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Turkish cuisine provides healthy, hearty, delicious food for family and friends.
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Fascinating Turkey

Off to Turkey – Watch This Space to Explore with Us!


I am soon off to Turkey to host an exciting culinary and cultural tour of my homeland! Me and 11 enthusiastic travelers and foodies, some of whom had been kindly at my Turkish cooking classes in Texas, will be exploring the many wonders of Turkey; so looking forward to it:)


We shall be exploring fascinating historical sites like Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the battle fields of Gallipoli in Dardanelles, the ancient Greco-Roman city Ephesus at the Aegean coast, St Peter’s Grotto and the Mosaic Museum in Antioch (the world’s 2nd biggest) and many more. We all are very excited!


We shall loose ourselves at the wonderful smell, spices, colours at the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar,

We shall enjoy the wonderful Turkish cuisine like the locals do, and even better, will learn how to make it:)



So please watch this space to check out all the many wonders that we will be experiencing at my homeland in the next few weeks. I will try and post news from Turkey, my homeland, whenever I can and I hope you enjoy it:)


Best wishes for safe travels to all – Iyi Yolculuklar!

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My 2011 Grand Turkey Tour – please join us!


One of the things I very much enjoy doing is culinary and cultural tours to my homeland, Turkey and sharing the amazing culture, cuisine and history Turkey offers. I have another tour coming up in 2011. The tour will be from July 25th 2011 to Aug. 4th 2011 and covers Istanbul, Gallipoli (Dardanelles), Pergamum, Troy, Ephesus (including the Temple of Artemis, the Church of St. John and the House of Virgin Mary) Antioch (Antakya, my home town!:) and many more amazing sites. I am especially excited as we included Antioch, my home town to the itinerary, where my cooking has been inspired and have many happy memories there. We will also take wonderful Turkish cooking classes (and see the making of the baklava!) and sample the amazing Turkish cuisine.

The tour is limited to 15 participants and we already have 8 folks singed up. If you would like to explore fascinating Turkey through a local’s perpective with the comfort of a small group, please let me know. You can also view my previous Turkey tour photos, by clicking on “My culinary and cultural tour to Turkey, 2009”.

I will be in Istanbul next week and look forward to be in touch with you with fascinating photos and news from Istanbul.

Happy travels!

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Kalkan – A Gem in Southwest coast of Turkey







It is raining in London (well, in Surrey to be more correct) and remembering Kalkan brought sunshine to my day, hope it helps to yours too! My husband and I sneaked off to Kalkan, one of our favorite beaches in southwest coast of Turkey (thanks to my sister, family, and mum and dad for all the help!). It used to be a quite, quaint fisherman’s village about 20 years ago or so. Now, though still quaint, it is packed with tourists, which, nice to see, appreciate and look after Kalkan. We love staying at the EaglesNest Apartments (now smartly refurbished, they are on offer for sale too)on the hill and use chic Villa Mahal’s beach. Mahal’s staff wears a T-shirt which says “181 steps to heaven” and that’s true! Go down 181 steps amongst gorgeous olive trees, pine trees over looking turquise Med, you feel like you are in Heaven!

Here are some photos; The Times selected Kalkan as the world’s one of the 10 must see spots, I believe that.

Villa Mahal’s baker makes amazing pides with different fillings which we always looked forward to for our lunch, happy days!

The Kalkan village turns into a shoppers and foodie paradise in the evening, beautiful potteries, handmade ornaments and many more 🙂

Best wishes for exciting travels to you all!
Ozlem

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