Beypazarı and baklava with 80 layers

Every year in the school holidays we come to Ankara to visit Cem’s cousins here.  The journey takes about 7 hours – it’s about 500km – and last Thursday when we drove up here we were worried the roads would be icy.  Actually, the only thing that was icy was the inside of our borrowed minibus, as we found out after we’d left that the heating system didn’t work properly.  Kaan was sat at the back bundled up in his coat and woolly hat!

On Sunday we loaded ALL the family – including mum, auntie, cousins and children into the minibus and went to Beypazarı, a town about an hour’s drive from Ankara.  It often seems to me that every town in Turkey is famous for something – usually a food item that is grown there, or a dish that is peculiar to there;  so for example, everyone who drives through Afyon buys ‘sucuk’ (spicy sausage) and if you go to Çorum you must try the ‘leblebe’ (chick peas).  Beypazarı goes further and is famous for a whole range of things.

Beypazarı

Firstly, carrots.  We drove into town and were met by an enormous, rather dubious-looking model carrot.  The shops sell carrot juice, carrot jam and carrot ‘sausage’ (actually a sweet sticky confection).  The town is also famous for a type of dry crisp bread that is bought as fast as the bakeries can get it out of the oven.

Beypazarı’s stuffed vine leaves are a speciality, due apparently to the high quality and sharp taste of the leaves growing there.  We bought a total of about 5kg and Cem (helped by the rest of us) ate about another kilo standing in the shop.  The shopkeeper actively encouraged this, giving us one of the pans of vine leaves to finish off and ordering in tea to wash them down with.  Don’t you just love Turkey?! 

We finished off the ‘meal’ with dessert in the form of baklava.  Though you can, of course, find baklava all over Turkey and neighbouring countries, Beypazarı’s apparently beats them all by having 80 layers of pastry.  I am not a big fan of baklava but this was lovely, with plenty of walnuts, not too much syrup and light despite the many layers.

The old town of Beypazarı is made up of distinctive wooden houses.  Many of them have been renovated, some turned into small hotels, and we visited one that has been made into a ‘living museum’.  Apart from the house itself, which was laid out and furnished as it would have been in the mid-nineteenth century when it was built, they had traditional crafts and activities in each room.

doing ebru - or paper marbling

I had a go at ‘ebru’ – the Turkish art of ‘marbling’ paper by sprinkling paints into a trough of water mixed with gum, swirling them together, then putting the paper on the top so it picks up the floating paint.  You can see my effort below- but go on the internet to see how stunning it can be!

my first attempt at ebru

Cem went for a different ‘art’ – that of lead pouring.  This is an old tradition where lead is heated over a flame and poured into water. It is said to banish evil spirits, while the shape the hardened lead takes allows the pourer to tell your future.  The picture below shows it being done (Cem is under the sheet) but unlike with my ebru, we will have to wait to see the results!

Cem having lead poured

School holidays

The school holiday has begun.  In Turkey there are just two terms to the school year – the first from September until mid-January and the second from February until mid-June.  The children have a two week holiday now between these two mega-terms.  It means that, though they have three months summer holiday, they don’t have any more holiday overall than schools in the UK.  But those long terms…the years I have been teaching in school or college  I have been nearly on my knees by the time the holiday came and even the students get very jaded and in need of a break. 

All the students in Turkey, from year 1 of primary to year 4 of high school get their school report on the last day of each term.  Kaan is in primary school where teachers are more lenient and his report was pretty much all 5s.  Emre’s crosses the whole range of marks from 5 for English (not as much of a cert as you might expect), to 1 for philosophy!  The standards are pretty high in schools here, both in the things they are teaching and the level expected, so for example, 54% in a test will only get you a 2.

Traditionally when students get their reports they take them to show family and close friends and – if they are good – get given little presents or money. Conversely students who have got bad grades will try anything to hide it, from forging reports and changing marks to running away from home!

Last week I wrote about our attempts at skiing at Erendağ near Fethiye, but you may have heard of bigger snow events in Turkey, with the winter ‘Universiade’ (university Olympics) being held in Erzurum.  Competitors from 58 countries are taking part in sports, including downhill skiing, ski jump, ice hockey and curling.  It is a big event for Turkey to be hosting and they are very proud of it. They have teams in most events, though they are fairly new to many of them.  Curling, for example, has been causing much amazement!

one of Turkish competitors in Universiade; Erzurum, Turkey

Erzurum is up in the north east of Turkey, where Cem’s family come from and near where we have been to ski in the past.  It has good snow and they have spent a lot of money on the facilities there.  There are also good ski slopes at Kartalkaya near Ankara and Uludağ near İstanbul.  The latter is now attracting some skiers from abroad.

The weather in Fethiye has been bright and sunny, but very cold.  So cold in fact that I have finally given in and let Cem put a wood-burning stove into our house.  These are the traditional way of heating here, where few houses have central heating.  They are not the most attractive addition to your interior décor but they do make the house nice and warm.  Here is Kaan, who is very smitten with it, feeding the stove.

Skiing in Fethiye

Finally on Sunday we managed to get up to the ski slope at Erendağ.  This project was planned and talked about for so long that when it actually opened I think we hardly believed it.  On Sunday it was raining stair rods in Fethiye and, hoping that we might see snow, we set off with a couple of friends.

The site is about 80km from Fethiye, in the mountains above Kemer and Saklıkent gorge.  The road is good as far as Seki and the last 9km, though dirt road, is wide and not too steep, though we did manage to miss a sign and nearly ended up in someone’s garden.  At the turn off the tarmac road there was no snow but gradually as we climbed up there were patches beside the road.  The rain turned to sleet and then snow and suddenly we arrived at the restaurant and ski slope of Eren Mountain.

view from the restaurnat at Eren Mountain

The boys and I got fitted with boots and skis straight away – amazingly they had a pair of ski boots to fit Emre’s size 48 feet!  Kaan had never been on a drag lift before and it was a pretty bumpy ride up.  He fell off once on the way up, but managed it well the second time – even negotiating the numerous other people who had fallen off and were littering the way!

At the top of the slope it was a case of find a way down, the new snow having covered everything.  Emre, being kamikaze, headed down the steepest place he could find; Kaan and I were a bit more wary and took some time (and a few tumbles) to find our ‘ski feet’.  It’s three years since we last skied and that was on the beautifully snow-ploughed slopes of Sarıkamuş (in the northeast of Turkey).

ready to go!

In the end, we all made it down and the kids skied a bit more while we went for a hot drink by the fire.  The overall verdict is there is still quite a lot that needs doing up there, but it’s great to be able to pop up for an afternoon on the ‘piste’ and I really enjoyed just being in the snow again.

The journey home – not so much though!  We were, as usual, the last to leave.  It was dark, snowing and the car was so full of wet bodies that the windows were completely steamed up.  Suffice it to say that I was quite relieved to be back in rainy Fethiye.  And it’s still raining now.

The Prime Minister comes to town

The big news in Fethiye this week was the Prime Minister coming to town.  He was here for a couple of hours on Saturday but the visit caused quite a commotion!  All the roads in the centre of town were closed and all cars were removed.  A stage was erected in the park just off the seafront so all the boats moored on the harbour front were also moved a short way out.  The father of a boy who came for an English lesson on Saturday morning reported that ‘a hundred’ buses filled with police had arrived (possibly slight exaggeration!) and Emre reported that from the roof of Burger King he saw several snipers on nearby roofs.  There were also helicopters buzzing overhead, panzers (armoured vehicles) ready on the ground and ‘jammers’ – which I have never even heard of – to block remotely operated gadgets, particularly bombs.

I wondered if the Prime Minister at home has as much security when he goes ‘on location’?  I really don’t know, having never been present at such an occasion but I rather think that it is probably a bit more low-key.  Cem says that is because there are not so many people in the UK who hate the PM.  I think there are probably just as many, but they are less likely to act on it.  Fiery Turkish tempers make for more of a direct threat; they were even taking loose change from anyone who wanted to go into the reserved area – in case they threw coins at the PM!

Anyway, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was driven through town waving (Emre claims he waved right at him) and distributing diaries (Cem claims he threw one directly at him) before appearing on the specially-built stage to give an hour-long speech.  Like all politicians, he spent much of the time praising his party and what they have achieved in the 8 years they have been in office – roads built, hospitals opened etc.….

The one question that many people wanted to hear the answer to was whether there are plans to promote Fethiye to province status.  The answer – which he luckily waited until the end to provide – was a resounding ‘no’. I say luckily because as soon as he said that, at least half the crowd listening got up and walked out!  It is an issue near that everyone has a strong opinion on, since province status would confer prestige and financial benefits.  At the moment, we are a department of Muğla province – Muğla being a town about two hour’s drive away, now smaller than Fethiye (population 61,000 at last count, compared to Fethiye’s 70,000) but to which we have to go for a whole load of official business.  Seems silly – but that probably just shows how much Fethiye has grown recently in relation to the other towns in the area.

At Poppy we have been fighting our own little political battle – threatening to tear up our contract with one of the agencies if they didn’t pay the outstanding money from last year.  The result was a hasty visit from a sympathetic guy, a long phone-call from the boss…and a bottle of Jack Daniels for Cem (how does everyone know his favourite drink?).  Still, happy as Cem was with the gift, we are still waiting to see if the boss comes good on his promise to pay most of the money next week and the remainder in February.  I won’t be holding my breath!

How to stop time...

I was doing a bit of painting at home this week.  Being bored I put on the television – and then had to keep stopping painting to listen to the Doctor Oz show.  I don’t know if you have seen this guy.  He is very famous in America thanks to his appearances on the Oprah Winfrey show and now on his own series.  His popularity stems partly from his willingness to discuss even the most embarrassing problems, but also I think from his realistic expectations – he knows we are not going to give up all our bad habits!  In Turkey his popularity also, of course, stems from the fact that he is Turkish (at least in origin)!

So why did I have to listen to yesterday’s programme?  The subject was the effects of ageing – what they are and what we can do to minimise them in our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.  He EVEN suggested things we can do to REVERSE the effects of time!  What a great guy – no wonder he’s so popular!  Being a bit late to be trying the 30’s stuff, I listened carefully to what women in their 40’s should be doing.  Apparently we should watch out for an increase in cellulite and age spots, we should be ensuring we get enough sleep and looking for face creams containing hydroquinones.  We shouldn’t be drinking more than one cup of coffee a day (I’ll need to work a bit on that one!) but we can smother a home-made honey and coffee grounds skin ‘tightener’ on our faces.

I was certainly feeling the passing of time this week when we celebrated Kaan’s ELEVENTH birthday.  I remember – and some of you will remember – the panic of his premature birth, shortly after the millennium New Year and the weeks spent at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.  Once we did get him home he was such a happy and easy-going baby.  He still is really.  After the excitement of Christmas and New Year, it’s hard to make a big thing of his birthday and this year he got an odd selection of presents including some books, a jigsaw puzzle and some goldfish.  Unlike the little boy on You-Tube, Kaan is very happy with his books – and even happier with his fish.  Here he is blowing out the candles on his fishy cake!

Kaan's eleventh birthday

Now Christmas and New Year are out of the way, I hope people will be starting to think of summer holidays.  For Turkey, booking flights and holidays early is the best way to get good prices; nearer the time flights are usually more expensive or actually full.  It also gives people something to look forward to during the bad weather of January.  Just to make you jealous, here is Çalış Beach in January!

Çalış Beach last week

A wish for 2011

Welcome 2011!  I hope it will be a great year for all of you and bring you health, happiness and ‘huzur’ – a lovely Turkish word that means something like ‘peace of mind’.

At Poppy, I hope it brings us plenty of new guests as well as old friends and that we are once again able to help people enjoy their holiday.  The nicest thing about running a hotel is when people tell us what a special time they had with us and there were more than ever of those last year.

But today I also made a more general wish for tourism in Turkey. It started when I saw a home-made poster in a car, saying ‘this car is running on the most expensive petrol in the world’.  Yes – it’s true!  You might think petrol is expensive in your country but I can promise you it is more expensive here.

Besides fuel, there are many things which are now more expensive in Turkey than in the UK.  We pay more for meat and cheese, alcoholic drinks, all electrical goods from mobile phones to washing machines and way more for cars.  In addition our phone bills are higher, car tax is often more (it varies by car type) and electricity costs as much as it does in the UK.  The rise in the cost of living over the last few years has caused a number of Brits who were living here to leave.

And yet the biggest selling-point for Turkey is still that it is ‘cheap’.  Where’s the catch?  The catch is that at unrealistically low prices, everyone loses out.  When a tour operator pays rock bottom prices for hotel rooms, hoteliers are making little or no profit.  But guests are also suffering as the standard of service and accommodation falls.  If restaurants are obliged to keep prices down to attract business, they will look for ways to make savings – and the food will suffer!

If we want standards to be maintained and improved in Turkey the prices are going to have to be more realistic.  It will still be cheaper than many European holiday destinations but the low cost will no longer be the USP…so this is my wish:

Let 2011 be the year when Turkey begins to be promoted by tour operators and travel agents for its REAL qualities; take your pick – and add your own – to the list below:

Beautiful scenery

Fantastic climate

Warm sea and unspoiled beaches

Friendly people

Culture and history

Great food

Adventure sports (paragliding, diving, white water rafting)

Shopping (where else can you find so many designer brands at 

 affordable prices?!)

Turkey in Turkey

The Christmas menu at Poppy….

…a large quantity of turkey; I asked Cem to get an 8kg turkey which he did – but it had an eat-by date of 24^th December!  When he went to change it he found all the large ones were the same, so we ended up with two 5kg turkeys.  I cooked them both and I think they were alright, though I stuck to my nut roast.  Disappointingly the gimmicky plastic ‘thermometer’, which was supposed to show when they were cooked, didn’t do its stuff.  Anyway, there is a lot of turkey in the freezer!

The roast potatoes were spectacular, the hazelnut and apricot stuffing was alright but not amazing and the vegetables were as they should be – though no sprouts because I hate them!  Everything arrived at the table pretty much together and hot, unlike the food at a hotel where some of my students had their Christmas meal!  There is not so much emphasis in Turkey on getting food to the table piping hot; I have often seen chips being cooked and put on the table half an hour before the rest of the food is ready and have never seen plates being warmed here.  Still, this particular meal apparently broke all records by being absolutely cold.

Many local restaurants now do Christmas dinner.  A few years ago when we had Cumba bar in Fethiye we did Christmas dinner.  When you are cooking for paying customers, you have to do the whole works (even sprouts!) and want everything to be perfect (read hot!)  It meant I spent a couple of hours of my Christmas panicking with the chef in the kitchen; maybe that’s why I find cooking for friends a relatively easy job!

the best-dressed bear in town

This week life is fairly normal, with me giving lessons again and the boys back at school.  They have a half day on Friday and will be home ready for us to do the whole big meal thing again – with pretty much the same caste of characters – on Friday night.  The big difference is that I won’t be doing much of the cooking this time so can look forward to running up and down the stairs a lot less, relaxing a bit more and of course applying myself to the wine a bit better.

Many Turkish people celebrate New Year and it seems to be getting a bigger affair each year with more presents being given, way more decorations and increasingly expensive ‘New Year programmes’ in the restaurants.  A lot of people prefer to make it a family affair, with a big meal at home and – rather strangely this – a traditional game of bingo! 

We used to do a bit of each – having a meal with Cem’s family, then sneaking out leaving the children there, to party at one of the bars in town.  These days we no longer seem to feel the need to go out – whether because of the cost or because we are old and boring I don’t know!  Our other tradition, after plenty of partying, used to be going for a swim in the sea.  The expats had a Boxing Day swim at Çalış which I am sure had plenty of participants but that was in the day when it is sunny and quite warm.  I asked Cem this morning if he was planning on swimming on New Year’s night but he replied with his usual ‘we’ll see’.  Perhaps we should move over and let the boys take over that tradition!