A commercial break…
I have no intention of advertising any product on this website but SAQI books sent me an announcement about a book ages ago which has been sitting on my desk for ages and it’s bugging me. So, here it goes.
Turkish Cookery by Sally Mustoe (ed) – see www.saqibooks.com. It features favourite recipes from Nigella Lawson, Gary Rhodes, Ainsley Harriott, Antony Worrall-Thompson, Anton Mosimann, Caludia Roden, Nevin Halici and other renowned chefs.
Recipes include that for hummous, meat pies, lamb tagine, yoghurt soup, Turkish delight, aubergine pate and dolma. Turkish chefs offer recipies for sweets, wedding banquets, street food, market food, coffee, olive oil, wines, breakfast, mese and raki and many others.
So, a great book for cooks with international taste – or for those like me who don’t really cook, a good present idea. Most importantly, the proceeds from sales will go toards providing further education for children orphaned by recent earthquakes in Turkey.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Istanbul vapurlari (ferries)…
If you are from Istanbul or if you’ve ever been there, you know the beauty and the crucial role of the ferries in the city life. I mean the commuter ferries that cross the Bosphorus – that is from Asia to Europe, from Europe to Asia, from the main land to the Princes Islands, back and forth, back and forth for years and years. Ferries unite residents who define themselves as being “from the other side” much more than the two bridges that physically unite the city.
They don’t just carry people from one side to the other, they also have an altogether other world living on them. On the open decks you can feed the seagulls with simits (Turkish pretzels), drink ruby coloured Turkish tea in small glasses with narrow waist lines and read your paper fighting the wind which messes your hair but also clears the cobwebs away. On the closed decks you can buy tat that won’t last to the other continent from salesmen who entertain you better than last night’s comedy – or annoy you more than last night’s news….
Why am I writing all this? Because I’ve learnt (with some delay admittedly) that they are planning to replace the old fashioned ferries with ‘modern’ ones that are entirely closed, boring to be in and ugly to look at. There doesn’t seem to be an environmental or efficiency reason for the change (as was argued for replacing double-decker busses in London with new ones). It seems to be a change for change’s sake; for modernity; for conformity; for uniformity…Besides the new ones are much smaller (300 passengers) than older ones (1000-1500) – about 4 new trips for each 1 of old in an already congested waterway. If they change the ferries, they’ll regret it…the way they pulled the tram lines up in the 1960s-70s because buses were more modern only to build them again in the late 1980s. And who will pay? The residents of Istanbul of course – with loss of amenity and their taxes which will finance the new deal.
OK, I am also nostalgic…despite living in London for 15 years, the wallpaper on my mobile phone is still the silhouette of a ferry from Bostanci to the Islands in a pink January sunset. But to keep the old ferries running is not just a nostalgic wish of a ‘European Turk’ (as the likes of me are called these days) but very real wish of the locals too. So much so that they’ve started an online campaign: http://www.vapurumuvermiyorum.org/ I’ve signed it, try it for yourself…
The website is on the right – it’s in Turkish but you can at least see the pictures. And as for my Turkish friends – they can all read English.
Am off to Brussels tomorrow for a week or so – to fight the EU bureaucracy and for some mussels, fries and beer…
If you are from Istanbul or if you’ve ever been there, you know the beauty and the crucial role of the ferries in the city life. I mean the commuter ferries that cross the Bosphorus – that is from Asia to Europe, from Europe to Asia, from the main land to the Princes Islands, back and forth, back and forth for years and years. Ferries unite residents who define themselves as being “from the other side” much more than the two bridges that physically unite the city.
They don’t just carry people from one side to the other, they also have an altogether other world living on them. On the open decks you can feed the seagulls with simits (Turkish pretzels), drink ruby coloured Turkish tea in small glasses with narrow waist lines and read your paper fighting the wind which messes your hair but also clears the cobwebs away. On the closed decks you can buy tat that won’t last to the other continent from salesmen who entertain you better than last night’s comedy – or annoy you more than last night’s news….
Why am I writing all this? Because I’ve learnt (with some delay admittedly) that they are planning to replace the old fashioned ferries with ‘modern’ ones that are entirely closed, boring to be in and ugly to look at. There doesn’t seem to be an environmental or efficiency reason for the change (as was argued for replacing double-decker busses in London with new ones). It seems to be a change for change’s sake; for modernity; for conformity; for uniformity…Besides the new ones are much smaller (300 passengers) than older ones (1000-1500) – about 4 new trips for each 1 of old in an already congested waterway. If they change the ferries, they’ll regret it…the way they pulled the tram lines up in the 1960s-70s because buses were more modern only to build them again in the late 1980s. And who will pay? The residents of Istanbul of course – with loss of amenity and their taxes which will finance the new deal.
OK, I am also nostalgic…despite living in London for 15 years, the wallpaper on my mobile phone is still the silhouette of a ferry from Bostanci to the Islands in a pink January sunset. But to keep the old ferries running is not just a nostalgic wish of a ‘European Turk’ (as the likes of me are called these days) but very real wish of the locals too. So much so that they’ve started an online campaign: http://www.vapurumuvermiyorum.org/ I’ve signed it, try it for yourself…
The website is on the right – it’s in Turkish but you can at least see the pictures. And as for my Turkish friends – they can all read English.
Am off to Brussels tomorrow for a week or so – to fight the EU bureaucracy and for some mussels, fries and beer…
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Pushing 36 and still a romantic….
I’ve never denied being a romantic. I like to be given flowers. I cry at films. Other than a few bitter and hormone-deficient days when I feel like slapping them, I smile at young couples canoodling in public. And all the rest…I just hadn’t realised how much of a romantic I still am…I actually had tears in my eyes reading a book today.
The book? Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (http://www.adrianatrigiani.com/). Not many sentences you want to read and re-read again because the way the words are put together has an unexpected and thrilling beauty. Things start rather slow and move on rather too quickly towards the end. And, to be honest, even though the book was recommended by a friend whose literary taste I respect, I wasn’t impressed with it at the beginning.
But there is a level of truthfulness that is hard to come by and that makes it more worthwhile a read than many books which have those sentences of rare beauty and plots of impeccable tightness. This book has warmth that makes the reader feel not alone in the world.
The heroine, Ave Maria, a 35 year old ‘spinster’, is more real than another single heroine, Bridget Jones (two recent references to this feeble excuse of a woman in this site – promise you won’t see many more!) . At the height of the ‘BJ’ hype, I remember thinking I didn’t know anyone that scatter brain. But I know many (including myself) at times ‘deceptively’ strong women like Ave Maria. Here is what I mean in the author’s own words:
“What has happened to me? I get so afraid now. I never used to. Why am I more vulnerable now than I was when I was alone, in charge of everything? I lived by myself in the middle of town, for God’s sake. I checked my own oil, lit my own furnace, caught mice. I had a routine: running a home, a business, the Rescue Squad, the Drama. I was never scared then. So much for strength in numbers, I think as I look at my husband, now that we are a family.”
(What she is afraid of is something bad happening to her husband, her happiness.)
I say ‘deceptively’ not because women can’t be strong but because sometimes we confuse being strong with being able to deal with everything on our own. Strength is not in being able to do everything single handed but being able to let go once in a while; to let one's self be vulnerable.
Well, I cried toward the end of the book – not only because Ave Maria realises the above definition of strength but because that means that she finally lets go and says ‘yes’ to the proposition of the man who loves her. Aaaaaahhhhhhh….
Actually I take back what I said about Adriana Trigiani. She does have a way with words…a very subtle way. By the time the quiet hero of the book makes his last declaration of love (which I would have loved to write here just to show its simple beauty had I wanted to spoil it for would-be readers) you will be there with them, with your heart in your mouth (is that the expression?).
And let’s face it, at this day and age, there are not many occasions that get your heart that far up!
I’ve never denied being a romantic. I like to be given flowers. I cry at films. Other than a few bitter and hormone-deficient days when I feel like slapping them, I smile at young couples canoodling in public. And all the rest…I just hadn’t realised how much of a romantic I still am…I actually had tears in my eyes reading a book today.
The book? Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (http://www.adrianatrigiani.com/). Not many sentences you want to read and re-read again because the way the words are put together has an unexpected and thrilling beauty. Things start rather slow and move on rather too quickly towards the end. And, to be honest, even though the book was recommended by a friend whose literary taste I respect, I wasn’t impressed with it at the beginning.
But there is a level of truthfulness that is hard to come by and that makes it more worthwhile a read than many books which have those sentences of rare beauty and plots of impeccable tightness. This book has warmth that makes the reader feel not alone in the world.
The heroine, Ave Maria, a 35 year old ‘spinster’, is more real than another single heroine, Bridget Jones (two recent references to this feeble excuse of a woman in this site – promise you won’t see many more!) . At the height of the ‘BJ’ hype, I remember thinking I didn’t know anyone that scatter brain. But I know many (including myself) at times ‘deceptively’ strong women like Ave Maria. Here is what I mean in the author’s own words:
“What has happened to me? I get so afraid now. I never used to. Why am I more vulnerable now than I was when I was alone, in charge of everything? I lived by myself in the middle of town, for God’s sake. I checked my own oil, lit my own furnace, caught mice. I had a routine: running a home, a business, the Rescue Squad, the Drama. I was never scared then. So much for strength in numbers, I think as I look at my husband, now that we are a family.”
(What she is afraid of is something bad happening to her husband, her happiness.)
I say ‘deceptively’ not because women can’t be strong but because sometimes we confuse being strong with being able to deal with everything on our own. Strength is not in being able to do everything single handed but being able to let go once in a while; to let one's self be vulnerable.
Well, I cried toward the end of the book – not only because Ave Maria realises the above definition of strength but because that means that she finally lets go and says ‘yes’ to the proposition of the man who loves her. Aaaaaahhhhhhh….
Actually I take back what I said about Adriana Trigiani. She does have a way with words…a very subtle way. By the time the quiet hero of the book makes his last declaration of love (which I would have loved to write here just to show its simple beauty had I wanted to spoil it for would-be readers) you will be there with them, with your heart in your mouth (is that the expression?).
And let’s face it, at this day and age, there are not many occasions that get your heart that far up!
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
A very non-Bridget Jones morning (?)…
A recent “success” at acting like that Goddess of stupidity that is Bridget Jones, I woke up a couple days ago realising that I’ve had enough of all these little games. I stay in situations longer than I should…it’s my character, probably even my star sign. But once I have enough of something that’s it. And I’ve had enough of this stupidity and wanted to share it for the benefit of all those non-Bridget Jones girls out there who sometimes lose their ways …
I am slightly annoyed with him and with myself...why should I blame myself about what I may have said or done (or not)? Or rather why should I blame myself alone...who the f*** is he?! Not only: 'who does he think he is?!' but also 'who do I think he is?!'
Not asking whatever I expect him to ask / not calling / not returning emails, texts or whatever...my life is just too precious and too good for someone else of potentially no consequence whatsoever to inadvertently muddy. Or more importantly for the supposedly accurate perceptions of my over-active but wrongly channelled brain to knowingly do so!
And so on and so forth...
Replace I/he with any private name you wish, it comes to the same thing. This slightly (rather?) defensive stance made me rather happy....aunty says not to give up on people so quickly but at the same time not to get too involved too quickly or not to value them too much….the last one is where I fail but am determined to correct.
And so on and so forth...
I’ve read recently somewhere “the princes you kissed turned to frogs; the frogs you kissed remained frogs”
And so on and so forth…
A recent “success” at acting like that Goddess of stupidity that is Bridget Jones, I woke up a couple days ago realising that I’ve had enough of all these little games. I stay in situations longer than I should…it’s my character, probably even my star sign. But once I have enough of something that’s it. And I’ve had enough of this stupidity and wanted to share it for the benefit of all those non-Bridget Jones girls out there who sometimes lose their ways …
I am slightly annoyed with him and with myself...why should I blame myself about what I may have said or done (or not)? Or rather why should I blame myself alone...who the f*** is he?! Not only: 'who does he think he is?!' but also 'who do I think he is?!'
Not asking whatever I expect him to ask / not calling / not returning emails, texts or whatever...my life is just too precious and too good for someone else of potentially no consequence whatsoever to inadvertently muddy. Or more importantly for the supposedly accurate perceptions of my over-active but wrongly channelled brain to knowingly do so!
And so on and so forth...
Replace I/he with any private name you wish, it comes to the same thing. This slightly (rather?) defensive stance made me rather happy....aunty says not to give up on people so quickly but at the same time not to get too involved too quickly or not to value them too much….the last one is where I fail but am determined to correct.
And so on and so forth...
I’ve read recently somewhere “the princes you kissed turned to frogs; the frogs you kissed remained frogs”
And so on and so forth…
The promised account of the Morocco trip…finally!
All immigrants have one conflict in common: where to go on holiday. Do you go home and quench your longing for your home country, family and friends? Or do you explore this vast world as much as your time and budget allow? A solution to this eternal conflict is to meet your family members in a third country.....and Morocco may just be the ideal destination for Turks.
Why? It’s almost half way between Turkey and the UK, almost always sunny, does not impose visa to Turkish citizens and it’s cheap (£1 = about 15 dirhems). I spent the last week of March in Morocco with my aunt so can vouch for it.
I met her in Casablanca. She came on a package tour from Istanbul and I joined the same tour from London. I normally prefer the freedom of independent travel. But this time a package holiday was the best option for two reasons. First, the fact that all logistics were taken care of meant that I could spend more quality time with my aunt. Second, the presence of other Turks on the tour lessened my longing for the mother country – at least a little (more on that later…).
Morocco is a kingdom. Majority of the 29 million population is Muslim and consists of Arabs, Berbers and mix of the two. Very beautiful people I tell you. It’s almost as large as Turkey but because about half the country is desert, most live in the northern half. The French which ruled here between 1912 and 1956 left behind large avenues and beautiful, tall (though now mostly run down) apartment blocks.
Our tour was called ‘Royal Cities’ and covered Rabat, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech. The tour started in Casablanca because of its transport connections as the biggest city. It has all those beautiful French apartments but little of the romance the film of the same name created on screen…it turns out the film was made in Hollywood anyway!
Rabat Medina (the old town - Medina means town in Arabic) is beautiful but the rest you can skip. Meknes – you can totally skip…Moulla Idris is a small town between Rabat and Fes – interesting in that it’s not a beautiful town to be in but a great one to look at, the way it’s positioned on a couple of hills cradled by two larger ones. The nearby Roman town is also worth a visit. Fes and Marrakech, on the other hand, are unmissable.
The old town of Fes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the streets are so narrow that two people can’t walk past. Not only the architecture but almost even the life style of the city seems to have been preserved since 9th – 12th century when it was founded…that is except for the multiple TV antennas that don every roof.
The oldest and largest square of Marrakech, Cemaa el Fna, is another World Heritage Site. The square, which was once where public executions took place, is today full of life. During the day, it’s full of dried fruit and nut and orange juice sellers, and Moroccans of all sorts running after their errands. At night, it is a festival of Moroccan cuisine, fortune tellers, sooth sayers, alchemists, snake charmers, musicians, dancers and many other treasures.
The liveliest parts of any old city during the day are the souks. It’s impossible not to get lost in them. Colours, smells and noises emanating from the shops are simply thrilling. “To look is free – no need to buy” they say but once you are so much as hesitate for a second in front a shop, it’s near impossible to leave without bargaining and then, of course, buying something….usually very good value but possibly for something that you don’t really need.
The similarities between Morocco and Turkey don’t end with souks and bargaining. There are also men’s cafes almost on every corner: the difference is that theirs are less depressing. Women are also dressed rather conservatively (with or without head scarves) even if it’s hard to see what Moroccans (men or women) wear since they mostly wear a jellaba over everything that covers them from head-to-toe and depending on the material keeps them cool in summer and warm in winter.
Mind you, my fellow tour goers from Turkey changed my understanding of how ‘conservative’ Turkish women can be. They were two couples (brothers and their wives). All four were hajjis and women covered their heads – even though due to her colour coordinated outfits, at least one of them looked more feminine than my aunt and I who were just slopping it! The other woman wasn’t as happy with having to cover her head I think…. She would sneak around and have a cigarette every now and then (her husband knew but not the older brother-in-law who clearly was the Alpha male of the family). She also had a great sense of humour. One morning when asked how we spent the night, my aunt said the people in the neighbouring room in the hotel woke us up by having showers at 3 in the morning. Her response was “perhaps they were living their fantasies” (fantezi yapiyorlardir)…the fact that they may have been living their fantasies would have never occurred to me - less so to suggest it to strangers in a package tour….and I call myself liberal!
If you don’t want to go on a package holiday of royal cities and shop till you drop, Morocco also offers Berber villages, wild Rif and Atlas mountains, lakes, beaches, desert, and plains covered in wild flowers. In our tour, we covered over 1000km (feeling guilty about the CO2 emissions). The scenery during the whole trip was made up of thousands of wild flowers of all colours imaginable…the best cure after the grey winter of the UK.
A holiday that’s close by, sunny, green (at the right time of the year), historical, cheap and requires no visa…. A holiday that’s a welcome alternative to making endless visits to friends and family during which the same new stories are told and the same old stories are rehashed….what are you waiting for?!
All immigrants have one conflict in common: where to go on holiday. Do you go home and quench your longing for your home country, family and friends? Or do you explore this vast world as much as your time and budget allow? A solution to this eternal conflict is to meet your family members in a third country.....and Morocco may just be the ideal destination for Turks.
Why? It’s almost half way between Turkey and the UK, almost always sunny, does not impose visa to Turkish citizens and it’s cheap (£1 = about 15 dirhems). I spent the last week of March in Morocco with my aunt so can vouch for it.
I met her in Casablanca. She came on a package tour from Istanbul and I joined the same tour from London. I normally prefer the freedom of independent travel. But this time a package holiday was the best option for two reasons. First, the fact that all logistics were taken care of meant that I could spend more quality time with my aunt. Second, the presence of other Turks on the tour lessened my longing for the mother country – at least a little (more on that later…).
Morocco is a kingdom. Majority of the 29 million population is Muslim and consists of Arabs, Berbers and mix of the two. Very beautiful people I tell you. It’s almost as large as Turkey but because about half the country is desert, most live in the northern half. The French which ruled here between 1912 and 1956 left behind large avenues and beautiful, tall (though now mostly run down) apartment blocks.
Our tour was called ‘Royal Cities’ and covered Rabat, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech. The tour started in Casablanca because of its transport connections as the biggest city. It has all those beautiful French apartments but little of the romance the film of the same name created on screen…it turns out the film was made in Hollywood anyway!
Rabat Medina (the old town - Medina means town in Arabic) is beautiful but the rest you can skip. Meknes – you can totally skip…Moulla Idris is a small town between Rabat and Fes – interesting in that it’s not a beautiful town to be in but a great one to look at, the way it’s positioned on a couple of hills cradled by two larger ones. The nearby Roman town is also worth a visit. Fes and Marrakech, on the other hand, are unmissable.
The old town of Fes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the streets are so narrow that two people can’t walk past. Not only the architecture but almost even the life style of the city seems to have been preserved since 9th – 12th century when it was founded…that is except for the multiple TV antennas that don every roof.
The oldest and largest square of Marrakech, Cemaa el Fna, is another World Heritage Site. The square, which was once where public executions took place, is today full of life. During the day, it’s full of dried fruit and nut and orange juice sellers, and Moroccans of all sorts running after their errands. At night, it is a festival of Moroccan cuisine, fortune tellers, sooth sayers, alchemists, snake charmers, musicians, dancers and many other treasures.
The liveliest parts of any old city during the day are the souks. It’s impossible not to get lost in them. Colours, smells and noises emanating from the shops are simply thrilling. “To look is free – no need to buy” they say but once you are so much as hesitate for a second in front a shop, it’s near impossible to leave without bargaining and then, of course, buying something….usually very good value but possibly for something that you don’t really need.
The similarities between Morocco and Turkey don’t end with souks and bargaining. There are also men’s cafes almost on every corner: the difference is that theirs are less depressing. Women are also dressed rather conservatively (with or without head scarves) even if it’s hard to see what Moroccans (men or women) wear since they mostly wear a jellaba over everything that covers them from head-to-toe and depending on the material keeps them cool in summer and warm in winter.
Mind you, my fellow tour goers from Turkey changed my understanding of how ‘conservative’ Turkish women can be. They were two couples (brothers and their wives). All four were hajjis and women covered their heads – even though due to her colour coordinated outfits, at least one of them looked more feminine than my aunt and I who were just slopping it! The other woman wasn’t as happy with having to cover her head I think…. She would sneak around and have a cigarette every now and then (her husband knew but not the older brother-in-law who clearly was the Alpha male of the family). She also had a great sense of humour. One morning when asked how we spent the night, my aunt said the people in the neighbouring room in the hotel woke us up by having showers at 3 in the morning. Her response was “perhaps they were living their fantasies” (fantezi yapiyorlardir)…the fact that they may have been living their fantasies would have never occurred to me - less so to suggest it to strangers in a package tour….and I call myself liberal!
If you don’t want to go on a package holiday of royal cities and shop till you drop, Morocco also offers Berber villages, wild Rif and Atlas mountains, lakes, beaches, desert, and plains covered in wild flowers. In our tour, we covered over 1000km (feeling guilty about the CO2 emissions). The scenery during the whole trip was made up of thousands of wild flowers of all colours imaginable…the best cure after the grey winter of the UK.
A holiday that’s close by, sunny, green (at the right time of the year), historical, cheap and requires no visa…. A holiday that’s a welcome alternative to making endless visits to friends and family during which the same new stories are told and the same old stories are rehashed….what are you waiting for?!
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