Something fishy

One thing I love from Istanbul was all the fresh markets.  The vendors put out all their goods on the street and you can stroll through the market and see so many different things.

Here are some pictures from a seafood market.

The vendor will flip the gills of the fish to show how fresh they are.

One of the best dishes I had was the Hamsi, which is a small fish like the sardines.  They either fry them with a light batter or grill them, and it's delicious.  Here are all the different kinds of seafood and you can see the Hamsi in the lower right.

Then there's this guy, sitting right on top of the tent.  He knows what's up.

Don't miss the murders but I miss the crabs

November is known for a couple things.  First is that it's the month where guys don't have to shave.  Second is that it's the height of the Maryland blue crabs season.  It's this time I miss Maryland the most.  Dug up this photo, we literally just walked out our door to the seafood market down the block and picked up a mountain of crabs.

We invited a few friends to join us in the feeding frenzy but one of them had never eaten crabs. The mere thought of cracking open these little critters and pulling out their insides then devouring every last morsel of their carcasses was enough to lock him into a perpetual state of discomfort through out dinner.  As we feasted on the clawed delicacies, he sat in his seat with a look of amazement and disgust for the entire evening.  I miss doing that to people too =)