Online Ä°stanbul
Stories - Women with foreign roots & Local women of Ä°stanbul
Online Gathering
Alejandra
"We are creating a huge problem while eating"
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Alejandra Soto: From Chile, lived in England and America and now she lives in Istanbul.
She is married with 3 grown up children and a dog.
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Here are some of her thoughts about food and multicultural living:
“We are creating a huge problem while eating. We use the land for something unnecessary. ” (about carnivores) ”
While sharing individual experiences about cultural discrimination: My name was hard to say so they wanted to change it. "They thought of putting a personality on me. Just to be able to accept. ”
More of Alejandra's story to come!
Cana
"The food I made created great enthusiasm."
Cana Oyman: Turkish, lives in Istanbul with her husband, twin daughters and several dogs.
Her relationship with cooking is just getting better. Since her husband and daughters started creating masterpieces in the kitchen, she finally became inspired too.
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These are some of her words about it:
"I thought I should not treat the fish or the ingredients casually . The food I made created great enthusiasm. This is a contribution from the cosmos to me. The time in my life to diversify about food is apparently now. "
The continuation of the story will come!
Let's see what wonders Cana Mother's "legacy pantry" will do.
Elena
Our recipes "are all such generous gifts from our hearts and hands to other peoples' souls."
Elena Kiyaeva-Korkmaz. A Russian born and brought up in Uzbekistan. She lived in America and now in Levent Istanbul. She is married, a mother of 2, the founder of Circle of Friendship and she is the Creative Director of a company.
I love food! I am curious about ingredients, collecting recipes, experimenting in my own kitchen and feeding people. My culinary journey had started when I was a little girl testing cookies recipes and watching parents tasting them with the smile on their faces. The cookies were burnt, but they never mentioned it. Food is an essential and most available way of joy and pleasure in our life. Feeding your baby, planning a menu for the upcoming party, baking a birthday cake for your friend are all such generous gifts from our hearts and hands to other peoples' souls. My experiments with food turned it into a profession when I opened a bakery-coffee shop back in Brooklyn, NY. I enjoyed those times and miss my days of greeting customers, chatting about their day, telling them a story of the new cookie on the menu and watching them smiling tasting it. When I moved to Turkey in 2012 I had a strong desire to share my passion for world cuisine with Turkish people. I continued my culinary blog, yes blogging was a thing that time, and in a year found myself hosting a cooking show on a local food TV channel. Cooking Asian, French, Russian, Uzbek, Italian, Spanish recipes on Turkish tv was a new thing. I was surprised by the amount of emails, messages, comments I was receiving daily. Few warmed my heart and I re-read those stories from time to time. One of the messages was from a young man who was in love with a Ukrainian woman and planning on getting married with her. But unfortunately his parents were absolutely against their marriage, insisting that the marriage with a foreign woman would never be acceptable in their family. After watching my TV-show, this man's parents fell in love with the way I was cooking, telling stories about my family, and they saw that I was a "normal human". After realizing that foreign brides aren't that scary, they agreed on the wedding. I received a wedding invitation from that beautiful couple and I hope that the bride's Ukrainian Borscht was warming her parents -in-law's hearts.
Fatma
"Food and recipes travel from women to women."
Fatma Denizci: She is from Istanbul and now resides in both Kadıköy and Åžile, Ovacık Village.
Married, a mother and the founder of One Day Project in Ovacık Village
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These are her words:
We watched this recipe in a cooking program with my daughter and we said why not?
So we tried it with different whole wheat flour. We try a pastry together every week.
Recipes are passed from women to women. Even if they have never made it, people can make a dish years later by keeping the scents in their memories.”
Very nice food can be made with simple ingredients.
There are great recipes that can be made even with the vegetables that we put in the trash.
Sandra
"This is not a competition, it is a meeting."
Sandra Schreiber: From the USA, Jacksonville, Florida.
Lived in Turkey for 18 years: first 4 years in KaÅŸ, Antalya then in Istanbul for 14 years.
She now lives on Buyukada of The Prince Islands with her cats.
Regarding Convenient and Easy Recipes:
“We don't need to overdo it for food. A dish can be varied, delicious and affordable. My grandmother dried tomatoes under the sun. They would be delicious and had an intense taste. When I searched on the internet, I came across many recipes about dried tomatoes, I was surprised. Simple and good food. ”
There are lots of wild things here in Prince Islands: mustard greens, leeks, asparagus, fennel, wild garlic, mint, bay leaf / laurel and rosemary are just a few of the princes we gather on the islands of Istanbul. I cooked them all but I don't like fennel.
About Greens and Eggs:
One day I went shopping. I noticed there are mature wild chard growing at the bottom of the 2 hectare garden stretching down from my bungalow on the way back. I leaned my bike against the wall and greedily picked up two bunches for the olive oil dish of fried greens. It is served with whipped yogurt and the red pepper infused butter. The recipe is from my Syrian neighbour George, who used to live in the street but has since moved to England on a UN and UK-sponsored asylum project. He calls the dish Green Shukhuka. Although there are many such green recipes in Syria, it is not a traditional Syrian recipe. It is an adapted Yotam Ottolenghi recipe. It was supposed to be rainy this week. A lot of greenery should appear.
I'm going to have more foraging adventures, I'm sure.
Sanem
"I want to show you how much we can cook with reasonably priced ingredients."
Sanem Izmirli: is Turkish and lives in Istanbul with her cat and her daughter.
These are some of her thoughts on food and cooking:
“I will be a conscious cook in the kitchen. I will use the ingredients that can be found in everyone's cupboard. I will not use expensive ingredients. I want to show you how many different kinds of food we can cook with reasonable ingredients. That's why I made pasta with pesto sauce today. Something more or less everyone can do. ”
Some of my recipes are very old, for example, my aunt who lived in France during my childhood used to make “pommes au four”, which is apple custard in the oven, I have been making it since childhood, and the scent of cinnamon sprinkled on it reminds me of the beautiful memories that I had in my aunt's kitchen.
This is a recipe that has become a part of me with the emotions it reminds me of.