Our best souvenir of Turkey was not a rug, a set of tea cups or some blue evil-eye charm.

It was the newest member of our happy household, this sweet little guy:

We’ve named him Sugar Duck.

This is why:

See, we had dinner at a cheapie restaurant in Edirne where they had the red chili in these nifty flip-top caddies on the table: glass bottom, bright-green flip-top dome.

A couple days later, in Istanbul, we nipped (I was going to say ‘ducked’) into a restaurant-supply place just as it was closing, and they had the exact same form as the Edirne model, but in three colors…and with adorable eyes!

And labeled, in Turkish and English, sugar duck.

As Peter points out, we probably wouldn’t love him half as much if we didn’t know this adorable name. Heck, we probably wouldn’t even have put sugar in him.

Best of all, he’s made in Turkey.

Peter’s first thought was, Oh, we’ll use a better spoon. But then he appreciated just how flawlessly designed the Sugar Duck was. The spoon is his tongue, you see.

The only down side of our new Turkish pet: We definitely use more sugar than we used to.