Nevzine: Sinful Sinful Turkish Shortbread Sweet

‘How is your mother-in-law?’ I hear these days almost after the “How are you?’. My friends, my family back home, customers of my Istanbul cooking classes and walks who have been reading this blog and know that my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer last November and went through a radiation therapy 2 months ago. ‘She is rocking’, I usually answer because despite all her health complains she has been really active at the kitchen. Until it occurred to me that the worse she feels the more she is rocking.

Forget the cancer (and with the therapy I hope we will). But consider going from Sapanca to Istanbul and sometimes Bolu almost every week to visit her doctors at 3 different hospitals and to do follow-up tests. Then think running our restaurant kitchen because we still don’t a helper. Is there much choice but continue rocking?

The other day I was assisting anne as she was turning 16 dishes on our 6 hour kitchen marathon. And it was not 16 portions of food. It was 16 dishes ranging from a starter to a dessert each meant for 10-20 people. Meaning at least 200 servings.

Marathons like this are not uncommon for us. ‘Anne, have not noticed we didn’t take a break for the minute in the past 6 hours’, I asked her when we sat down for a quick lunch only to continue right after it. She shrugged her shoulders, ‘Sport discipline. Can’t unlearn’. It was the voice of the Turkish champion who after winning on the distance of 800 meters was put on a drip because she was nearly starving over the last weeks of her training.

Anne’s kitchen marathons are like that training to become a champion. And the more tired she is the fiercer she competes. It is not mere food making it is her attempt to prove herself strong, durable and still capable. Imagine being next to her. Assisting. Running a forced marathon. Someone else’s marathon. Its is not so easy. Mostly hard. Because we both are exhausted by the absence of a proper kitchen helper. Because the worse she gets the more she micromanages. And because I have a big ego too.

I’ve always been like that: I need to see I grow every single moment. Growth is my pride. Proof that I live. Live with a purpose. If I don’t grow I panic – I am stagnating, not moving ahead, wasting my time. So I am not developing when chopping onions really. Yes, there is a massive happening while 16 dishes are being cooked: with bits and pieces I am learning more about running a pro kitchen, cooking for a crowd and making Turkish food. Yet overall I feel like on those projects of my consulting past when I was ready to get to the next level but then understaffing was killing my chances.

Because of that at times I start challenging anne. At times I play on her nerves. At times I sabotage. Back she pulls my leg about something else. She gives up at times. Or she gets mad at somebody else and shouts all the swears meant for me to that person, ‘Smart as#%^&*’. And after that she tells her confidants how great help I am and how much she relies on me.

That day I saw she was at the limit after she shouted at her niece. So I thought there was no need to push her more. So I thought that day I would only help make her plan come through. Whatever the plan was. Whether it would help me develop or not. So I stopped doing what I was doing and asked her, ‘What can I do for you?’

It started with bringonions and chopleeks and midway anne declared her commitment to teach me Turkish regional foods – food she experienced as she traveled all over the country as a young athlete and then police officer always curious about food. She shared two recipes and made three more. There was no recipes in a proper way (and it’s kind of hard to keep track of what is exactly going on when you are chopping all the time) but she explained and showed all the ‘puf noktalari’ (success factors) for each dish. I recreated this one few days later – and here is the recipe a sinful Turkish sweet I have never seen or tried before and now I can make. And that’s development, right?

And you have not forgotten about the Turkish baking quest, right? So this week I’d love to hear about your best memories related to Turkish baked desserts - names, places, circumstances, were you alone or with confederates? Do share your sweet memories!