Turkey seems to have forgotten to do autumn this year. October has been gloriously warm and sunny, with temperatures around 30 degrees during the day, perfect for swimming and sunbathing. The jacarandas and bougainvillea are still in bloom, and our Seville oranges remain resolutely green, though the ‘donkey bees’ have finished the last of the figs that were out of our reach at the top of the tree, and have now disappeared themselves.
Today, with the arrival of November, we finally have something akin to autumn weather – breezy, a few spots of rain this morning and a definite change in the colour of the sky.
At last there are some decent greens in the market – perky broccoli, brilliantly white tiny cauliflowers, extra-long leeks, and huge bundles of dark green chard. I even found some beansprouts in the supermarket this morning, so a stir-fry is on the cards for tomorrow’s supper. Continue reading “Canadian Butter Tarts”
We’ve finally had our first rainfall after a long dry summer, so the trees have had a lovely wash and are bright green again for the first time since June.
I’ve just spent a week in England, moving our furniture into storage, as the sale of our house completed on Friday. The weather in the UK was absolutely glorious – miles better than here, where I was welcomed back by one of the very chilly winds that are a speciality of this area – one that had come down straight over the Russian Steppes, then the freezing cold Black Sea, with a quick pass over the snowy mountains that form the entire Turkish interior between here and the north coast. By the time it reaches us, it would freeze the Sahara. 
Our friends have sold their apartment and the deal concludes this coming week, so they are having a farewell dinner for a few of us this evening. My task is to bring the pudding. I had planned to make Heidi’s Tongan coconut tart, which we came across on our recent holiday there (a kind of lovely gooey coconut custard in a crunchy case). Unfortunately, one of the other guests hates coconut, so I’ve had to have a re-think. I WILL do the coconut tart, but you will have to wait a bit longer for that one. 
When I have a weird collection of vegetables in the fridge that need using up, my thoughts immediately switch to one of three things: soup, curry, tart. I bought a big bunch of spinach at the weekend, not really knowing what I was going to do with it, and there it was, still glaring at me when I opened the fridge to get the milk this morning.
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