When I travel I love taking cooking classes: besides broadening my culinary picture of the world I enjoy connecting with my colleagues in other geographies. I attended a cooking class in Marrakesh four years ago to learn the basics of Moroccan cooking, key ingredients and techniques. The biggest revelation of the class was the amount of labor that goes into cooking couscous. Yes, cooking couscous, an ingredient considered instant in the West. I don’t know what shocked me more - the fact that couscous takes one and a half hours to prepare or the innocent ignorance of people who choose to believe that it does not require cooking at all. In our globalized kitchens we easily forget to credit the people who originated a certain food, and so we miss an opportunity to learn from them.
Moroccan Broad Bean Breakfast Soup (Bessara)
Customers of my cooking classes always tell me they do not need dinner after the lunch we make together. “Hm, they are not exaggerating,” I thought to myself as we could barely walk stuffed to the rim with the delicious Moroccan food we cooked at the Zeynep’s house in Fez. Dinner was out of the question if it was possible at all in the Fez medina presenting edible opportunities at every corner.
All right, maybe just a small dinner. A bowl of soup can do. I remembered how after my morning walk I passed by a tiniest shop with the tall dark wooden doors wide open to let in the line of the men waiting for the bowls of piping hot bessara, Moroccan broad bean soup.
Driving to the Black Sea for Turbot
Our Sapanca hotel is a heaven on earth for everybody who comes to stay for a day or two. You can full recharge as you marvel the vast vistas, walk in the woods, indulge the lovingly cooked food or simply get much needed sleep. Our guests keep telling us how lucky we are to live here. They obviously miss the fact that our family does not only live, but also works here. And however much we love the place, we look forward to the days when we can trade off our middle-of-nowhere for another middle-of-nowhere. Thankfully, the spots like that are abundant in our region: Sakarya has not made it to the Turkish guidebooks because it does not have world-class beaches or ancient moments. But the area is full of hidden secrets that we keenly discover.
Karaburun: Well Hidded Aegean Bounty
We (me and my sister) added Karaburun to this Aegean trip because of the house we found on Airbnb: a spacious stone house on a hill where a very personal touch of the owner was present in the cheerful colors and lovely details. When Özgür learned about the Karaburun plan he was outraged because it had little to do with his idea of the seaside holiday (beach by day and town by night). Then pretty much everybody to whom we announced our travel route gave us blank looks when hearing about Karaburun.
While researching for the trip I came across a saying about Karaburun that looked even more alarming than the blank looks of the Istanbul acquaintances: “Karaburun, iki bakkal bir furun/ Zeytin ekmek yiye yiye ne ağız kaldı ne burun”. You can translate it as follows: “Karaburun, two grocery shops, one bakery / Eat olives and bread to your heart’s content”. And what we experienced on our first day fitted that description very well.
Stunning Courgette Flowers Stuffed with Cheese and Herbs
When on holiday all I need is peace, space, good food and inspiring people. That’s why when choosing where to stay I prefer small family-run hotels with thoughtfully done rooms, enthusiastic owners and lovingly prepared breakfast. What could be better? Only a vacation house - your own or rented from a nice host. I found Sara’s house almost immediately when I was looking through the listings in the Aegean region where we were heading out with Özgür, my visiting parents and sister, and at once I knew we had to stay there. Our whole trip was planned in a way to make it to Köyceğiz by the time Sara had her house available.
Çökelek Salatası (Mediterranean Whey Cheese Salad)
When traveling I am always looking forward to my breakfasts. I could never quite buy into the idea of Asian morning meal with a spicy stew kicking off the day. Nor I am a huge fan of the European “coffee and pastry” concept. That’s why Turkey is a safe heaven for me: Turkish breakfast is a full-fledged meal with its own “breakfast only” items. In fact the Turkish breakfast idea is so powerful that you can substitute any meal of a day with breakfast (but not the other way around).
Will Travel (to Antakya) for Perfect Künefe
Our Antakya trip started here in Istanbul with my first attempts to make künefe, a syrupy dessert of dough strands (kadaif) arranged in two layers and cheese sandwiched in between. I could not find a definitive recipe: here they used more cheese, there kadaif dominated, here they cooked the sweet on the stovetop, there - in the oven. It became apparent that the only way to find out was to travel to the source, the area of Turkey where künefe is coming from - Antakya.
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