Traditional African Veg Food

A plate of githeri (beans and corn), greens and cabbage. Cheap and simple.

Nairobi, Kenya

Sweets

An assortment of desserts in the window of the most popular shop in Cairo for such things. This place was always jam packed with customers purchasing beautifully wrapped boxes of sweets and pastries, even late at night. It also served amazing chocolate, melon and mango ice cream - 2 scoops for 50 cents! We got a cone every night we were in Cairo - Gil sometimes got two.

Cairo, Egypt

Massive Beef Kebab

No, we didn't start eating meat, but this gigantic beef kebab grilling on the side of the street caught our attention. The cook shaves off pieces and serves it in a pita or flat bread.

Cairo, Egypt

Kushari

A tasty (and cheap!) Egyptian vegetarian dish that's a popular home staple. A mixture of lentils, rice and/or pasta topped with chick peas, fried onions and a spicy tomato-based sauce. You mix it all together before eating it and can also add pickle juice if you like. It's very filling - this dish was too big to finish.

Cairo, Egypt

Custard

A milk and egg sweet custard that reminded us of flan.

Cairo, Egypt

Vegetable "Curry"

A very boring vegetable curry. We ordered 2 dishes with different names and they both looked like this...

Luxor, Egypt

Grilled Fish and Calamari

A beautiful yellow sea bass and calamari, grilled. Served with grilled vegetables and mezes.

Dahab, Egypt

Stir Fry

Egyptian version of a stir fry. Potatoes, carrots and zucchini. Restaurants in Dahab love the onion candle holder...

Dahab, Egypt

Bedouin Stew

Bedouin stew - a simple combination zucchini, peppers, potatoes, carrots and tomatoes cooked together in a hot pot. This version is topped with cheese.

Dahab, Egypt

Mixed Grill

A ridiculously presented seafood mixed grill. Prawns, calamari, fish and lots of grilled veggies.

Dahab, Egypt

Mezes

Assorted salads, often given as an appetizer. Hummus, baba ganoush (pureed eggplant), tomato and cucumber salad and eggplant salad.

Dahab, Sinai, Egypt

Sweets

Baklava and other deserts in a shop window in Istanbul. Very sweet! Lots of honey and sugar water. Pistachios are also a key ingredient in many Turkish sweets.

Vegetarian Plate

A mix plate of veggie mezes at a cheap eats place in Istanbul. Greens, a tomato stew of beans, carrots and potatoes, fried zucchini, chick peas, french fries and rice.

Istanbul, Turkey

Spice Market

This is just a tiny sample of what we saw at the spice market in Istanbul Turkey.

Falafel Sandwich

Typical Falafel found in Tel Aviv, Israel. This one had pita, falafel balls, humus, pickles, and fries.

Sushi

Salmon and Hamachi rolls from an outdoor resturaunt in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Borshch

Traditional Russian Soup made with beets and other vegetables, served at my cousins house in Netaya Israel.

Testi Kebab

Testi kebab is a strange take on the traditional kebab, in which the meat and veggies are cooked over the fire in a clay pot, after which the pot is cracked open with a hammer and served. This is a veggie version.

Goreme, Turkey

Manti

Turkish ravioli topped with yogurt and tomato sauce. Our manti were stuffed with cheese, but they are traditionally stuffed with meat. The ravioli are tiny - more like a tortellini really.

Goreme, Turkey

Spinach Crepe with Cheese

Spinach crepe with cheese. Or potato with mushroom and cheese? We ordered the only two veggie items on the menu and they looked identical. Tasty, but isn't anything topped with a pound of cheese? The dishes were served with mashed potatoes, some weird pasta nest and a medly of mushrooms, peas and carrots. All cold and barely edible.

Goreme, Turkey

Grilled Calamari

Grilled calamari with tartar sauce served with fruits and veggies. We ordered this at what was supposedly one of the best restaurants in Anatolia. Certainly had excellent service and nice plating, but the food wasn't that spectacular... maybe we are spoiled in San Francisco?

Goreme, Turkey

Vegetarian Casserole

Baked casseroles are popular in Turkey - they typically contain meat, chicken or seafood. This is a vegetarian version topped with cheese.

Kas, Turkey

Vegetarian Feast

Typical dinner at George House included a variety of vegetarian dishes served with rice, yogurt, honey and lots of homemade bread. This evening we had green beans in tomato sauce, sauteed eggplant, stuffed green peppers, a tomato pilaf and green potatoes with egg.

Faralya, Turkey

Grilled shrimp

In Fethiye, you could purchase seafood at the seafood market and the neigboring restaurants would grill it and provide a salad and bread for 5 lira a person. We had these jumbo shrimp along with a whole black sea bass from the Black Sea (which we carved into as soon as it landed on the table, so we unfortunately didn't get a picture) .

Fethiye, Turkey

Turkish Breakfast

We had a "Turkish breakfast" almost everyday in Turkey. It consisted of an egg (usually hardboiled), tomatoes, cucumber, olives, a basket of ekmek (bread) with butter and honey, and either Turkish tea, apple tea or Nescafe.

Often it would also include a slice of cheese or some fruit.

Everywhere, Turkey

Metzes

We had lunch at a lokanta, an informal Turkish restaurant, which usually has a variety of prepared hot and cold mezes (like appetizers or small plates) that you can choose from. For this mean, we had sauteed greens (something similar to spinach), a noodle casserole and a very nice vegetable gratin with some interesting spices.

Fethiye, Turkey

Pide

Pide is Turkey's version of pizza. Very thin crust, long and skinny shape, no tomato sauce. This one is a kaserli pide (cheese) with tomato, mushrooms and peppers. The traditional Turkish pide has a meat sauce.

Selcuk, Turkey.

Vegetable Mousaka

Mousaka is a Greek dish that typically contains lamb, but we had a vegetarian version. It had a variety of vegetables in a tomatoes sauce, topped with yogurt and cheese.

Kusadasi, Turkey

Veggıe Kabob

Kabaps (kabobs) are served everywhere in Turkey, but generally have chicken, lamb or beef. Here's a veggie version with eggplant.

Kusadasi, Turkey

Pızza Margarıta

Surpringly tasty pizza. Samos also has tasty and cheap wine, which we enjoyed with the pizza.

Samos, Greece

Grılled Fish

Our first attempt at deboning tiny grilled fish. It took a while, but was delicious and we had the Champions League finals to entertain us while we worked. Finished the meal with a complimentary glass of grappa.

Santorini, Greece

Vegetarian Souvlaki

Souvlaki is another typical Greek fast food. It ıs usually pork or chicken grilled on a stick and either served in a pita or served with rice or french fries. The vegetarian version was mushrooms and peppers grilled and served with cabbage, onions and a tasty sauce.

Fıra, Santorini, Greece

Homemade Sandwich

Sandwiches made and eaten on a deserted black sand beach on the south tip of the island. Fresh whole wheat and nut bread from a Cretan bakery with cheese, cucumber, and tomato.

Santorini, Greece

Greek Thai Food

Stir fried tofu and veggies with basil and chile, tom ka soup. Thai food served by Aussies in Greece. It was surprisingly good.

Hora, Ios, Greece

Stuffed Tomato and Pepper

Another traditional Greek dish that is vegetarian friendly - veggies stuffed with seasoned rice. We've had these a couple of times, and each time they've been a bit different. Our favorite (in Athens) was studded with pine nuts and raisins.

Paros, Greece

Grandma's Best

Zucchini croquettes served with a yogurt dill sauce, french fries, broccoli, mashed potatoes, and salad. Also at the Happy Green Cow.

Parikia, Paros, Greece

Plate of the House

Baked vegetables with bechemel, tomato sauce and cheese at a very colorful vegetarian restaurant called the Happy Green Cow in the old town of Parikia (Paros, Greece)

Salad, Tzatziki, and Yigandes

A sampling of mezedhes (small plates) at a sea side cafe in Parikia, on the island of Paros, Greece. The salad had sun dried tomatoes and Parmesan. The tzatziki (yogurt and cucumber) and "giant beans" (butter beans in a tomato sauce) are traditional Greek dishes.

Greek Pasta Lunch

Cheap and simple pasta with capers, olives, tomatoes, feta and of course, lots of olive oil. We had this at a cafe in one of the squares near Omonia. Every Greek restaurant seems to offer several pasta dishes - great for us vegetarians!

Dinner at a Greek Cafe

Baked eggplant stuffed with cheese in tomato sauce and a Greek salad. We had this at a great sidewalk cafe in Psyrri, one of the more hip districts of Athens.

New York City Bagels

Everything bagels with cream cheese and tomato (left) and cream cheese and lox (right). From Pick A Bagel on 3rd Avenue.

Salt Potatoes

Salt potatoes are a central NY summer tradition invented by the workers in the salt mines in the 1800s. Basically, they are small new potatoes cooked in copious amounts of salt and served with melted butter.

We enjoyed these at my parent's anniversary party in Munnsville, NY.