Learn to Cook Turkish--Sigara Boregi

Just so you don't think I've fried like an egg yet, some good news in the weather: after Turkey had the hottest July in 78 years, the temperatures have actually dropped to more reasonable levels this week.
Yesterday I learned to make sigara boregi (silent "g"). I think it's the simplest Turkish food you can possibly make, but I made it mostly by myself, so I'm proud. Of course, my roommate told me what to do every step and approved all my measurements. But I delight in small victories in my new culture. Sigara boregi is filled with a mixture of chopped fresh parsley and the 2 main kinds of cheese in Turkey. Both are white. One is very mild and salty, kinda like monterey jack. The other is tangy and crumbly like feta.

At the store you can buy a thick , cooked filo dough that resembles a very thin tortilla, called yufka. You cut the yufka like a pizza. You put a small amount of the mixture at the wide end of the pizza slice (see above), and roll, folding in the ends.

After that, all you do is fry them to a golden brown! Together with my roommate and our other friend, we had quite a spread. Whenever our Turkish friends come over for tea in the afternoons, my roommate generally prepares a feast. She made the kisir (bulgar salad), and
our guests brought assorted cookies and other baked things to complete the feast. Don't worry, we had a whole other dessert plate after our tea/lunch with chocolate pound cake our American friend made and the cookies our guest brought. While we ate dessert, I learned to play okey for the second time. It's kinda like rummy, but you play with tiles, and instead of putting your sets on the table you keep them on your stand, and you always have 15 tiles.

So, it's been a good week for learning new things and having a good time doing it.