Aşure is a special day celebrated annually in Turkey. It marks many events for Muslims, amongst the most significant being the day Noah's Ark set on dry land.The month long festivities of Muharram ...
Village Life
A taste of summer
This summer I am lucky enough to be spending a fair bit of time in Northern Australia to catch up with family. Although it is winter in Oz, it will be around 25C and fairly dry. The wet season ...
Butter me up! How butter is made in the villages.
As many of you know by now, my neighbours own cows. Not a lot of them. Two neighbour couples. 4 cows. Total.I am extremely lucky to be in their tight trading circle as there is not too much ...
Turkish Beach Food: Assos ’15
This is a summer beach post that I wrote about four years ago. It's one of my favourites but I was afraid it might be lost in the archives... so I have revived it! Same beach, same guys (I think), ...
Dinner at Hayrettin’s down by the Antique Harbour in Assos
We arrived in our village of Behramkale, the Turkish name for Assos which overlooks the Aegean, yesterday afternoon after a journey of about five and a half hours from Istanbul by fast ferry and then ...
Village Life
For most of the time we live in Istanbul but frequently we go away to our stone house in the ancient 4th century BC village of Assos, now known as Behramkale, overlooking the beautiful Aegean and the ...
End of Ramazan in sight: Leyla makes traditional pişi in the garden!
Komşu! Un var'mı? Neighbour! Do you have any flour?An early morning call over the garden wall. It was my neighbour Leyla here in our Aegean village of Assos: have you got any flour, she was ...
Macun: the Original Turkish Lollypop
The 'c' in macun is pronounced like a 'j'. The 'u' isn't like in 'up' but more like the 'ou' sound in 'bouquet'. But phonemics aside, macun is a street food, pure and simple!It's a little lolly ...