One of my favourite eggplant dishes, which is especially yummy with the tiny ones is Imam bayildi...Turkish stuffed eggplants. Peel stripes off the eggplant and slice them to form a pocket, then quickly brown them in some oil. Put them in a baking dish, stuff the pocket with a stuffing made of olive oil, tomatoes, onions, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, pour some olive oil over them and carefully put a little bit of salted water into the baking dish (maybe 1/2"). Cover and bake them at 375°F for 30 mins...from time to time, spoon some of the liquid over the eggplants.
Alternatively, you can cut the eggplant in half, pile the stuffing on top of them, pour oil over it and add the salted water and make them on top of the stove, spooning them with the liquid frequently. Serve cold or hot, with rice or fresh bread. The liquid is especially tasty. Now I'm hungry :D

I very much love this Turkish dish, ground meat with spinach. Fry a chopped onion and two mashed garlic cloves, add a pound of ground meat, fry for a few more minutes while stirring, add 1,5 pounds of spinach (frozen is fine) and a water glass of rice. Now add two cups of broth, salt, black and red pepper, bring to boil and boil for 20 mins or until the rice is tender. If it's getting too dry, add some more water. It's not supposed to be a soup, but juicy. Serve with plain yogurt. Now I'm hungry :)

My brother is a sugarbaker, and the stuff he makes is actually delicous...but one day he decided it was cookie time. He whipped out a nice originally American recipe, started working, and when they were finished, they were just nasty...not sweet, grainy, just disguisting. My brother turned his brain upside down to find out his mistake but it was not until the next day when I wanted to make bulgur salad and discovered he had put in fine bulgur instead of brown sugar!

And in Izmir? That would be nice ;)