Just before the Kurban Bayram I shopped at a bustling weekly market on the Asian side of Istanbul. This time one could feel not only the fuss of a weekly market, but also the festive determination to stock for the four days of celebration and the urgency to cook with the last produce of the season. Each and every stall broadcasted the swan song of summer - okra, green beans, tomatoes, eggplants and such accompanied by the labels Son elveda / Farewell batch and heart-rending cries of the vendors, “Last tomatoes from the garden, not a greenhouse. Çanakkale will not come back,” referring to the last supply of the popular heirloom tomato variety from the area of the same name. Abundant gigantic pumpkins and cabbages, wild berries and mushrooms on the stalls nearby only confirmed that if you were to cook summer, this might be your last opportunity this year.
Fresh Borlotti Beans Stew
Farewell to Summer Vegetable Casserole
At the change of seasons I am often confused about what to eat. On a chilly morning when you can still feel the breath of the rain that had been pouring the whole night I open the fridge stuffed with tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, eggplants and other summer goodness while the only thing on my mind is red lentil soup. The day warms up towards the noon suggesting that something cooling and yogurt-based may be a good idea. But if I continue along with those lines in the evening and - out of my summer habit - make a raw salad, it hardly feels as satisfying as it was on a balmy evening just a few weeks ago.
My Mother’s Muhammara (Red Pepper and Walnut Dip)
I got to know muhammara, Middle Eastern dip of roasted red bell peppers and walnuts, as a signature dish of my mother-in-law. Her muhammara is legendary. Ask anybody who ate at the mom’s restaurant. Daughter to an Egyptian immigrant settled on the Easter Mediterranean coast of Turkey, she is from the lineage of the people who consider dishes such as hummus, falafel, kibbeh (aka içli köfte), muhammara and alike to be their own. And as this Middle Eastern heritage food is rather exotic to the rest of Turkey, the complexity of flavors wows the local eaters as they get initiated into this culinary tradition, even if only through eating muhammara.
End of Summer Purslane Stew
I spent half of this week in Tarabya, a village on the Bosphorus, so remote that after reaching there one gets surprised she has not left city limits yet. But then it is Istanbul, possibly the most spread out city in the world. You get on a boat along the Bosphorus and keep marveling the villages with grand mansions that Istanbul does not run out of until the very Black Sea.
It took me two hours to get from my house in Moda to the Grand Tarabya hotel by public transport. In the same two hours I could have ended up at our countryside property in Sapanca. But then it is Istanbul where you change from a ferry to a tram, then you get on a funicular and finally hop on a taxi constantly wondering why the city authorities keenly introduce new modes of transportation instead of connecting the dots of the existing ones.
Millet Salad with Roasted Zucchini
It is easy to spend summer worshiping a good tomato and admiring a decent eggplant. But if you ignore the rest of the summer goodness not only you miss out on a lot of deliciousness but also potentially undermine your health as I have recently learned at the cooking class by Ulli of Ulli Ayurveda.
You don’t need Ayurveda to tell you that summer calls for cooling foods, but honestly I have seen few people that go beyond iced beverages and raw salads, two obvious solutions to cool down your body and mind on a hot day. According to Ayurveda, ancient Indian healing system, there is much more to the summer diet that that.
Fava Bean Spread with Dill Pesto
I find that the simplest dishes often take me the longest to nail down. Take fava, a Turkish spread of dry broad beans. You will find it in every decent meze set in the restaurants and delis of Istanbul and along the Aegean coast. Fava is velvety, smooth and satisfying. It is so good that I can eat it every day. I mean it. I will not think twice about ordering fava at a restaurant even though I cooked it at home just the day before.
How to Prepare and Cook Artichoke
Artichokes start flooding Istanbul food markets in March, and the peeled, ready-to-go-in-your-pot artichokes hearts are hard to ignore. However, my first spring in Istanbul I was watching artichokes from a respectful distance.
