The Japanese Defense Forces Day at the Japanese Ambassadorial Residence was a great event; they had a martial arts show with professional performers doing presentations on kendo, aikido, and karate. Best of all they had really amazing sushi and sashimi, which are like gold dust in Ankara. Only a couple of restaurants here serve sushi and from what I understand it's generally not very good. They also had an amazing dish of pickled eel and friend shrimp. Yum! On the way out of the party, a senior US official and his wife were walking in front of us. He said something to her sotto voce and her (loud) response was, 'oh well whatever. We're from TEXAS.' Apparently even half way around the world, being from Texas is still an excuse for bad manners. Sigh.
Yesterday I attempted the Leek Pie (Pirsanpide). I think I've watched far too many cooking shows, because I've always been of the impression that handling pastry is a terrible idea and you end up with a very dense, un-flaky result. But the recipe for the shortcrust (Hamur) pastry said to rub the butter into the flour by hand, so I did. I was not disappointed with the result.
I discovered half way through wilting the leeks and once the pastry had been made, however, that I didn't have a rolling pin. Andrew not being a baker, he of course doesn't own one, which I should have realised. So I got inventive: I took an empty Hefeweisen beer bottle, soaked it in boiling water, removed the labels and adhesive with much scrubbing, and used that to roll out the dough. It wasn't perfect, but in a pinch, it worked just fine. I'll be having leftover pie for lunch today!
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