During a spring cleaning of my pantry I decided it was time to address the surplus of oat, buckwheat and flax seed I have from my previous life as a sometimes granola-baker. The solution I came up with was to make a bird seed blend. I recently read that there are 300 species of native …
Month: May 2018
Fire Roasted Peppers Marinated in Oil and Balsamic
One of the challenges that many of us face living in Istanbul is a lack of access to products that we are familiar with, ranging from books, tv programs, the kind of underwear you prefer, medicines you need and of course the types of food you love to eat. As much as you want to …
Continue reading Fire Roasted Peppers Marinated in Oil and Balsamic
Pickled and Fermented New Garlic
Every spring, for a week or two, our markets and bazaars are flooded with fat bulbs of fresh Black Sea garlic. Fresh garlic is great for so many things, but during this time, It’s nearly impossible to find dried garlic, the standard garlic we use in everyday cooking. Fresh garlic season has gotten me into …
Kombucha Scoby Snacks- for pups.
We first met Jefri in my husband’s village on the Black Sea in 2012. He was a tiny street puppy who had been given attention by one of Şeref’s young nephews, who then went back to Germany leaving Jefri with only his name. We had a dog at that time, a giant Neapolitan Mastiff named …
A Few Days in Northeastern Greece
For the last 6 years Greece has been my neglected neighbor, one I regularly overlooked for more exotic countries in the region like Georgia or Bosnia. Somehow there was always somewhere seemingly more exciting to run off to. But in the last year, I have been giving it more attention, and I am finally starting …
Tiny Kitchen Granola
American food trends tend to catch on quite a bit later here. For example, Turkey is a country of tea drinkers, but we are currently in the middle of a gourmet roasted coffee boom. In the past couple of years, we have had the smoothie/juice trend trying to take off. Cupcakes came and went, and …
Keshkek Meshkek
When I decided to start this project, I mulled over some different names, but Keshkek Meshkek kept coming back to me. In Turkish, if you want to emphasize a word, you take the word and repeat it, changing the first letter to an ‘M.’ It’s a way of saying ‘etcetera,’ or all things related to …
Keshkek Meshkek 