Hitting the “easy button” Turkish-American style, olives and ıspanaklı poğaça for supper on the fly (image by Liz Cameron)

As you may recall, these days, I can only type with my right hand due to a rotator cuff injury in my left shoulder. That means no food prep that involves chopping, for one…and tonight, well, I just wanted to collapse in an indulgent puddle of salty tears, but even those would not spring forth. I also locked myself out of the house after a medical visit and waited in a local cafe for 3 hours until M. finished work. Not a stellar day.

The puppets sat on the window ledge next to me as I winced through grading 18 papers, worrying about how to fix dinner. Mercan Bey, the spice trader, sat and watched the Central American cooks prepare this & that. Celebi paced back & forth restlessly until he explained that he needed to take off on important business…

…an before long, there was M., with his brilliant smile & a big hug – and Celebi on his shoulder, yelling “remember the easy button!” And before I knew it, M. Had whisked us all off to the local Armenian bakery for some olives & ıspanaklı poğaça (spinach pastries) that we demolished faster than high teenagers in a McDonalds.

ıspanaklı poğaça! (image by Liz Cameron)

Thanks, Celebi and M., for teaching me about the “easy button” for dinner in a Turkish-American household.

Related articles

• Poğaça (yaseminscuisine.wordpress.com)
• Calcific Tendonitis (Rotator Cuff Tendons of the Shoulder) (healthhype.com)
• The Great Anatolian Ride by Equitours Retraces on Horseback the Historic 1671 Route of Celebi (prweb.com)