Three Layered Pudding

Üç Katlı Puding

Walnut is one of the ingredients I love and use most. I put it in several dishes as I adore its flavor. I sometimes add it in cake with carrot, I sometimes mix it with yogurt to make a savory food like celery root salad, I use it in most of the desserts like semolina halvah, or fig dessert. And this time I used it in this so easy dairy dessert. As you understand walnut is one of the main ingredients in my pantry. This may be beacuse I was taught in my childhood that walnut was a very valuable food.

We used to live in a village when I was a child because of my dad’s job. I was one of those lucky children as I had the chance of eating everything natural. As children of the village, we enjoyed a lot. When we visited some elderlies together, they would give us some walnuts either fresh or dried, but both with shells. There weren’t any markets or shops in villages those times (there still aren’t any of these in several villages of Turkey), so people didn’t have candies or chocolate bars to please children. They would use walnuts instead. As soon as we were given some walnuts, we would kiss their hands, put them in our pockets and went out. Fresh walnuts were our favorite because it was so enjoyable to carve its inside out with a knife and eat that white young and tender part. This wasn’t something easy, but we would love to work on it although this turned our hands into a dark brown color. When they gave dried walnuts, we would break them with the help of a stone in the yard and eat together.

Walnut is so precious for people in villages as it is a source of their incomes. They pick walnuts with a special method. There must be at least three people to pick them. The strrongest of them climb the tree. The rest hold a large piece of cloth just under the tree. The one on the tree shake boughs of it one by one to drop the walnuts on the cloth which the others are holding under tree. Then they dry these walnuts under sun and then sell them to bazaar owners or markets in cities. That’s why it has a great importance and we would be so happy whenever we had them in our pockets.

Therefore, I have had a love for walnut since my childhood and that’s why I use it in my dishes in several ways.

I made this pudding to welcome my parents who visited us two days ago. Originally, the bottom layer is crumbled biscuits, but as I know that my parents have the same love for walnut, I used crumbled walnuts instead.

Ingredients (servings: 6)
-    4 tbsp rice flour
-    1lt milk (5 ½ cups)
-    1 tbsp vanilla
-    1 ½ cup sugar
-    ½ tsp butter
-    ½ cup crumbled walnuts
-    3 tbsp cocoa
-    Grated coconut
-    6 hazelnuts

Mix milk, rice flour, vanilla and sugar together until all combined. Put it on medium heat and stir occasionally. Bring it to boil and keep mixing when it boil until it reaches the right consistency. It lasts about 8 or 10 minutes after it boils. Add butter to make it brighter. Take it from heat.

Put crumbled  walnuts as the bottom layer in 6 pudding cups. Then pour this pudding as the second layer in the cups evenly, but do not fill the cups yet. Leave a little pudding in the pot. Mix cocoa with this pudding and put it back on heat. Mix it continually and bring it to boil. Then pour this cocoa pudding as the third layer. Let them cool and then wait them in refrigerator at least 6 hours. Garnish them with grated coconut and a hazelnut on top.

We took the photo of this pudding with dad, he decided on the background color and gave me some directions. However, he couldn’t wait more and grabbed the pudding and asked for a dessert spoon to taste it. He had one full spoon and another and another and when he reached the bottom layer, he realized the walnut surprise which doubled his pleasure.

Kissing Hands

Kissing hands in Turkish culture is totally different from other cultures. We kiss hands of elderlies to show our respect. When children visit their grandparents especially on specail days, they kiss their hands and the grandparents hug them and kiss their cheeks. If they are generous enough, they give some pocket money to their grandchildren. There is a special style of kissing hands in our culture. You first kiss and then put hand on your forehead. If you just kiss and leave the hand, it means you don’t know how to kiss hands. This is a part of our culture just as a sign of respect, but there are some people abusing this tradition. They kiss hands of people to flatter them and to have make benefit from them in someways. Originally, we just kiss our grandparents hands. That’s it, nothing more.(image source)

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Black Mulberry Jam

Whenever I see black mulberries at the market, I remember the mythological story in the book Metamopheses written by Ovid, a Roman poet. I read this story at my university years and was so mch impressed by it. The story takes place in Babylon, where mulberry finds the suitable climate.

There are two lovers in the story, Pyramus and Thisbe. They loved each other so much since their childhood, but their parents were against this love. Their houses were side by side and they would whisper their love to each other through a fissure in the wall seperating their houses. One night they decided to escape from their houses and meet under a tree. It was a tall tree full of white berries. At that night, Thisbe arrived first, but saw a wild lion there with a bloody mouth. This was enough to scare her, and she ran away towards a dark cave. However, she dropped her veil on her way.

A little time later, Pyramus arrived and saw the lion with Thisbe’s veil in its bloody mouth. He started to cry feeling a big regret not coming earlier. He thought that his beloved was eaten by the lion. He knew that he couldn’t live without Thisbe, he grabbed his sword and killed himself under the tree. His blood sprinkled on the tree and its fruits turned into a blackish-red color. (The tree in this picture is from our neighbor’s yard when the fruits were not ripe enough)

After some time, Thisbe decided to go back to their meeting place not to disappoint her beloved. Unfortunately, when she returned, she saw the body of Pyramus under the mulberry tree. What a destiny they had! She cried and cried and cried. Her tears dropped on the beloved body and cleaned it from blood. She understood that Pyramus killed himself because he thought that she was eaten by the lion. Death didn’t have enough power to seperate these lovers. Thisbe did exactly the same to reach her beloved through death and she placed the sword directly into her heart. Her body fell on the body of Pyramus. Witnessing all these, the tree has the color of Pyramus’s blood on its berries and Thisbe’s tears on its leaves.

What is more interesting about black mulberry tree is hidden in this story. You know when you touch the black berries with naked hand, your hands turn into a blackish color. And it is very hard to remove this color from your hand. Do you know what removes it? Its leaves! If you pick a leaf from the tree itslef and rub your hand with it, you will see that your hand turns into its own color.

As I knew this incredible truth about this tragic fruit, I asked for a few leaves from the salesman to clean my hands. He gave the ones he was using for decorating his fruit stand. And guess what? It really worked!

I don’t know how many people know this story, but many people love to eat black mulberries. It’s getting more and more popular as doctors explain that it is a great source of antioxidant and has many benefits for our body.  It protects our hearts and it defers getting old. It cleans the blood, so it is recommened to anemia patients. It also removes fatigue and curative for mouth and throat infections.

We love to eat this fruit, but we can find it in a limited time of year, so to make it longer, I make its jam to eat it in Winter, too.

Ingredients
-    1 kilo (2.2 pounds) black mulberry
-    1 kilo sugar
-    ½ lemon
-    ½ cup water

Wash the mulberries well and cut their stems one by one.

In a large pot, put one layer mulberries one layer sugar until both finish. Cover the pot and wait it at least 8 hours. You can do this step overnight.

When you remove its cover, you will see that mulberries release their water with the help of sugar. Add ½ cup water in this pot and put it over medium heat. Bring it to boil and keep boiling for 20 minutes. When you see it starts to get a consistency, you’re on the right way. Finally squeeze half lemon juice and boil it for 5 minutes more. Then take it from fire. Let it cool.

To have the best result, cover the top of the pot with a very thin veil and wait it under sun at your balcony or garden. This will help your jam to get the right consistency and to get more delicious.

We love to eat this jam at breakfast spreading it on a slice of bread with cheese.

By the way, don’t forget to send me (zerrin@giverecipe.com ) an email to join the contest!

Ducks At Pub

Two friends met and decided to go to a pub after work. It helps them forget all stress at work. They love to chat here with the barman. He is such a friendly man and has always several stories to tell. His stories sometimes make these two friends happy and they want to drink more, sometimes the stories make them feel melancholic and they want to drink more and more! (drawing by mom)

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Unripe Fig Jam

I became an aunt two days ago and I was as excited as my brother and his wife. They live in a city far away from us, but the distance wasn’t enough to reduce my excitement! It was noon time and I was at school, making exams when I had a phone call from them. They were at hospital and telling me that they were counting minutes for the delivery. I felt as if I was taking the exam during this waiting time! I don’t remember the number of people whom I told that I was waiting for my niece’s birth. After about half an hour, I heard my brother’s joyful voice on the phone. He was happily telling that his newly born daughter is just like me. This doubled my excitement and I tried to envisage her little and cute face. Now I’m looking forward to visitng the mom and seeing my little neice soon. We have the youngest member of our family now, I wish her a peaceful future.

I’m sure there are various traditions about newly born babies in different cultures. Let me tell one of them in our culture. When someone has a baby, he buys something sweet such as Turkish delight, chocolate, or baklava (a traditional Turkish dessert with sherbet) and takes this to his work place to share it with colleagues. The people working there take one and tell their good wishes for the baby. When I think about our traditions for happy events, I realize that we always have a kind of dessert to celebrate.

When I saw unripe fig at the open market today, I decided to make its jam. This would also be meaningful for the importance of the day. A village woman was selling it. She told that she picked these unripe figs up from the tree in their village. She had no scales, just 2 bags of figs in front of her. She said each bag weighs 1 kilo (2,20 pound), and her word was enough for me, no need to weigh on a scale. I bought one of the bags, but I had never made unripe fig jam before although I ate many times. As you can guess, I asked the recipe to that woman and she gave the instructions providing that I would come back and tell her the result. I think I succeeded, so I can feel proud when I go back to the open market with a bowl of jam not only to tell but also give her the result as a gift.

You might find it weird to make jam of unripe figs, but I can tell that you don’t feel any unripeness when you taste it. We call it jam, but I think it can also be included in category of desserts as I love to eat it not just at breakfast but also during day with cream, ice cream or plain.

I mentioned the benefit of unripe fig sap in the recipe of dried fig dessert. That sticky white liquid is helpful in the treatment of skin warts. Just drop it on the wart and see the result.

Ham İncir Reçeli

Ingredients

-    1 kilo (2,20 pounds) unripe fig
-    1 kilo sugar
-    5 ½ cups water
-    1 lemon
-    4 cloves

Wash the figs and clean their stems. We’ll boil the figs two times changing the water each time to lose its unripeness taste. Fill a large pot with water and boil the figs for about 10 minutes. Let it cool.

When it is cool enough to touch, squeeze the figs gently to remove the bad taste. You can make tiny holes on figs with a needle if you like and then squeeze. Then fill the pot with water again, boil again and squeeze again. This squeezing part might take a long time, but if you are passionate enough, you’ll see it is worth. Then drain.

Meanwhile you can start to boil 5 ½ water and sugar together in a different pot. After it boils, add the squeezed figs in it. You will see that these figs turn back into their original shape in this boiling sherbet. Put the cloves with the figs to give this jam an outstanding flavor. Boil them for about 25 minutes. Finally, add lemon juice and boil it 5 minutes more.

Let it cool and fill it in jars. You can keep them at room temperature, at a dry and dark place. We love it cold, so we keep it in refrigerator.  This makes a great summer dessert!

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Spotted Hearts

Benekli Kalpler

Last week was our final week with my students at school and before saying good bye to them, I wanted to make something sweet for them. This is not a usual habit of mine, but I enjoyed teaching those students much, so I think these sweet spotted hearts would be the best gift for my lovely students. We were together for 5 months and I was their English speaking and listening teacher, so we talked on several topics together. What I love the most about them was that they always had something to say about any issue, they knew when to make jokes and when to talk seriously. I’m not sure what they love about me, maybe my age.

When I told my colleague, Özlem that I would make something for my students, she suggested making this together and I gladly accepted. It was so enjoyable to make something with her as she is a cheerful and witty person.

Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ tbsp baking powder
- 250gr butter (room temperature)
- ½ tbsp vanilla powder
- 2 ½ cups flour (you may add more if the dough is not thick enough)
- 2tbsp cocoa

Sieve the flour in a large bowl. Break two eggs in the middle of it. Mix them with hands. Add butter, sugar, vanilla and baking powder and combine them well. The dough must be soft but thick. If it’s not thick enough add a little more flour in it. Then let it rest for 20 minutes.

After this time, divide the dough into two. Put one half of it into another bowl. Combine this one with cocoa. You can add more cocoa if you like it darker.

Take the dough without cocoa on the counter and roll it out with a rolling pin. Then take the one with cocoa and roll it out, too. Lay the latter on the former one and roll them together.

You’ll have a cylinder dough now inside which you see a brown layer.

Slice it with a sharp knife just like a cake. You see how yummy it looks even before it is cooked. I would almost have a bite from one of these cute raw slices, but my friend stopped me. I’m sure her concern was the number of my students.

Preheat the oven at 180 C (400F)

Grab a piece and roll it out. Now it’s time for some joy! We’ll shape our dough with cookie cutters.

This is my favorite step of making cookies. Press a cookie cutter you like on the dough and cut it. Remove it from the counter with the help of a knife.You see a butterfly shape in the photo, but I didn’t like it much, so I replaced it with a heart shape.

Put it on an oven tray. You don’t need to oil the tray this time as the cookies have enough butter in them. After cutting a cookie, take the formless dough left and combine it with another slice of uncooked dough. Roll it out and do the same. Repeat this until you finish the dough. Cook them for 30 minutes until they get a bit brownish.

You see a photo of us here, I’m wondering if you can recognize me as the teacher among these young guys. Let me help you. Look at the left corner, I’m the one with a black tshirt. What do you say? Don’t I look like a teacher? My students agree with you. Many students think that I am one of the new students at the beginning of the term and I love this as this makes me feel as young as them.

You can guess how my students were surprised when I took the cookies out of a bag in the middle of the lesson. This was a gift for them and my gift was the smile on their faces while eating these hearts and asking for one more.

Chivalrous Fruits

Pineapple, apple, pomegrenate, pear, orange and banana are passing over the river hand in hand to reach the big forest across the river. This will be the first time for them to see the other side of the river. They have been living here for year, but have never had enough courage even to walk on this bridge. But this time they’ve taken their courage in their hands and decided to hit the trail. Their solution to defeat their fear is to walk hand in hand and to sing a lively song. They are singing with such a great joy that all the living things in the forest can hear them. With the effect of their joyful voice, all butterflies start to dance, all frogs stop croaking, even bears wake up from their deep sleep as they are all mesmerized with this song. It’s been a long time since they heard such a fascinating harmony and rhythm. The destination of these cute fruits is that small hut in the forest. They’ve heard that Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma is ill in her bed and they can’t leave her alone, that’s why they’ve decided to adventure and look after her. (drawing by mom)

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Goat Cheese Salad

Tulum Peyniri Salatası
We finished our work earlier today and a colleague of mine invited me to have an afternoon tea together at her home. I knew that she moved her new house a week ago, so I gladly accepted to learn its location. And guess what we had together! Not surprisingly we planned to make kisir together on the way home, so we stopped by a supermarket to buy the necessary ingredients. I mentioned the role of kisir among Turkish women before, making and having kisir together is a very common habit of us when we decide to come together. She bought the ingredients of kisir and I bought a chocolate cake from the market. It is a part of our culture to buy and take something to the house we are invited. If you don’t, it’s not a problem at all, but it’s thought as a sign of politeness if you go with something (such as a kind of dessert or drink) to there.

When we arrived, she suggested to show around  her new house. I don’t know if this is special to our culture or if other cultures have this same tradition. Generally when people move to a new house, they show around that new house to their guests. They want their guests to know the parts of the house and feel comfortable. In this way, they know where the kitchen is or where the rest room is, so they can easily find these places when they need. This may be thought as a sign of showing off in other cultures, but here it is thought as a friendly behaviour.And you can make your friend happy saying how beautifully her house is decorated. To be honest, I personally don’t like this tradition much. Homes are the only places where we have our privacy and this shouldn’t be bothered. Besides, I don’t think that it’s necessary for the guests to know every part of your house. What do you say? It would be great to hear if anyone from other cultures have the same tradition.

Anyway, we had great time together making and eating kisir followed by tea and chocolate cake. And when I returned home, I decided to prepare a quick dinner which we call breakfast as it included Turkish black tea, potato salad, sliced tomato and cucumber and a salad made of goat cheese.

This goat cheese is very different from regulat goat cheese. This cheese is encased in a skin of goat. It has an incredible taste most probably because it has a long and difficult process. Goat milk is heated and fermented. There becomes a clot and this clot is waited in a fabric bag for 3 days so that it is decomposed from its water. After that, the clot is crumbled and mixed with a 3% proportion of salt and then it is waited in open air for about 18 hours. This process is repeated a few times to get the right aroma. Finally, the cheese is encased in a goat skin and waited for 120 days.  This goat skin has also a long process. It is salted 1 and a half year before the cheese is encased. After such an arduous process, you can imagine how wonderful it tastes.

We either eat this specail cheese plain or make a salad of it for an appetizing breakfast. The ingredients of this salad is up to you, you can use any greens you have. Some people put tomatoes in this salad, but I don’t love it in cheese salad as it is a succulent vegetable.

Ingredients
-    1 cup goat cheese encased in skin (or any kind you love)
-    Fresh dill
-    Parsley
-    Fresh basil
-    Red pepper flakes
-    1 tbsp olive oil

Chop all  greens and mix them with cheese. Season it with red pepper flakes and drizzle olive oil on it. You can serve this sald with sliced tomatoes and cucumbers near it (not in it) and a few black olives also go perfect with it.

Stubborn Tomatoes

Besides the open markets, you may also see pickup trucks full of vegetables and fruits in Turkey strolling around neighborhoods. They also have a loud speaker and you hear the driver shouting “Tomato, potato, onion, melon!” These may change according to the season. When you hear this voice, you go down and buy what you need from that truck. They are like mobile markets.
The truck full of tomatoes hits the road from the field to the city center. These tomatoes will be either delivered to groceries or sold to people in various neighborhoods. However, some of the tomatoes are reluctant to go to the city center as they love their field so much. Three mischievous tomatoes get out of the truck, but caught by the police just as they are about to turn back to their field. However, the smartest of tomatoes succeeds to escape and noone notices. (drawing by mom)

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Kemalpasha Dessert

Kemalpaşa Tatlısı

I love every kind of dessert, and I can eat anything sweet at any time. Fortunately our cuisine has such a great variety of desserts that I make a different one each time we crave for sweet. We can classify Turkish desserts in two categories according to their main ingredients. One of them is dairy desserts, the other is sorbet desserts. Today I made one from the second category. I learnt its recipe from one of my friend who is from Bursa, a beautiful green city of Turkey. It is very important to learn it from a person from Bursa as this dessert is a special dessert of the city, so I must admit that I’m a lucky person to have that friend.

Kemal Pasha dessert is peculiar to a town of Bursa called Mustafakemalpasha. As you can understand from this name, the dessert takes its name originally from the name of this town. And the town takes its name from our leader and the founder of Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. As he was a great general, he is called Mustafa Kemal Pasha. The people of this town gave its name as Mustafakemalpasa in 1922. For more information about this town, you can visit here.

This dessert is a kind of cheese dessert and as this cheese is originally produced in that town, kemalpasha dessert first came out there. It has been produced in the town since 1960 and it is a great source of income for the people of the town. There are more than 10 companies in the town producing and selling this dessert. This dessert has two steps; cooking in oven and boiling in sherbet. These companies cook the cookies of the dessert in oven two times,  package them and then send them to markets. These packaged ones are ready to be boiled in sherbet and you can find several brands of kemalpasa in markets. This dessert has such a significant role in the life of the town that there is even a kemalpasha dessert festival on September 14.

The secret of this dessert is the unsalted cheese it contains. This cheese is produced from the milk of cows which are raised in the town of Mustafakemalpasha. However, as I don’t have the chance of buying this special cheese, I use regular unsalted cheese.

Ingredients

For its sherbet:
-    2 cups water
-    1 ½ cup sugar
-    1 tbsp lemon juice

For its dough:
-    1 1/2 cups flour
-    1 tsp baking soda
-    2 eggs
-    5 tbsp butter
-    150g unsalted cheese or sweet curd
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First, you should prepare its sherbet. Boil water and sugar in a pot about 10 minutes. Once it boils, add lemon juice.  Boil it one more minute and take it from fire.

Preheat the oven to 180C (400F).

Sieve the flour in a tray. Break eggs in the middle of the flour. Mix it with your hands. Then add baking soda, butter and crumbled unsalted cheese. Knead all of them well. It should be soft enough, but shouldn’t be sticky. Lay greased cooking paper on a tray. Roll about 20 pieces from the dough as big as a walnut. Put them in the tray and cook then for about 20 minutes until golden.

After they are cooked, take them out from the oven. Let them cool for about 20 minutes. Then, heat the sherbet again and when it boils, put these dessert cookies into the boiling sherbet and boil them until they get soft. This takes about 10 or 15 minutes. Then take them with the help of a collander.

Serve it cold. If you like, you can serve it with ice cream or cream. I love it plain. For the decoration, after taking it with a collander, I added 1 tbsp more lemon juice to its sherbet and it became crystallized. I took one spoon from this sherbet and dropped it on the desserts. It doesn’t have such a decoration in its original form, it’s just something I made up.

If you want, you can keep this dessert cookies for a long time after you cook it in oven. And you can boil them in sherbet whenever you want.

Cologne in Turkish Culture

Cologne has a big role in our culture. It has various kinds, but the most popular one is lemon cologne. People use it for many reasons and at many places. One of the places where cologne is used is inter city buses. The bus staff drop lemon cologne in the hands of their passengers one by one. You open your hand, he drops some cologne into your hand, you rub your hands together and take to your nose to feel that refreshing scent. This great product not only cleans the atmosphere of the bus but it also helps you feel relieved during your travel. The staff repeat this a few times until the bus arrives its destination. (image source is here.)

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Istanbul

Last weekend we had a short trip to İstanbul, the most famous city of Turkey. It is a kind of dream city for everyone in Turkey as it has a special effect on people with the odour of history blowing from its streets. There were a lot of wars in different periods of time in the cause of this glamorous city.

It is located on Bosphorus Strait and the city is divided into two sides of Bosphorus; The European and the Asian (Anatolia) sides. People pass from one side to another either on motorways (Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge) or via sea transport. Sea transportation has a vital importance for poeple in İstanbul as the city is surrounded by sea from all sides: the Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.

It is one of the most important ancient cities around the world, so it witnessed several wars and periods of several empires. It was the capital city of Roman Empire between the years of 330-395, of East Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) between 395-1204 and 1261-1453, of Latin Empire between 1204-1261, and finally it was the capital of Ottoman Empire between 1453-1922. Romans and Byzantines called it “Constantinople” and “Byzantium”, Ottomans called it “Dersaadet”, and Turkish Republic has been using “İstanbul” as its name since 1930.

Istanbul has always been the flower of people throughout the history, so it has always attracted people and emigration to the city has always been in large numbers. With its so significant and strategic location as a joint between Asia and Europe, it has become one of the most attractive cosmopolitan city of the world. It shelters people from several ethnicities and religions, which can be obviously seen on buildings while walking around the city. To give an example, Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia), which was the biggest patriarchal cathedral of its period, was built by the Roman emperor Constantius in 360. This church was later converted into a mosque when it was conquered by Ottomans (by Sultan Mehmet II aka Mehmet the Conquerer). And it served as a mosque until 1935 when it was converted into a museum by Republic of Turkey.

The conquest of İstanbul is known as the symbol of the end of Middle Age, so it has a worldwide significance. After the conquest in 1453, Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Sarayı) and Grand Bazaar (Kapalı Çarşı) were built. Then several new schools and Turkish baths were built and with the emigration of many people from all over the world besides the poeple of the country, it became a city of Muslim, Jewish and Christian people.

After an enjoyable train travel, the magnificient train station, Haydar Paşa (Haydarpasha train station) welcomed us with its majestic architecture.  Its roots go back to the year 1872 and it  locates at the Anatolian side of İstanbul. By the time we got off the train, we felt the exciting smell of the sea without seeing the sea itself. Our hotel was at the European side of the city, so we had a short travel on a ferry boat to pass to the other side. I must say that all of our senses became so active during this travel as we had the chance of watching this mega city from the middle. We became more and more excited by the blow from the sea licking our faces.

When we arrived the European side, we felt another impressive smell coming from some special boats on the sea. These boats are known as floating restaurants serving grilled fish in half bread with some greens and onion. This is my favorite fast food in İstanbul. As it was still morning, we decided to eat at one of these restaurants later.

After some rest at our hotel, I had a meeting with some colleagues. I must admit that I was looking forward to finishing the meeting because I would go deep into the city with my husband in the afternoon.

After the meeting, we went out from the hotel and started to discover the city. Our first destination was the most famous square of the city, Taksim. On our way to Taksim, we saw a historic tram along İstiklal Avenue, which serves between Taksim and Tünel. This tram completes the historic view of the city with its old fashioned appearance and its nostalgic sound.

We walked around the historical narrow streets of this avenue and we came accross Saint Anthony Catholic church on İstiklal Avenue. There were a lot of tourists visiting this church, which has a fascinating architecture.

Then we went on our tour on the same avenue and we saw another famous building, the historic Flowers Passageway (Çiçek Pasajı). The history of this passageway goes back to 1800s. The original name of it was Cité de Péra and it was originally a passage for various shops and upscale flats. After several years it became a passage for flower shop and it got its name as Flowers Passageway. After years, drinking houses (meyhane) replaced flower shops and today, flower is just seen in its name and in the vases on dinner tables. The passage has become one of the most preferable entertaining places with drinking houses in it. While you’re having your dinner and drinking your beer or raki, musicians often come and walk among tables playing clarinet, accordion, tabor or violin. So it becomes an unforgettable evening for you. You are often supposed to tip these musicians.

We had our dinner at one of these drinking houses. We generally have raki with fish, but this time we craved for cold beer as it was too hot on that day. As an appetizer, fried calamari is always our first preference, and it wasn’t different this time. We adore fried calamari, but it’s hard to find fresh calamari in Eskişehir. And we were aware that Istanbul was just the place of fresh calamari.

It was served with a usual sauce of yogurt and garlic. We finished all at once. We were so happy to dip our calamari into this sauce and eat it without waiting more and to have a swig of cold beer just after it.

While having that marvelous fried calamari, we ordered two portions fried pilchard, which was special for that restaurant. It was served with lemon slices, sliced onion and fresh arugula. When I had a small piece, I felt in heaven and it could have been impossible to stop eating all of them at once if my husband hadn’t reminded me of the pleasure of eating.

It was another must for us to order a season salad to accompany the fish. With our fried pilchards, a fresh season salad came and we made its dressing on the table with lemon juice, natural olive oil and vinegar. They went together very well. We left there with happy stomachs. I can still feel their tastes in my mouth.

The following day, after our meeting for work, we passed to Anatolian side to meet some friends. We hadn’t seen each other for months, so we were so excited to see them. It was a wonderful day, so we decided to walk on the coast for a while to feel its pleasure.

Our friends, then, took us to a club house and I had this yummy drink there. At first, I didn’t want to order it. But my friend insisted me on tasting it. It was scrumptious! The main ingredient was milk, so I didn’t think it was worth tasting, but I was wrong. The mixture of milk, ginger, cinnamon, sugar, black tea and ice made it incredible.

And as everything beautiful has an end, the day was very close to the end, so we went out to watch the fascinating sunset.

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