and speaking of breakfast

There are two things I think Americans do best: burgers and breakfast. Now my ideal breakfast was discovered on a trip to Vietnam (a little phở, fresh mangoes, dragonfruit, Vietnamese coffee), and I do love a little Van-style kahvaltı, but there's nothing like pancakes and maple syrup with bacon (or sausage), some eggs, home fries and buttery toast. It can easily slide into overkill, but it's so, so good! Plus, you can find variations on the big American breakfast in every region— California is all about adding a Mexican touch and greens, the South has their own thing with grits (which I have yet to experience), and New England has johnnycakes and lobsta.

At least once a week during the holidays, my mum raved about the breakfasts at Kitchen Cravings, so

on one of our last days in New Hampshire, my family, Pedro and I squeezed ourselves into the car and drove ever so gently on icy roads to the little café in Gilford. The menu offered your usual choices, but also gave you the option to create your own omelettes and Eggs Benedict— something I just could not resist. How could I improve upon a Benedict? It's a sumptuous construction of English muffin, thick bacon, and velvety poached eggs smothered in Hollandaise— what more could one want?

To honour the Californian in me I added avocados (scoff at this if you must, East Coasters), and replaced the bacon with a truly New England treat: lobster. Besides, where am I going to get lobster in Turkey? But really, look closer:



It was insanely good. Sweet, buttery, and tangy, I will fantasize about this dish for a long time. In the odd chance you visit the little town of Gilford, do plan on making a stop at Kitchen Cravings. I don't know about their lunches, but I imagine a place that does breakfast so right will do justice to lunch too.

guilty, greasy pleasure

There is this thing I have to do whenever I'm back in New England, and it's rather gross but it sends me over the moon with nostalgia. When I was living in Providence and dragging my steel-toed boots to class at Rhode Island School of Design, food was not a priority— apart from a brief obsession with all manner of dumplings after deciding that the concept of little pillows of food was edible perfection. This epiphany hit me at three in the morning at the ceramic studio while I was terribly sleep deprived and had been desperately trying to centre a lump of clay on a wheel for longer than I will admit to. Oddly enough, that night while driving home and mentally constructing my dumpling diet, I witnessed the kidnapping of a Mr. Potato Head sculpture downtown— but that's another story.

Until I moved to Providence, I had never been to a Dunkin' Donuts and was unaware of the wonders of their breakfast sandwich. This was a most marvellous thing for a teenager on her own: a garlicky "everything" bagel with an unnaturally smooth egg and a greasy slab of sausage. It was this sandwich and copious amounts of coffee that powered me through my classes.



Now this, mind you, is not from Dunkin' Donuts, but a café called Winnipesaukee Baygulls in Moultonborough. Oh how it took me back...

breakfast bunny bread

We drove until Ayvalık, which happened to come upon us as the sun excused itself, weaving up and down narrow, crooked roads in search of a place to stay that we could afford. Eventually we found a bed in a restored cottage that I cannot remember the name of, and settled in.



As it was an old house, there were drafts which seemed hell-bent on interrupting our sleep, but we were soon revived by one of the best free breakfasts I have ever had in Turkey. What pushed this one past the warm feeling I still have from last year's Ayder breakfast, was a thyme omelette and a pool of Ayvalık's famous olive oil— perfect for drowning that ubiquitous, bland bunny bread in.



We set out for a little wander, content and warmed by several glasses of çay, squinting under the Aegean sun.

pumpkins and thyme honey

As this corner of the world at last greys and begins to chill, getting out of a warm snuggly bed in the morning feels like the least appealing thing to do in the world— especially on a Saturday. But naturally, someone somewhere outside my window had no problem getting out of bed to drill concrete at eight in the morning. Suspended between a foggy dream and awake, my mind wandered to the large pumpkin in my fridge, which I bought from a charming woman on the side of the road last week. I stood up on stiff legs and shuffled to the kitchen, the plan for pumpkin pancakes unfolding. This was a fine excuse to dip into the jar of thyme honey (bought from the side of another road)...



Is there anything that celebrates autumn more than a pumpkin? Pomegranates and persimmons perhaps, but there's nothing like a hearty pumpkin soup or the intoxicating flavour of its orange flesh blended with cinnamon and nutmeg.



As the dropping temperatures will soon keep me indoors, I suspect my posts will become even more sporadic than they have already been, since there won't be much to share. I hope I can use this time at home to get back to drawing and painting, as I have neglected my artwork for far too long. I'm not sure why I can't seem to create anything.

So while the sky looses its colour, I'm going to remind you of warmer times with a series of posts from a little adventure I took at the end of October. There will be blue seas and olive trees, a wooden horse, and thyme honey.

breakfast before birds

A tower of toast will surely get you going.

breakfast with lama

Somehow I had missed posting these two images from the summer.
They are among my favourites.