We got back from Izmir this week to discover that autumn has well and truly arrived in Istanbul. Izmir is further south than Istanbul, so stays a bit warmer for longer and it was a bit of a shock to emerge out of the metro station in Istanbul to discover it was raining. Our reaction was rather like the reaction of English people returning from a hot holiday in Spain to a dismal English summer.
I've had to unearth my cardigans and hoodies from a corner of the wardrobe. And after spending all summer constantly checking whether J was sufficiently hydrated, still had his sun hat on, had enough sun cream on, was developing heat rash again etc., I actually found myself wondering if he had enough layers on when we were out this morning.
But, there's something more important about autumn here that I need to tell you about. This week, for the first time since arriving here six months ago, we had cauliflower and broccoli! If you can't tell, we were a little bit excited about this. I'd post a picture, but you know what broccoli and cauliflower look like and they look the same here, just a little bigger (in contrast to the cabbages and leeks, which are ginormous, but I digress...).
Here, fruit and vegetables are very much seasonal. It's been a bit of a shock to us, accustomed as we were to imported fruit and veg. So, while in summer there was plenty of fresh peaches, nectarines and watermelons, there was most definitely no broccoli or cauliflower. But almost overnight they suddenly appeared in the shops. I genuinely couldn't wait to get out and buy one of each - and we have therefore eaten broccoli and cauliflower as part of our dinner for the last two evenings and it's looking like we'll be eating them again tomorrow. I'm even holding out for the possibility of finding a squash or pumpkin very soon. And, to top it all off, the domestically produced bananas are also available - which is good news when they are half the price of the outrageously-expensive-imported-bananas.
If that wasn't enough, J seems to have remembered that he likes broccoli and cauliflower and has been happily munching them. Which is probably a good thing, because I suspect we are going to be eating quite a lot of them in the next few weeks!
