July 28, 2011

Roasted Red Pepper Salad: Great Pepper Work

Being a child of the Eastern European Terrain I got excited beyond limits when first introduced to a variety of vegetables and variety of a given single vegetable in Turkey. Last year in Sapanca a mind-boggling range of species and assorted operations that they could be subjected to was revealed to me. Late afternoon Zeliha Hanim would come back after a day of shopping with dozens of bags of fresh produce and we would be sorting them out, placing in the dedicated storage spots or processing them immediately. August was about the pepper work.

Roasted Red Pepper Salad

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Written By Olga Tikhonova     Leave a comment
July 26, 2011

Cacik: Humble Turkish Yoghurt Soup

Here in Sapanca I am learning to appreciate the beauty of humble food cooked to perfection. I am grateful for that opportunity as otherwise I am hungry for complications at the kitchen: recipes that take hours to make, ingredients that are many, tastes that are not so straightforward.

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July 21, 2011

How to Set Personal Boundaries Without Building Walls

One week has passed since I have arrived to Sapanca and it seems like ages : you will not believe how busy life can be on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere. Major renovation of the hotel was finalized followed by a massive cleaning and preparing the rooms for the guests. Then receiving the guests over the weekend. Somewhat settling ourselves (if putting a bed in the middle of an empty room can be called settling). Cleaning the rooms after the guests and helping parents to settle down. Finding out a million of small things to be taken care (like we ran out of water last light and Özgür joked that he would write in his blog how I washed my foot in the toilet - he thought I would not mention it in mine, ha!). And the new week starts like that.

Our room

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July 18, 2011

What To Drink in Istanbul Heat

In summer the sky over Istanbul is the clearest, the Boshorus is the bluest and the days are the longest. Who would not want to be here on such wonderful time? Only that the brightest sun and the temperature hitting 35C usually come as a part of the tour package. Feeling hot and tired hardly encourages cultural and culinary explorations of the city. A good news is that hot summers have been in Istanbul for thousand years and people have developed strategies to cope with the heat. One of them is drinking right and here is how.

Istanbul Drinks

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July 13, 2011

Fresh Stuffed Vine Leaves with Cherries: Ottoman Summer

Ottoman in Turkey is like Soviet in Russia or Berber in Morocco: sells well to tourists and has got little to do with the present life of the country. What looks like a wonderfully intriguing story to the outside world appears a complex matter of pride and shame for the locals.

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Written By Olga Tikhonova     2 Comments
July 11, 2011

Why IPhone is No Better Than Blackberry

I entered the atelier of half-a-teaspoon: millions of sunbeams gathered in the room with white bricks, a bunch of young ladies in summer dresses seated at the large table, lemonade and freshly baked quiche invitingly placed in the middle of the action. The atelier was hosting a meeting of the Moscow Startup Women club and by pure coincidence I joined.

Earlier that day I was sitting at home and grieving over my miseries with the painstakingly long UK visa application which kept me stuck in Moscow away from my Istanbul kitchen, its bustling markets, the blue Bosphorus and the lush green hilltop not far away from it. In a wonderfully serendipitous way a long-time-no-hear friend showed up in my inbox with a rescue plan. I was going through the newsletter from Masha Kicheeva, inspiring entrepreneur who elegantly turned the idea of baking boxed cookies into the out of the box corporate presents. Among the other upcoming events at her atelier she mentioned the meeting of Moscow Startup Women Club. That very night. “I am coming” - I shot. “You are in Moscow? Hurra!” - Masha replied.

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June 28, 2011

My Turkish Potluck: Turkish Boyfriend, Turkish Mother and Turkish Zucchini Fritters

One of the greatest food excitements I have experienced in Turkey was introduction to the local food which real people eat at home. You don’t think people in Turkey survive on eating kebabs all the way, do you?

As a visitor to Istanbul you can get a flavor of homemade Turkish food if you venture into one of “mama”- run places found aplenty in Moda. Moda feels old Europe with its culture, education and class which all have conditioned the abundance of matriarchal food institutions instead of the men-run and men-frequented kebab shops dominating the rest of the Istanbul food scene.

My luck got me beyond Moda though: when I first came to the farmhouse in Sapanca and got “adopted” by the farmhouse owner and talented cook Zeliha Hanım I realized what it means to have a Turkish mother and eat excellent homemade Turkish food.

Mücver, Turkish Zucchini Fritters

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April 19, 2011

Vegetarian Istanbul: Best Restaurants to Eat Local

From the first sight of its busy streets Istanbul presents itself as a kebab capital of the world steering away vegetarian foodies. This impression is deceiving. Do not despair neither sheer number of kebab shops made even more noticeable thanks to the stentorian cries of the vendors. Do not take seriously locals fainting after you declare your meatless agenda. Instead, great ready to fetch finest local flavors from the menus of best Istanbul restaurants.

Meze Plate at Ciya, Istanbul

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April 15, 2011

Menemen (Turkish Scrambled Eggs) Rethought

If there is an iconic food that many Istanbulites would swear by, it is menemen, scrambled eggs cooked with tomatoes and green peppers and traditionally served in a tin-lined copper pan with two handles (sahan). The eggs are a bit undercooked: there is a definite joy in breaking a large piece off the white bread, dipping it onto the moist eggs and munch this deliciousness enriched by the tomatoes and crunchy peppers.

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April 8, 2011

Sea Bass Marinated in Herbs and Spices: Istanbul Fish Poetry

In Istanbul fish is a poetry recited to the whisper of the blue Bosphorus waves and silent vastness of the Black Sea by the terse fishermen who go to the sea to find the world’s wisdom in the salty waters. They would keep the found wisdom to themselves and you could only dimly guess which marine secrets are hidden on the fish stalls at the local markets spotted with the shimmering scales and turned outside deep red gills attesting the freshness of the catch.

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