I know that I have already written about my love of Mediterranean breakfasts. Turkish breakfast in particular. It just makes sense to me. This past Sunday I found myself in my own personal state of breakfast euphoria. Somehow, I had coincidentally sourced a bunch of delicious things throughout the week, so that when I opened my fridge that morning, I had the makings of a glorious platter.

Med Breakfast

When I came back from Turkey in November, I had brought with me a jar of zeytin ezmesi, or olive paste. Olives, olive oil, and other olive-based products form a large part of the diet, and they take up large sections of Turkish supermarkets. I had been spreading zeytin ezmesi on my toast in the morning, but then I discovered it also made an amazing pasta sauce (which I will post soon). I quickly ran out of this amazing product, and decided to order a large jar from Tulumba.com. It arrived in less than 2 days and I was so happy to have this new staple back in my fridge. I will say more about olive paste when I share some recipes made with it, but I love how delicious, versatile, healthy, and inexpensive it is. The jar I bought in Turkey was less than $2.00! In my fridge were also 2 amazing preserves from the Mastiha Shop NY. The store mainly sells products that have mastiha in them, which is a therapeutic and aromatic resin from the island of Chios in Greece. I picked up one jar of bergamot and one of fig the last time I was there. I was pleasantly surprised to see bergamot, because it is not a common fruit. We are all consumers of it, because its essential oil is used in almost every perfume produced, and it is also supposedly one of the ingredients of a famous soda with a secret formula. However, most bergamot is grown in Calabria, Italy, and goes straight into these products. The figs were preserved in the same way, cooked whole in a sugar syrup.

On Friday afternoon I had gone to Gulluoglu, the new outpost of the famous baklava shop based in Istanbul, with my future brother-in-law. I had an almond pudding and grabbed a simit to go. That same morning I had bought a sheep's milk yogurt from the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company for a recipe that I was working on. Thus on Sunday morning I had my simit, zeytin ezmesi, bergamot and fig preserves, and sheep's milk yogurt. That and a cup of Yorkshire gold tea with a drop of honey was all I needed to get my day going on the right note.

For more info about the products mentioned, check out:

http://www.blacksheepcheese.com/products.html

http://www.tulumba.com

http://www.yelp.com/biz/gulluoglu-baklava-cafe-new-york

http://www.mastihashopny.com

Related Recipes

Whole Wheat Rigatoni with Olive Paste