Buying Cheese

We've been buying cheese from the same guys for two years. "Guys" consists of Baba, Thunder (the only one who will use his English), and two other brothers. Buying cheese has never been boring, but now it's getting down right silly.

Thunder always greets us with a huge smile, and an enthusiastic "Hello!" And then promptly cuts us all cheese samples. If Dad isn't with us, Thunder asks about him while he gets our cheese order ready.
What's really amusing is that Dad is Baba's special friend.  Baba always makes it a point to rush over and shake Dad's hand, and pinch Sam's cheek.
I think Thunder recently learned the English phrase "I love you." He has been using it with great enjoyment. (For the past three weeks he waves goodbye and says "I love you!")

Last week, Thunder gave us some bread and butter (the butter was REALLY good). So this week we decided to get some more. Mom wanted me to take a picture of the wooden container that the butter was in. It looked to be wooden and we thought it was kinda cool. Thunder and company caught me taking pictures and eagerly rose to the occasion.

 Getting us butter

 From left: Thunder, Johanna, Sam, and Baba

 Baba

Dad, Sam and Baba

Cheese Grommet! Cheese!

Well It has been quite a while since I have posted on this blog but I recently discovered the name of my favourite Turkish cheese or peynir. It's called sepet peyniri. Translated it is actually basket cheese and man alive is it ever tasty! Depending on what I search I've come up with Arabia and Italy for origin points but I imagine that a lot of European countries have their own unique version of basket cheese.

Traditionally, basket cheese was made from cow goat or sheep's milk or a mix of all of them. The cheese was then pressed into, you guessed it, baskets. Because it took such a long time to dry the aged sepet ended up with a distinct flavour. Apparently now a-days sepet is often made in plastic containers which dry out quicker resulting in a loss of flavour. I don't know how Thunder, (our cheese guy) makes his, but it ends up in rounds about a foot across and 5 or 6 inches deep with a pattern of rectangles around the outside from whatever he aged it in. 

This is a piece of cheese which we got from Thunder on Saturday. Its about the same hardness as medium cheddar in Canada. We usually buy Yarim Kilo or half a kilo of it because it makes good sandwich cheese. The cheese usually has a couple of centimeters of saltier, stronger cheese around the outside getting milder towards the middle.

If there is anything I'm going to miss about Turkey besides the newness of everything and the friendly people, its going to be the delicious cheeses.
Maybe I could get a recipe from Thunder.... Failing that at least there's a recipe in that link below!

Images from: http://www.cheesemaking.com/BasketChz.html

If you feel inclined to try it out let us know how it goes.

Afiyet Olsen! (enjoy your meal or bon appetit)