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By Root 962 0

all the ingredients were the best. I learned from them that good food looks good, too—you have to play around with some dishes to make them look appetizing. Presentation is important, but one must remember that it’s like earrings on a beautiful girl—they don’t change the girl. Also, I learned that good food smells good, so today the aromas connect me with the wonderful food the women in my family cooked. I know by smell what the food is going to be like. The new style of serving may be fine but I stick to the essence of taste and do not play around and add a lot of unnecessary extras. To me it feels like covering up something. I like honest food in every respect. Turkish food is more about taste than presentation.

Q: If you were preparing a Turkish dinner for guests in your home, what would be on the menu?

A: I love to start with mezes and then move on to main dishes. I think of a meal like a sofra, a special Turkish word for a table with all its food in the proper place, similar to a play with all its acts. I like to highlight seasonal specialties, so here are two seasonal menus. Summer: Assortment of mezes, including white cheese and honeydew melon (these are a must with rakı, the preference of Turkish people for summer nights and dinners); fried eggplants and peppers with tomato sauce; purslane salad with walnuts and crumbled tulum cheese, preferably of Erzincan [tulum refers to the goatskin bag this ewe’s milk cheese is cured in]; and Turkish tomato salad. The main dish may be okra with chicken and tomato rice with cold yogurt and cucumber soup on the side. For dessert, fresh fruits like watermelon or kazandibi with Turkish ice cream (it is made with salep). Winter: Mezes would include celeriac with green lentil braised in olive oil and spinach börek cut into squares, followed by lamb shoulder braised with sour dried plums or sour-plum paste and Turkish spices, dressed with pekmez. Butter erişte on the side, and pumpkin dessert over semolina helva.

Q: What are some of your favorite sources in Istanbul for table-top items and decorative accessories?

A: I have a number of favorites at the Grand Bazaar: Eğin Teksi-til for towels and textiles for home like bedcovers [Yağlıkçılar Caddesi 1]; Timuçin is my jewelry place for modern items [Kalpakçılar Caddesi 24-26]; Adiyaman Pazari for textiles and special hamam covers that may be used for tables and throws [Yağlıkçılar Caddesi 74-76]; Em-er for Turkish tiles and ceramics [Takkeciler Sokak 100]; Derviş for handwoven modern shawls in lovely pastel colors and items for the home [Keseciler Caddesi 33-35]; Dhoku for modern kilims [Takkeciler Sokak 58-60]. Also at the Grand Bazaar, if you need to stop and take a break, I like Gül-ebru, a small büfe (a place where you get your food and eat it wrapped in bread; there are small stools here) for döner of beef cooked over charcoal. For the boxwood spoons (şimşir spoons) mentioned in Anya’s article, I go to Bizim Ahşap [Kutucular Caddesi 27-29, Eminönü], which is very close to the Mısır Çarşisi (Spice Market).

Q: You wrote a cookbook with Mirsini Lambraki entitled Two Nations at the Same Table, which was published simultaneously in Turkish and Greek and was honored with a 2006 Gourmand World Cookbook Award. Do you and Lambraki plan on writing another book?

A: So far Mirsini and I have no plans for another book. I have been working on a book of Turkish cuisine from its roots to the empire and present, and I may be doing a book on yogurt and yufka dishes, both savory and sweet, because I feel these are the richest points of Turkish cuisine that can also contribute to world gastronomy.

Q: What are some features about your cooking school that make it different from others in Turkey or Greece?

A: First of all, we learn to cook in traditional and practical ways with certain contemporary additions. We learn to cook from the freshest vegetables that we pick from my garden. Our nomadic roots have taught us to make do with the least to make the most. We cook seven dishes during the day, and the atmosphere is as it always has been in Turkish