I have got unexpected feedback to my speech at the recent tourism conference in Ukraine: I was talking about how to develop and launch a niche tourism product (aka my Istanbul food walks and cooking classes). After my presentation another speaker approached me, “Olga, you look like a very happy person! Indeed what one needs to be happy - job that you love and family that supports you”. Indeed while we may picture happiness as a definitive climax with the bad guys killed and the good ones kissing with sparkles in the sky as a backdrop happiness often times comes in simpler and not-so-glorious aspects.
No Recipe Christmas Pudding: Asure
Rice Casserole: A Decent End of the Turbulent Week
We have had a turbulent week here in Sapanca. On Monday we witnessed a family drama of a Georgian helper whose daughter did not pass an entrance exam to the university she wanted to get into so the girl was about to take a veil. On Tuesday Özgür’s Blackberry reformatted itself and deleted all the contacts - all of them. On Wednesday parents’ furniture arrived from Istanbul and the house got filled with boxes packed with memories, five male movers bustling about and a sharp smell of their sweat. On Thursday one of the dogs broke the chain and went wild around the estate. On Friday we went to Istanbul to rewind over great food and drinks and meet a few friends: too much rewinding is worse than turbulence, let me tell you. By the weekend it felt only right to withdraw myself from much of the public life and resort to reading and catching up with family over skype.
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.
