Dates Ramadan 2

Hurma

When you hear imam’s voice calling for the prayer from all minarets of the city, you know that everyone fasting is ready to break their fast. Some people are sitting at a perfect dinner table with a warm soup, a kind of meat as a main dish and various side dishes like rice pilaf, stuffed bulgur kofte, stuffed grapevine leaves or cabbage rolls, a green salad or cacik and a Turkish dessert to end their meal while unfairly enough, some people have just one kind of dish or just tomato, cheese and olive to end their fast. As we witness all over the world, not all people have the same chance of having the same food. However, when they hear imam’s voice as a reminder for breaking their fast, they all have the same feeling. Whatever they have on their table, they think they deserve to eat it after a long fast.

Breaking fast is not simply eating something for muslims. They generally take care to have certain foods at the very begining of meal. Dates (hurma in Turkish), which are known as the fruit of heaven, are on top of this list. The rest are olives and water. As these are holy for muslims, it’s important for them to start their meal with these. Dates, olive, and water have a special place in the holy book Quran, so muslims feel closer to God when they have these first. Why are dates more important for muslims during Ramadan? It’s said that our prophet Muhammed used to break fast with dates, and muslims want to follow him by having dates at the beginning of their meal. I think the prophet Muhammed had a good reason for this. He knew that the amount of sugar in dates would help people’s bodies and overcome low blood sugar caused by hunger during the day, so he advised muslims to break fast with these fruits of heaven. In addition, it’s told in Quran that God helped Meryem telling her to eat dates to bear her baby easily. Doctors still advise pregnant women to have dates during and after their pregnancy. They say that dates contain a big amount of sugar and this helps both recovering weak bodies of new mothers and increasing the amount of milk their babies need. Dates have many other benefits for health as they contain fruit sugar, vitamin A and B, calcium, phosphorus, protein, iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc. As you see, it has the ingredients of most medicine. With these features, it is like a natural medicine against many diseases.

Date trees are so similar to palm trees. The main difference between a date tree and palm tree is that palm tree has no fruits and the other difference is their leaves. Leaves of date tree are so thin and sharp while palm tree has flat and softer leaves. We have lots of palm trees in the Southern region of Turkey, but unfortunately we don’t have date trees.

Dates, which we see at the markets mostly in Ramadan, have different kinds for every budget so that all people can buy. These are imported from Tunisia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and mostly from Iran. The cheapest dates are coming from Iran and the most expensive ones are from Medina, Saudi Arabia. There is a special species of dates in Medina, the tree of it was planted by the prophet Muhammed, so it’s known as date of prophet. As you can guess this one is the most expensive one, about 100 Turkish Liras (around $75). Personally, I think some big companies and date traders exploit peoples religious beliefs and they put more price on dates than their actual value. And this has nothing to do with Islam or humanity.

When you go to a restaurant for dinner during Ramadan, you see that there are one portion dates (totally free) on each table ready for muslims to break their fast. You can’t see this after or before Ramadan. When people hear imam’s voice, they have a date first, then they drink water and then start their meal.

Despite all positive sides of dates, it’s not so common to eat dates except the month Ramadan. While we can easily find dates everywhere during Ramadan, we can find them in some rare shops in other months. As a sweet tooth person, I love dates and I buy dates not just during  Ramadan but I eat more during Ramadan. I think they are great alternatives to candies and chocolate. I guarantee they are not less desirable for kids than candies or chocolate.

By the way, there is an interesting tradition in my hometown. Old women don’t waste date seeds, they wrap one date seed with a small piece of cloth, give it a triangle shape and attach it on clothes of new born babies with a safety pin. They believe that it brings luck in their future life. And some people put these seeds in their wallets as they believe it brings money. I don’t have such superstitions, but I love the shape and color of date seeds.

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Suhoor Ramadan 1

Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) is a holy month for muslims and they fast during this month as a worship. It started about a week ago and you can feel  the excitement of people everywhere in Turkey now. Although we can’t say that Turkey is a muslim country, a big number of  its citizens is muslim. The time of Ramadan was arranged by Islamic calendar and as this calendar is a moon calendar, it is 11 or 12 days shorter than Gregorian calendar. As a result, the month Ramadan starts about 10 days earlier each year.

Fast (oruc in Turkish) as a term means not eating or drinking anything and no sexual intercourse from sunrise till sunset. So the starting time and ending time of fast changes in each city depending on their direction.
The first step of fast begins after midnight, which is called suhoor (sahur in Turkish). People must prepare for the fast during suhoor. They can’t have any food after they hear the voice of imam calling all muslims to prayer (there are one or more mosques in a neighborhood and imams call to prayer from these mosques with loudspeakers). Imam’s voice is the reminder for the starting time of fast.

Do you think all muslims wind their alarm clocks and they wake up in the very early morning for suhoor  with its striking? As Ramadan is the month of ritual like traditons, there must certainly be something more interesting to wake people up. Believe or not, some men walk around the streets banging  drums during suhoor time to wake residents of that neighborhood. These men are called Ramadan drummer. They share the streets, so each street has its own Ramadan drummer. Although, some people are afraid of the sound of drums during night, this is one of my favorite traditions about Ramadan. When I was a child, I used to love watching the Ramadan drummer through the window every single night of the month. I found them…well…how can I say? Different from others. Maybe they look like people from a different world or maybe I find them so brave. Can you grab a drum and go out after midnight and bang it with all your might? I can’t. But Ramadan drummers can easily do it. I have many times wanted to ask one of these drummers to borrow me their drum and try it once.  However, I could never even dare to ask it. At the end of Ramadan, each Ramadan drummer walks around the street he is responsible for during day time and rings the doorbells to get some tip. And people give them how much money they want. (image source is here)

At suhoor time, people wake up and prepare some food to eat. This is so exciting to wake up at a very unusual time of night and eating some food with all family members. Doesn’t it sound enjoyable? Doctors say that people shouldn’t have heavy foods at suhoor not to have any health problems. And of course they shouldn’t forget to drink enough water at suhoor. People should prefer healthy and filling foods. People sometimes prefer having Turkish breakfast foods such as olive, cheese, sliced cucumber and tomatoes and of course boiled eggs (egg makes people feel full for a long time) and they have Turkish black tea as a drink. They sometimes have a warming soup and rice or bulgur pilaf or a kind of borek (doctors advice borek with vegetable filling, no meat).  And most people follow doctors advice and they always have compote (komposto or hosaf in Turkish) with their meal at suhoor. Compote is a very significant dish at suhoor as it prevents low blood sugar during the fast. When you have compote at suhoor, you don’t have vertigo caused by hunger and low blood sugar during day time. The other importance of compote is that it meets your need of drink during fast.

As we remember how compote is important for our health during Ramadan, I wanted to share how to make compote of cornelian cherries, which we can find during summer.

Kızılcık Kompostosu

Ingredients
-    250g cornelian cherries
-    1 cup sugar
-    5 cup water
-    A few cloves

Put the water in a pot and heat it. When it boils, add sugar. I don’t like it too sweet, so you can add extra sugar if you like. Taste and decide. Boil it for 1 or 2 minutes. Then add cornelian cherries and cloves. Boil it until the color and texture of cherries change, for about 20 minutes. Let it cool and put it in refrigerator. Serve it cold. This can also be a very good cold drink during hot summer days.

What do people generally have first to break their  fast? Do you have any idea? I’m going to tell about this in my next post.

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Sesame Rings

Kandil Simidi

When I saw the well written post on mahaleb (mahlep in Turkish) at Oysterculture, I decided to make something using this special spice and share it here. I’ll not explain what kind of a spice it is, Oyster has already done it so well, so if you want to learn it more, please visit her blog.

I call these sesame rings as they are coated with sesame, but in Turkey, their original name is ‘kandil simidi’, which may be translated into English as ‘lailat simit’. Lailat is the name of holy nights in Islam. There are mainly 6 special nights in this religion and they are related to muslims’ prophet Muhammed and the holy Qur’an. Muslims pray and plead for mercy at these nights. Women make some pastries and share it with all their neighbors. This is not a must, but it’s like a tradition some people carry on. On these days, pastry shops make especially these rings and pay special attention to the appearance of their stands. Vendors at different corners of city also sell kandil simidi in small paper bags just on these days. I don’t know if any other cultures have such foods that are made on some certain days of year, but in Turkish culture there are several foods that you can find only on some certain days. Lailat simit is one of these foods and it you can find it at pastry shops six times in a year. There are some pastries similar to this mini simits at these shops, but they don’t have the same taste. If you want to eat it more than six times in a year, you must make it at home. And that’s what I do! The word mahaleb always reminds me of kandil simidi, that’s why I decided to make and share it here.

As you see in the picture, it’s so similar to simit, it’s like the smaller version of it. They’re alike in terms of their shapes, but their tastes are quite different. Simit tastes more like bread, it doesn’t spread easily when you chew, but it’s the main feature of kandil simidi to spread easily in your mouth. And their ingredients are different, too. We can say that they are similar in their shapes and names, but they are different in their tastes indeed. We generally define ring-shaped things as simit because of their shapes.

If you like crackers and if you love to snack, these are perfect! When I make these, we keep them in a large jar for a week. Instead of packaged crackers or pretzels, we have these sesame rings as a snack along with black tea when we have too many hours for dinner to stop our hunger for a while.

Ingredients
-    250g margarine or butter
-    6 tbsp sunflower oil
-    ½ cup water
-    1 tbsp vinegar
-    1 tbsp sugar
-    1 dessert spoon salt
-    1 egg yolk
-    1 tbsp baking powder
-    4 ½ cup flour
-    1 dessert spoon mahaleb
-    1 egg white
-    Sesame

Put all ingredients except egg white, sesame and baking powder in a tray and mix them. When you knead it well, add baking powder and keep kneading. You will have a soft dough.

Take pieces as big as a walnut and first shape it like a stick, then combine its two ends to give it a simit (ring shape) shape.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put egg yolk in a small bowl and sesame on a seperate plate. Dip mini simits first into egg yolk and then coat it with sesame.

Originally, it is made with sesame, but I also make it with crumbled hazelnuts to have a variety. If you like, you can try it, too.

Lay a grease proof paper in an oven tray. Put these sesame rings on it. And cook them in oven until they get golden (for about 45 minutes).

Perfect for tea time when you make these rings with sesame.

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Sour Cherry Pie

The first thing I remember about sour cherry goes back to my childhood. It was a hot Summer day and we were on holiday at our village. We always went to our village to visit my grandma (dad’s mom)  and relatives in Summer after a studying term.

I used to look forward to going there as I loved to spend time with villagers. They woke up at 5 a.m and went to their fields to work. Their fields located away from the village, it took at least one hour on foot. Some of them had donkeys and they used to put me on one of the donkeys. I was a child from the city for them, so they thought that I was so fragile and wasn’t able to walk the whole way. Actually, I used to love going on a donkey, so I wouldn’t refuse. They’d sometimes water the yard, sometimes pick their products. I was at my teens and I was crazy about going to the fields with the villagers at that early time of the day. They would hit the trail so early and they’d generally have breakfast at their fileds on earth. Everything was so natural then. I knew the pleasure of picking a tomato from its branch and I would prefer not eating anything until we arrived the fields.

I wore the white dress that my grandma gave me as a gift on that hot summer day before meeting the villagers to go to the fields. When we arrived to the field of one of the villagers, I saw a tree full of sour cherries. They were so tempting, so I asked its owner if I could climb on it. As they would all love me much, I didn’t have to insist much. I was on the tree after a few minutes. The cherries were so sour, but I always love everything sour. After I was full with sour cherries, I thought that mom would be so happy when she saw the sour cherries I picked as she always loved to make sour cherry jam. And I started to pick sour cherries on the skirt of my dress, which was as white as snow. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Mom got so ngry with me when I returned with my pinkish dress. She thought that this was my disrecpectfulness to my grandma as it was her gift. However, grandma didn’t agree with her and she said that she was proud of me. For her, it was a good thing that a child thought his/her mom. I was saved from a big scolding thanks to her.

Mom didn’t make jam from those cherries on that day, she made a yummy pie instead as a reward for me. And I learnt how to make it from mom after years and wanted to share it with you.

ViÅŸneli Pay

Ingredients
-    1 egg, at room temperature
-    4 tbsp yogurt
-    125g butter, at room temperature
-    6 tbsp vegetable oil
-    5 tbsp sugar for the dough
-    1 tbsp baking powder
-    3 ½ cups flour
-    2 cups sour cherry, pits removed
-    3 tbsp sugar for its filling
-    Sugar powder for garnish

We should start with the sour cherries first. After removing their pits, sprinkle 3 tbsp sugar on them and wait.

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

Meanwhile you can start to prepare its dough. Mix the gg, yogurt, butter, vegetable oil, sugar, baking powder and flour and knead well to combine them well. Divide the dough into two.

After this time, you’ll see that cherries release their juice. Squeeze all of them in your hands into a cup.You can use a strainer for this.

Oil a circular cake mold and spread one of the dough balls on its bottom.

It should cove all its bottom, so just use your palms and press on it, it will spread bit by bit.

Put the squeezed sour cherries on it. Then sprinkle a little flour on the counter and roll the other dough out on it. It must be as big as the size of the cake mold. Then gently take it and put it on cherries to cover all of them.

Make an X mark on top of the pie before putting it into oven so that every part of it cook equally. Cook it for 50 minutes and do not open the oven during this time. After the end of the time, take it out and let it cool.

Turn the cake mold upside down to remove your pie from it. Sprinkle sugar powder on it while serving.

You can serve the sour cherry juice along with the pie. I did so and it was great!

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Chard Borek

This was going to be our usual potato borek, but our neighbor brought us a bunch of chard just as I was preparing to make borek. They have a small garden where they grow an apricot tree, a sour cherry tree, a plum tree, some greens depending on the season and some tomatoes. They are our next door neighbor and whenever they have their small ‘harvest’, they bring us some for taste. Our door bell rings at an unexpected time  and when one of us open the door, we see that our polite neighbor is waiting there with something wrapped with paper in her hands. We thankfully accept her gift and unwrap it with excitement. One day she brought some cherries, she brought apricots on another day.  They all had a natural taste, as they had no pesticide on them. Our neigbor lets them free and they grow how they like. Yes, their shapes are not as smooth and neat as the ones at the markets, but they all taste much better. I made some jam from the plums they gave us last summer and it was delicious, it lasted just a week for us to finish it. They haven’t bring any plums this summer yet, I’m planning to make something different with them this time, maybe a cake or a pie.

You know we love borek as a snack and potato borek is our favorite. I boiled potatoes and mixed it with some spices and pepper paste for the filling mixture. And the bell rang. Guess who? Our neighbor and a package in her hand, she said they picked some chard from their garden and they allocated a bunch for us. I invited her for a cup of Turkish coffee to thank her. Entering the kitchen, she saw that I was making borek and made a great suggestion; adding chard in its filling mixture. I loved the idea! In addition to potato and chard, I wanted to use the only carrot left in our refrigerator. I enjoyed making borek and chatting with our neighbor at the same time. When I put the tray in oven, she left saying that she had some works to do.
And of course, I took some borek to our neighbor to show what their chard turned into. After a few days, I saw them in their garden watering trees, and they said that they loved the borek and they would make it too the next time they pick some chard.

Pazılı Borek

Ingredients
-    5 phyllo sheets
-    1 cup yogurt
-    1 egg
-    ¼ cup olive oil
For the filling:
Besides the ingredients for potato borek (but this time I didn’t put any cheese),
-    A bunch of chard, chopped
-    1 carrot, grated
For garnish
-    Nigella sativa

Mix yogurt, olive oil and an egg in a cup. We will spread this mixture on each phyllo sheet.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Lay one phyllo sheet in an oven tray. Spread a little yogurt mixture on it. Put the half of boiled and sauted potato on it, sprinkle the half of the grated carrot on it. Lay another phyllo sheet, put half of the chopped chard on it. Lay the third sheet, spread a little yogurt mixture on it, put the rest of the potato and grated carrot. Lay the fourth sheet, put the rest of the chard. Lay the last sheet on it, spread allthe yogurt mixture on it.

Then cut the borek in diamond shapes or how you like. Cutting before putting it in oven helps all layers cook equally. Then sprinkle some nigella sativa on it. Cook it for 40 minutes and it’s done. If you think its top is too crispy, sprinkle a little water on it with your hands, cover it with another tray or a piece of cloth, wait it for 15 minutes. Then you’ll see it gets soft enough.

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Eggplant Kebab

Patlıcan Kebap

Summer is the season of many vegetables here, and one of the most outstanding vegetables in Summer is eggplant. We can see eggplants at markets in the Winter as well, but they don’t have the same taste as the ones at bazaars. The difference of these two shopping centers is so obvious at this point. I don’t know if this is the same in other countries, but although they are lower at price, the vegetables and fruits at bazaars are always much fresher. That’s why I always prefer shopping there. At bazaars, you are not allowed to pick the vegetables yourselves and fill your bag, sellers do it for you. You just tell him how many kilos you want. Some people may find it unfair and prefer markets as they are more free there to pick what they want. But what does it mean when they are not that fresh?

I think I must talk on the meanings of market and bazaar in our culture. Market is the same in Turkish, just its pronounciation is different, but its meaning may also have some difference from its English meaning. Market is a closed area (I mean which has a roof) with many things like canned/packaged foods, vegetables and fruits, detergents, kitchen utensils, garden tools, so many various things. Here we buy things, put it in the shopping basket and pay it to cashiers in cash or with credit cards. As for bazaar, we call it ‘pazar’ in Turkish and they are always at open areas. (I think they are also called open markets in English, I don’t know if they have difference.) They are open in certain neighborhoods on certain days, so you have to wait for that day for shopping and people generally buy their needs weekly. Unlike markets, these bazaars are generally based on vegetables, fruits, homemade breads, cheese, yogurt, no detergent or other things not related to food, but some bigger ones may have clothes stands. And we must pay in cash at bazaars, no credit cards.

Besides the fresh foods, the thing I love the most at bazaars is the conversations I have with the sellers and other people who are shopping there. I think markets add to modern indivual’s alienation, no social relationships there, just fill your shopping basket and pay. Of course the role of the music playing at markets can not be ignored here. It prevents you from feeling lonely and also it makes you feel yourself as an important person. I know many people ‘visiting’ markets to spend time, not for shopping, they just watch the aisles, compare products and leave. On the contrary, you feel the life energy and interactions between people by the time you approach to a bazaar. You start to hear sellers’ voices trying to attract customers. You can ask sellers where that product is grown and talk for a while. You can even get a recipe from a seller or an old lady while shopping. Sellers at our bazaars are always so funny and creative, they find different descriptions or slogans for their products and they continually repeat them in a high tone. They may suddenly break a cucumber in half just as you’re passing along to show how fresh it is and say it is like fresh green almond.

The seller which sold me these eggplants was repeating this; ‘perfect for kebab, perfect for kebab, perfect for kebab, come on look at this’. As you can guess, I went and buy as I was intrigued by the word ‘kebab’ (kebap in Turkish). Kebab is the general name of meat dishes grilled on skewers on wood fire. It has many varieties and it can be made from lamb(the best for me) or beef, diced or minced. There are also some meat dishes cooked in pots on stove but called kebab though.

This eggplant kebab is traditionally grilled on wood fire and eggplants and meatballs are strung on skewers, but I cooked it in oven, so I didn’t use skewers. Homemade version is made with this method.

Ingredients (serving 4)
- 4 eggplants
- 2 tomatoes
- 4 green peppers
- 250gr (9oz) ground meat
- 1 big onion, grated
- A handful of bread crumb
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 4 tbsp olive oil

Slice the eggplants in circular shape, they shouldn’t be too thin as eggplant is an easily cooked vegetable. Wait them in salted water for 15 min. To remove its bitterness.

Meanwhile, you can prepare the meatballs. Combine ground meat, grated onion, bread crumb and spices. Knead it to combine these well. Take a piece in your hand, if it doesn’t spread, it’s done. You can add a little more bread crumb if needed. Then take pieces as big as a walnut and first roll it in your hands then gently press on it to give it a flat shape. Repeat this until all ground meat finishes.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Drain the eggplant slices. Oil an oven tray and lay the eggplant slices and meatballs as you see in the picture. If you still have some eggplant slices at the end, you can place them in the empty places of the tray.

Cut the tomatoes in half and place them in the tray with peppers, you can use them help the eggplant slices to stand still. Pour 4 tbsp olive oil on them and cook in the oven for 45 minutes. After this time, check if the eggplants are soft enough by inserting a fork on one of them. Cook 5 or 10 minutes more if needed. Put each eggplant-meatball combination on a service plate with a tomato and pepper and serve it hot.

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The Best Lemonade

You know we’re living very hot days these days in Turkey. And the best way to feel refreshed is having some cold drinks. Otherwise we should keep taking shower all day. I know no drink can substitute water to remove our thirst, but we need something beyond this in this season. I think refreshment is the right word to describe what we need these days. And a kind of cold drink is the best remedy for this.

Lemonade is always on top of my list when I want some refreshing, but my husband’s favorite was totally different. Do you have any idea what it was? Let me give a clue. It is dark in color. Is it enough to guess? No? Another clue:  Millions of people drink it around the world although experts have millions of warnings about it. Can you guess it now? Right, he was addicted to coke when we first met. I couldn’t believe when he told me that he drank two liters of coke a day. Two big liters! Whenever we went to a Turkish fast food restaurant, I would order ayran(my second favorite) whereas he would order coke and our arguement would start. It was the early time of our relationship and I started to think that it would be hard to get on well with him. Yes, just because of his coke addiction. You may find it nonsense, but it was important for me. I made a researh on the net and found lots of harms of coke. To begin with, it’s an artificial drink, it has lots of chemicals in it. It is an addictive drink because of the amount of caffeine it contains. You may find yourself at the hospital’s emergency room at a night with a heavy stomach ache or you may have to visit the dentist more often when you drink too much coke.  You may also be faced with osteoporosis (bone loss) at older ages. Aren’t these enough to avoid this tempting but killing drink? No matter how much I warned him, he kept drinking it. I thought that the more I talked on this issue, the more attractive it became for him, so I decided not to talk for some time. However, as you can guess, I didn’t give up. Meanwhile I was thinking of a way to make him quit coke. I must also admit that he started to struggle with coke as we were getting closer. I understood that talking or continually warning was not the right way. Then one day, I made this lemonade for him and that day is the starting point of his coke- free life. Luckily, this happened before we married, I mean it didn’t last so long. I wouldn’t make it so often before, but since I saw him drinking it with a great enjoyment, lemonade has got its permanent place in our refrigerator.

Limonata

So here are the things you need for this super refreshing lemonade:

-5 lemons
-3/4 cup sugar
-1 tbsp ginger powder
-5 cups hot water
- A few leaves of fresh mint
- ice cubes to serve

Start with grating the lemons, but be careful, you should grate just the yellow part, when you reach its white, stop grating or your lemonade tastes bitter. Then squeeze the lemons, you must get a cup of lemon juice. If 5 lemon is not enough for it, you can add one or two lemons.

Put lemon juice and grated lemon shell in a big jar. Add sugar and ginger powder in it. Pour 5 cups hot water and stir until the sugar melts. Cover the jar and let it rest. When it reaches the right temperature to get in the refrigerator (not too hot, but warm), wait it in the refrigerator for about 3 hours.  Then take it out and transfer it into a carafe with a strainer. Put a few leaves of mint into this carafe and it is ready to serve.

I suggest a large and tall glass for this. Put some ice cubes in the glass, then place mint leaves on them. Pour lemonade and put mint leaves on the top. You may also add two very thin lemon slices as a decoration.

Note: Fresh mint leaves and ginger powder are so important here, they absolutely add more refreshment besides their wonderful taste and benefits for health.

You see how it’s so easy to prepare a totally natural cold drink.

Mr. Lemon The Ice Cream Vendor

Do you think just the humans swelter in summer? Fruits and vegetables need refreshment as well. They usually prefer ice cream to feel some coolness. Mr. Lemon is the most famous ice cream vendor in their town. Although it seems they go there to buy ice cream, they are looking for something different indeed. They know that Mr. Lemon is also selling lemonade underhand. He says that it is such a priceless drink that he doesn’t want to sell it to everyone. One must be a close friend of him to have a small glass of icy lemonade. (drawing by mom)

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Recharged My Batteries

I came back two days ago from a wonderful vacation, feeling full of energy for the new working period. I’ve completely recharged my batteries! What vacation means to everyone may depend on their expectation. For me, vacation means throwing myself into the pure blue water, closing my eyes, allowing the waves take me somewhere, hugging these waves, watching and accompanying the hospitable fishes, racing with my hubby and always being defeated (as he was the person who taught me how to swim) but not giving up, getting out, feeling the hot sand and jumping back into the refreshing water. This cycle may go on forever!

We went to Bodrum two weeks ago. Bodrum is a peninsula on the west of Turkey with a border of Aegean Sea and it’s one of the most popular tourism centers of Turkey. It generally takes the attention of artists and writers, most of them prefer living in Bodrum when they are fed up with the busy life and ‘artificial’ relationships. It has a lot of special coasts in small and nice village like places such as Bitez, Golturkbuku, Gumusluk, Ortakent, Yahsi, Yalikavak, Turgutreis, etc. Our first destination was Turgutreis as my husband’s mom is living there. I can’t forget the evenings we drank our Turkish coffee on her balcony watching and feeling the sea. Turgutreis is the largest town of Bodrum, so farmers and fishmongers bring their products and sell them to some shops here. On Saturdays, a big bazaar is open in this town and you see a lot of organic and home made foods here.

You see a woman in the picture selling breads and tomato paste she herself made, eggs from her own hens, mulberries she picked from the tree in her garden. That bazaar was full of such foods.

On the second day of our visit, we went to one of the heavenly beaches in Turgutreis. It was wonderful! There was no peppebles or small rocks hurting your feet under the sea. There weren’t angry and high waves, either. As we don’t love sunbathing much, we swam and swam and swam…It was so refreshing that we felt relieved even on that first meeting with pure water.

While we were walking on the streets of the town, my clever hubby suggested a great idea: hiring bicycles and discovering the other beaches by riding. I love cycling, but I haven’t done it for ages! I was so excited with the idea, cycling along the coast. The next day, we put some sandwiches, our flasks full of cold water, towels, sunscreen, etc in our backpacks. We hired two bicycles and hit the trail in the early morning.

It was great to know that we would reach another eden at the end of ride. It was Meteorology Bay. It was so glamorous with its turquoise color that we just stopped and watched it from the hill for a while. Then we let ourselves free down the hill to feel that beauty closer. It was as clean as a newly born baby and you feel as if you were touching the skin of a baby when you pass your hand on its surface. We spent the rest of the day here swimming. Whenever we got tired, we lay down under trees and read for some time. I read A Tree of Night by Truman Capote and my husband read Shibumi by Trevanian during these breaks. It was an unutterable pleasure to see the turquoise sea between the pages while reading. Knowing that the sea is just a step away from you adds a lot to your reading.

When we returned back to Turgutreis, we caught a unique view of sunset. My husband bought two bottles of beer from a shop nearby and we watched this unforgettable scene sitting on a rock. The sea was as tired as we were, it was silent and about to sleep.

The other day, we went to another town of Bodrum called Yalikavak where windmills welcomed us.

It has a world wide reputation with its bay as it is so suitable for windsurfing. When we entered the town, we saw a monument telling that RSX Youth World Championship was held in Yalikavak this year. I’m sure surfers had great time racing there.

Another thing taking my attention is that there was an art street in the center of the town. We saw some famous Turkish actors and actresses also drawing and exhibiting their art here.

Then we kept travelling and arrived Bodrum city center. It was much more crowded than its towns. People generally come here for shopping as there are so many shops selling various things. The ancient Bodrum Castle was worth seeing to feel the history. You can read more about it here.

When we got hungry here, we entered a small restaurant and they served stuffed zucchini flowers as an appetizer. This was the first time we had it and it was excellent. And of course I asked for its recipe.

And the main dish was a stew of artichoke and fresh fava beans. This was also new to us and it was so tasty, too. The outstanding taste in both dishes was the taste of olive oil. People use olive oil for all dishes here, and they are so generous adding the olive oil while cooking. I felt lucky beacuse I adore the taste of olive oil in dishes. I’m planning to make these dishes myself and tell how later.

Those dishes were excellent for me, but not for my husband as he is a big fan of red meat so he had doner with vegetables later while walking around the town. He said this was the taste he was looking for.

Actually, I must confess something. I was planning to share more food pictures before going there, but maybe because of all these beauties, I couldn’t take enough photos of what we ate. We had grilled sea bream and sea bass, but we were so hungry for the fish and I realized to take photos of them just after we finished it. Also, we had stuffed mussels on the beach, and while eating I suggested to take a photo of it, but it was so delicious and our camera was so away from us. I just couldn’t leave the mussels! I’m so regretful now, hope you understand me.

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