Last night Eric and I went out with Sarah and Dave for Manta which is a delicious pasta with beef or lamb inside served in a white and tomato sauce with yogurt and garlic sauce over the top and your choice of spices to sprinkle on top.
But before we got out there we had to drive through the crazed streets right before the breaking of the fast for that day. This month is Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) a month of fasting from all food and liquid from sunrise to sunset from the first of the month till the end of September. Turks who are pregnant, taking medication, sick, traveling, or children do not participate and then also some Turks choose not to participate on their own (similar to Catholics not participating in lent). From a personal perspective I have participated in this fast for two years and it is extremely difficult-one year I got kidney stones at the end! This affects us only in a couple ways:
1. restaurants in small towns will not be open until sunset, so if we travel we need to pack our own food.
2. restaurants in Adana start to get packed right around sun down and the food comes out as soon as the last call to prayer begins. But we, as Americans shouldn't eat near the windows during the day as it would look completely disrespectful.
3. Price inflation in the markets and sometimes restaurants anywhere from 15% to 50%.
4. When driving around sunset, Turks are RACING home to eat and driving can get quite dangerous.
This leads me to our interesting trip into Adana that night for our dinner date. The driving was extremely crazy and very packed as everyone was rushing home to break fast.
Anyways, enough about that...dinner was amazing and then we went back to their beautiful home for ice cream and conversation until about 11:30. It was a wonderful evening.
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