window seat serenity
I absolutely love flying. There is something about getting on a plane and a few hours later ending up in a new city or a new country. This excites me to the core. Sometimes you even find yourself halfway across the world, or crossing into different days, losing or gaining hours.
I love the idea of shutting off to the whole world, in your own “white space” to get lost in your own thoughts. Being in “airplane mode”. It’s a place I like to find myself… when I find myself heading to a place.
Here is a photo I took from my plane window on my flight back to Istanbul last month. This picture captures serenity for me.
Completely unrelated to this post, yet related to what’s on my mind, I’d like to share a poem that you might know:
Serenity Prayer
project 52 | 1: pomegranate salad
The first recipe in Project 52 is inspired by a recent dinner I had with a couple girlfriends at a meyhane here in Istanbul. A meyhane is a traditional restaurant in Turkey that is known for serving raki (alcoholic drink of the region) and mezze (appetizer-like dishes). This particular evening we set out to have a mezze dinner among us girls.
One of the dishes happened to be this lovely pomegranate mezze. I had never had this particular mezze here in Turkey, despite thinking I had tried everything under the Turkish sun (including kokoreç – ok a bite of it… and back when I ate meat), I had never had this pomegranate dish. I know how labor-intensive it is to get all the juicy seeds out of the pomegranate, so I was appreciative of the dish from the get-go. It turned out to be awesome, so I came home and replicated it in my kitchen.
Pomegranate Salad
Difficulty Level: easy
Preparation: 10-15 mins
Ingredients:
1 big (or 2 medium) pomegranate, seeded; it is recommended that you wear a black t-shirt or otherwise old shirt when de-seeding the pomegranate as the juice from the seeds stain
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
3-4 scallions, chopped
extra-virgin olive oil
salt
Directions: Mix pomegranate seeds, parsley, walnuts and scallions in bowl. Add olive oil to give it a light coating, but be careful not to make it soupy. Salt to taste. Enjoy!
For more information on Project 52, read here.
project 52: launch
This past year I discovered cooking. I’ve always known how to cook, at least the basics. And I could follow a recipe no problem, with most times having the end result being quite edible. But I never really got into it or fully enjoyed it. It was always a means to an end for me. Typically I found myself in the kitchen with a lack of ingredients, energy and/or time. And with any of those things missing, well you aren’t going to have a very enjoyable time or make anything particularly remarkable.
In 2009, I dove head-first into Turkish and Italian cooking (separately, that is). I started with typical Turkish mezze and soups, then eventually graduated to the toughies like hunkar begendi (lamb over smoked eggplant puree) and etli yaprak dolmasi (meat and rice-filled stuffed grape leaves). In Italy, I took a week and traveled with two foodie friends and we cooked our way through Umbria, Tuscany and Florence, cooking in the kitchens of Italian mothers and cooking schools. Homemade pasta, lasagna, Tuscan roasted pepper soup and bell pepper crostinis, among other Italian ‘musts’ made it into our repertoire.
So as I go further down the cooking path, I thought it would be nice to document some of the dishes as I go along. Therefore I am launching Project 52. This is my commitment to prepare in real life, and document on my blog, 52 recipes in 52 weeks. Comments are welcomed and appreciated.
Afiyet Olsun!
Buon Appetito!
Istanbul and Cesme: on NYT’s list of 31 places to go in 2010
The New York Times just published online this list: “The 31 Places to Go in 2010″. I’m proud to say that Istanbul makes #19 on the list. In addition, it’s also exciting to share that Cesme makes #8 on the list! Cesme is the beach town of Turkey’s 3rd largest city, Izmir. It is also where we got married and where we spend part of our summers, so Cesme is special to me.
Read more here:
Istanbul
The reputation of Istanbul’s contemporary art scene has been steadily growing in recent years, with the Web site ArtKnowledgeNews.com recently calling it “one of the most innovative in the world.” That reputation is bound to be burnished even more this year, now that Istanbul has been named the 2010 European Capital of Culture (a designation it shares with Essen, Germany, and Pecs, Hungary).
There will be a series of events, gallery shows and stage performances throughout the city to mark the occasion. (A complete list of events can be found aten.istanbul2010.org/index.htm.)
But one of the best ways to get a crash course in what Istanbul’s leading artists are up to right now is to spend some time wandering around the Misir Apartments (311/4 Istiklal Cadessi), right on the busy pedestrian thoroughfare that cuts through the trendy Beygolu neighborhood. Inside this elegant, early-20th-century building are some of the city’s most cutting-edge art venues, like Galerist (www.galerist.com.tr) and Gallerie Nev (www.galerinevistanbul.com)
Afterward, head to the rooftop terrace and have a drink at 360 Istanbul, a stylish bar and restaurant that offers stunning views of the city’s skyline (360istanbul.com). — Stuart Emmrich
Cesme
The next Bodrum? While revelers continue to descend upon that seaside retreat, another corner of Turkey’s Aegean coastline has begun to emerge as a stylish alternative: the once-sleepy villages of the Cesme Peninsula. The main draw is Alacati, a sheltered beach town that last summer was the site of the Professional Windsurfers Association Slalom World Cup. Scheduled to open in the spring, the seven-room Hotel Nars Alacati (www.nars.com.tr), set in a converted 19th-century mansion, promises to become the popular weekend gathering spot for Istanbul’s smart set, along with the adjoining gardenrestaurant, Mesa Luna. — Andrew Ferren 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/travel/10places.html?pagewanted=1&em
from 16*F to 16*C
This is what I love about Istanbul winters: the fact that winters are so much more mild here, comparatively speaking to my homeland of NY and Ohio. I just left the States where it was 16*F (that’s -9*C), and arrived back home in Istanbul to a lovely 16* Celsius (that’s 61*Fahrenheit). Sounds a bit more drastic when you say you went from “16 to 61″ or even “-9 to 16″, but I like the irony of going from 16 to 16.
Ohio, I will miss the white Christmas you gave me. NY, I will miss the white snow you gave me to roll around in on New Year’s Eve. But Istanbul, I’m glad that I don’t have to bundle up so much and suffer from any more dry skin!
