Rich Fudgy Chocolate Brownie Cake

Shall we roll out the year on a glorious wave of chocolate? Shall we? Why not? Here is the last post and final recipe of 2010 and it is for Rich Fudgy Chocolate Brownie Cake - whatever that conjures up for you, it is.



Here's the story: I was flipping through a magazine supplement from Woman & Home: Fabulous Christmas Food when my eye was caught by a dramatic photo of the perfect chocolate cake decorated with glistening glace cherries taken side view with a hint of icing oozing from between the layers: the voluptuous silhouette of the shiny red cherries atop the dark, moist cake proved irresistible. A glance at the ingredients which included 5 eggs for a start, 60% dark chocolate and lots of it too, soon convinced me that this cake aspired towards higher things than the regular tea table. With my nearest and dearest coming for the holiday, I wanted something luscious and I had a hunch that this was it.

                                                                                

Turks - apart from our very own dear ones - don't celebrate Christmas but they do love New Year's Eve or Yıl Başı as it's called. Celebrating the 31st December has gone from strength to strength over the years that I have lived here. It is like Christmas all over again. Turkeys are roasted, trees are decorated, presents are exchanged, and the whole thing with such joy, it's as if it was always celebrated thus. It was always celebrated but in a much simpler way: my husband remembers his favourite childhood Yıl Başı treats were muz or bananas, and sosis/sausages. Hardly extravagant but symptomatic of those times when levels of income were much lower. This cake is a leap the other way: make it and it will be the star of your New Year's sofra.

Ingredients

Serves 10-12
you will need 2 x 23cm/ 9'' shallow sandwich tins

275g/9 1/2 oz 60% dark chocolate (I used 70% Lindt)

225g/8oz unsalted butter

400g/14oz caster sugar ( I use regular granulated sugar here in Turkey as it is quite fine)

5 eggs, beaten

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

200g/7oz plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

glace cherries to decorate

for the mascarpone filling:

125g/4 1/2 oz mascarpone, brought up to room temperature

60g/2 1/2 oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled

1-2 tbsp icing sugar, to taste

for the fondant icing:
175g/ 6oz icing sugar
3 tbsp water
25g/ 1oz cocoa powder
25g/1oz granulated sugar

Method

• Heat oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large saucepan over low heat and allow to cool for a few mins before stirring in the sugar. Add eggs and vanilla a little at a time, stirring well with each addition.

•  Don't worry if it splits, it will come back together when you add the flour. Fold in the flour in batches and stir in the salt. Divide between the 2 tins and cook for 20-25 mins, till a toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs.

 



after baking

• Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for a few mins before tipping on to a wire rack and allowing to cool completely.

• Meanwhile, make the mascarpone filling. Mix the mascarpone and chocolate together and add icing sugar to taste. When the cakes are cool, place one upside down on a plate and spread the top with the mascarpone filling. Top with the other cake, this time the right way up, and then make the icing.

• 
  
• 
  
• Sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl. Put the water, cocoa powder and granulated sugar into a
•  saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and draw off the heat. Pour on to the icing sugar and using a wooden spoon, beat to a smooth, soft consistency. Use while warm - this fondant icing sets very quickly.
• Decorate with the glace cherries and/or other cake decorations.

cuts like a dream

Tips

1. This cake will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
2. Un-iced cakes, well-wrapped, will freeze for up to a month.
3. I preferred this icing to the one given in the original recipe which required a tin of condensed milk. Given that we don't get it here, and also that it is full of calories, I took the decision to have a fondant icing so that is not Woman & Home.
4. To my joy, we can now find mascarpone at any major supermarket here in Istanbul. It gives me a real thrill to be able to get the ingredient specified after so many years of making do.
5. I was very pleased with this recipe and so was the family.  Definitely one for high days and holidays.You can find glace cherries and in fact any other type of glace fruit from certain bakery shops. It is worth going in and asking if you see that the cakes on display contain them. Not as difficult to find as you might think.

 the very last crumbs

We're going to Assos, our beautiful Aegean village for Yıl Başı unless the weather turns icy.

Wherever you are, a very Happy New Year to you all and thank you so much for the encouragement and support you have shown me over the last few months with your emails and Facebook messages! I appreciate it enormously.

Banoffee Pie



mouthwatering banoffee

 
With a name like Banoffee, people often imagine this dessert hails from Ireland.  But no, it is a thoroughly decadent creation dating back to 1972 when it was introduced in 'The Hungry Monk' pub in East Sussex in the UK where it achieved immediate success. It consists of bananas and toffee, hence the name, but the key ingredient is a tin of condensed milk. Without this, you can't make it.  Unfortunately it isn't available here in Turkey but if you can get hold of one, I do recommend this desssert as it's a real crowd-pleaser, finger-licking good, ideal for those with a sweet tooth!

ready to go

 A few days ago I took the opportunity to check out some banoffee recipes on the internet. I had a special request to make one for Christmas Eve, you see. It seems that the traditional way to make the toffee filling is to boil the unopened can in a saucepan of water for two or three hours. My eyes were standing out on stalks when I read this and one of the comments caught my eye: someone wrote that her mum tried this about ten years ago. She went off to dry her hair and promptly forgot all about it. The pan boiled dry, the can zoomed out, made a hole in the kitchen counter, the lid came off and the toffee spurted out all over the ceiling and took weeks to clean off! This struck me as hilarious but, being a cautious type, I thought no way am I going to try that.

Then I saw a video clip of how to make banoffee pie. By this time, I was really curious about the toffee so fastforwarded to that part. I saw this earnest cook pouring the condensed milk into a rectangular pyrex dish, covering it with a double layer of foil, then putting it in a large baking tin surrounded with water. The whole thing went in the oven for again about two and a half hours. What a laborious procedure, I thought! No way.

Finally, logic prevailed: I went to Carnation's own recipe and here it is:

Ingredients

use a 20cm/ 8'' loose-bottomed cake tin, greased

Serves 10-12

Base

100g/ 3 1/2 oz butter, melted

250g/ 9oz digestive biscuits ( I used Eti Burçak)

Filling

100g/ 3 1/2 oz butter

100g/ 3 1/2 oz dark brown soft sugar

397g can Carnation Condensed Milk

Topping

4 small bananas

300ml carton double cream, lightly whipped (I used 1 packet Tikveşli krema)

grated chocolate

Method

•  Crush biscuits in a food processor. Stir in melted butter. Press the mixture with your fingers into the base and 4cm/ 1 1/2'' up the sides of the tin. Chill the base while you make the filling.

making the biscuit base

• To make the filling: place the butter and sugar in a non-stick saucepan over a low heat, stirring until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Add the condensed milk and bring gently to the boil, stirring continuously. When the caramel has started to boil, remove from heat and pour over the biscuit base. Cool, then leave to chill for about 1 hr, till firm.                      
• To serve: remove pie from tin and place on serving plate. Slice the bananas, fold half of them into the softly whipped cream and spoon over the toffee base. Decorate with the remaining bananas and finish with grated chocolate.

 Afiyet olsun!

caramel cooling in the tin

Tips

1. The internet is useful for photos as to how the final banoffee should look. Personally I like this one which is how the Carnation recipe presents it. 
2. I didn't remove mine from the tin before adding the filling as the logistics of getting it to its final destination were tricky. So here you see mine with the filling still in the tin. I removed it once there and it was fine. 
3. I actually baked my pie crust in the oven 180C/350F for 10 mins before cooling and adding the filling. 
4. Some recipes advocate using 2 tins of condensed milk. I think that would be too sweet for words.

          Deeply satisfying, highly calorific, extremely easy to make: the ultimate in indulgent desserts!

Christmas Mince Pies

Too much going on. Difficult to concentrate. Wondering whether son is going to be able to fly out of Heathrow on Thursday or not. So many people’s journeys disrupted. And if he doesn’t manage it, shall we postpone Christmas?

But before anything further develops, I do want to quickly share my mince pies with you. They’re easy to make and quite delicious. Well, we think so. In my experience, Turks aren’t as mad on them as we are but we carry on regardless.

This December consternation  reigned in Istanbul at least amongst all of us as our source of homemade mincemeat had dried up. Our Corona group usually makes a wonderful selection of Christmas goodies including cakes , puddings, and the aforesaid mincemeat but for a variety of reasons, this year Corona  collapsed. Of course one could make these things oneself but it was always part of the IWI Christmas Bazaar experience to fight your way through to the Corona tables and then retire triumphant with your booty. In the past my mother used to fly to Istanbul with her homemade Christmas cake on her lap while I would concentrate on the pudding and mince pies.

But I was all right. I discovered a huge jar of Corona mincemeat left over from last year. The stuff seems to be indestructible.

Now, this is the only time of the year that I deviate from my basic pastry recipe . Instead I go Cordon Bleu as this particular recipe really is melt-in-your-mouth. Here it is:

Ingredients for rich shortcrust pastry

Makes about 18 pies (using about 1 ½ lb/675g mincemeat)

8oz /225g plain flour

Pinch of salt

6oz/175g butter

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 egg yolk

2-3 tbsp cold water

Method

§  Sift the flour with the pinch of salt into a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the bowl. Rub the pieces into the flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, mix egg yolk with water, and tip into the flour mixture. Mix quickly to a firm dough.

§  Turn onto a floured surface and knead lightly till smooth. If possible,chill in fridge (wrapped in clingfilm or foil) for 30 mins before use.

§  Set oven to 400F/200C/Gas 6. On a lightly floured surface, roll out half the pastry fairly thinly, and stamp into rounds the size of your patty tins with a cutter.

§  Place your rounds in the tin and fill each with a good spoonful of mincemeat.  Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut into star shapes for the tops. Place gently on top of each mince pie and press down.

§  Brush lightly with cold water, dust with granulated/caster sugar.

§  Cook for 15 – 20 mins till nicely brown. Cool slightly before removing from tins.  Some people like to sift additional icing sugar over them for effect.

Tips

1.    The original recipe from  Party Cooking, one volume in the 5-volume Cordon Bleu set dating back to 1970 and the foundation of my cookery library, included 1oz/75g ‘shortening or lard’. I have no idea what lard is but shortening is butter so I have simply increased the given amount from 5 to 6oz or 175g. I have done this every Christmas for the last 25 odd years so don’t worry, it is just fine.

2.    Ever since I saw a picture in a magazine of mince pies with stars on top instead of the simple round, I have been doing it this way. Prettier I think, and less pastry.

3.    If by any chance your mincemeat is a bit dry , the remedy is easy: add 1- 2 tbsp brandy, rum, or sherry! This often happens if, like mine, it is from a previous year.

Merry Christmas from me in Istanbul!

Beautiful Blogger Award

I am the very very happy recipient of a Beautiful Blogger Award for which I was nominated by my good friend Heike writer of the lovely blog Knitsisters which was also recently honoured. She has been such a great support ever since I started blogging back in August and for me, this is the ultimate in encouragement. I am both thrilled and excited and also feel spurred on as there are so many beautiful blogs out there. My aim is to make my blog better and better. Heike, thank you for this.
To receive the award, I have to tell you five things that you might not know about me. Well, here goes:

1. My mother was French, the eldest of ten children, and as a result, I am one of sixty first cousins. In fact, I am the second oldest of all of them and agewise, they go down to almost the age of my own daughters.
2. Even though I studied Sociology and Anthropology, I ended up an English teacher!
3. My first teaching job ever was high in the mountains of Swaziland at a Mission School for girls. To get there each morning from Mbabane, the capital, we used to drive by the witch doctor’s hut and see him stirring his potions in a big cauldron. He looked ferocious and it was rather unnerving.
4. I first came to Turkey on the famous Orient Express from Venice, where I arrived by ship from Cape Town at the beginning of December in the seventies. The train journey itself took three days and when I emerged at my final destination, Sirkeci station in the heart of Istanbul, and saw the Golden Horn teeming with life and the Galata Tower in the background, I was smitten.
5. I met my Turkish husband-to-be three weeks after arriving in Ankara where my parents were living. Changed all my plans and the rest is history!

The second requirement for receiving this nomination is to nominate five further blog writers myself. This is difficult as there are so many truly inspirational blogs from which to choose but I limited myself by choosing cookery-related ones:

• Burcu, Turkish but living in the States, writes Almost Turkish Recipes and she does it really really well. I particularly like her header and format.
• Özlem’s Turkish Table is another really good blog. I like this one because she is Turkish but lives in England and also visits Istanbul from time to time so there are certainly aspects that I can identify with. Her photos and recipes are great.
• Then there is a lovely French blog written (in English) by Barbara called Cuisine de Provence Provence. Being half French, and with cousins living in Provence where we often go, I can really identify with the food and people that she portrays.
• There is an adorable cooking blog called Just My Delicious written by Paula who is Polish. The blog is in Polish but luckily there is a translation button. I like it because it is colourful and original with terrific photos.
• And the last one is called Filiz’in Mutfağı, which means Filiz’ Kitchen. I love the huge photos she puts of the delicious things she cooks. It’s in Turkish but the photos alone are worth a look.

I still have a lot to learn in this wonderful world of blogging but I am enjoying the journey immensely. Thank you for this nomination, Heike. I am thrilled.

By the way, coincidentally my blog is right in the middle of a makeover so please don't go away!

Bakewell Tart: an almond dessert



baking over: risen and golden



Well, I have just been on the internet researching Bakewell Tart. Predictably, it says that originally it hails from the picturesque town of Bakewell in the Derbyshire Dales near the Peak District in England.It already sounds romantic, doesn’t it?  And that there is a difference between a Bakewell Tart and a Bakewell Pudding. Both of them need a pastry base and then an almond- based filling, pretty similar as far as I can see. Ah, no, I see that the tart uses shortcrust pastry while the pudding is made from puff pastry.  All I know is that it is my Turkish husband’s absolute favourite English dessert – he can’t resist it! And another thing, so long as you know how to make good pastry, it is really such an easy yummy dessert to make. It is described as a ‘Comfort Pud’. At this time of year, it has real taste appeal. Is it those almonds?

Here in Istanbul, finding ground almonds is one of those magical, tantalizing quests: sometimes you are lucky and sometimes, especially when you are really counting on them, you just can’t find them. We have almond trees in our garden in Assos but you know what, almonds are not easy nuts to crack.Literally. You have to be really determined to get to the heart. So when we were in Lisbon in October and I saw a generously-sized bag of ground almonds in the nearby supermarket, we grabbed it. I should have grabbed five. It does simplify matters.

Ingredients

Serves 6-8

175g/6oz plain flour

85g/3oz chilled butter, cut into dice

1 tbsp icing sugar

1 egg yolk

3 tbsp good-quality raspberry jam

25g/1oz flaked almonds

FOR THE FILLING (known as frangipane)

85g/3oz ground almonds/toz badem

85g/3oz butter, at room temperature

85g/3oz golden castor sugar (I used simple granulated sugar)

3 eggs, beaten

1-2 drops of almond essence

FOR THE ICING

25g/1oz icing sugar

Method

§  Gently heat the ground almonds for the filling in a small frying pan, stirring often, to lightly brown. Cool. Rub the flour and diced, chilled butter together with your fingers to make fine crumbs (or use a food processor). Stir in the icing sugar, then the yolk, then gradually add 3 tbsp cold water or enough so the dough comes together. Gather it into a ball.

toasting the almonds

§  Roll the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use to line a 4cm deep 20cm fluted flan tin, fitting the pastry into each flute so it doesn’t shrink while baking. Chill 1 hr.

§  Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Line the pastry with greaseproof paper and baking beans and bake for 12 mins, then remove paper and beans and bake a further 5 mins. Lower the heat to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Cream the butter and sugar for the filling with an electric whisk until light and creamy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition – the mixture will look curdled. Lightly fold in the ground almonds and almond essence.

yes, it does look a bit curdled

adding in the ground almonds

§  Spread the jam over the base of the pastry. Pour over the almond filling, sprinkle with the flaked almonds and bake for 25-30 mins until nicely brown.



all set for the oven

 Cool slightly. To make the icing, sift the sugar into a bowl and stir in a few drops of cold water to make a thickish consistency. Drizzle it over the tart.

                                      Will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight tin.

cooling on the rack before drizzling with icing sugar

Tips

1.    This recipe is tried and tested and comes from one of my favourite sources, BBC Good Food. Other recipes I read, including Jamie’s, use much more butter than this. He also uses 50g semolina which is mixed in along with the ground almonds for the filling which may or may not be a good thing. And finally he recommends sifting a little icing sugar over the finished tart instead of doing the drizzling. I saw the picture and prefer this look! In fact, there are lots of images on the net of all sorts of different versions of this, including as an iced tartlet with a cherry stuck on top (Cherry Bakewell), with much more jam than I have here, and with much less flaked almonds on top. Again, I think sprinkled all over looks best.

2.    It really should be raspberry jam but of course if you haven’t got it, use another red jam. Failing red, whatever you have!

3.    Oh, and I have a confession to make: the recipe says the pastry should be chilled for 1 hr. Well, I put it in the fridge and then twiddled my thumbs a bit; I went off and made the bed and still only half an hour had passed. And then I took it out and carried on! It was fine. And as for that business with the paper and beans, I didn’t do that: I simply pricked the base all over with a fork and that was fine too.

4.    We had guests for dinner on Saturday night and this is what I made for dessert. I served it with whipped cream and it was delicious.Turhan had the last little sliver for breakfast.

Two Festive Istanbul Teaparties

welcome! this is what this glass of çay says to me

 And indeed we were. This was yesterday when Nurhayat invited our old group of seven or eight ex-teachers from the English Department of the local high school round for tea. She had been trying and trying to get us all together - a difficult task with everybody's busy lives - but she didn't give up till she did.

look at this appetising spread!

Here is her sofra or table of offerings, and this is only the tuzlu or savoury part which every Turkish teaparty starts off with. Don't forget the tatlıs/sweet things were to come!  I love the bright colours of her provencale cloth which set the food off so well. My favourite was the mısır ekmeği/corn bread which she made from an old recipe of her mother’s. Nurhayat’s family hails from İzmir, by the sea, and this bread had an Aegean touch as the ingredients included both olives and walnuts. It was both delicious and light.

There was also kısır which was special as it was made with brown bulgur which we had never seen before, and moistened with unsweetened pomegranate molasses. The böreks  were sprinkled with seeds which she baked in the oven as opposed to frying. She is very into healthy cooking which I really appreciated.

By the way, in case you were wondering, we never have lunch before we go to these teas!

Crystel's Christmas table

The day before, I enjoyed another lovely afternoon: my German friend Crystel invited our staunch group of friends who have been meeting once a month for about 15 years, round for her traditional Christmas teaparty. You know how well Germans do Christmas and she always excels herself!

those delicious cheesy swiss chard tartlets

 We were immediately transported into a German Weinacht once we entered her flat as the tree was up, Christmas music playing, and a trayful of glasses of aromatic gluhwein  magically appeared!  Crystel is actually an engineer but her speciality is the most amazing gateaux which she produces effortlessly from her tiny kitchen.

me at the head of Crystel's table

Above you can see her amazing lemon meringue pie in the foreground and below you can see other goodies she made:

nutty chocolate cookies

crumble cake

If you want any recipes, just let me know and I will ask Nurhayat or Crystel! They will be delighted if you ask!

Quince Dessert/ Ayva Tatlısı

Quinces are really plentiful in Istanbul right now. It is their time.  I was waiting at the traffic lights the other day and saw an old man with a huge basket of them on his back just walking down the pavement. You see trucks full of them driving by!

does this appeal?

I have to confess I have never made this in my life till a few days ago, despite it being the dessert of choice at this time of year for many Turks. Why is that, you may wonder? Purely because I knew that a lot of sugar was involved and that was enough to delay making this yummy dessert till now. Amazing, really. But I still had three lovely big quinces left after making the jam and we had dinner guests coming so I thought this was my big opportunity.

in the pan ready for slow, gentle cooking

 And guess what, it was very successful, easy to make, and looked most appetising at the end of the long, gentle cooking. Again, just like the jam, no extra colouring was needed. The beautiful  pinky red developed before my eyes as well as the exotic fragrance as the sugar and lemon caramelised around the fruit.  Though I say it myself,  it looked and tasted quite like the real thing! I will definitely be making this again!

Ingredients

1 or 2 halves per person depending on size and appetite!

4 quinces

8 cloves/karanfil

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

Juice of ½ lemon

Clotted cream/kaymak

Method

§  Peel the quinces and cut in half. Reserving the seeds, scoop out the cores to create hollows and insert a clove into each one. Place the quinces in a pan able to accommodate them in one layer. Add the water, seeds, sugar and lemon juice.

§  Cook over low heat for about 60 mins or until the fruit is tender, pink, and slightly caramelised. If needed, add a little extra water during cooking time to prevent the fruit sticking to the bottom of the pan.

§  Leave to cool in the pan, remove the cloves and seeds, and serve with the cream or kaymak ( buffalo cream!).



cooled and ready to serve



If you can get hold of quinces, I think this is a great dessert to make for friends or family. There are many recipes out there for it but this is one of Angie Mitchell's. 



Peace Corps Turkey Cookbook

The doorbell rang  a few days ago and  who should I see but my friendly postman bearing a parcel for me. When I had to sign for it, I felt a surge of anticipation as to what was going to be inside as I had had prior notice.  Sure enough, there it was, a treasure trove of ancient cookbooks sent by an old Peace Corps volunteer who now lives in Ankara and who thought I would like them. Well, I do! I really really do! Thank you! I felt just like the people in 84 Charing Cross Road when they received a parcel from the States – do you know that book? All I wanted to do was curl up and read these books that hold not only recipes but history of How It Used To be.

One is the original Basic Cookery for Peace Corps Volunteers in Turkey written by Margot Higgins in 1966. The next is the Iran Peace Corps Cookbook dated 1969 which has many of its recipes taken from the Afghan Peace Corps Bookbook compiled with the help of an American missionary who lived in Afghanistan for many years. And the third is called The Armenian Cookbook by Rachel Hogrogrian, printed in 1975 and dedicated to ‘the Hogrogians, the Ansoorians, the Boyajians, the Tashjians, the Manoukians, the Vartenissians, the Kherdians and for all their ‘’ ians’’ to come’! There they all are, battered and used, with all their stories.

Can you imagine how those young Americans must have felt when they embarked on what must have been the adventure  of their lives to come to these countries in the late sixties, early seventies? I imagine they barely knew how to cook in their own native land let alone in a wild country such as Turkey. I know because I was here then too but I didn’t have to fend for myself as I was first of all in a city, Ankara, and then my own parents were here for the first year of my married life, and after that, I had my husband’s lovely family to help me at every step.

Old Margot sounds just up my street: direct and no nonsense. She tells it how it is. Her very first words are as follows:’ if you eat properly and sensibly, you are more likely to be healthy. If you are healthy, you are more likely to be happy. Agreed?  If not, don’t bother to read another word. Give this book to somebody else.’ OK Margot, we agree.  She says that if you don’t have butane gas for the oven, ‘you will need a pump-up stove (primus) to supplement your big wood or kerosene stove and to replace it in hot weather. And then she adds dryly: ‘Some people get along fine with these, some don’t.’  Today it is hard to think of contending with wood-burning fires to cook a meal but then that’s how it was. I just can’t help thinking of those volunteers, all probably from solid middle-class American families. What did they think, I wonder? How did they survive?

 The book is full of practical, down to earth recipes with asides that are now quite hilarious to read. Eg Koç (pron: koch) Yumurtası: She says, ‘The first time I saw Koç Yumurtası on a menu, I asked the waiter what it meant. This proved a tricky question for him to answer, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me that an item could be listed on a menu which was too delicate to be discussed in normal conversation.Let’s face it. It  means ram’s (or lamb’s) testicles. Once over that hurdle, we can relax and enjoy them. They are delicious, not expensive, and simplicity itself to cook.’ To this day, I haven’t eaten them myself!

Over the years we have met a fair number of ex-Peace Corps Volunteers and of these, without exception, they have all retained a love and special affinity with Turkey and the Turkish people. Many of them married locals and stayed on while others based their entire working careers on their experiences here. Others simply kept their memories in their hearts. I remember one ex-Peace Corps guy called Bill whom we met when we were living in Tokyo in the eighties.  I had met his wife through playgroup. One day she said she and Bill would like to go out to dinner with us as Bill had heard that my husband was Turkish and wanted to meet him. And so we did. We had the most wonderful evening. Turned out that Bill had spent a fantastic year in the tiny village of Köyceğiz in south-west Turkey, and had never forgotten it. He was thrilled to meet Turhan.

Blogger's Day in Istanbul

Is it really that close to Christmas?  Hard to believe as it’s  an unseasonal 21 degrees outside for a start!

a mountain of mistletoe for sale



But IWI – International Women of Istanbul – certainly knows it is fast approaching as yesterday was their major annual fundraiser and the theme is certainly Christmas complete with decorated trees, merry helpers wearing red aprons and Santa hats, carols and festive food! Not to mention the many attractive stalls where you can easily be persuaded to part with your pennies and do some Christmas shopping!  It is a huge affair, meticulously organized, involving many members in months of planning, and raises millions for the many Turkish charities it supports.Traditionally it’s held in the Hilton Convention Centre, a most suitable venue as it is centrally located, very important in this huge city of ours,  and large enough to comfortably accommodate the Food Court upstairs and the various stalls downstairs.

a delectable French hamper

Swedish bacon - so close to the expat's heart

familiar Dutch cheese

 All the different nationalities try to outdo each other in terms of their speciality foods which you buy and enjoy for lunch with your friends,  or through selling enticing items, many of a foodie nature that are not usually available here, and are specially brought in from their countries.  All in all, it’s an occasion that everybody looks forward to. Not only hard work but fun too as it is very social : you see all your friends in one fell swoop.

the American stall is always a winner

This year I was one of the team selling tickets for the food and drink upstairs in the Food Court. After donning my purple top as our particular theme was purple, I left home at 5 to 8 in order to be sure of arriving at the Centre by 10. Traffic wasn’t too bad and I was there at 9.20. It’s a great occasion for everyone to work together and the spirit of community is unmistakable.

everybody pitching in ....

....... to prepare these delicious open salmon sandwiches!

I got home just after half past five feeling elated but exhausted! It was a great day.  Now to check online to see if I have won a raffle prize or two...