Eat well and be happy

The other day while we were making nectarine-mint ice cream, my husband, Lütfü, suggested I should write an article about how we eat in Turkey -- he and I that is, not necessarily everyone else. I have hesitated in the past to write a "foody" article, the main reason being, besides hating the term "foody," that for some years we had a contributor to Today's Zaman who wrote fabulous articles about food and its preparation (many of which I tore out and still use as references), a talented teacher and writer named Brooks Emerson, with whom I didn't even want to compete, food-writing-wise. On the other hand, Lute and I are pretty creative when it comes to our favorite sport, so I thought I'd give it a go. No one would call my mom, may she rest in peace, a good cook. She did, however, make sure that I learned the rudiments of putting together a balanced meal and how to read and follow a recipe, both of which I will forever be grateful for. I went on to become what my dear son calls a "gourmet chef," but which anyone who actually knows about cooking would call a good "plain cook," which the Oxford dictionaries define as a "person who specializes in or typically prepares simple dishes." The French describe my kind of cooking as "cuisine bourgeoise," and while they don't mean it as a compliment, it sits just right with me; I'm unabashedly proud of being middle class, Today's Zaman reports. Two of the many things Lute and I have in common are our love of eating and of cooking. When we go to restaurants, we try to order dishes that we don't make at home. If it is new and we really like it, we experiment at home until we can make it ourselves. Our part of Turkey is blessed with little spice shops, local bazaars almost daily in different sections of town, different butchers for different needs, regional bakeries on practically every corner and several small markets for basics not available elsewhere. For special cooking needs, we always have the area in the back of the Mısır Çarşısı in Eminönü. (By the way, we still use the spice guy in Eminönü that Brooks Emerson recommended years ago, after our own favorite shop closed.) Especially during the holy month of Ramadan, and to a lesser extent the rest of the year, we make up menus to help with the weekly shopping, for which we often visit four or five shops.

Experiencing the culinary delights of California

Lute had never been out of Turkey before he came to the United States, after our wedding. He was really lucky to land in my home state of California, where, along with New York and London, one can find the wonderful varieties of different national cuisines (although I think California has the edge when it comes to dishes involving fresh produce). Not that Californian produce can compare to Turkish produce; NOWHERE has as good produce as Turkey, but California has a huge variety of fresh foodstuffs all year round, much of it grown in California and a lot of it imported, to serve the needs of our vastly diverse population. It was so much fun feeding Lute during those years: shaming him into eating sushi for the first time, which today is his all-around favorite food; taking him to Little Saigon for the best Chinese food; helping him pick the live fish we wanted to buy at the Vietnamese grocery store; picking a whole smoked duck to take home from about 50 hanging in the shop's window; finding Mexican restaurants that didn't use pork fat (which used to be nearly impossible, but is widespread now); introducing him to Thai noodles and later figuring out how to cook pad thai at home; teaching him how to use chopsticks so he could tend to his meat and vegetables at the Korean barbecue restaurant; gleefully visiting the all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch at the Indian place; getting him addicted to good Chinese and Mexican takeout; introducing him to the life-altering world of Italian food; and of course introducing him to the all-American (and all-beef) hotdog. Boy, he just took it and ran; the man loves to eat, and in California we have such a variety of restaurants and ethnic markets that one will never suffer from gustatory boredom.

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