EatingAsia

On Pursuing an Obsession (Or, what I learned from selling a book)

    

     Almost sixteen years ago to the day I booked our first trip to Turkey. Dave and I were living in Shanghai at the time and Chinese New Year was just around the corner: a nice long slice of vacation time to do with as we pleased. After a so-awful-it's-funny Christmas trip to Guizhou we were determined to travel as far from China as we could. Our award miles would take us as far as Europe, but Europe was expensive. Somehow (advice of friends? an article in a travel pub? for the life of me I can't recall) we decided on Turkey.

     We arrived in Istanbul after midnight and glided into Sultanahmet, the old city, along the ribbon of road that runs along the Bosphorus. I remember gawping up at the minarets of the Blue Mosque as our taxi slide along silent streets to our guesthouse, falling into a deep sleep beneath thick duvets on a charmingly high bed, and being jolted awake before dawn by the call the prayer bellowing from a loudspeaker affixed beneath our window. I sat up ramrod straight, delirious with jet lag and, for the minute it took me to figure out what that noise was, scared silly. I think I fell in love with Istanbul, with its ability to surprise and astonish me, right then. We lingered in the city for 10 bitingly cold days, extending our stay when I came down with a horrible cold. For 48 hours I lay in our room, hunkered feverishly but happily beneath the duvet, watching snow fall as I ate lentil soup and rice pudding that Dave brought from nearby shops.

     I got better and we hit the road. We flew to Izmir and picked up a car, visited a deserted Ephesus and drove south. It was way, way off-season. In Bodrum a storm knocked out power. Our room's ceiling began to leak, making it impossible to use our fireplace to keep warm. We hastily repacked the car and drove through the rain to Aphrodisias, where the only pension open had no heat or hot water and was run by two strangely hostile brothers who served canned tomato soup for dinner. Our compensation was waking after a night of thunder and lightning to a spectacular and empty (except for us) archeological site set against a backdrop of mountains whose peaks had overnite been freshly frosted with what looked like swirls of buttercream.

     Further east at a lakeside resort, restaurants were closed; our hotel's owner took pity on us and defrosted two schnitzel. In Konya, which Istanbul people had warned us would be "very conservative", residents approached us on the street to shake hands and wish us a good trip. Antalya was our Turkish food epiphany. We stayed in an old house in Kaleici owned by a slightly eccentric woman named Perla who kept box tortoises in her large leafy courtyard. Perla and her partner Ali loved to eat, and drink. Every night was an orgy of meze and white wine followed by a perfect grilled fish. Further along the coast, in a seaside village walking distance to the Eternal Flame, we stayed in a bright white room with gauzy turquoise curtains and ate our breakfasts in an orange grove warmed by the sun -- in February.

     We returned to Istanbul in love and obsessed with Turkey, Turks, Turkish food, Turkish towns, Turkish ruins and the wide open Turkish road, all of it. On the flight back to Shanghai I turned to Dave and told him that as soon as I could find a teacher I would study Turkish. I added, "I don't know how and I don't know when, but some day Turkey will be a big part of our lives."

***

     Nine months later we moved back to the Bay Area, and I found a Turkish tutor, then joined first-year Turkish classes at UC Berkeley mid-year. My teacher was a Turkish cookbook author: Kismet! Only I and one other student enrolled in her second-year class, so she split us up for private tutorials. I gained halfway decent proficiency via a steady diet of food magazines and newspaper columns and stories that touched on Turkish culinary culture. Meanwhile Dave and I continued to vacation in Turkey once a year, always following a stop in Istanbul with a long road trip out east. (My biggest regret: no notes from any of those trips.)

     Midway through my sixth semester of Turkish we moved to Bangkok, and set our Turkey obsession aside to immerse ourselves in southeast Asia, a place we'd long wanted to explore. We moved to Saigon, then Kuala Lumpur. We started this blog. I began freelancing and, after leaving his corporate job at the end of 2008, so did Dave.

     In 2010, nine years after our last trip to Turkey, we returned so that Dave could attend a photography workshop. Being back was like slipping on a well-worn glove; Istanbul still fit. Before the workshop began we flew out east to Gaziantep and picked up a car. We drove and drove, first to Mardin -- where I stumbled across a travel story -- and then to Midyat, Van, Kars and Erzurum. Along the way we ate. And ate. Back in Istanbul we extended our stay beyond Dave's workshop, first by a few days, then by a week, then by another week. If we hadn't had a home and pets and responsibilities waiting back in Malaysia for us, it's entirely possible that we'd be one of those ex-pats you meet in Istanbul who came to the city for a visit, and then a second visit ... and never left.

***

      We returned to Turkey six months later, again in the middle of winter, way way off-season. I love Istanbul most in the winter under gray skies and drizzle; I especially love it under a blanket of snow. After eating fresh anchovies at a Black Sea restaurant in Beyoglu we decided to go to the Black Sea to eat them in situ. We met a fishmonger in Sinop and struck up a friendship. We visited wonderful markets and ate delicious dishes that didn't fit most Western pre-conceptions of "Turkish food". We met home cooks who allowed us into their kitchens and master bakers who invited us behind their marble slabs.

     And we returned home to Malaysia with an idea: a book. But could we? Could I write a book about Turkish food? More important: could I sell a book about what essentially began as a crazy obsession?

***

     After nine or ten research trips, two years of on-and-off book proposal writing (with the help of a great editor/coach) and photograph collecting, an at times demoralizing month pitching agents followed by six months of tinkering with the proposal under the guidance of the one who took our project to heart, and four weeks of nail-biting as the proposal went out to and was reviewed by publishers, we had our answer. Last October, as we were finishing up our latest eastern Turkey roadtrip with a few days in -- of all places -- Sinop, we learned that yes, we could sell a book born of our obsession with a country and a people and a cuisine that we came to know by chance, a place that -- Who knows? -- we might never have  visited if we hadn't been so eager, that winter 16 years ago, to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and China (Shanghai, thank you.)

     We have no title yet for our book, but we can tell you that it will be filled with mouthwatering recipes, plenty of gorgeous photographs, and stories -- about markets and farmers and cheese producers and other food artisans, and ingredients and home cooks in their kitchens and bakers -- from Istanbul and Turkey's eastern half. It will not be EatingAsia in book form, but you'll recognize my voice and Dave's eyes in the text and images on its pages. 

     I'm honored and still rather shocked to be working with a woman who has edited Jacques Pepin. Rux Martin Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish [Title ToBeDecided] in 2016.

***

     Before I jumped wholeheartedly into freelancing I took a food writing class taught by a then-editor at Bon Appetit. One of her sagest pieces of advice: "Give into your obsessions. They can become great stories." And, apparently, books.

    Over the two-plus years that I worked on our book proposal I had so many doubts, and so many fears. (And as I contemplate turning in a completed manuscript in 18 months, I have new doubts and fears!) It often seemed silly, this gut desire to write a book on Turkish food. But I'm so glad I pushed on. You never know where an obsession will lead.

     For 2014, I wish everyone reading this the time and opportunity to really give in to an obsession. Am I telling you to quit your job, sell your belongings and travel the world? To chuck it all and become a writer? To pick up a camera and become a photographer? No. But if there is something -- an activity, a language, a dance, a species of orchid, a cuisine.... whatever -- that intrigues you, give in to your curiosity and pursue it, even if for only an hour a week. Life is short. Do that for yourself.

 Happy New Year!

Chatting on Portland, Oregon's KPAM: Turkish Regional Cuisines and Traveling to Eat

    In lieu of the post I've been trying to finish for what seems like weeks (and may not finish for another, as we're currently in the USA visiting family), a couple of audio links.

    Shortly after the NYTimes published our piece on markets and seasonal eating in the Turkish Aegean I received an email from Rod MLaughlin, host of the Azumano Travel Show on Portland, Oregon's KPAM Radio. He'd seen the article and wondered if I'd be interested in talking Turkey with him.

    Of course I agreed. Rado interviews make me really nervous, but Rod is a great interviewer and as promised, edits to make his guests sound more intelligent than they are (recording took place at around midnight my time, so I was half asleep). My two segments aired in early June.

    Here they are, one on the Black Sea in particular and the second on the Aegean and regional differences in Turkish cuisine -- just click the links below. Thanks Rod and KPAM!

 

PortlandTravel.Robyn.1

 

PortlandTravel.Robyn.2

 

 

Road Tripping in Turkey, or How to Self-Drive and Survive

Somewhere west of Inebolu, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, last autumn

    I cannot overstate how much we love road-tripping in Turkey. As far as we're concerned, if you've got the time and can swing it financially, driving yourself is the only way to travel in what could easily be one of the world's most road-trippable countries.

    "Why would I want to self-drive in Turkey?" you ask. Well, for us it's mostly about food. We love Turkey's open roads, the people and places they've led us to and the food that they've set before us. 

    Yes, Turkey boasts a wide-ranging system of mostly comfortable, fairly inexpensive buses. But they don't go or stop everywhere. Too often, while traveling on a bus I've whizzed past a sight or a restaurant or a street stall or whatnot and wished I could jump off and investigate. In a car I can -- and we do, in Turkey, at our own pace and on our own schedule.

A full moon over the Black Sea. For this photo Dave ran along the highway to capture images of the boat in the light of the moon, while I drove behind to pick him up and drop him off when the boat got ahead of him. Not possible if you're on a bus!

    One of my earliest food memories of Turkey, from our first road trip there in January 1998, is of a simple cafe on a lake somewhere between Kusadasi and Bodrum. Dave and I drove by, exchanged a "Should we?" look, then turned around, drove back and ate a delicious fish lunch at a table next to the wood stove. I couldn't tell you the name of the lake, let alone the name of the cafe, but we never would have eaten that lunch delicious enough to still be burned into my memory 15 years later if we'd been traveling by bus.

Not doable by bus: lunch at a roadside restaurant between towns

    More reasons to self-drive: last autumn on Turkey's Black Sea coast we had one of our best meals of our trip at a restaurant we discovered while en route from one overnight stop to the next. A few months later we enjoyed several meals at an inland Black Sea restaurant serving rare regional dishes and tracked down and spent time at one of the area's last river-powered mills. Just last month we road-tripped the Aegean region, following an itinerary structured around weekly markets and great restaurants.

UPDATE: And just this last April (2014) we traced a circle in Turkey's undervisited southeast, a route we like to call 1,000 Miles of Delicious. (In Part 1 and Part 2)

    It's this sort of food-centric travel that draws us back to Turkey again and again, and it simply wouldn't be doable -- or doable to the extent to which we do it -- by bus.

   "I am planning to go to Turkey. How can I travel and eat there as you do?" is something I'm occasionally asked in emails. My answer: Have a sense of adventure. And rent a car. 

    This is not only a How-To post, but a Please-Do post as well. If you're thinking of traveling to Turkey, Please Do consider spending at least part of your time there behind the wheel.

    In the last three years we've undertaken eight extended Turkey road trips. Between these journeys, and the driving trips we did from 1998 and 2001, we figure we've clocked some 15,000 or so kilometers (and plenty of meals). If there is one thing we're positioned to offer advice on it's how to best propel yourself by motor vehicle along the country's highways and byways.

UPDATE July 2014: We passed the 20,000-kilometer mark (we think; our records are approximate) last month (June 2014) with a road trip along Turkey's eastern border and into the Black Sea highlands: Van and around Lake Van - Kars - Ardahan via an unfinished road (unfinished after we were already 2 hours in -- Oops!) - Savsat - Erzurum - Van.

    I'm always surprised to read strong admonishments against driving in Turkey -- often from people who wouldn't think twice about getting behind the wheel in New York, Los Angeles or Boston. So I'll start by tackling the most Common Myths About Driving in Turkey.

Myth 1: Turks are terrible drivers. You'll get killed by a crazy Turkish driver as soon as you pull out of the rental car agency parking lot.

If you've driven in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Bali, Malaysia and especially Penang (in a nation of just generally awful drivers, Penang-ites are said by Malaysians to be the worst) OR Boston or Los Angeles or New York OR Italy or ..... you get my point. In short, if you've driven around and are living to read this post, then you've held your own against much worse drivers than Turks.

TRUTH: Turks are impatient drivers. Expect a honk from the guy behind you as soon as -- sometimes even before -- the light turns green. Don't be rattled, just ignore it and drive on.

TRUTH: Some Turks are risky drivers. Pass on an uphill curve? I've seen it done, and by truck drivers. If someone passes on your left on a two-lane curvy road? Apply the brakes, fall back, and let the risk-taker travel on.

That said, Turks are not bad drivers per se. In my experience Turkish people generally know how to drive. They usually use turn signals. They don't tailgate like Malaysians and many Americans do. They don't often cut across three lanes of traffic to make a turn and except for once way, way out east I've never seen a Turkish driver back up on a freeway because he missed an exit, or back down an exit ramp because he took one he hadn't meant to.

Myth 2:  I don't read or speak Turkish, so I can't possibly drive there.

In 1998 we drove, over three weeks, south along the Aegean, east to Aphrodisias, Egirdir and Konya and then south to the Mediterranean. Neither of us spoke a word of Turkish, nor did we have a phrasebook. We did take along a Turkey Road Atlas from Lonely Planet. We were not particularly sophisticated travelers at the time. We lived in China (and drove there) but we spoke Chinese and by that point China was as familiar to us as the USA was. 

In other words, we did not undertake our first Turkish road trip with any special prior knowledge or preparation. Our trip to Turkey was done on a whim and we knew pretty much zero about the place. Simply put, we were clueless when we got behind the wheel.

We did fine.

Turkish is a romanized language. Turkish roads are well-marked and turn-offs are signed. Get yourself a road map (only the larger international rental agencies give them out as a matter of course). If all else fails Turks are friendly and approachable and will usually go out of their way to help you. If you find yourself lost or unsure of a turn pull over at a shop or a gas station, state your destination as a question, point left and right and you'll get sent off in the right direction.

Myth 3: Renting a car in Turkey, plus the petrol, makes self-driving there prohibitively expensive

Yes, renting a car in Turkey costs more than taking the bus. But it is not always as outrageously expensive as you might think. Take into account the money you might spend on taxis getting to out-of-the-way sights (Sumela monastery from Trabzon, for instance, or the medievel Armenian city of Ani from Kars), and the cost per person if you are a number of people traveling together.

You won't necessariy save money renting a car in Turkey (though you could, with a number of people sharing a vehicle). But it won't necessarily put you in the poor house either.

While on the Aegean we drove approximately 400-425 kilometers and spent a total of about 300-325 US dollars over 7 days on our rental (including insurance purchased from the renter and gas). We drove a diesel vehicle (always preferred, especially if you plan to cover a lot of kilometers) rented through Argus Car Hire that would have comfortably held 4 passengers. (Major international rental agencies charge much higher rates.)

So much for the myths. Now, 10 Tips for Self-Driving in Turkey.

An Anatolian middle of nowhere, February 2012

Tip 1: Go off season

This is advice to embrace no matter how you plan to get around in Turkey, but especially if you plan to drive. Crowded roads make for frazzled nerves. The Aegean is probably one of Turkey's most-visited, and most-driven, regions. In mid-April it was just right for driving (and staying) -- often empty roads during the week and minimal traffic on the weekends -- and will probably remain so until the end of May. You wouldn't catch me dead driving Turkey's west coast in the summer, but I would be happy to return, after September 1.

Unless you're way way way off the beaten track, major roads are passable even in the depths of winter, as we found when we road-tripped in 2012 during one of Turkey's coldest, and snowiest, winters on record.. On that trip we cut a path south to north straight through central-ish Anatolia. For most of our trip everything was blanketed in a beautiful white carapace (extra thrilling for us residents of tropical Penang), but driving never felt scary because major highways and larger roads were kept clear during and after snowfalls.

And, because we'd built extra time into our trip (see Tip 4), even if we had been unexpectedly waylaid for a night or two we could have made do.

Tip 2: Avoid the major cities

This is probably self-evident. Why would you drive in Istanbul, or Ankara? But if you're at all nervous about getting behind the wheel in Turkey, attempting to navigate behind the wheel in major cities is the worst mistake you can make. Just. Don't. Do it. We usually fly in and pick up our car at the airport. A pickup at city rental offices sometimes means slightly cheaper rates. It can also mean time wasted in snarled traffic and a world of pain endured while attempting to navigate an unfamiliar urban landscape.

Roadside picnic outside Tokat

Tip 3: Head east

The further east you go in Turkey, the fewer cars on the road. One of the greateast pleasures of driving in Turkey is its wide-open and varied landscapes. A five-hour drive can take you, as it did us a year ago this past winter, from snow to shirtsleeve weather. Cappadocia is an obvious choice for those looking to venture beyond the Aegean and Mediterranean, but consider too the southeast (Gaziantep-Urfa-Mardin-Midyat), the Black Sea coast and the northeast, say Erzurum-Kars-Van.

Leave time for unplanned stops like this, at a Black Sea market

Tip 4: Give yourself enough time

Be realistic when you plan your itinerary. For us, five hours in the car on any given day is tiring and numbing; we try to limit long days on a two- or three-week trip to 2, or 3 maximum. Three or four hours broken by a stop for tea or a picnic is ideal.

Keep in mind that road construction can, and will, happen, and will seriously slow you up (a 3-hour drive from Unye to Sinop, on the Black Sea coast, became 5.5 hours last autumn, thanks to construction in Samsun). 

Most of all, remember one of the reasons you rented the car in the first place: to allow for serendipity. Sometimes serendipity requires time. 

Don't plan to change lodgings and locations every day, and leave some padding in your schedule for towns that grow on you and invite lingering, for personal encounters that could become friendships if you could stay for dinner the next day, for a picnic or for unbidden discoveries -- sites, food, etc. -- that pop up en route from one place to the next.

Tip 5: Stay off the road at night

Unless you're driving from one spot to another in the same town, avoid night driving. It's particularly stressful to arrive to a new town or city and try to find your way around in the dark. Days in Turkey are incredibly short in the winter (not light till after 8, dark by 4), something to keep in mind if you're travelling way off-season and have some long driving days on your itinerary.

A tea stop with a view above Gokova, on the Turkish Aegean

Tip 6: Break for tea

In our How to Get the Most Out of Istanbul post we recommended learning to love tea. The same applies on the road.

Every small town and most villages have a tea house. Many gas stations have attached restaurants where it is perfectly acceptable to decline food and order a glass of tea instead. We've never not been heartily welcomed anywhere on the road that we've stopped for tea; we've often been fed too, and had our money waved away. Tea breaks are a fine way to parse your journey, and you may meet some interesting folks too.

Tip 7: Looking for lodging? Head for the Sehir Merkezi

We almost never book accomodation ahead when we road-trip in Turkey, mostly because we don't want to be boxed into arrival dates. And with very few exceptions (Mardin on weekends in the summer) we've found that you don't have to.

So how do you find a hotel?

Well, you could consult your trusty guidebook. Which could be out of date. Many smaller Turkish towns and cities have new hotels coming up all the time and especially if you prefer to stay at the less expensive (but not hostel) end of the hotel scale, as we do, newer is generally better. So, before you arrive to an unfamiliar town google Hotels Town X. Often a booking site comes up, it may be in Turkish or it may not be. Have a look at the rooms pictured on the site and write down the names of the hotels that appeal. You might also note addresses.

As you begin to approach a new city or town, keep an eye out for the sign directing you to the Sehir Merkezi, or town center. Most if not all Turkish cities locate most of their hotels in the center of town (big showy higher-end business hotels tend to be on the outskirts, where you don't want to be anyway). When you hit the Sehir Merkezi -- often identified by a roundabout or town square, Ataturk statue, or some such -- the hotel you seek will often be sitting right there in plain sight.

If it's not, don't be flustered. Drive up and down the main street. Pull over and show someone the name of the hotel you're looking for and ask for directions. Hail a taxi and do the same -- the taxi driver may even lead you there.

Once you've found your hotel park your car in front, even if illegally (but not blocking traffic), pop into the hotel and ask to see a room. If you end up staying the hotel will park your car for you, or direct you to a lot nearby.

UPDATE, July 2014:

Since starting serious research for our Turkish cookbook our road trips in Turkey usually involve longer stays. And we have, sometimes, found a majority of hotels in some cities to sometimes be full (Erzurum last month, for instance). So we've started booking our first night in any town or city online before we arrive, and then use that half a day to decide whether or not to stay put or move to another, better, less expensive hotel. We've had great luck with booking.com and hotels.com; photos of rooms are generally accurate. And we cross-check reviews on TripAdvisor.com, which have been generally reliable for Turkey. In many instances hotels take your reservation but don't charge till you arrive, and sometimes you can negotiate the rate down for a multiple night stay.

One thing remains constant: in most cities: the prices charged by "boutique" hotels (ie. refurbished old buildings) are rarely commensurate with  quality of lodging. And sadly, many refurbishments are simply poorly done, essentially business hotel-type rooms with no special atmosphere that just happen to be in a historic structure. We generally go for newer 3-stars. Always ask for a quiet room and never be shy of asking to see other rooms if you don't like the one you're put in.

Tip 8: For a clean loo, keep an eye out for Opet

"You look wonderful today. How about us?"

These words, in Turkish, are stenciled on mirrors in the women's bathrooms at Opet gas stations. (I don't know about the men's rooms.) The company that owns the Opet chain is headed by a woman, and Opet toilets are usually spotless. When you're on the road and in need of a bathroom break a clean toilet is a fabulous thing, not to be taken for granted. Also, Opet markets have the most well-stocked beverage cases -- useful for Diet Coke addicts like us. (Don't criticize, now -- everyone has their vices.)

Tip 9: Pick up and drop off from the same location

This is a massive money-saver. All but the most out-there airports have rental cars bookable online, and cars from major airports tend to be cheaper. Distances in Turkey are not as great, it feels, as those in the USA. So if you were looking to road-trip in, say, Cappadocia then picking up a car at the airport in major cities like Ankara or Kayseri should not be seen as out of the question.

Tip 10: Save money with Turkish rentals

Renting from a Turkish agency will be much cheaper than if you rent from one of the large international agencies like Avis, Hertz, EuroCar, etc. We've now used Argus Car Hire on 3 occasions, and have been sent to Turkish agencies in every case. In each instance we had good, reliable cars that varied in cleanliness from not very clean (but not awful, just very dusty) to spic and span, and we've dealt with rental agency staff whose English ability varied from none to fluent. In the case of the former, the rental staff brought an English-language speaking friend along to help facilitate the rental; the friend gave us his number in case of an emergency. We will use Argus Car Hire again.

Another option is to arrive at your location and book on the spot, at the airport, from a Turkish rental agency. We might try this on one of our upcoming trips. I see Turks do it all the time, and at airports on the Aegean and Mediterranean, in Ankara, even in Kayseri staff do speak some English. If you plan to do this it would be a good idea to get a general idea of charges by browsing a bit on the web in advance. Do NOT do this on a weekend in high season or over a holiday -- you may end up with no car at all.

UPDATE July 2014: Since I wrote this post in May 2013 we have continued to use Argus Car Hire on four additional road trips in Turkey. Prices are consistently lower than through other sites and our experience with hires have been consistently good. Do note the phone number of the rental agency on your Argus booking agreement ... we have occasionally arrived to airports unable to find our agent (who are usually waiting outside with the car, unless there is a desk inside the airport). But this has always been sortable within 5 minutes of a phone call.

Have you had experience road-tripping via rented vehicle in Turkey? Any tips we haven't covered here? Leave a comment and we'll include your tip, with credit of course, in an update to this post. Thanks for reading! 

Cook, Photograph and Eat with Us in Turkey this September!

This space has been quiet, and finally we can tell you why. We've been working on some Turkey projects. 

The first is a collaboration with Istanbul-based cooking instructor and food tour leader Olga Tikhonova Irez, publisher of the blog Delicious Istanbul: a 5-day food and photography workshop this September in Sapanca, a lovely small town two hours by car from the big city.

Our partner Olga's story is compelling: Russian, well-traveled, multi-degreed with extensive experience in the consulting industry, Olga visited Istanbul a few years ago and fell in love (as so many of us do) with the city, its people and its food. So she quit her high-level job, left her home in Moscow and moved to Turkey to make a new life and career in food. Determined to learn everything she could about Turkish home cooking Olga talked her way into an apprenticeship to the female owner-chef at Zelis Ciftligi, a family-run lodge in Sapanca. There she met her future husband, son of said master chef. Now fluent in Turkish, Olga splits her time between Kadikoy, Istanbul where she introduces travelers to the delights of marketing and cooking Turkish-style with her tours and classes, and Sapanca where she helps her family run their business.

When I first stumbled across Olga's blog about 1.5 years ago I spent hours stuck in the archives. I was struck by her honest musings on topics like adjusting to her role in her Turkish family's business and the challenges of finding her place in her mother-in-law's kitchen. I salivated over her descriptions of home-cooked meals at Zelis and found that we share preferences for certain Istanbul restaurants. I found too that we share a dismay at the fact that Turkey's cuisine is little known and underrated.

So when Dave and I were in Istanbul last November we met Olga for coffee. The three of us clicked, and the seed of this workshop was planted.

Earlier this month Dave and I visited Olga and her husband at Zelis. Right away we knew we'd found not only the perfect partners for such an enterprise, but the perfect place: a comfortable, family-style lodging in a beautiful, quiet setting. A casual place where guests could truly feel relaxed and at home. A lodge large enough to easily accomodate a group but small enough to maintain intimacy. A kitchen equipped for a restaurant but homey enough to be right for a small group of people learning and cooking together. Lots of windows and beautiful light for photography. Proximity to great markets. Access to local producers. Gracious and friendly hosts. Even an adorable cocker spaniel named Bakir ("copper" in Turkish).

And the food? Spectacular. We've been eating in Turkey since 1998 and we have never eaten such delicious, lovingly prepared meze. We were served liver that turned me, a liver-hater since childhood, into a liver lover. Breakfast was an orgy of gorgeous fresh baked goods (Best. Borek. Ever.), cheeses, a killer menemen, too many made-on-site jams and preserves to name, fresh yogurt, an intriguing cheese salad that is a specialty of Olga's mother-in-law. It was hard to leave. We wanted to move in.

The four of us ate and visited a market and walked around Sapanca and brainstormed and took notes. Dave and I left excited for the workshop that he and Olga will lead in September.

So here's the deal: 5 nights, 4 full days and two half days of cooking, eating, marketing, photographing, with one long excursion further afield, to a sweet little Black Sea town, for a bit of street, architecture and nature photographry. We'll visit a local farm and meet a cheesemaker. Olga will lead in the kitchen, where you'll get your hands dirty (or dusty) baking bread, making borek and traditional cookies, crafting meze, patting together kebabs, seasoning soups, and more. She'll draw on the sort of deep knowledge of Turkish home cooking and food culture that can only be gained by immersion in a Turkish household -- and she will share it with you. 

Meanwhile Dave will be there to coach you to great photography. He's been shooting for international publictions for a few years now, off next week for his fourth Saveur assignment in 6 months. Dave's also been teaching individual and small-group photography workshops since 2010 -- he loves it, and he's good at it. In Sapanca you'll tell Dave about your goals for the week -- whether it's getting comfortable taking photos of people, maximizing your time at markets to walk away with great images, or using light and shadow to bring out the best in a plate of food, whatever -- and he'll help you get there with plenty of one-on-one coaching time.

This has been a long time coming; we've wanted to offer a workshop marrying the two major elements of EatingAsia -- food and photography -- for a long while. But we're picky about who we work with. Olga is good folks. We're on the same wavelength. We enjoy her and her Turkish family and we learned so much during our brief stay at Sapanca. We certainly did eat well.

If this sounds of interest please hop over to the workshop website [here], read the detailed program, learn about the venue and see Olga's and Dave's bios. If you're interested, head to the sign-up page. We're limiting participation in the workshop to 9 individuals -- first come, first served. There is also room for 3 non-participating partners at a reduced rate.

I'm not teaching (nor am I photographing) but I'll be there, along for the ride. Dave and I hope to see you in Sapanca in September!

 

 

 

A Hamsi Hunt for the NYT

Hamsi with herbs and onions, cooked in foil at a communal grill restauranton the Black Sea

For those not following on Twitter or Facebook: a story we researched and photographed in late November, on an anchovy-fuelled road trip along Turkey's central Black Sea coast, ran over the weekend in the travel sections of the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

Read it here and -- if you are as obsessed with anchovies (hamsi) as we are -- bookmark for 2013 or beyond. This was a fun and not overly challenging road trip along a mostly beautiful stretch of coast, doable at a comfortable and not too frenetic pace over 6-7 days.

This was our third trip to the region in less than two years, and we're heading back in a few months. Some readers have emailed to ask if we'd consider leading a Black Sea road trip/tour ourselves. Hm. Now, that's a thought.

Want more Black Sea? Check out Dave's audio-accompanied slideshow of our trip: fish, markets, lovely coastal towns and pretty landscapes.

In Istanbul, a Market That Brings a Taste of the Black Sea to the Big City

It kind of blows my mind that residents of Istanbul, one of the world's busiest, most densely-populated metropolises, have ready access to fresh unpasteurized milk straight from the cow, bread baked in a single village's community oven, pear molasses produced in small batches year after year by the women of one family and fruit harvested from one farmer's orchard before being dried in his garden.

These are truly "artisan" foods, rare and small-batch, of the type fetishized in America. But in Turkey, a country still largely agricultural, they're not all that unusual. Labels and signage don't declare foods like this "artisan" -- it's taken for granted because so many foods here still are. In fact there are few cities in Turkey whose residents can't lay their hands on small-batch, small-producer, single-farmer goods if they're willing to make a minor effort.

This isn't to say that big ag doesn't exist in Turkey, or that mono-cropping isn't a problem (see kiwi orchards on the Black Sea). Yes, pesticides are over-used here, people buy sub-par ingredients in chain stores and battery-raised, plastic-wrapped chicken on styrofoam trays is sold at Migros and Carrefour. But to an extent that is perhaps difficult to imagine unless you get out into the hinterlands and do some serious road tripping, much of Turkey is still a land very much the Land of the Small Producer.

If you are planning a trip to Turkey that doesn't include time beyond Istanbul and you're even remotely interested in knowing how much of the country still eats you owe it to yourself to hit up Istanbul's weekly Kastamonu market, which is named for the province from which most of its vendors come.

Just a few hours' drive east of Ankara airport, Kastamonu registers on the map of few visitors to Turkey -- perhaps because it lacks an airport of its own, or maybe because its Black Sea climate (gray, rainy) puts off potential tourists. That's a shame, because it is spectacularly beautiful.

Kastamonu's capital (also called Kastamonu) is an intriguing if slightly brooding city chock full of photogenically crumbling Ottoman mansions. Ninety minutes away on the Black Sea coast is Inebolu, an exceptionally lovely hill town. Kastamonu is blessed with an extravagant amount of of natural beauty; think conifer-clad mountains, rivers winding through dramatic valleys and stretches of pretty pebble beach backed by rocky crags and lush green hills that plummet to the sea.

And then there is the food, born of microclimates that endow Kastamonu with a wealth of gorgeous produce. In autumn its markets overflow with all manner of leafy greens, fruits, nuts and mushrooms both farmed and foraged. From the Black Sea come fish, kalkan (flounder), hamsi (anchovies) and palamut (bonito), among other varieties. Hectares of velvety pasture provide nourishment for herds of beef and milk cattle (lamb is less often on the table here than in some other parts of Turkey). The province is known for its excellent pastirma (salt-cured, air-dried beef), luscious cheeses, yogurt, kaymak and fresh milk.

During three sojourns on the Black Sea we've been lucky enough to hit up many of Kastamonu's weekly markets, which are attended by vendors bringing fresh produce and prepared goods from their homes in small and often remote villages. In fact we've trolled Inebolu's twice-a-week market so many times that some vendors now recognize us (or maybe it's Dave's camera they recognize). We never fail to come away from each visit to the province envious of Kastamonulu and their ready access to such marvelous ingredients and laden with kilos of edible souvenirs to pack back home to Malaysia.

On this last trip to Turkey, despite almost three weeks on the Black Sea and several days in Inebolu, we still hadn't had enough. So last Sunday we set off to the Kastamonu Market in Kasimpasa, an Istanbul neighborhood on the Golden Horn just north of Tarlabasi (home to another great market). Kastamonulu make the long slog to Istanbul overnight by car (and truck) and set up around 6am. When we arrived late at 10:30 or 11 there was still plenty to see and buy.

First up, the essentials: dairy and bread. A table at the market's entrance displayed cow's milk kaymak -- 3/4 inch-thick shards stacked in plastic containers at 5 Turkish lira (about U$2.90) for enough to generously garnish four to six desserts -- as well as six types of cow and goat's milk, salted and unsalted cheeses. There was fresh, unpasteurized milk in plastic water bottles to take home and drink hot (or cold) after boiling. Along with kaymak, some milky semi-soft cheese and a 250-gram bag of suzme (drained) yogurt thick enough to stick to an upturned spoon we purchased grassy, tasting-of-the-beast butter at 7 lira a kilo, 

to slather thickly on köy ekmeği or "village bread", a massive crusty loaf made with unbleached flour.

Pazı ekmeği, bread made with chard and herbs (scallion greens and parsley, usually), was also out in force at the Kastamonu market. We know this bread well from Inebolu and to tell the truth this version was a pale comparison of that made by the talented baker woman we usually buy from there. That said, it was one of maybe 10 loaves left for sale in the entire market -- early risers will probably score a tastier loaf.

On the Black Sea autumn means apples and pears and persimmons. As we road-tripped along the coast we ate dozens of the latter, ripened until sugar oozed from the cracks in their skins, which were covered with so much black we would have sworn the fruit was rotten. It was anything but; sliced open, flesh scooped from skins like pudding, these persimmons were the sweetest, most delicious that we've ever eaten, something like a honey-enriched fruit jam.

There were also plastic water-bottle punnets of what might be Myrica rubra or Chinese bayberry, small nubbly fruits in pretty fruits sporting sunset hues. These we didn't try; vendors were not offering samples (in most market you can taste almost everything, cheeses included) of this relatively pricey fruit and, with only a couple of days in Istanbul, we feared we wouldn't finish a punnet full. Next year. 

In addition to fresh fruits there were plenty of dried specimens as well. In Giresun we purchased little pears sun-dried whole, chewy as Milk Duds, molasses sweet and ever so lightly bitter, like Vietnamese caramel. We saw the same shriveled pears at the Kastamonu market, along with sweet and sour dried plums and quartered apples dried with their skins on.

Giresun is also known for its hazelnuts, but further west towards Kastamonu walnuts and chestnuts rule. At village markets on the coast single vendors might display as many as ten grades of either or both, divided by size and quality. The smaller chestnuts, called kuzu kestane (lamb chestnuts), are for eating raw -- their skin is easily broken with a fingernail, they're slightly juicy and taste like raw mature coconut -- while the larger are meant to be roasted.

The market offers much treasure for vegetable lovers in the form of several types of pumpkin and winter squash,

leafy greens like chard, sturdy lettuces, young leaves of rocket and tere (a jagged-edged leaf that tastes a bit like wasabi) and collard green-like kara lahana or "black cabbage". There were even collard green roots for sale, massive specimens weighing half a kilo and more. Several vendors recommended making soup with these roots. We purchased one and snacked on it raw. It's a wonderful vegetable, super crispy and sweet with no cabbage-y funk. This vegetable, grated, would make a wonderful salad with olive oil and lemon and it would be super stir-fried with garlic and finished with a bit of sesame oil.

Cooler temperatures and autumn rains bring mushrooms to Kastamonu's copious forest land and there were no shortage of these at the market, both farmed and foraged on the coastal mountains. We bought a kilo and a half of several types and cooked them simply, sauteed with loads of that fresh butter and dusted with finely chopped parsley. Outside of Italy during porcini season, I've never eaten tastier mushrooms in my life.

Any Turkish market worth its salt has a mobile tea stall or two; most (especially on the Black Sea) hang photographs of Ataturk.

Turks are great picklers and preservers and both tendencies were well in evidence at the Kastamonu makret, at stalls offering any and everything brined -- including peppers, beets, turnips and carrots,

as well as all manner of preserves, jams, sauces and pekmez (fruit molasses) made from figs, apples, pears, grapes, cactus fruit, rose hips and mulberries.

There's no shortage of protein for sale at this market. We saw dainty baskets of school bus orange-yoked eggs cradled in straw, live turkeys (American expats in Istanbul, take note for next Thanksgiving!) roped to a truck wheel and freshly killed gangly free-range chickens. One vendor even had a few goose carcasses for sale.

The birds we had to pass on, for the cookware in our rental apartment wouldn't have been able to accomodate any of them. But we did return to our temporary home with bags and bags of goodies. That night we dined buttery stewed mushrooms ladled over pumpkin mashed with full-cream milk and yet more butter. Dessert was fresh, milky "village" cheese and apples, and a syrupy compote of orange peel-scented dried apples and plums with a generous -- no, make that HUGE -- crown of rich kaymak.

Our stay in Istanbul came at the end of a road trip along the central Turkish Black Sea coast, during which we reported a story on one of our passions -- anchovies -- for the New York Times. Read it here. And Dave has put together a slideshow of out-takes from the trip, set to "Hamsi" (Anchovies) by the Anatolian pop group Mogallar. View/listen here -- it gives a great feel for this very special, and under-visited, part of Turkey.

Kastamonu Market, Kasimpasa, Istanbul. Every Sunday morning. True market hounds should follow a stroll through this market's aisles with a visit to nearby Tarlabasi for its own (admittedly more wholesale but nonetheless good fun) Sunday market.

In Sinop, Breaking a Meat Fast

After two solid weeks of fish, we had a lust for red meat.

For fourteen days Dave and I had been ranging along the center part of Turkey's Black Sea coast, indulging our love of things piscene. (This journey you'll read about another time, in another place.) All fish all the time -- for seafood lovers like us, this was not a hardship. Especially not here on Turkey's northern coast, where the fish is so fresh (just an hour or two off the boat in some cases), so delicious.

But yesterday the weather changed. Around noon the breeze -- which has been bizarrely spring-like, warm and caressing for the last half month -- stiffened and chilled. The Black Sea went from marine blue to white-capped gunmetal. The clear sky darkened and gauzy gray clouds spat rain. By the time darkness fell (4 o'clock-ish this time of year, during inclement weather) we were driving through a steady downpour that smelled like snow.

On this night fish just would not do. Our chilled bones needed meat.

So we bypassed our favorite restaurant, which serves nothing but seafood, in favor of an old-style ocakbaşı, or restaurant featuring an open grill.

Sahil is a kendin pişir kendin ye (cook it yourself, eat it yourself) establishment within shouting distance of Sinop's harbor. The set-up is simple. On the ground floor seating is around a community "table" comprised of a marble countertop framing a big charcoal grill, all beneath a gigantic copper exhaust hood.

You walk in, grab a stool, and place your order. The restaurant offers beef (bonfile or pounded fillet steak, and kofte or mini burgers), chicken (pounded breast and wings) and seasonal fish. (Lamb isn't as relished on the Black Sea as it is in other regions of Turkey; locals often tell us that the smell is a turn-off.)

We ordered bonfile and kofte, which the son of the owners -- Mustafa Usta and his wife, a jovial middle-aged couple from Ordu, several hours east of Sinop on the Black Sea -- brought to the table along with sliced onion and tomato, long green peppers and bread. After giving the coals a good stir with a long poker he used a thick slice of onion to clean the grill of gunk and oiled it with a chunk of talo. His mother spread our meat over its center and formed constellations of bread and vegetables around it.

We asked for a salad and a plate of mixed pickles (most every restaurant in Turkey stocks some sort of pickle or other, often not listed on the menu -- just ask for turşu / TOOR-shoo). Then we sat back to make conversation with our fellow diners while monitoring the main attraction as it smoked and sputtered in front of us.

 

I was nominally in charge but in reality it was Mustafa Usta's wife, who (understandably, given the Turkish obsession with the BBQ) oversaw our dinner. Every 30 seconds or so she jumped in with her tongs, adjusting and flipping our patties and fillets and pressing the vegetables onto the fat-slicked metal. In under 5 minutes we were diving into our meat feast.

What's not to love about well-seasoned beef hot off the grill? What cut of meat -- or vegetable, for that matter -- doesn't benefit from a lick of flame, a crusty char, a hint of smoke?

The kofte, impossibly light, had obviously been chopped, seasoned and molded by a master. The beef fillet, while not the most tender I've ever eaten, boasted the full flavor of meat from a grass-fed cow (a luxury in the USA but a norm in much of Turkey). Pickled chilies with a good but not overwhelming bite made an excellent accompaniment to the juicy, fatty meat. The grilled vegetables, wilted but not without texture, were as delicious as vegetables always are in Turkey, where flavor hasn't yet been bred out of cucumbers, tomatoes, salad greens and the like.

We ordered another round, ate like king and queen for a total of 35 tay-lay (the equivalent of 20 US bucks) and, meat lust sated, waddled back to our hotel.

Sahil Ocakbaşı, Camiibekir Mahallesi Ortayol No. 12, Sinop (across from the mosque right in front of the harbor). 368-260-3645

Old Tea in Anatolia

After 120 kilometers of arctic nothingness we found ourselves in Çorum [cho-ruhm], a surprisingly bustling little city set in the middle of northern-central Anatolian nowhere. If Çorum is known to foreign travelers at all it's probably as a place to bunk before or after a visit to nearby Hittite ruins. For Turks, it's home to the finest leblebi (roasted chickpeas) in the country,

One of the upsides of traveling central Turkey during this especially harsh winter was the many excuses it offered -- frozen toes and fingers, mind-numbing expanses of white that could prove detrimental to driver alertness -- to brake for tea. Not that we've ever needed an excuse for a tea break in Turkey; even the southeast's scorching summer temperatures couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for the cay evi / kahvehanesi experience.

Tea delivery in the dead of a Çorum winter

But while Turkey's winter's chill stokes welcome tea cravings it also presents a challenge to the mixed (male-female) couple, one exacerbated by the fact that on this trip we stuck to lesser touristed towns in a relatively conservative part of the country: It's too cold to sit outside, and in some instances I'm not welcome inside. (If you've not ventured far from Istanbul, know that the city is a world unto itself. And I mean that as neither compliment nor smear.)

A little over a year and a half ago I wrote about the traditional Turkish tea house as a Man's World, one which I could observe and even dip my toe into while physically staying outside. During that jaunt around the southeast Dave and I took most of our tea and Turk kahvesi al fresco. That was as much by choice as by necessity -- the weather was fine, most other teahouse patrons were also sipping outdoors, and sitting outside faciliated superior people-watching and photography opportunities. On that trip I never felt it a loss to not be inside. And on a few occasions I was.

But despite having by now a fair bit of experience exploring Turkey's back of beyond and a reasonable facility basic Turkish I do not walk into many tea houses uninvited. Some patrons simply aren't comfortable with -- dislike, even --  having a woman in their midst. I suppose that I could choose to get in a kerfluffle about that, but it is what it is. No matter how good the tea or how lovely the tea house, time spent where the overall vibe says "Go away" is time wasted.

Happily, this trip delivered a few accessible tea houses that also score high on atmosphere.

One of the best is in Çorum's old town, a two or three century-old grid of stone-paved lanes lined with barbershops, butchers, hardware and kitchenware shops and -- of course - tea and coffee houses that has somehow survived the city's ambitious redevelopment. After being accosted by a patron who first tapped on a window as we passed and then burst out the door saying "Tea! Tea! Won't you have some tea?" we were happy enter into the embrace of Tıkı Mehmet Kahvesi's wood-stove warmth.

Most everything in Tıkı Mehmet Kahvesi (also known as Tıkının Kahve)  -- which translates to something like Lazy or Stupid Mehmet's Coffee -- looks original, including some of its customers. According to proprietor Bekir, who runs the show with a helper, the shop has been open for almost 110 years.

The tea/coffee "kitchen" features a now rare charcoal-fired copper çay ocağı or "tea stove" set into a stone hearth (see opening photo). The copper tank boils water which is delivered via a spout on its facing to each of two blue enameled metal kettles, one for brewing tea and the other to hold the hot water that dilutes it. (For those of you not familiar with Turkish tea: it's always brewed extra strong and then diluted to taste with hot water; thus the common double-potted Turkish tea kettle -- the lower pot holds and tea is brewed in the upper pot.)

We watched as Bekir Bey emptied spent ash from the stove and then shoveled in new charcoal to keep the supply of boiling water steady. It's a dusty, messy business but he so obviously cherishes the old stove.

A Tıkı regular

The charcoal doesn't really lend a special flavor to the tea. When I asked if tea brewed over charcoal tastes better Bekir nodded adamantly while the customer who invited us in, a native Çorumlu who spends half his time in Istanbul working as a women's hairdresser, shook his head. Other customers who cared to weigh in agreed, nodding their heads as he told me: "It looks nice. It makes us feel good. It's for nostalgia." Fair enough.

Another lovely nostalgic touch: sugar cubes served in old-fashioned brass pedestals.

From Çorum we hit the road for the relatively easy 200-kilometer drive to Sivas, only to be waylaid two hours later by big sloppy snowflakes and icy roads in Tokat. To tell the truth we weren't too terribly disappointed. We took a shine to Tokat in 2000 and our affection for the curious little city deepened when we revisited last October. 

Our unplanned stop afforded the opportunity to revisit a spectacular old tea house on the edge of Tokat's old market district and on the same street as its lovely clock tower.

Yüksek Kahve ("stately" coffee house) is about the same age as Çorum's Tıkı Mehmet but, sadly, is in much worse repair. Its second story, which features a beautiful arched carved wood panel over one window, is all but unuseable. The tea/coffee house is still going though, and in fine weather the verandah makes a excellent perch from which to check out this storied street's comings and goings.

Yüksek's patrons are, on average, younger than Tıkı Mehmet's but no less appreciative of coffee house history. When our host, a former tobacco factory worker in his mid-fifties, grabbed a calendar of decades-old photographs of Tokat off the wall to show me younger guys gathered around. "Look at that," said one, pointing to a photograph taken from Yüksek's verandah, of crowds of shoppers passing by in front on their way to market. "That was this place right here, old Tokat," he sighed with more than a hint of melancholy.

Yüksek's tea cubby and its modern electric çay ocağı are manned by a couple of cool dudes, but neither the new kitchen nor the younger staff take away from the tea house's overall atmosphere.

On the few occasions we've visited the tea shop its tables, okey game-ready with their green cloths, have been well populated and the clink of spoons against tea glasses played in time with a steady hum of conversation. On warm autumn days Yüksek's many windows facilitate welcome breezes. On winter mornings sun warms its two rooms, inviting regulars and visitors to stay for a third or fourth glass.

Blacksmithing for Real in Maraş

If you've ever purchased a fancy skewer or mottled copper kettle in the United States, there's a good chance it came from Kahramanmaraş, aka Maraş [pronounced mah-RAHSH], in southeastern Turkey.

Maraş was an impromptu stop for us, the last two days of 14 on the road in central Anatolia. It's a strange little city, closed and pretty conservative, and a bit off the tourist track (judging by the general lack of good lodging), both domestic and foreign. It's also, at first view, incredibly ugly, with low-rise concrete blocks lining all the roads into town.

But those concrete blocks hide a fantastic, though sadly deteriorating, old city with a genuine blacksmithing neighborhood. What's produced there is not for tourist consumption; it's mostly for export, and it's real, useable goods, not trinkets. Many of the shop are in century-plus arch-doored caverns, part of the old market down the street.

Dave's put together an audio slideshow of images from our time with the blacksmiths of Maraş. The photos are beautiful (yes, I'm biased), but we don't mean to romanticize this work. As one blacksmith, who pounds away with his brother in a workshop opened by their father (you'll see dad's black-and-white portrait, propped on a desk, in the second half of the slideshow) told me: "This is hard, hard work. It's hard on the body, and for not much money. I wouldn't have my son do this."

As if to prove his point he rolled up his shirtsleeve and unwrapped an ace bandage to show me his elbow and forearm, bruised and swollen from hours of hefting a sledgehammer. His brother stepped up, pointed to his chest, and said, "Like a rock." He handed me a hammer and invited me to test his claim. I settled for a punch instead. I was convinced.

See the slideshow here, and be sure to turn on your sound.

Missed Opportunities and Pide

You certainly wouldn't call Saray the friendliest pide salonu in Turkey. When we walked in, hungry after a morning of shopping on empty stomachs for edible souvenirs like rough bulgur pasta and split fava beans, the owner looked up from behind his desk and fixed us with an unsmiling stare, heaved a deep sigh and went back to his newspaper.

But the place smelled good, too good to walk back out of, like yeast and browning meat and cheese melting under a grill. A welcoming warmth (the weather had turned overnight; the previous day's harmless puffy clouds were now charcoal gray and what had been a cool breeze had morphed into a cutting wind hinting at snow) emanated from the wood oven on the back wall. And pide, lots and lots of pide were being made.

So we ignored the owner's diffidence and grabbed a couple of seats. A delivery order of 90-plus pide was being assembled on the table behind us. We took this as an encouraging sign.

It was our last morning in Tokat, a town in the southern reaches of Turkey's mid-Black Sea region that doesn't see a lot of tourists but should. Not necessarily because of its beauty -- Tokat is your average Anatolian town -- or because of its sights, which are relatively few, but because of its welcoming populace. When you first arrive Tokat feels closed and conservative. Give it half a day and the city opens its arms wide.

Regrets brought us back to Tokat, which we first visited eleven years ago. On that trip, in which we'd driven from the Mediterranean city of Antalya to Camlihemsin on the Black Sea, we'd squeezed too much into too little time. We hadn't yet learned to make room for serendipity by scheduling in plenty of slack days or to be willing to jetison a planned destination if a tempting alternative intervened.

That trip we met a smart, funny 16-year-old who walked us around town and invited us to his high school to sort-of teach an English class. The next morning we went and had a blast. All the kids wanted to invite us home for dinner. If we hadn't been so insistent on getting to Amasya before we hit Trabzon before we visited Camlihemsin we'd have enjoyed a dozen home-cooked meals in a dozen Tokat homes over the next few days. Instead we took to the road shortly after the class.

Stupid, stupid. STUPID.

This time around we half hoped we'd bump into our young friend, perhaps married now. Surely he'd recognize us (we yabanci don't all look alike, do we?) even if we probably wouldn't recognize him. That didn't happen of course, but we're nonetheless glad that the memory of meeting him all those years ago lured us back. On that first trip Tokat intrigued us. It still does. We know we'll return soon.

Tokat may not be beautiful in the way that Istanbul is. But it is ruggedly handsome, ringed by rocky crags and real mountains further out; from high up the views are dramatic. Kids climb around on those crags after school, and shepherds tend sheep.

There's a crumbling castle too, and stone-paved streets that wind uphill from the bustling "modern" main street. This is Old Tokat, an area of wood-frame brick houses and mansions. Some bear massive double timber doors with a pattern of two side-by-side "Z"s, one flipped in the reverse. Everyone acknowledges this pattern is a Tokat thing, but no one could tell us how or why it came to be.

Agricultural land laps at Tokat's edges and in autumn strings of drying vegetables and fruit festoon windows and walls and women in the Old City, many of whom belong to families who work their own farms, gather on a raised concrete slab at the upper reaches of the neighborhood, where they turn stalks of wheat into wheat berries and bulgur.

Tokat boasts a wonderful twice-a-week market with a koy section where village women sell pekmez and cheese and huge piles of herbs foraged in the hills. And craftsmen making saddles and harnesses by hand and blacksmiths who still pound shoes for horses and donkeys.

In Tokat everyone has time to talk; Dave and I must have drunk gallons of tea between us during dozens of conversations with Tokat-ans on everything from home cooking to the layout of traditional Tokat houses.

So by Day Three, our last day, we felt a warm friendly glow that enabled us to ignore the non-welcome from Saray's owner. We ordered our pides and a couple of chopped salads and admired Saray's lavender and yellow color scheme while we waited for our food.

Which was exceptional, really. There are pide and then there are pide and these pide bore the imprint of years of experience, good ingredients and a master's control of the wood-fired oven.

One arrived oozing scallion-flecked cheese, another spilling tender lamb minced with onion, tomato and long green chilies. Upper crusts were slicked with butter, bottoms were lightly scorched from the hot stones. Every bite held crispness and chewiness and the flavor of good fresh wheat came through. Indifferent ownership or not, we'll return to Saray.

After lunch we left town with regret, though this time it wasn't the sort of regret that comes from missed opportunities.

In case you missed it, Dave has put together a short multi-media on Istanbul's iconic ferry boats. Hop over here, click "play" and take a 4-minute vacation.