which has a lot of fat but today
they didn't have kaymak, so they substituted it with yogurt
yeah it's almost dessert like yeah it's the best way to describe it
yeah like a milky dessert
Bal Kaymak is the most amazing thing I've ever tasted
it takes normal bread and makes it the most amazing bread in the world
if you're in Turkey, and you are going to have Turkish breakfast
you absolutely, absolutely need to try Bal Kaymak
Thank you uncle
I was a huge football soccer fan, so I knew even before I met Gokce
Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Besiktas.
Originally when I met Gokce
she told me she's not a huge football fan but she supports Besiktas
So I was like you know what I'll make Gokce happy, I'll be a Besiktas fan
even within her own family and her friend group there's rivalries of which
Istanbul club to support, naturally her uncle, our best friend Atakan,
were like "No, you can't be a Besiktas fan
you have to be a Fenerbahce fan" Now I am a Fenerbahce fan so
her uncle of course now wants to know what I think is going on with Fenerbahce
and I have to say
I will help you fix Fenerbahce and we will win the championship again
very soon, don't worry about it, I got it!
No offense to Galatasaray fans
you know there was a pressure on him for Fenerbahce
Olive is one of the biggest income in this region
and one of the biggest sources in Turkey
for olive and olive oil as well
so we are spoiled here with a lot of olives and a lot of delicious olive oil...
Cheese is a very very important part of Turkish culture as well
We have a lot of different cheese from all over the country...
as we wrapped up and we were trying to leave, our family friends
who own this place insisted that we should stay for Turkish coffee
It's a big part of the culture right before you leave restaurants
they offer you tea or coffee... After you drink Turkish coffee
you put the cup upside down and the reminiscence of it kind of dries up and
creates shapes around the cup. Some people claim that they can
read those shapes in the cup to tell your fortune
so we have our Turkish coffee, I like mine sade or
just black Turkish coffee with the coffee which is a little bit bitter they
give you a sweet drink to kind of refresh your palate
Now that my coffee is finished, it's time to flip it over to get my coffee read
Wrong side!
and I already messed it up!
and this is going to dry and after it dries
she's going to read the cup with the shapes
It's wonderful, she says! Two happiness is going to happen this year slowly, be patient!
She told me to pick a number from one to five and make a wish
and I did, and she's like it was three right?
and i'm like yes, she's like, yes it's gonna happen!
Thank you! See, I could speak Turkish!
After finishing up our delicious village breakfast
we took a quick breather at home before heading into Edremit
for some incredible Asian Turkish food.
Now we've come back into Gokce's hometown center
to have late lunch & early dinner at
one of her childhood friends' restaurant here, that is one of the most
well-regarded restaurants in all of Edremit.
He has brought this new style to Edremit
and it's a beautiful restaurant!
Traditional Aegean style mixed with traditional Turkish style
so we're very excited for that! We will go sit down
We're gonna go see what her friend Ekrem has in store for us today
because the menu changes each day. He asked us what we wanted before we
got here because he wanted to save some food for us
Ekrem used to be an editor at a Turkish food magazines actually after college
We're going to continue from breakfast, so yes i'm still on the hot seat here
The Turkish hot seat!
So you told me about the hardest word that
you basically can't pronounce in Turkish
What is the easiest word that you can say?
Yok? Why do you say yok?
Yes simply, it's an informal way to say no and it's very simple because it
sounds exactly like egg yolk!
This is one of the popular Turkish dishes
called Semizotu they use purslane veggies
mix it with yogurt and some herbs in it and they also add
walnut it tastes so good!
Do you know any Turkish idiom?
That was the first Turkish idiom I taught Steve, every time
my grandma is sending us back home
from the back of our car she tosses water
and the first time she's saw it, he was like;
Why are they throwing water at the car?
What is grandma doing?
Essentially, it's when someone's leaving whether it's plane, train, car bus it doesn't matter
generally with the car they'll come out with a bucket or a
pitcher of water behind the car leaving and they'll toss it after the car and
then "Su gibi git su gibi gel" go like water, come like water!
and this is "Kadinbudu Kofte" actually translates into
woman thighs. It is made of rice instead of bread inside and they
cover it with egg and then fried together, it tastes so good the outside
texture is definitely kind of like a fried shell
on the inside you can still see like all the meat itself and like
it's very interesting to bite into because it's not exactly anything that you expect
It's got a little bit of spice a little and a bit of pepper
and we, I really really enjoy that!
When you're in Turkey and you see the chef who's cooking your food you want to say;
and that means health to your hands, it's the literal translation
Health to your hands, so you can make more food for us!
So, next question is about hand gestures in Turkey
Is there any hand gesture that surprised you at most?
Can i have your hand?
and it's okay that I do that because she's four months older than me!
How dare you?!
Actually, you're not supposed to do that to someone who's
four months older than you, it's a sign of respect
to elderly people in turkey so Gokce's grandma for example
That is, i guess the one main hand gesture in Turkey that I know
and then we also have the keske, Ekrem talked about it
UNESCO recognized Turkish food, it is usually
chicken, chickpeas, and wheat kind of mashed together
but he's actually used lamb in this one
and it's usually a holiday or bayram dish
last time I had it I wasn't a huge fan of it
it was just alright, in my opinion, but we'll see
how you like it this time! Yes.
Oh yeah, this is this is much better
almost similar to Hunkar Begendi
Hunkar Begendi is my favorite Turkish food
this really really texture wise reminds me of Hunkar Begendi that creamed eggplant
and and it's wow so good this is one of the best Keskeks I've ever had
Another question that we get a lot, and you know what the question is
Is turkey safe?
Is Paris safe? Is New York City safe? Is Los Angeles safe?
In my mind, it's kind of a silly question at this point, but I'm also
subjectively biased, of course, because when i'm going around Turkey
whether it's Istanbul or here... you go with me!
I'm never alone and never without another Turkish-speaking person
but of course, if you feel safe enough to go to London
you should feel safe enough to go to Istanbul!
There's never been a part or a point where I felt unsafe! I felt safe enough
to bring my parents with me for our wedding in Istanbul, right!
and showed them around in Sultan Ahmet and they never felt like
there was an issue about going around Turkey, so
we could do a whole video about this and we just might, yeah,
but in a nutshell Turkey is as safe a country as you could possibly visit and
I highly recommend that you come, of course, taking current
safety precautions for your health with the Covid19 virus going on
Do you want to try yaprak sarma?
These are one of my favorite Turkish food. There's the stuffed grape leaves
they're called yaprak sarma, you can make it with two ways
either you can make it cold with olive oil heavy
and when they make it hot they make it with meat,
I prefer cold, to be honest, it's more of like an app the cold appetizer in my mind and
by the way, it's so magnificent so delicious
maybe number two after your grandma!
This is one of the most frequently asked questions, what do you think about Turkish food?
If i haven't said it already
Turkish food, by far is one of my favorite foods in the world!
Hunkar begendi is amazing, Keskek pilaf is amazing!
I love kofte, I love pide, I love lahmacun
I go now a week without these foods and
I'm like craving it!
We have baklava today, it's homemade baklava
I'm so excited! Wow, probably one of the best baklava I have ever had in my life
He said there's 40 layers for this baklava
it's not overly sweet though, it's still sweet
it's like, right there! right!
We just finished up eating at Lokanta Bahar
it was so delicious, but this is the end of our food tour for today
If you have any questions for Steve and if you want to know
more about his perspective of Turkish culture and if you have suggestions
about where to go and what to eat in Turkey, please let us know, comment below
and give us a like! And we're gonna go
next explore more around the Aegean region of Turkey,
because with restaurants opening up, that means tourism is starting to open up as well
in the country and Gokce can't wait to show me more of
Ege, and I've never seen it before, exactly
where she's grown up, stay tuned!
you