Life’s journey

Jan 15, 2015

The enigma that is street dogs in Turkey

admin Family, Istanbul, Life's journey, Street dogs, Travel

I think I can speak for the rest of my family, when I say that one of our lasting memories of our time in Turkey, will be the street dogs. Growing up in the UK, stray dogs have a negative connotation of being dangerous and unwanted, but that perception has been turned on its head in Turkey.

Dixie, Sammie and Steffy

It is so embedded in the culture here, and is just a part of life, that people take care of the dogs. When we moved into our apartment here in Arnavutkoy, we first saw a dog that used to come and greet us and wag her tail – we named her Steffy. She was soon joined by a large dog with a gentle, yet fearful temperament – Sammi. Whilst he comes up to us and accepts treats, he does not want to be touched, even after 15 months of knowing him.

Dixie, Sammi and Steffy getting caught up with Dave

Apparently, according to some of our dog-loving neighbours, the municipality, who monitor and look after the dogs (it is firmly enshrined in the law here), find places that they think the dogs will thrive, and if it works and the neighbours don’t complain, they bring more dogs. What seems to happen though, is that not only do the neighbours not complain, but they look after and cherish the new additions to the neighbourhood. Hence, Steffy and Sammi were soon joined by Dixie, who is definitely the underdog and quite timid. A few months later, a gorgeous dog, whom we had come across while walking on the Bosphorous, joined the pack – we named him Ziggy, as he has one brown eye, and one blue – a la David Bowie.

Ziggy

Then there’s Waya, who used to belong to a house up the road, but ran away to join the strays – such an interesting enigma that a stray dog’s life here is preferable to a domestic dog, that is kept tied up all day. Poor Waya is a bouncy friendly dog that just wants lots of loving.

We have often thought about adopting one of these dogs and giving them a loving home, and it is especially tempting at this time of the year, when they have to survive in sub-zero temperatures – I remember last year, seeing Sammi lying in the snow, and it breaking my heart. However, the debate we always have is, would they prefer to be adopted or maybe not? For the most part, these dogs have a wonderful life – they are free spirits to roam where they want, they run around on the hillside in front of where we live, they have enough food and plenty of attention and cuddles. Would they want to have their freedom taken away, and be confined to being indoors? Is the exchange of security and love worth the sacrifice of their freedom? The jury is still out on that one…..

Daisy giving some loving to Ziggy and Steffy

Theres one more part-timer in the pack, and that’s King, who’s an incredibly athletic boisterous Alsatian, who loves chasing cars. He is a loner and wanderer and we often spot him down by the Bosphorus. Or rather, he spots us out walking, and then runs at a million miles an hour towards us. Meanwhile most other walkers recoil in horror at the sight of this huge dog running at us, and grab their mini pooches into their arms as quickly as possible. Quite a sight as Daisy and King then embrace and have a big cuddle, much to the amusement and concern of onlookers.

But that’s just our little enclave. We feed them and so do lots of our neighbours. One couple built them a big shelter last year, that they regularly use at nighttime and one lovely lady is often in there, hanging out the blankets to dry, and generally spring cleaning their house!

Daisy and Steffy, who loves her cuddles, as you can see

We recently invited ourselves unbidden onto the patch of other dog-loving people. There is a tiny park about a 5 minute walk from us on the way to Arnavutkoy, where several dogs hang out – we have seen them many times. One of the dogs is old and barks but we have never paid him much attention. Until last week. He was the one that I wrote about on FaceBook as I was so affected by this poor old dog lying in the snow, with a coat on! He looked so old and ill and cold and I couldn’t get him out of my head, and so went back and visited him most days. What was incredible is that every time I saw him, he had a new coat and jumper on Â – old human ones that had been put over his front paws and body to keep him warm. I have slowly met the ladies who care for him, and his name is Beyaz (white in Turkish) and he is 12 years old and clearly on his last legs.

What is interesting but strange, is that to me, he looks so ill and uncomfortable, with no quality of life, and barely surviving the freezing temperatures, that I couldn’t understand why somebody didn’t put him out of his misery. I realised it was not my place to interfere, as it was not my ‘patch’ but now I understand that euthanasia is not part of the Turkish culture. This understanding came about yesterday when I met another lady who told me that she had watched Beyaz grow since a puppy and they all loved and cared for him. She said that the vet had been yesterday and given him an injection, and when I suggested that the vet gave him an injection to put him to sleep forever, she looked aghast and horrified. I quickly explained, that in the UK, if a dog is old and ill with no quality of life, then we consider it to be the kind thing, to end their life, but clearly this was not an option for this poor dog.

So, I shall visit him every day, sit with him and stroke him and hope that his end comes quickly.

Nov 17, 2014

Japanese cooking – yum!

admin Eating, Food, Istanbul, Life's journey, Uncategorized

I was thrilled to be invited to join the Istanbul Women’s Institute at a Japanese Cooking Demonstration today. We were hosted by the wonderful Ayse, whom I have heard about and yep, she is as warm and friendly as her reputation suggested. She lives in Yenikoy which is a suburb further up the Bosphorus and has the most amazing enormous kitchen, just perfect for cooking demonstrations. Apparently, it is often Ayse doing the demos as she loves to cook, and is the Institute’s Turkish food expert.

But today, it was Kyoko Numan cooking. Kyoko has lived in Istanbul for several years, and before that the US, and as well as Japanese food and cooking, Kyoko teaches origami. We had the pleasure of admiring her origami when we eventually got to sit down and tuck into all the wonderful dishes, as the tables were decorated with fans, and birds and flowers….

As well as learning to cook some delicious Japanese dishes, the fascinating part for me, was meeting all the women there – 17 in all. Our nationalities spanned Mexico, Portugal, Brazil, Canada, Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, USA, and of course Turkey and the UK. It was wonderful to hear everybody’s stories and what brought them to live in Istanbul. And of course we all shared a love of food.

So, to the food – Kyoko cooked for us:

Teriyaki chicken made with boneless chicken thighs – she demonstrated this two ways, both in the pan on the stove top, and in the oven. It was succulent and juicy and had a wonderful flavour, and one that I plan to make very soon.

Vegetable tempuraÂ – aubergine, peppers and courgettes with a wonderfully simple teriyaki sauce. I have never made a batter before and so was interested to see that you use carbonated water for it. (or beer!)

MisoÂ – delicious flavour of miso with spring onions, egg and wakame (seaweed)

Chirasi sushi – a new dish for me as I have never seen sushi like this. The sushi rice is spread out on a bamboo platter, with the shredded nori seaweed sprinkled over the top. Next some fake(!) crab, smoked salmon and egg pancakes were all scattered over, and it was finished with some sesame seeds. Again, delicious but refreshingly different – actually it made me think of a sushi cake!

We also learnt to make homemade gari, which is pickled ginger, a complete revelation, as it is easy to do, but wonderfully harmonious in its flavours, and of course finished the meal with Japanese green tea, which we were told should always be made with hot water at 90C, in effect, allowing it to slightly cool after it has boiled.

All in all a wonderful day with wonderful food and wonderful ladies.

Nov 6, 2014

Another side of Istanbul

admin Family, Istanbul, Life's journey, Uncategorized

This post is the next one in the series, ‘what I love about Istanbul – different opportunities.’ As I have said many times and told as many people who will listen, it is so wonderful having Billy with us here in Istanbul! We learnt the hard way, but the value of family, however difficult family life is, however many arguments there are, is the most important thing to be cherished.

But one of the more unexpected things I am enjoying with Billy here, is that he is taking us off on different tangents, and I am seeing another side of Istanbul. This is because Billy’s life is very much centred around sport, so now I get to explore whole new areas as we trek to rugby stadiums and sports clubs dotted around Istanbul.

For example, on the recent public holidays, we made our way to miles away on the Asian side, to Maltepe, which was when Daisy and I made our coffee stop in Kadikoy. Billy played with his club in the Kadikoy stadium at an opening game for the ensuing match for Kadikoy against an Italian team, and it was almost a surreal experience to watch him play with a mosque as a backdrop, and the French ambassador in the audience.

Billy has joined a predominantly French rugby club, with a smattering of Irish thrown in, and then there is Billy who is English although thinks of himself as South African, and of course, will one day play for the Bokke.

The club does its regular Saturday training not far from us and I stand by the side of the pitch on a Saturday and marvel at our surroundings and in particular, at how incredibly different it is from anywhere Billy might have played rugby before. Its not just the lack of grass, but the entire skyline.

Obviously, Billy learnt to play rugby in Cape Town, where there were hundreds of grass pitches everywhere and these young whippersnappers played rough and tumble to a beautiful background of Table Mountain.Â And then in the UK, again, wherever he played, whether a home match at Twyford, or an away match at another school, they were privileged to be running around in these acres of amazing green-ness.

So, I hope Istanbul will be a memory for Billy for years to come. Not only playing on that sore astroturf but a small pitch surrounded by skyscrapers in a built up inner city suburb.

Nov 2, 2014

Discovering Turkey’s wine routes

admin Drinking, Eating, Family, Food, Istanbul, Life's journey, Restaurants, Uncategorized

We made our first trip down the Thrace wine route last week, and it was a revelation to try such gorgeous, big, structured, balanced wines that are well-made and have got some age on them.

When I say ‘discover’, I do mean that, as it not easy to find much information about the wineries and vineyards and they are not very well known. This is mainly down to the present government banning any advertising about wine, and even calling wine ‘wine’ is against the law – it is officially fermented grape juice.

However, there has been a new initiative promoting the Thrace wine route – not sure how they managed that – and so we set off from Istanbul and followed the road down the North West coast of the Marmara sea for a couple of hours.

Our first stop was Chateau Nuzun, which is the closest vineyard to Istanbul. It is a state of the art winery that has been purpose built with a huge tasting room overlooking the beautiful vineyards.

And we were blown away by the wines! We didn’t really know such wines existed in Turkey – and decided, that in a blind tasting, we would not have picked them out as Turkish but as a good Southern French blend. Our favourites were the Chateau Nuzun Cabernet Sauvignon – Syrah blend 2008, and the same label Syrah 2010 – I would go so far as to say they would give your European wines a good run for their money. chateaunuzun.com

From there we were directed to a small village called MarmaraereÄŸlisi, where we tried the small kÃ¶fte which the region are famous for. Dave had a wonderful time exploring the nearby beach – the first time he has felt sand under his paws for several years since Cape Town!

Next stop was Barbare Vineyards which also has a hotel where we had booked to stay for two nights. They have been clever, as they have converted their now illegal wine tasting room, into a hotel, which can therefore legally serve wine. Whilst we will gloss over the hotel rooms (a pre-fab mobile home divided into rooms of a disappointingly low standard), the main hotel was a delight with a big open fire place and large sofas that we were more than happy to sprawl on and taste wine.

The tasting here took the form of plonking a few bottles of wine on the table before dinner and then working our way through them for the rest of the evening – we didn’t complain! The first night we were treated to the Barbare Elegance 2009 and the Barbare Prestige 2009 – both were delicious, and worked well of course with the bonfile we were served but the Elegance, a Southern Rhone combination of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre just tipped the balance for us.Â

The next night we were given the 2007 Elegance as well as the Premier 2007 which are no longer for sale but came from the owners private cellar – again we felt very spoilt to be enjoying such wonderful wines.

The food was a simple and well-executed Turkish set menu – a tasty shrimp and vegetable soup to start, a Turkish mushroom pasta dish next, then fillet steak served with a gorgeous gutsy cheesy dauphinoise style potato bake.

However, the star of the show was the breakfast – not only presented beautifully on lots of wooden platters and bowls but wonderfully tasty local produce. We eagerly awaited the arrival of the sigare cheese borek on the second morning having polished off a huge pile of them on the first! barbarosbagevi.com

The whole experience Â was very reminiscent of similar trips to the winelands around Cape Town, including a wonderful long walk through the vineyards and across some muddy fields to reach the seaside village of Barbare.Â

On our way home we visited Melen Winery further down the Marmara Sea, where we sat outside gazing out to sea and tasted a dozen wines. It was a very pleasant afternoon, but no notable wines for us. We very slowly limped home after that on our safety tyre, after Peter and Billy had sorted out the puncture….

Nov 2, 2014

Istanbul’s burgeoning coffee scene

admin Eating, Food, Istanbul, Life's journey, Restaurants, Uncategorized

There are not many ways I would compare Istanbul to Cape Town. But there is one. Coffee. As you know, a subject close to my heart. When we moved to Cape Town in 2001, we took with us our trusted Nespresso machine, and that was about all we could lay our hands on, except for over-foamy horrors in Melissa’s, seen there as the height of sophistication. Oh, and there was Seattle Coffee in a garage somewhere, and I have a memory of being scolded by the cashier as I was 6 months pregnant, and apparently shouldn’t be drinking coffee.

In the following years, coffee literally exploded in Cape Town, first with the Vida e Caffe chain and then many more that followed. I have to say, that for a while, coffee was better inÂ Cape Town, than in the UK, as there was more individual care taken by the baristas than their counterparts in the likes of Starbucks and Costa. I remember the first time my dear friend, Cathy, told me about Vida e Caffe in Kloof Street, and it was such a revelation – it remained my favourite place to hang out and drink coffee until we left Cape Town.

Our new grinder

Fast forward a few years and we arrive in Istanbul. The main issue with coffee in Istanbul is that there has been no European coffee culture here – the majority of people drink cay (pronounced chai) which is strong black Turkish tea, usually served in a small glass. Of course, there is also Turkish coffee – extremely strong and concentrated, and served in a small cup. And as both the traditional style tea and coffee are not served with milk, there is no culture of using high quality milk in their drinks, so most European-style coffees over here are made with UHT milk – aagghh!

When we came to visit Istanbul last May on a house/school visiting trip, we were lucky enough to come across an article in the current edition of Istanbul’s Time Out guide, which was one of the first of many, to extoll the virtues of the new coffee shops in Istanbul. It took us nearly an hour to find Cup of Joy, as it is in a little passageway tucked between some buildings, but thank goodness, we persevered, as that place has been one of the things that has kept me going over the last year and a bit.

When we found Cup of Joy, it had only been open a month and so was relatively quiet. It is owned by Suzan and Ebru, who are both passionate and knowledgeable about coffee, but they are also warm and hospitable and provided me with lots of useful tidbits of info from buying curtain material to where to go sailing. We are obviously not the only ones who love Cup of Joy, as it has now expanded into a second shop in the same passageway, and is nearly always heaving with people. Oh, and they love Dave – need I say more?

But the problem was, that really there were not many places like Cup of Joy, so if my days included venturing out into another part of Istanbul, then I knew I wouldn’t get any decent coffee. Naturally this meant that top of the important criteria for finding our new apartment last year, was to be within walking distance of Cup of Joy, which I can confirm is the case, and we happily trot down there several times a week. Perfect walk for Dave – that’s my excuse.

However, all that has now changed and just like happened in Cape Town, the coffee scene in Istanbul is happening. And I have made it my mission to visit as many of them as possible.

Coffeetopia in Eminonu

On a recent visit to Kadikoy on the Asian side for Billy’s rugby match (more about that inÂ the next post), Daisy and I made a little detour to find Cekirdek, which turned out to be closed. However, we stumbled across Rafine, a very small little cafe, almost a kiosk really, where the coffee was very good. We spent a very happy half an hour chatting to the owner, a young chef, recently back from London and discovered that he had only been open a month – we were there first! Well nearly.

Our latest find, however, is Petra, which is in the suburb of Gayrettepe, very close to where Billy plays rugby on a Sunday. You can see where this is going, can’t you? Petra is in a warehouse, that also houses a gallery, which sells a collection of bizarre unrelated things like speed boats, and antiques. However, they are passionate about their coffee and roast their own beans. Last weekend we bought a new grinder so that we can always have a selection of beans on the go, much like you would have several bottles of wine open at the same time…

Petra Roasting

Sep 24, 2014

School dinners

admin Eating, Family, Food, Istanbul, Life's journey

So evocative, school dinners. Everybody has a (usually not so favourable) memory of school dinners.

I remember loving toffee cream pie and having an extra serving whenever that was on offer – oh, those days were the days when we didn’t worry about sugar! Â But mostly school dinners for me was a lonely affair, as most of my friends spent their ‘dinner’ money at the ice cream van. I longed to be able to have a Mars Bar and a packet of crisps for my lunch, but as we qualified for ‘free’ dinners, there was no question of that.

Billy and Daisy have endured the full gamut of school dinner experiences. They are non-existent in Cape Town, so it was packed lunches every day, which I for one, was very happy to be rid of when we moved to the UK. Back in the UK, they had their first experience of school lunches – Billy of course loved the food at his school, whereas Daisy said the daily fareÂ at hers was horrible. Pretty par for the course.

But the international school in Istanbul is a different kettle of fish all together. For a start, as the International school shares its premises with the National school, the canteen is huge, serving more than 2000 meals a day, the majority of which are served to Turkish children. The International school makes up less than a quarter of the children, but of course within that quarter there are more than 50 different nationalities from literally all over the world.

Daisy stubbornly refuses to eat from the canteen, and last year, as they were not allowed to squirrel away any extra snacks or sandwiches in their bags, used to come home ravenous, as nothing had passed her lips from 7am until 4pm. I wrote to the Principal but was mostly told that the food was pretty good in comparison to American schools, (God help the children of the USA) and that it was a taste adjustment, and soon she would get used to it. Guess what, she didn’t.

So, this year, with Billy at the school, and knowing he wouldn’t get through the day without his scram, I took up the opportunity to be on the Nutrition committee and see what can be done to improve the food. It is no easy task, mainly due to the simple fact of whose palette do you aim to please? The many Asian students? Eastern European, Western European? American? Arab?

I suggested that I start by eating lunch in the canteen every day for a couple of weeks so that I could try it out for myself and see if it really is as bad as my children have reported. The results are below – have a look at some of the photos of my lunches from last week.

Day 1 – Meat and potato stew, rice, courgette in olive oil. Tomato and cucumber salad. Melon

Day 2 – Peppers and courgettes stuffed with meat, rice, tomatoes and spices. Vermicelli soup. Pasta salad. Tomato and cucumber salad. Doughnuts in syrup.

Day 3 – Red lentil soup. Doner kebab and tabouleh. Cold green bean and rice salad. Cucumber and tomato salad. Grapes.

There were some unexpected cool touches like the free-flowing olive oil. Also, the grapes and yogurt come from the owner of the school’s farm somewhere in Turkey.

Will report more next week….

Sep 12, 2014

Beginning of another school year

admin Family, Istanbul, Life's journey, Travel

But this one is so different! For the first time since we left Cape Town, at the end of 2010, the four of us, Peter, Billy, Daisy and me, are living together again in our own home, albeit a rented one. It’s been an interesting journey getting us to this point, where we are all living in Istanbul. When we made the decision to leave Cape Town four years, I don’t think any of us would have imagined that our path would have been quite so circuitous – not uphill exactly, although when is it ever not a challenge?

After our first year back in the UK, when we were indeed altogether, but living in my long-suffering sisters house, Peter took up a new job in Saudi Arabia. Then moving to Istanbul last year allowed us to regain one member of the family whilst losing another.

So after making some tough decisions earlier this year, Billy has come to join us for a year or two in Istanbul, before we (hopefully but who knows?) move back to the UK.

As I wrote in my posts last year, it was a very difficult time leaving Billy behind in the UK to weekly board and then spend the weekends with many loving and generous family members and friends. In hindsight was it the wrong decision for Billy to stay while we lived in another country? Maybe. But hindsight is a wonderful thing and many people have helped me not to see it as a mistake as we all learnt many things from it.

Possibly the biggest lesson for all of us, is the value of family. Perhaps we all took it for granted a bit before, but now we all relish it, and when everybody gets on top of each other, then I for one, just pinch myself and remember how lucky we all are to all be together, enjoying life, learning lots, eating well, fishing and rollerblading along the Bosphorus, and continuing this journey together.

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