Turkey Day #9 (The National Park & Meat)

Eating, and hospitality in general, is a communion, and any meal worth attending by yourself is improved by the multiples of those with whom it is shared. ~Jesse Browner


For our last day on the West Coast, we again had our friend Mustafa graciously be our guide. Mustafa, at the request of his cousin, took two vacation days so that he could show us around the area. He, like his Aunt and Uncle, is a shining example of Turkish hospitality, a hospitality the likes I have only seen once before and that was during my stay in India. Both of those countries put American hospitality to shame. I might even go a bit further and ask the question, do Americans have even the basic understanding of generous hospitality.

The national park runs along the shore of the Aegean Sea. The water changes hues from cerulean blue to turquoise to black in the depths. There are sandy beaches and rocky beaches and hidden beaches which could be seen only from high up on the road. For each beach, we were entertained by stories of Mustafa’s youth and joys shared with cousins. His stories helped the beaches come alive.

We had the good fortune of running into a herd of wild pigs, brown hairy creatures reminiscent of the Javelina in the American Southwest but on the bigger side. Among the herd were two piglets colored differently than the rest of their brethren with stripes of dark and light brown presumably to allow them to hide more easily from predators in the shadows.

After the National Park, Mustafa dropped us off at the summer home for some much needed rest. We grabbed some food and headed down to the Aegean Sea with a couple of chairs where we sat, talked, listened to the waves lap the shore, and watched the passing of shadows for a couple of hours.

Dinner that night was at Echi, a steak house that was filled with various meats both familiar and unfamiliar to me. The ladies, who ate some meat, watched in apparent horror as Kenan and I stuffed our faces with meat and wine and more meat and more wine to which, the ladies uttered the phrase ‘diet starts tomorrow’ on more than one occassion. It was a decadently pleasurable meal and a fitting salute to our final evening on the West Coast of Turkey.

During the meal, we talked of the Brazilian steak houses in Chicago where, for a base fee, one can eat meat until gastric explosion. The idea of this brought a bright light to Kenan’s eyes and is a place I promised to take him when he visits Chicago next year. If anyone can get the most for the money at a Brazilian steak house, it would be Kenan for he has a prodigious appetite.

The night was not finished with the meat. I had mentioned the previous day that I like sutlac, Turkish rice pudding. So, on the way home, we stopped at a desert house for some outstanding rice pudding that I savored with a smile on my face.