Ev hanımın olmak istiyorum*

I wish I'd taken a picture of the lovely salad I made for the little dinner party I attended last night. Or the banana bread I baked for the morning boat trip this past weekend. Or the kick-ass potato and kale soup I made last week for no reason at all. Now no one is ever going to believe how domestic I'm getting over here, an unexpected, but not-unwelcome side effect of being on my own, trying to save money, and having a vastly reduced selection of good restaurants around me. Between the cooking, the baby-holding, and the laundry hanging-out (dryers aren't exactly de rigueur here), I'm turning into a right proper housewife. Now I just need to learn how to iron. Whatever it takes to snare the Turkish man of my dreams. (Şaka yapıyorum, şaka yapıyorum!)

* The first time I came to Turkey, seven years ago, a guy working at one of the hostels where we were staying told our friend Ana that she would make a good housewife. He seemed to think that this was quite a high compliment. So Ayla taught us how to say this, one of the first Turkish phrases I ever learned: "I want to be your housewife." Alas, I've yet to have occasion to deploy this gem.