Chicken and dumplings and the running teeth

There has been some excitement in the neighborhood lately. Nihal told me that a teeth got in someone's apartment. She told me how the teeth ran and ran and then the teeth tried to climb over the security fence but the guard caught the teeth! That story gave me bizarre nightmares that night :-) Sort of like the night I watched "Hannible" and "Shrek I" back to back with coworkers at the annual "drive-in movie" in our parking lot, then dreamed that a co-worker adopted a goose from the Humane Society but it was a CARTOON GOOSE, and as soon as she got outside the building she held it up and laughed wickedly, "HOHOHO! Guess what I am having for dinner tonight!" And I said, "Oh no you can't eat the goose, it's a PET goose!" And we struggled with the cartoon goose until I got it from her grasp and ran off with it.

Then, last night while I was gone, a man in the next building up the hill beat up his wife "too much". The wife got in the car and was so excited she crashed into many walls on the way down the hill and the husband called security not to let her out, that she was stealing his car! Then the police came and the husband and wife made up. hmmmmmm

I have been trying to figure out an American dish to make for this family, but most of what I am used to really isn't available. Finally I decided to make chicken and dumplings, a Southern US comfort food. After all, I would just need a chicken and although there's no Bisquick around here, surely I could find some baking powder? I spent an hour in a grocery store, trying to find baking powder. I expected it to be in a can - probably a red one? Up and down the isle I went, searching for a can. No luck. Then I saw little packets of something...sort of like the packets of yeast in the US. One said "Karbonat" and the other said, "Kabartma Tozu". Of course neither was in my well-thumbed English/Turkish dictionary but "Karbonat" had to be on the right track. The pictures on the packets didn't help either: one has a picture of a cake and the other has a picture of a spoon full of powder.

So, I posted to the expats on the Istanbul message board, "Where do I find baking powder and what is it called?" As usual, the expats were helpful, writing things like, "You can often buy this in shops, which are very useful places. Other things you can buy are shoes, ladders and electrical fittings. Visit a shop today." The next poster wrote to the former, "You must be in advertising. I now have an unbearable urge to visit one of these places called a shop, and buy some wonderous thing." To which the first poster replied, "Don't forget to take some money, which is the currency most shops require. Some will allow you the use of a card of credit if purchase is above 5. Shops can be found in streets and places where lots of people are. Good luck!" I decided Kabartma Tozu must be baking powder.

I told Nihal I would fix chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight. She asked what dumplings are. I said, " Well, they are sort of like bread cooked in liquid." I could see the skepticism on her face, and really, it does sound weird, doesn't it? So, armed with my kabartma tozu I made chicken and dumplings. I'm pretty sure it was baking powder but the dumplings turned out sort of...rubbery. I noticed they ate the chicken, they ate the gravy, they said "mmmmm! Good chicken and water!!!" And then they slipped away one by one to get rid of the dumplings when they thought I wasn't looking. Poor people. They were very hungry and ate lots of bread for dinner.