I spent much of the past October eating, feeding and cooking with Anna, a 4 year-old küçük hanım (little lady, how was addressed throughout her time in Turkey). She and her mother Elena came to stay for a few weeks in Istanbul and at our countryside hotel in Sapanca. Elena is blogging at Life is Now (in Russian) on the transformation her family is going through: Elena’s husband gave up his high-flier corporate career to realize a long-cherished dream - to become a chef. He graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and this summer has launched an culinary program in Provence that has become an immediate success. For Elena, an HR-professional with solid experience, it is an opportunity to test a pen on writing and food photography as well as a case study in career transformation, an area in which she has started to coach others. And then there is Anna who is supporting her parents during their bold moves such as coming to live in Turkey for a month.
After week of sharing food with Anna I feel experienced enough to share a piece of advice to the parents planning their visit to Istanbul (and broader Turkey) and wondering whether if it is the right place to travel with young kids and - more specifically - whether the kids will be happy eaters in Istanbul.
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Last month we went to see Skyfall. My husband was bewildered by my unwitnessed before enthusiasm about an action movie. I reassured him it was not for Daniel Craig (oh, is he not the hottest Bond of all?) but the Istanbul scenes of the movie. A good part of the summer during my food walks I had to take my clients rounds and rounds around the “Oriental bazaar” built for the Skyfall stunts before we could enter the actual Spice Market. Those weeks of filming in Istanbul were packed into the minutes of motorcycle chase on the vast roof of the Grand Bazaar. While I was thrilled by the stunts my husband got puzzled that the directors have chosen Istanbul to shoot the Grand Bazaar and but then flew to Shanghai (instead of going to Maslak) for the backdrop of lit up skyscrapers.
“This is what people think of Turkey, honey!” I told him. “Oriental and a tad backward“. I see it a lot of this thinking in the dining choices foreign tourists make in Istanbul. In the pursuit of the local flavors travelers wow about archaic canteens (lokanta) where local hardware sellers dine but they are less interested in the places where local industrialists go for lunch. Do the hardware sellers really know their food better? Do you actually identify yourself with a hardware seller with choosing a place for lunch back in your home country? With all my respect to the Istanbul tradesmen’s canteens (esnaf lokantası) and forgiveness to all the mediocre food they have served me I beg you to have a better look around. And maybe get in a cab to a different kind of canteen. The Kantin.
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This weekend all the rooms reservations were cancelled at our countryside hotel. From fully booked with a waiting list we went to a quiet weekend mode. Besides the big Sunday breakfast that is always crowded it was - probably the first time this year - a weekend leisurely spend with the family. And very special guests. My friend and Le Cordon Bleu graduate Elena brought her teacher chef Gilles who is launching Le Cordon Bleu program in Istanbul. It was the weekend of conversations - about food, over food and while making it. Mom was turning one Turkish specialty after another, Elena was baking French pastry, chef Gilles was getting intensive introduction to Turkish food and culture and I.. I was a like phone whose lamentably squeaking dying battery started cheerful blinking once put to charge.
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You know my excitement about Kadıköy market which I regard as the best food market of Istanbul. But here is the news - there is another thrilling place to shop in the area with the limited window of opportunity. That window being Tuesday. Not sure what took me so long to visit the Kadikoy Tuesday Market (Kadıköy Salı Pazarı), a gigantic open-air marketplace dragging the housewives of the broader Kadıköy area for food and clothes shopping. My sally a few weeks ago was nothing like I have experienced before in Istanbul.
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This soup usually divides the masses. Some feel inspired - at times so much that they vow to reproduce it at their own kitchen. The others view it as a pure exoticism and will never relate to the action involved in its making. I am about to present arguably the most laborious Turkish soup and still.. if you want to treat yourself (and your near and dear) on a cold and dull weekend then do spare an hour and a half to make the soup with Turkish bulgur gnocchi (topalak çorbası).
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