milk shake

So, I'm slowly working on explaining what makes me a horrible mother, but I'm not ready to post it yet.  I'm not sure I can bear the shame of exposing my failures and shortcomings.   I promise though, it will come soon.  While you wait I'd like to tell you about last night.

James and I went out to dinner.  As we were in the mood for something a bit more western, we chose a place in town called Park Cafe.  Even from the name you can probably tell that it's not your traditional Turkish fare.  It's got lots of American-ish food.  We arrived at the restaurant a little early so we perused the dessert menu in order to split a sweet treat before ordering the main meal. We narrowed down our choice to splitting a caramel hot chocolate or a milk shake.  James decided the milk shake was a little more fun, a little less common than hot chocolate so we went for it. He was right, you can't find a milk shake at too many restaurants in this country. I chose chocolate (the choices were chocolate, banana, or strawberry). 

Before I tell you about the milkshake that came to our table, you have to understand a couple of things. First, you have to understand that turkish food is delicious.  Really really great.  Second, you have to understand that if you want American food you're gonna have a hard time finding it outside of America.  And if you try to find it in Turkey you have to be ready for it to taste, well, to taste not quite right.  Maybe pizza wont have much sauce.  Maybe the ketchup is spicy.  We're used to those things and so last night we weren't really envisioning a nice thick milk shake like we'd find at Denny's or Chilli's or even McDonalds, but even with low expectations we were shocked and disappointed at what came to our table.

Chocolate milk.  Nestle's Quick.  You know, the kind with that bunny on the package of powder.  That's what we got.  The one difference is that it was a bit frothy, as if it had been shaken together then poured into the glass it was served in.  A milk shake.  Shaken milk with chocolate powder.  For about four dollars.  Yes way. Turkish food is cheap, but if you want American food you often have to pay quite a bit for it,  apparently even for shaken milk.  After it came to our table I remembered seeing Nestle's Quick in strawberry, banana, or chocolate flavor at the grocery store a few days ago, so the flavor choices suddenly made sense.  James took one sip then threw his straw into the ash tray in disgust.  I drank the whole thing hoping that somehow, somewhere in that glass I'd find a little bit or ice cream, or maybe just a few ice chunks that would redeem things for me.  All I found was chocolate milk, straight to the very last sip.

 You know, the menu didn't lie.  We ordered a milkshake and that's exactly what we got... shaken milk.  Now we know.