Our place in Sapanca is a food heaven: with 5 fridges, 3 freezers and 2 wall-size shelves refilled twice a week it is hard to think of a food item that Zeliha Hanım would not have in her professional kitchen pantry. Yet a day comes and I get Istanbul-seek and start longing for my own fridge stuffed with very particular food I pick from very particular vendors at the Kadıköy market in Istanbul.

In Istanbul I have developed a habit of the rich and retired. I shop at a local market where you can source best food from best specialty shops. Long time nourished tradition, market shopping starts being a luxury in Turkey. Every time I find myself shopping side by side with respectable well-dressed grannies I realize that those younger and shorter on time would simply get stocked up at Carrefour over the weekend.

This makes me feel particularly good every time I shop at Kadıköy market which I believe to be the best food market in Istanbul. It did not take me long to get to know the vendors and develop my likes. Once I got used to particular flavors and buying from particular guys I have started missing them however great the food elsewhere may be. This is my idea of food security for a given person, if you want.

I came back to Istanbul yesterday and on the way home I paid a visit to the Kadıköy market. 30 minutes later I was leaving with 6 bags of food. As I came home Marina said I look like such a typical farmer in my hay heat and canvas bags filled with produce. I took photo of food and then of myself too. When Özgür saw it he told me I look like Emina Beder, the iconic Marta Steward for the Turkish housewives. As usual, each of them was right in their own way. Now let me show you what I got and what I have missed most.

Cheese and yoghurt from Yalı Çiftliği

There is no lack of cheese and yoghurt varieties - both commercially and artisanally produced - in Turkey. I often find the commercial ones way less satisfying and the trick with the artisanal ones is that even you get them from the same vendor you need to try them every time to ensure the quality and taste you enjoyed last time.

Yalı Çiftliği combines the best of two worlds: their products have the feel and taste of the farm-made ones yet a dozen of their stores on the Asian side of Istanbul suggests they turn quite a volume.

Besides the iconic white cheese I simply love their tangy Izmir tulum and fumed cerkes peyniri (young cheese in a smoked rind). And I never leave the shop without a box of creamy yoghurt for breakfast. Try to find another yoghurt rich like that of Yalı Çiftliği: I could never buy into ”low fat” idea so 5% fat yoghurt sounds only a fare to me.

Bread from Komşufırın

Komşufırın is a case study of marketing success created by the joint venture of two Turkish food giants - Ülker, the confectioner, and Doruk Group, the flour mill. They have taken the idea of neighborhood bakeries to a ambitious scale of chain bakeries and came up with the shops with rustic design, friendly staff, delicious bread, interesting pastry and wonderful shortbread cookies, kurabiye.

Shopping at Komşufırın is definitely not the same experience as going to local your bakery in the morning. In Istanbul you have to be a man for the latter: so that you get a glass of tea from the tea vendor nearby, watch the morning news and exchange greetings with the other men who come for the same business and then leave home with a few loaves of fresh bread.

Komşufırın gives you experience of being more modern and health-conscious. For a hefty premium you also get a break from the white bread so popular in Turkey - besides wheat flour they use whole-wheat, rye and corn flour. I love their tahilli bread with oats and I sigh every time when I am looking at the cozy boxes of their cakes looking so-o-o home-made. Marketing success, I am telling you.

Seasonal fresh produce from a greengrocer stall

Visitors to Kadıköy market are invariably impressed about the presentation of the fresh produce on the stalls: “You can study merchandizing here”, a few food professionals among my clients noticed.

It is more than just great display - somehow the best produce lands on the stalls of the Kadıköy market vendors. Things come from all over Turkey so they would sell figs coming from the sunny Southern Turkey before they ripen in our garden in Sapanca or juicy gigantic buffalo heart-tomatoes from Çanakkale which we don’t even have here.

Even though Turkish supermarkets and local bakkal shops usually feature decent fruits and vegetables they still can’t beat the vendors of the Kadıköy market who hand-pick and go through their stock every morning to offer the best to the demanding customers. Herbs and legumes, fruits and vegetables are always local and always fresh. I like the stalls next to the fish vendors for the choice, freshness and friendliness of the shopkeepers.

Spices from Arifoğlu

I have already written about these guys and their flagship store in the Spice Market. At the medieval covered market their shop there looks like an Aladdin cave of spices, essential oils, medicinal herbs and natural cosmetics. Oriental enough to get you surprised when you see another shop of theirs located at a major shopping mall in Istanbul or at a very local market such as Kadıköy.

There is hardly a spice they would not carry but you would not break sweat choosing between five types of saffron - all of seemingly the same look but of confusingly varying price - as it often times happens at other shops.

Just like with many shops in Kadıköy they don’t bother to be extra polite with foreigners so I take particular pride when the utterly serious patron of the shop in Kadıköy reciprocates my greeting and smile. Because food shopping is more than just procuring required food items: it is a pleasure of connecting with people and letting yourself be what you truly are.