Merhaba dear All,
I hope you are all well. Apologies for a bit of silence from my end; it’s been a very busy few months with teaching Turkish cookery in England, Istanbul and in Amman – Jordan, as well as being a part of exciting events like the Taste of London, thanks to Turkish Tourism Board – UK’s kind invitation; it was great to share Turkish cuisine with everyone.
But the main event that kept me busy has been the preparation for my Turkish cookery book. It’s been very exciting and busy getting the content ready and the photo shoots excitement last week all of a sudden made this special project very real. Here I wanted to share a little glimpse of our very exciting and labor of love 5 day photo shoot for my Turkish cookery book. My very special thanks goes to the amazing food photographer dear Sian Irvine, who passionately shot each and every image with a huge expertise, I can’t thank her enough. Over 70 dishes have been lovingly prepared and photographed, with huge thanks to an army of dear friends who helped during the shoots and gave their plates and bowls to be used as props. A labor of love in making but so worth it, enjoyed every minute of it:
Getting ready for the Turkish breakfast spread photo shoot
Turkish breakfast spread, almost there, one of my favorite chapters in the book! Love all the freshness and abundance of Turkish cuisine.
My dear publishers George and Brenda at GB Publishing, most kindly let us use their wonderful space for our photo shoot for 5 days and their living room became our “Prop Room” with a vast collection of plates, bowls, textile, boards and more, our huge thanks to them for their kindness – in return, we made sure they sampled each and every dish after the shoot !:)
Here’s our prop room!
More of the prop room!
A close up on a part of the Turkish breakfast spread – I can eat this all day long!
Getting the spices ready for the photo shoot – essential part of southern Turkish cookery
The crew getting the fresh produce shoot ready
Sian is shooting the mezze spread – another highlight from the book
All curious eyes checking the images over the Image man Jonny’s expert hands
Some of the absolutely fabulous dear friends, Heleen, Ann and Susie here, helping out during the shoots and the lovely Sian, my sincere gratitude each and every one of them
My publishers George, Brenda, our lovely photographer Sian and some of the fabulous friends helping, dear Susie and Claire here- sitting down after the shot and enjoying the food we produced together. My huge thanks also goes to dear Mina, Ellie and Leonie who helped out and kindly packed us all up!
I hope you enjoy having a little glimpse of our 5 day photo shoot with over 70 dishes lovely prepared and presented – a labor of love in making and so very special. My photos really don’t do enough justice, I can’t wait for you to see the real images, they are absolutely amazing.
This Turkish cookery book project is a tribute to my homeland and a very dear project to my heart, a dream come true! It will have a special focus on Southern Turkish cuisine though my favorite, classic Turkish recipes will also be featured. I have so longed to share my homeland’s bountiful, delicious, healthy cuisine, packed with culinary traditions and high on hospitality, generosity and warmth, along with my personal stories; I really can’t wait to share this special book with you all. Many of you so kindly filled in my Turkish cookery book Survey with your valuable feedback, my sincere thanks. If you haven’t had a chance to do yet and may be able to fill in, your feedback would be greatly appreciated it to help shape the book. As a thank you, if you leave your name and email address at the end of the survey, you will be entitled to a 10% discount when the book is published. I would be more than happy to send you a signed copy!
We plan to start the pre-orders for the book as of end October, with a worldwide publication as of March 2018, I so look forward to sharing this special book with you all!
My best wishes for a wonderful summer – I will be back home, Turkey and I can not wait – and I will be in touch on my return. In the meantime, I wanted to share one of my favorite salads, Antakya’s Cokelek Salatasi – crumbled feta cheese salad with spices; perfect for Turkish breakfast and brunch.
Cokelek Salata; crumbled white cheese or feta salad, flavored with spices and olive oil
Afiyet Olsun,
Ozlem
I hope everything goes well with the book project. That array of food looks so tempting. I’m looking forward to seeing the book.
Dear Phil, many thanks; it’s been a very special journey – a labor of love in making but so special – greatly look forward to sharing the book with you all, Ozlem
oh Ozlem – you are such a beautiful representative of your country and your country’s beautiful traditions of food and grace! i love reading all of your posts and i am sooo happy that the people who have been working with you on your book are also filled with love and grace. please let me know the minute your book is available – i just know that it will be filled with gorgeousness and i must have a copy!!!
sending love to you. your friend,
kymber
Merhaba dear Kymber, my sincere thanks for your wonderful note, so kind of you:) connecting with food lovers like you and sharing makes the blogging so special and I am grateful to you all – it will be such a pleasure to share the book with you, thank so so much again for your support 🙂 best wishes, Ozlem x
how wonderful! congratulations on the book! i just made turkish breakfast for friends recently!
Merhaba Jaz, many thanks : ) look forward to sharing the book with you all, enjoy the Turkish breakfast! Ozlem x
Excited to see the final book…this is a perfect amuse-bouche 🙂 good luck my dear friend!
Dearest Peri, thank you so much for all your support in this delicious, special journey, can’t thank you enough : ) Look forward to sharing the book and grateful to all your support, with love, Ozlem xx
Love your recipes! And it’ll be great to have them in a beautifully illustrated book – so glad you’re doing this – can’t wait for publication day!
Thank you so much for your kind note – it will be such a pleasure to share the book with you all, many many thanks for your interest, selamlar, Ozlem
Özlem’ciÄŸim, Over 70 dishes made! whew! Well, we for two are very happy to see that Özlem’s Turkish Table is back on line again, but we’re very excited about the cookbook. Congratulations on finishing the photo shoots. Your blog has always had such scrumptious looking photos and we can’t wait to see those in your book. Photographing food is quite an art, something we remember every time we try it ourselves! Kendine iyi bak ve ailene selamlar ve sevgilerimizle, Jolee ve Mark
Merhaba sevgili Jolee’cigim, Mark’cigim, thank you so much for your most kind note and all your very precious support for my blog and my cookery book project, I so appreciate it. It’s a special journey and labor of love but so worth it – I can’t wait to share the book with you all! Cok sevgilerim ve tesekkurlerimle, see you soon insallah, Ozlem xxx
Hmmm! I think this might well be Christmas prezzie stuff 😀 Love and hugs from us to you and yours.
Thank you so much dear Alan, I so appreciate your and J’s support to the blog over the years and greatly look forward to presenting the book to you all – and hope to come and see you with the book in 2018!:) Sevgiler, Ozlem
Hi Ozlem,
I do love your recipes and I am so glad to read you are in the process of writing a cook book . Just a few suggestions: lots of colorful pictures and hard cover please! as a matter of fact , each dish should have its own picture . It is difficult to imagine what the end result is going to look like if you are not familiar with the dish . I personally look at the picture first and if I like the way it looks , I read the recipe!
Hopefully you can sell it over the Amazon so we can buy it in USA
Merhaba dear Canan, thank you so much for your kind note! I very much agree with you, images are so important and we are doing our best to provide lots and lots of images – and they came out so beautifully at the photo shoot. The book will be available to be shipped worldwide through my website, my publisher GB Publishing as well as Amazon, so US will definitely be covered – so look forward to sharing with you all, many thanks for your kind note, selamlar, Ozlem
I am very excited for this book! Looking forward to making mezzo! I hope we can feature you on MediterraneanLiving.com when it comes out! May you sell millions of copies!
Hi Bill, many thanks for stopping by – I love Mediterranean diet and loved your website! Turkish cuisine is a part of Med diet and there will be plenty of Med food in the book – it would be a pleasure to be featured at MediterraneanLiving.com, I will look forward to it – many thanks for your kind words! Best wishes, Ozlem
Can I share your post Ozlem? – I’m almost as excited as you about this cookery book.
Merhaba dear Back to Bodrum, please please do, I would be delighted and grateful – I am so excited too!:) Huge thanks for your kindness and do hope to see you in Bodrum between Aug 8-15th xxx Ozlem
I’m hungry 🙂
Do you have a recipe for cok etma.
Merhaba Debbie, is it Ezme you are after I wonder? If so here’s my recipe link https://ozlemsturkishtable.com/2013/01/ezme-delicious-spread-of-tomatoes-onions-peppers-and-herbs-with-red-pepper-paste/
70 dishes already? You have certainly been busy. Thank you for this post showing the making. Your publishers sound like they are great for a cook to work with.
Will there be a digital version available? As much as I love my hard copy books the price of postage to Australia is now often more than the cost of the book.
Cheers from AU
Thank you so much for your lovely comment on my post re the making of my
Turkish cookery book coming up; I am certainly very lucky to work with my
publishers GB Publishing, they have been very supportive and we had an
amazing photographer in Sian Irvine Photography. Digital version of the book
will certainly be available. My publisher is also looking into a more cost
effective way to deliver the book to Australia, if you choose the hard
back/paper back option. With my best wishes and really look forward to sharing the book with you
all, Ozlem
Hi Özlem,
I live in USA. Will you sell your book on Amazon? Will it be available in the bookstores in Turkey?
I would love to get a copy.
Thank you,
Merhaba dear Canan, many thanks for your kind note; my book will be available through my website and major book stores and will be shipped worldwide. We will make amazon availability too – really look forward to sharing with you all, getting ready for pre-orders, exciting times!:) Ozlem x