Last month we went to the Anatolian Culture's Festival in Orange County. I've been to it twice before and didn't really have a good time, it's just always been so hot and I hate going out in the heat and the sun.
But this year the weather was nice and there were more shady places to sit down in.
And I got to try more food than I had before which also makes it more enjoyable because really, the food is the main attraction!
So I got some vegetarian cig (pronounced chee and means raw because it's traditionally made with raw meat but I don't eat that kind) kofte which was really good and spicy, too. And a cup of tarhana soup which I love and always bring some back with me from Turkey but it never turns out good. Tarhana soup is a dried yogurt soup, and it's a long process of making a dough, drying it over a couple of weeks and then making a powder out of it. Then you use that when you make the soup and add it to a stock.
I've wanted to try to make my own ever since I first tried it ten years ago but realistically that's just not going to happen anytime soon, probably not till my kids are older and I have more time and space to do the drying in.
I also got samples of lots of other foods. I passed on the Turkish ice cream, I ate so much of it three years ago while we were in Turkey, I can wait till the next time we're in Turkey! You should still try it if you've never had it. Instead we got kunefe for dessert which is two layers of shredded filo dough with cheese in the middle, toasted with butter and a sugar syrup poured on top. This was the best I ever had! I wish I had some right now...I make it sometimes when we have guests.
All in all, it was nice, I think the weather made a huge difference and being able to try different foods. I also bought an ebru art set, yay! Now I can make it on my own!
We also saw some friends there and one friend who had moved away two years ago was there, it was really nice to see her and her family. It's amazing to see how much children have grown when you don't see them very often.
And now for some pictures...
When you first enter the festival they have it set up so that you walk through different gates of different civilizations that lived in Anatolia beginning with the oldest and moving forward in time to the most recent. These aren't all of them, there's several I didn't get pictures of for some reason.
With the last gate being the Ottomans.
There were groups from Turkey performing traditional dances
And they had the whirling dervishes, or at least one of them.
These are replicas that they built for the festival, they did a great job on them:
This is Istanbul
And this one of Kapadokya. This place is really interesting if you get a chance to go to Turkey you should try to go there. They have caves where Christian people lived in hiding from the pagan Romans. We went in them and it's amazing. There's still hooks in the wall of the cave where they tied the animals up so they wouldn't get away. And the ceiling is black where the kitchens were. It's really amazing.
Some food, people really seemed to like this one a lot. It was a little too rare for my liking though.
The Mehter Ottoman band was there from Turkey, they would march through the fair at various times playing.
One of the shops, set up like the bazaar. I would have liked to have gotten a sword... And there was a shoe maker, you can see the shoes hanging up, who made the shoes for the movie Troy.
I think that's enough pictures, probably the most I ever put in one post before! It was fun, if you have a chance to go you should.
