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Turkey's cuisine is regarded, along with Chinese and French, as one of the three greatest in the world. "Turkey is where east met west, where the spice road ended from Asia and collided with everything that came from Spain and Norway and Africa. "They developed this knowledge of exotic spices. Look at Turkish cuisine and it's really sophisticated. They can make eggplant 300 different ways."
In Istanbul,we recommend simply walking. "The Turks are famous for their grills,". "You can walk into a neighborhood where in the middle of a restaurant they're grilling meats and you sit around the fire, with 10 or 20 different sauces and one little kebab or kefka."
Oceania offers a tour that takes in the spice market, a great place for shopping. "A lot of people think of it as very touristy and it is very touristy, but you go out into the side streets and you can see a kitchen stall that has more inventory than a Manhattan kitchen specialty shop,. "They make the best skewers; they're heavy duty and they stand up well. The other thing I love bringing back is the ground pepper sauces. A little guy outside the spice market sells nothing but hot pepper and sweet pepper sauces, like sun-dried tomato or sometimes in oil. This guy's a chemist; major chefs all over the world come there to shop."
