November 16 had begun like any other Monday for Alison, and she was in confident spirits. The barista had put precisely the right amount of hazelnut syrup in her double skinny latte,  and the University of Washington department of whom she was an administrator was right on schedule for the compl… Read full post »

In one of the "Chicken Translation" posts I mentioned a dish that had been erroneously translated translated as "Sensitive meatballs." After a couple of weeks in Greece, I found myself with a serious hankering for food with a little spice in it, so I decided to make them.

The word… Read full post »

I have to admit that I go through phases when it comes to coming-out stories. Sometimes I really do think, “oh Jeezus, not another one,” because under all the variation there is one central theme: freeing ourselves from inflexible, vicious-circle thinking. And yet it’s the infinite… Read full post »

My first view of Thessaloniki (Salonica) must have been less than breathtaking. I say that because I lived there for a year and spent a lot of time in those outer neighborhoods; places like Stavroupolis and Evosmos, populated with villagers who built their houses (or at least t… Read full post »

Enshrined in all of these stories, elevated (if perhaps a bit higher in my own mind) was Greece. I read encyclopedia articles about Greece and books of Greek myths, assimilating all the most exotic and images from throughout the centuries, conveniently failing to notice what belonged to the modern ag… Read full post »

As many times as I've watched it happen over the last fifty years, I'm still amazed every year that this,

and this,

can turn into this.

Even if the big one turns out to be a tasteless doorway ornament, it will still be worth it. Read full post »

In the year 1915, at the age of 17, my maternal grandfather Christos Papanikolaou left his mother Magioritsa, his father Georgios, his sisters Eleni and Foteini and his little brother Stylianos on the Island of Marmara and sailed to Istanbul, where he and five friends would board a ship… Read full post »

Even though I grew up in Iowa, Greece was always in the background, ready to insinuate itself into our lives. There were constant reminders of it – baklava, kourambiedhes, finikia and melomakarona at Christmas, the words we knew like “kalimera” and “parakalo,” records of… Read full post »

 Okay, I'd started writing on another subject but I always love an excuse to write about my garden, especially when it involves food as well.

One of my favorite things to grow is winter squash. There are three main species that we grow in gardens, but the fruits… Read full post »

My childhood in in Iowa City, Iowa, was permeated with the illusion that my family was hopelessly run-of-the-mill. We were middle-class, lived in a nice house on the edge of town, Dad was a professor of music who was raised Southern Baptist in a family that traced its American roots back to… Read full post »

Here's one for the language geeks.

(If you are confused by the title and wonder what chicken has to do with translation, please read the earlier post, Chicken Translation Gems.)

Somewhere among the boxes of  old photos and mementos stored away in my friend Meg's house in Seattle, I hav… Read full post »

Sharing her love for seasonal foods, Stellaa has been a real inspiration! The weather in Istanbul has now settled into the muggy summer heat that will be with us till late September. In the spirit of the hazy Istanbul summer, I decided to post about something that not only takes the ed… Read full post »

Visitors to Istanbul's "European face" of Beyoglu got a bit more than they bargained for today as Istanbul's out GBLTT community capped off its Pride Week 2009 with the Istanbul Pride Parade.

Though I've been to my share of Pride Parades and usually… Read full post »

For those who have not already done so, I hope you will consider signing this open letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.

 http://www.petitiononline.com/12June/petition.html Read full post »

Honestly, the things people will post when stuck in an internet cafe waiting for a text.... !

Conservatives Warn Quick Sex Change Only Barrier Between Gays, Marriage

Then again, if humor weren't based in truth, it wouldn't be funny... Read full post »

This began as a comment to Jodi Kasten’s post, “Equal Rights for Men,” but it got too long to be a comment, and I realized I wanted to frame the discussion differently.

I first want to say that I appreciated Jodi’s post; not because I think it was a be-all, end-all… Read full post »

Why the Canadians are so completely over this:

There are different kind of gardeners in the world. I don't mean vegetable vs. flowers, or bog vs. xeriscaping, those are different kinds of gardens. What  I'm talking about is the first consideration in planning, planting and maintaining a garden. There are designer gardeners… Read full post »

 ...but it's an interesting tizzy, most notably for the support he's getting from so many sides.

Without a doubt, the last decade has been one characterized by many challenges for Turkey. Starting with more openness concerning ethnic minorities and especially the Kurds, one by one su… Read full post »

fingers brush, then lips

meet, and sheepishly admit

what we’ve always known Read full post »

Summer has arrived in Istanbul. It arrived exactly three days ago. It’s always this way – it stays cold for months, then gradually gets a bit warmer, then colder, teases you with a bit of sun, then rains for five days and the temperature shifts around the 50s. And… Read full post »

Rezil is an Arabic word that has gotten into several languages including Turkish. The dictionary definition is "disgrace," or "humiliation" but that's a bit weak. This is most likely the reason that other languages - which surely must have had a word for "disgrace" of their own, adopted rezil as well/… Read full post »

There's a famous story in Turkey of a restaurant owner who wanted to put up a "Rotisserie Chicken" advertisement. In Turkish, that's "Piliç Çevirme." Çevirme literally means "to turn over." But the language reforms that began in the 20s dictated that the many Arabic and Persian w… Read full post »

This wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but here goes: 

I was once paid 25 dollars to eat a live caterpillar.

I first tried cigarettes when I was three years old.

My mother had lunch with Elvis Presley. Read full post »