Poached Pumpkin Dessert

When I was a kid, it was our family ritual to go for a dinner at the Kalender Orduevi by the Bosphorous. Orduevi is a military owned and run social compound, accommodating a restaurant, hairdresser, game room, function rooms and a swimming pool, exclusive for the military personnel and their families. I would always finish the night off with kabak tatlisi, chunks of pumpkin poached in a very sweet syrup, served with crushed walnuts and kaymak (a very thick cream made by heating full-cream cow's milk in a water bath and cooling in shallow pans) on the side. 

I am not big on desserts as I can never go past one or two bites before I have a sugar overload on my taste buds. So whenever we order a dessert, I have a bite or two and pass the rest of the plate to my husband who ends up eating mine as well as his.

But put a plate of ayva tatlisi (poached quince dessert), kunefe (shredded dough strips baked with cheese and served with syrup and crushed pistachio nuts) or kabak tatlisi (poached pumpkin dessert), in front of me and I instantaneously turn into an overprotective mother guarding her child from any imminent danger. In that moment, my husband knows better than to ask if he can have a taste.

Cracked Wheat Salad

I have never been a tea drinker.  I think it is the bitter after taste of the tannins that puts me off any kind of black tea. I don't even own any proper Turkish tea glasses, teaspoons or a brewing pot.

But I have always loved the tea time, ever since I was a kid, not for the tea itself, but rather for the variety of delicious food and stories that accompanied it.

The guests would share anecdotes from their exchanges with their husbands, children and other important topics such as the best way to remove oily stains from the carpet, a new brand of butter that makes pastry puff like no other, or the cost of a kilogram of tomatoes at the suburb's weekly market.

Peynirli pogaca (cheese and parsley empanadas), ispanakli borek (spinach filo pastry), kisir (cracked wheat salad), ortasi delik kakaolu kek (cocoa bunt cake) and elmali kurabiye (stewed apple pastry rolls) were some of the usual suspects that I would fill my plate with and eat in a state of delirium as I listened to the conversation going on around me.

Cure My Blues Cookies

I am not one with a sweet tooth. But, during times of despair, I find myself craving for something sweet and comforting to get me through the tough times and cheer me up a little.

Last week was one of those times. It was a typical "it never rains it pours" week. It felt like I am the ever so unfortunate female lead of a soap opera. (OK, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit but dramatising is in my genetic coding, I am both a woman and a Mediterranean.)

Cold Yoghurt and Cucumber Soup

Cold yoghurt and cucumber soup

The summer was here - even only briefly - over the weekend! On Sunday morning, I went to the Iceberg's Ocean Baths with a girlfriend. We swam in the cool waters chatting million miles an hour, then lingered around the pool with our books enjoying the clear blue skies.

Then it was lunch time. As any real foodoholic would, as I was waiting for the lunch I ordered, I simultaneously started thinking about what I should be having for dinner.

Eggplant in Olive Oil

I love living by the beach, especially in summer, smelling the ocean as I turn around the corner to my street, being able to go for a quick swim after work, or enjoy a long relaxing day at the beach without the hassle of looking for a parking spot.

However, my dreams of doing nothing but reading and swimming were shattered when we woke up to a yet another rainy Saturday last week.

I have been living in Sydney long enough to know that it rains more in summer than in winter, but the Mediterranean in me still gets devastated every time I wake up to a rainy summer day.

How I miss the long, steaming hot Mediterranean summers where the heat is a consistent 30 something degrees and the sun dominates the skies all day without a hint of a cloud or a drop of rain!