From a Turkish Balcony Garden
Earlier in the spring I planted some herbs, lettuce, and tomatoes on two of our three balconies and flowers on the third.  Though it hasn't been the harvest I dreamed about, I have had some mild success.  Last weekend while my husband was away I decided to treat myself to Turkish breakfast to help me miss him less (yes I admit to having an unhelpful habit of using food for comfort).

What is Turkish breakfast? It is bread, cheese, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, parsley (or other green herbs), butter, jam, eggs, and tea just as a start. It typically begins late, is best served on a balcony, eaten with friends and/or a newspaper, lasts over two hours and often ends with a nap. OK, obviously I'm exaggerating on some of those points, but I want to paint a vivid picture.

In my Turkish-breakfast-for-one-to-miss-my-husband-less breakfast, I decided to gather a few things from my balcony garden. You can see the handful of cherry tomatoes and purslane I picked in these photos.


The tomatoes are likely familiar though they are orange-colored. The purslane I discovered after I moved to Turkey and it's something I've grown to love both served cold as a salad or warm as a main dish made with ground beef. When the stalks come up thin like this, I love to munch on them raw with breakfast.




I have some video I took in the spring when I just started my garden but it's my first attempt at video and I haven't yet decided if I want to share it - it's pretty clumsy. Anyway, while I have a think about that I send my hopes that one day we'll be able to share Turkish breakfast together with treats from my garden, either balcony or terrestrial, in Turkey or the States. 
