Have not you missed updates from our farmhouse so outrageously absent from this blog? I kept silent about it for a while to come back with exciting news: together with talented photographer and Turkey enthusiast David Hagerman we are doing a cooking and photography workshop at our Sapanca farmhouse in September. I can’t wait to give you heads up on the what will be going on and how you can join our small class.
It has been exactly two years since I came to Turkey to settle and start my Istanbul food tours and cooking classes. Of my 5 stays abroad this has already been the longest one with the deepest immersion into the local life. I have become a part of a Turkish family which gives me a whole different perspective on living in Turkey. Probably that is why - first time in 10 years of my life abroad - I find it difficult to relate to many foreigners living in Istanbul: I have come here by choice and have organized my life how I wanted it to be. Which gives me very little room for ranting about living in Turkey (besides the occasional attacks which some thought to be a joke anyway).
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.
We started getting busy at Zelis Ciftligi in Sapanca on Friday. Shopping at the Friday market, serving dinner, doing prep for the Saturday morning baking and prep for the meze we would be serving on the weekend. Then the weekend when my day kicked off with 7 am baking, orchestrating the buffet preparation, then making staff lunch, then mid-term cleaning, skyping with my sister and parents, prep for dinner, serving dinner, cleaning up and closing down around 11 pm. On Sunday when I brought to anne - still in quarantine after her cancer treatment - a piece of wonderfully moist chocolate cake I baked that morning she said, “This is the first time I left the kitchen for so long and I am so relaxed”. And I have never been more exhausted.
Now when I am supposed to spread love for Turkish food disguised as recipes and excitement about eating it in the form of Istanbul restaurant recommendations I am here admitting the fact that may as well be suicidal for this blog. I AM FED UP WITH TURKISH FOOD. If this is the last post you going to read here before you flee hungry and disappointed - so be it, my Turkish food rant.
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Visit to Russia, my home country, brought fresh perspective on my life here in Turkey. As I described my Istanbul and Sapanca living over and over again to my Russian friends and relatives I got to realize a few things. Like in that professor who explained a theory so well that he eventually understood it himself.
There must be an explanation to the sweating at the kitchen to roll that fresh pasta instead of cooking a package of the store-bought one. To reading culinary books and planning your own endeavors when others are watching a new episode of Fatma Gülün Suçu Ne? (popular Turkish series). To yet another time twist the tried-and-proved recipe of the dish instead of just cooking it the way people already like it anyway? There must be a good reason to why we cook. Different for each of us and yet sort of common ground for all.
