food and travel

Nettle will bite you back!

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At my grandmother’s home, in the messy back yard, soon to be my friend, nettle stung me, thousands of times in the good old days, me in my shorts, running up and down, thought every green thing is innocent and my friend. Isırgan, literally meaning stinger, you do the maths….

Çitlembik… say what?

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Egeliler, some Cretan, some Greek, some Sephardic, some pure İzmirli… Wherever their roots go, does not matter, they love to eat everything coming out of earth like the buds of the trees, the leaves, the roots… They don’t like wasting anything. Çitlembik, çitlenbek, çitlenbik – celtis australis- is a tree…

Running up the hills for…

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Kaplan’ın Yeri in Tire İzmir is a phenomenon. Climbing up the hill, surrounded by olive trees and wild nature, you see cows, horses, goats… Passing the nice small village Kaplan,  admiring the small streets, our jaws dropping cause the view, Tire laying under your feet and mother nature. Place full of…

Just the right season for İzmir, Hatay Pazarı

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No, we are not going to Hatay, yet it is another colorful pazar in İzmir. Up at the hills of İzmir, Hatay Pazarı was set up on Thursdays. Kekik 2 kinds -oregano and thyme-,  karabaş -lavandula stoechas- on the right corner, for making tea… the locals say that it is good for…

Food Photo – In front of the house…

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I do not about know your house, but sure mine does not have two lovely ladies sitting infront making swiss chard dolma… They giggled when I took their picture, invited me over for dinner. In Anadolu, it is very common to gather around for preparing food, gossiping about the latest…