Sometimes you can step behind the barrage of news, like stepping into that calm secret place behind a waterfall. Take stroll around Istanbul, as I’ve been doing these last few days. Have a glass of pickle juice at the pickle shop – very good for the stomach.
Take a wander through the fish market, where we bought lufer, Yashim’s favourite fish, and red mullet the size of your thumb, which I dusted with flour and pepper and fried.
Pick up a salad…
to go with some good bread…
pausing only to admire the portrait of the baker’s impressive grandfather…
and remembering to collect my own, patient father…
before taking a look at some of the 19th century architecture along the old Grande Rue de Pera, now Istiklal, Istanbul’s answer to Oxford St (and getting as tacky).
Out again, to find more delights for Yashim’s next venture:
Can’t wait to have this cookery book in my kitchen!
Nor me – the response in Istanbul has been great. Not to mention the food…
your dad looks as if he has the same wonderful moustache as the other chap… also really looking forward to the book
That second picture of the building on Istiklal looks like something out of 1920s New York – with immigrants clustering in an orange lamplight behind the impressive facade. It’s always strange how things so far removed from each other are somehow connected by perception. Which, I realise, has nothing to do with food. Ostensibly. One could probably chart a tortuous link to food. An English student maybe.
The book looks great!