Some recipes and more about taxi drivers

Turkish meatballs, Nihal's recipe:

1 pound ground beef
2 heaping tablespoonfuls full bread crumbs (bought - or use regular bread, crumbled)
1 onion chopped very fine
2 pieces of garlic chopped very fine
2 bunches of fresh parsley, chopped very fine
2 teaspoons of "kimyon" (cumin)
1 teaspoon of pepper
salt to your preference

With your hands squish it all together, squish squish squish! Form into flattish meatballs, about half the size of a thick burger. Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 1/2 hour at 375 degrees. Keep checking to see when they are done.

Nihal's salad:

This is made from some kind of green - not sure what it is. The new housekeeper says it grows like grass in the Philpines and when she first saw people eating it she called home, "These people are eating weeds!" :-) Anyhow, it would be great with any greens, try baby spinach.

Mix plain yogurt with 2 finely chopped pieces of garlic and a little olive oil and salt. Toss with salad greens and chill. YUM!
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Something needs to be done about the Istanbul cab drivers!! Not all, but too many of them are stupid, creepy, sneaky perverts! There must bea special breeding program to produce them. I can't imagine they have real mothers???!!!! The other night I shared a cab with another expat, at about 3:00AM. The streets were fairly empty - for Istanbul that is....and our driver decided to have a race with another cab driver. OH MY GOD!!! Racing at high speed, dodging cars, objects and pedestrians! The expat with me yelled at him in Turkish and he just laughed but he did stop. What an idiot. Then another night I had my first experience with the "change problem" cab driver.Although many cabs will take the long way around, or change a 10 Lira bill into a 1 (how they do that is a pretty good magic trick). Anyhow, most of it is sneaky and underhanded. But not the "change problem"!! I gave this driver a 10 Lira bill for a 6 Lira fare. He gave back 4 .50Lira which is of course, 2 Lira! Did he not think I would notice? I kept holding my hand out for more money. He looked at my palm and counted in Turkish, "One two three four". I said NONONO - give me 2 more Lira! He said "change problem" in English. He pretended to look around for change then shrugged his shoulders and stared out the window straight ahead, waiting for me to get out. He was holding up traffic, cars were honking like mad behind us. After arguing for a few minutes I realized I wouldn't win this one. He would just park his taxi in the middle of traffic and sit there until he died if he had to. The way I felt at the moment is a good reason for gun control....Another thing they do is adjust their rearview mirror to look at me instead of the traffic behind them, and if I am wearing a skirt they will turn around and look at my legs at any stop. It's not me..I believe they would do this to a pregnant woman!

The new housekeeper/nanny refuses to call me Briget, she calls me "madam", accent on the "am". She also calls Nihal "madAM" or any friends who are visiting, so it gets quite confusing. She says, "MadAM" and everyone looks :-)

Well, I didn't make it to the island of Lesbos, where the citizens call themselves "Lesbians". But I did accidentally buy a "Gothic Lesbian" book. There's not many books to choose from in English and this was one of them, and it looked interesting...and actually it's pretty good! It's called "Fingersmith". Speaking of books, my mother used to take us to the library once a week in summer and we were allowed to get three books each (the limit). One book I read about age 12 made a huge impression on me and for years now I have been hoping to find it, to see if it really IS that great. I thought the title of it was "The Thresholders" and I haven't been able to find it anywhere. In Istanbul of all places, I have discovered the book! Several of us were talking about our favorite childhood books, and I told about this one...but it turns out, a guy knew the book I was talking about and it is NOT called "The Thresholders", it's called, "The Universe Between" by Allen E. Nourse. Getting this book will be one of the first things I do when I return to the States!!! :-)