SPICE WORLD

I have neglected this space too long, but allow me to remedy that with a few more photos taken while in Istanbul. Yes, I know that was back in April, but there are still many good photos yet to be had.

This photo installment features our trip to the spice bazaar. Normally, I wouldn't care much about some ancient market selling spices. Quite frankly, I don't care about spices at all. But the spice bazaar also has pistachios. I really like pistachios and I lived in California for many years, and they've got great pistachios. Then I tried the nuts from Turkey. I will never be the same again. They are the best pistachios in the entire world. Overnight, I became very serious about pistachios. As a matter of fact, here's a picture of me standing outside the spice bazaar feeling very serious about pistachios.

Oh yeah, that's pretty serious.

So we go in the spice bazaar, me in search of the best pistachios on earth, Julie in search of... well... spices I guess.

And after a few minutes I must grudgingly admit the spice bazaar is pretty cool. The smells are wonderful and the colors, well...Most stores have their spices in colorful pyramids. They're just begging to have their photo taken.Twice.But perhaps the most heavily advertised product is a spice I've never heard of before: Turkish Viagra.Five times in the night? Good luck, indeed. So of course I have to buy some. But then I turn the corner and see...Aw man! Six times in the night? I've been ripped off!

Eventually we found the vendor that sold the specific type of pistachio that I deemed the best (and most vendors deemed the most expensive). They were worth every penny. Worth, perhaps, even more than ten times in the night... but that's hard to know for sure.