TableConversation.com

A Feast of Turkish Food and Wine

If I could have a bowl of yayla çorbasi every day, I would be perfectly happy--and healthy. 

This is Turkish yogurt soup--çorbasi means soup. And yayla means plains, the high places where the best yogurt was made in the days before refrigeration, according to "Samples from Turkish Cuisine," a book I bought in Istanbul.  

But I had the soup here in Los Angeles, not in Istanbul. And not in a restaurant but at a dinner in the Turkish consular residence, hosted by Turkish consul general Can Oğuz. 

The table was beautifully set, with a white damask cloth and silver chargers. Yayla çorbasi (above) looked just as elegant in its gold-rimmed plate with the Turkish star and crescent at the top.

Light and delicately flavored with mint, the soup contained a few grains of rice, nothing more. One day I'll make it and then share the recipe.

Before dinner, we met for drinks outside, and I tasted something rare in Los Angeles, Turkish wine. This is Sevilen Narince Sauvignon Blanc, glowing in the flames from the fire pit.  


This same wine accompanied dinner, along with Pendore Öküzgözü from Kavaklidere, a wine company founded in Ankara in 1929. Kavaklidere's wines come from several vineyard areas in Anatolia. Pendore is its chateau style winery in the Aegean region in western Turkey.

Öküzgözü is an indigenous Turkish grape that produces a lively, fruity, deeply colored red wine. Here it is, being poured during the dinner. 

The next course after the soup was Izmir style stuffed grape leaves, yaprak sarma (above), filled with rice, pine nuts and currants. 

Then came manti, tiny beef-stuffed dumplings typical of Kayseri in Central Anatolia (above). These were topped with yogurt, butter and pepper flakes. Mint, sumac and Urfa red pepper were also set out so guests could season the manti to taste.  

Lamb and eggplant were combined in islim kebabi, cubed lamb wrapped with eggplant slices (above), an Istanbul dish accompanied by rice pilaf with pine nuts and currants.

This shepherd's salad had a California twist, the addition of avocado and cilantro. 

Baklava may be easy to find in Los Angeles, but not freshly made, crunchy, Turkish style baklava only lightly moistened with syrup. This is bourma style baklava, rolled around a walnut filling rather than baked flat. 

Feza Yazici (above left) made the baklava. Her husband Barbaros also cooked that night.

Dinner ended with Turkish coffee (above) and Turkish tea.

The hosts, Consul Oğuz and his wife Hümeyra (above), were accompanied by vice consuls Aylin Şenyüz Eleveld and Nilufer Kanik. 

And here is the table of guests as we enjoyed this rare, home-cooked Turkish feast.  

An Almost Wine-less Trip to Turkey

I drink wine often at home but gave it up while traveling in Turkey because alcoholic drinks are forbidden to Muslims, and I wanted to respect that.  

At a cocktail reception I attended, the cocktails were fruit juice, even though the hotel where this event took place had a beautiful bar.

I became so used to doing without that when I saw people laughing and drinking beer at outdoor cafes in Istanbul, it looked odd and unappealing.

I did have wine one evening, at Bayazhan Restaurant in Gaziantep, a beautiful place with vaulted ceilings like a historical monument (above).  Wine was poured there at a dinner during Gaziantep's inaugural Bulgur Festival.

This is a closer look at the label. The words kirmizi sek şarap under 2013 mean dry red wine. Read more about Kayra wines by clicking here. 

Dinner started with a yogurt soup that contained cubes of lamb, chick peas and, in honor of the Bulgur Festival, grains of bulgur wheat.

Meatball-like Arab kofte in spicy thick yogurt (above) were made of bulgur rather than meat, again in honor of the festival.

Dolma--stuffed dried eggplant and peppers--contained meat and rice (above). We also ate çiğ köfte, Turkey's version of steak tartare, made with raw lamb instead of beef. The lamb is "cooked" with spices rubbed into it by hand. 

Kebabs are much loved in Turkey. The plate above included delicious chicken and lamb kebabs. Ground lamb kebabs had taken on the flavor of the eggplant with which they were grilled.

Another course was roast lamb to eat with rice pilaf studded with pistachios and currants (above).

The dinner included cheese-stuffed borek. This one looked like a pastry (above) but was made entirely of cheese, sprinkled with nigella and sesame seeds. 

In the eastern part of Turkey, each town has its own special cheese. Four of these were on a plate along with dried figs, apricots, raisins, olives, walnuts, cucumbers and tomatoes. On the left is a salad of walnuts with tiny olives. 

Another salad combined purslane with onions, sweet red peppers, tomato and flecks of red chile. The purslane salads in Gaziantep were delightful, and I noticed how common that green was in markets there (above). The Turkish word for purslane (verdolaga) is semizotu. 

For dessert, there was carrot baklava (above), which includes no carrots but is named for its long slim shape. The Turkish way to eat this is by hand, turned upside down so that the syrupy layer is on top. 

The restaurant also brought out a beautiful fruit plate (above).

The way out led through this spacious terrace, a romantic place to have Turkish coffee or tea after dinner.  

Note: This dinner took place during Gaziantep's bulgur festival in 2016. I postponed publishing it because of terrorism incidents at that time and the more recent denial of visas to American citizens. Would I return to Turkey now? Absolutely. The food and people are wonderful. I would love to spend time again in markets, bakeries, restaurants and book stores, aspects of Turkish culture overshadowed by more sensational news.