Cook! Recipe Introduction

My roommate is a wonderful cook in part because she makes light, traditionally Turkish recipes with fresh ingredients and also because she loves the physical act of creating a meal (or so she says). She has prepared some of her mother’s famous recipes (divine stuffed vegetables known as dolmas- a day-long process), but mostly creates her own based on dishes she has tried in her life. I have begun writing down the recipes she makes, with her strict guidance and translation, to share them on this blog. Please note that she does not use a recipe herself, so the measurements are approximate- extra approximate because I convert them from grams into cup and spoon measures as she is speaking. Turkish food is wonderful and simple with a few basic ingredients prepared in creative ways to make a wide variety of dishes. If these recipes are your introduction to Turkish cooking, then Isanslar… bon appetite!

Arabasi Corbasi (Arabian Soup)

She cooked this hot and spicy chicken soup for guests and we were the only two who could finish our bowls. Add the red pepper according to your taste, but make it hot! This is an excellent soup for the winter to warm you up and make your nose run. Makes 8 large servings as a starter or 5 entrée-sized servings.

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (tane avuk gogsu)

1 tbsp. tomato paste (domates salcasi)

1 tbsp. red pepper paste (biber salcasi- look for this in your local Middle Eastern or European market. If you can’t find it, substitute 1.5 tbsp. tomato paste and a generous spoonful of crushed red pepper)

Black pepper, to taste (kara biber)

Dried red pepper, to taste (kirkizi biber)

Salt, to taste

¾ cup flour (un)

2 tbsp. olive oil (zeytin yagi)

1.5 liters water or chicken broth (tavuk suyu)

1. Pour the water or broth into a pot and add the chicken breasts. Bring to a boil and boil until chicken is cooked through. Zeynep is vague about the time, but she advises to check after 20 minutes. When no pink remains in the middle of the chicken, remove it from water and let cool. Set chicken water aside.
2. Toast flour in a dry saucepan over medium heat until lightly browned. When all of the flour is the color of a perfectly toasted marshmallow, off the heat, transfer it to a separate bowl, and allow it to cool to room temperature.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large pot and add both pastes (or the tomato paste and crushed red pepper if using as a substitute), stirring with a wooden spoon until fragrant. Add ¼ cup water and stir until combined. Add the chicken water and bring to a boil, stirring to combine.
4. Meanwhile, shred chicken into very small pieces. Add to boiling soup.
5. Stir water into the toasted flour, 2 tablespoons at a time, until a very loose paste (the consistency of a melting milkshake) forms.
6. Slowly stir flour paste into soup. Add peppers and salt to taste.

A Stroll Through My Neighborhood

A quick fifteen-minute walk down a big hill takes you to the Bosphorus Strait. Here are some shots from the boardwalk (which is made of stone, so stonewalk?) and my walk to school:

Interesting characterization of the city: ancient fortress called Rumeli Hisari next to a huge modern bridge hanging high over the water
Waterfront cafes with luxury car to set the scene
Rumeli Hisari and a graveyard in front of it (nice real estate for if you're checking in for good)
On the way to school...
Gorgeous view of the sparkling water and sailboats everyday
Almost makes me forget the noise, the air and land pollution, the crowds, and the heat. Almost.
Fishing on the stonewalk in business clothes- lunch break!
A quick fifteen-minute walk down a big hill takes you to the Bosphorus Strait. Here are some shots from the boardwalk (which is made of stone, so stonewalk?) and my walk to school:

Nightly News

This just in: On the evening news, emotion-stimulating music plays in the background of every story. Quiet time comes when the anchorman sums up or introduces a new piece. During a shot of a violent protest, tunes that could have come from Pirates of The Caribbean playing in the background made the harsh images seem less real. When pictures of missing children appeared on the screen, sappy classical music hummed. Also, the camera angles and intense choppiness of the editing made me think of Project Runway. Without understanding a word of the dialogue, watching the news here is almost more entertaining than watching reality shows (which are not so hard to beat). Ultimately, it’s hard to distinguish the serious stuff from E! Entertainment Television/ trashy celebrity gossip programs.

Cooking Class in Photos

Last week I took a wonderful class at a culinary school called Cooking Alaturka in Sultanahment, a famously historic neighborhood located pretty far south of where I live. The class was in English, required no previous cooking experience, and accepted Euros, Dollars, or Lira (geared toward travelers, perhaps?). Though I was the only one under age 35, living in Istanbul, and there alone, the old fogies who took the class were quite pleasant. We had lot of fun preparing five dishes and sitting down to a served course-by-course lunch. The menu: stuffed eggplants (the Turkish name is Imam Bayaldi, which literally means the Imam fainted with joy, or he fainted when he saw the amount of olive oil in the dish), zucchini pancakes with garlic yogurt (kabak mueveri), bulgur and red lentil soup (ezogelin corbasi), grape leaves stuffed with meat (etli yaprak dolmasi), and syrup-soaked semolina cookies (sekerpare). Here are some shots of our creations.

Syruping the cookies. Why bake plain, old dry cookies when you remove your hot baked goods from the oven and drench them in melted sugar?
The hot stuffed grape leaves (commonly known as domas) with some cooking liquid as a sauce and a side of yogurt.
The final presentation of the cookies, topped with a hazelnut and sprinkled with grated coconut and crushed pistachios
The dolmas before we put the lid on to steam.

Brewing Turkish coffee over a high flame in the traditional pot
Rolling the dolmas in grape leaves
Painting an egg wash on the cookies
Our stuffed eggplants

First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day of classes, which to me means showing up to class five minutes early, finding a seat in the front row, and looking enthusiastic. Usually these three things are easy, that is when the first three people I ask for directions all point to the same place. Punctuality, like so many of the Western notions ingrained in my mind from a young age, is simply different here. That’s all, different. Here’s how the day panned out:

8:50- I ask a student who is setting up at the activities fair on the quad for directions to my class. She says she also has Ceramics, but “is busy” so she won’t be attending today.

9:00 AM- Starting time of my first period class.

9:07- I am standing outside the Fine Arts Building and ask a woman who is smoking out front for directions to the classroom. She is now the third person I have asked.

9:08- After some back and forth miming and pointing to my campus map, she asks a passing student to guide me there.

9:10- We pick up a confused-looking Dutch girl on the way who is headed to the same class.

9:15- Arrival and subsequent surprise at the lack of students sitting at the tables in the pottery-filled classroom. One girl with light-colored hair (an obvious sign of a non-Turk) is sitting at the first table looking desperate.

9:20- The two other foreigners and I make small talk while hoping that we are in the right place and that our class actually exists.

9:25- The teacher comes in and, speaking in broken English, states that we will not have class today because the other students are not here. We did not receive an explanation on that subject, but we did have ample time to wander around now that the four-hour class was cancelled.

So that’s Turkish punctuality and priorities, I guess. Like I said, it’s just different. The two girls (one from Germany and the other from Holland) turned out to be incredibly nice, so we walked up to the Borekcisi, a small café selling many kinds of borek, for some tea and a snack. We picked up a German guy along the way who was headed to the same place and enjoyed sharing travel stories while devouring suborek. Borek is a savory snack made of crispy, flaky pastry dough and filled with spinach, potatoes, cheese, or meat. It’s much denser than a croissant but lighter than a Racine Kringle (a Wisconsin specialty). The bakeries make the snack in long pieces and slice off whatever amount the customer wants. It’s sold by weight. Suborek (directly translated to “water borek”) is a moist version of the traditionally dry pastry. The addition of melted butter and soft cheese makes the thin layers deliciously tender. Then again, with a little butter, salt, cheese, and pastry dough, not much can go wrong.

The teacher for my afternoon class never showed, so I left after waiting for nearly a half hour. The activities fair was eye-opening in that my Turkish better improve significantly if I want to be an active participant in extracurricular life on campus. Or, if I want to read the school newspaper. I signed up for the paragliding club, half because I would love to get out of the city with the intent of flying over some of Turkey’s gorgeous landscapes and half because the student working the booth worked so hard to explain the club to me in English that as I walked away, he plopped into his chair and let out a big sigh of relief. I found out about the aviation organization from my roommate back in the spring when we were exchanging emails to determine if I would live with her. She wrote that she would join the club in the fall. I wrote, “see you in September!” More on my high-flying adventures to come after I complete the education portion. Turns out there is some legitimacy to a bunch of students running down hills with pricey parachutes strapped to their backs. Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll wear a helmet.

Panoramic View via Link

For an in-motion panoramic view of the city at dusk, check out the image at the top of this web page: http://www.manzara-istanbul.com/en/

Saturday Activities

Fresh juice bar at the organic market. Mix and match any fruits to your liking! My peach-apple-carrot-blackberry concoction was thick, sweet, and revitalizing. Drinking organic, local fresh-squeezed fruit juice makes you feel like a healthy hippie.
Slightly blurry shot of the market. It's in the lower level of a parking garage, which made the search to find it (through well worth the trek) quite difficult. I ended up in a neighborhood that saw very few non-Turks. Turns out Google Maps isn't always dead-on.
Lovely fountain in Sultanahmet, the touristy district where most of the big historic sites are located.
Street vendor in the Hippodrome at a makeshift shop with styrofoam-like temporary walls.