Farewell Anatolia - By Dido Soteriou

I just started reading a new book. I've only read about 30 pages but I think I'll enjoy this one a lot. I read some reviews of the book on Amazon and they are pretty good. I am reading the book in Turkish though. :)

Dido Soteriou

The writer was born on 1909 in Izmir, Sirince. (Izmir is one of the largest cities in Turkey and is located by the Aegean sea.)  However, she migrated to Greece when she was only 13 years old due to the wars going on in the region at the time. She had to migrate because she was Greek. It was very hard for the writer to forget the childhood memories she had so she wrote Farewell Anatolia to somehow satisfy her longing for the lands that she grew up. 

Book Cover

I believe Dido Soteriou's book will help me realize how lucky I am that I have the freedom of choosing where to live whether this place be my hometown or somewhere that is miles away from my hometown. I would be devastated if someone told me that I was not allowed to go back to the places that I was raised in.

I believe the author went back to see the lands that she grew up after many many years.

Muhammed Yalçın: A mentally handicapped painter

Muhammed with his paintings and tools :)

This morning I was watching the news when I came across Muhammed Yalçin, a mentally handicapped painter. He lives with his family in Ankara, Altindag. Muhammed is 23 years old and does not know how to read or write. However, he attended Çagdas Egitim Uygulama Kulubü, where he learned how to paint and won the first prize among 150 other students with his paintings. His desire to paint is supported by his parents and Muhammed has nearly finished painting all of their house! Muhammed's father says that they cannot afford to buy canvas for his son and Muhammed had to satisfy his desire to paint by using the walls, doors, cupboards etc. Currently Muhammed is in need of financial aid from possible supporters. I think that his talent needs to be recognized and appreciated. The news about Muhammed can be found here in Turkish.

Muhammed with his father and mother

Macarons

It's been a long time since I wrote a post but I've been traveling a lot. We came to Turkey for our holiday and we've been doing a lot of traveling in Turkey too. We just came back to Ankara yesterday. I feel really tired and just want to rest.

Sweet and Colorful Macarons

Weddings are common during summer. Last night my parents went to a wedding and when they came back they brought a music CD and two macarons with them. The music CD had 12 songs and I guess the songs were played during the wedding. However, I was mostly interested in the small macarons; one was pink and the other one was cream. Macarons were given as wedding candy.

All my friends and family know that I love sweets so it is safe to assume that I will love macarons too. This was not the case, I don't know maybe a lot of people recommended macarons so much that I thought that I would love them and had high expectations but I tried them and I think they are reeaaallllyyy sweet and eating a single small macaron is enough to satisfy my "hungry" sweet tooth. However, I am still willing to try macarons so if you have any bakery suggestions in Turkey or in U.S. I will keep them in my mind and try them out.

Taxi and Eco Vehicle Designs

Taxi Design I chose

Currently Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is holding a design competition in several categories. The most famous category is the Taxi Design Contest. People of Istanbul can vote for their new taxi's from this link. There are 4 different taxi designs and I think they are all very modern looking and thoughtfully designed. However, I voted for design B since I had to choose one. You can vote by selecting "OY VER" which is written under the photos of the designs. I am not sure if people living outside Istanbul's votes also count but I'm guessing they do since there is a website that you can vote from anywhere around the world.

Eco Vehicle Fayton

The other categories include Eco Vehicle Design, Taxi Stop Building Design and Communication and Design. Among the Eco Vehicle Design finalists there is one that is being advertised by one of my friends. I think she knows the designer or someone close to the designer. "Eco Vehicle Design" is written as "Eko Arac Tasarim" in Turkish on the website I gave the link of. There are 3 finalists and even if my friend hadn't advertised Fayton, the name of the eco vehicle, I would've given my vote to it anyway. I think the design is very original, fayton means carriage in English but fayton refers to carriages drawn by horses, and as you might have noticed the eco vehicle does remind you of a horse carriage. So, in short vote for Fayton! :) You can vote for any design until June 29th. Also I believe that you can vote each day, so there is no restriction of voting only once.

Before Sunrise - Before Sunset

We recently watched two movies from Netflix. My husband insisted on watching since he had heard that they were great movies but I hadn't heard anything about them before. As you may have guessed the movies are related. Before Sunset is a sequel to Before Sunrise. Both movies basically have two characters, a man (played by Ethan Hawke) and a woman (played by Julie Delpy). If you're looking for some action these movies will not give you that because they are based on the dialogues between the two characters. IMDB categorizes both of the movies as romance and drama.

Before Sunrise Poster

The first movie, Before Sunrise was released in 1995. In the story a man and a woman meet on a train in Europe. The man is a young American who will be going back to his country the next morning and the woman is from France. The young man needs to get off the train in Vienna because his flight will be leaving from this city the next morning and he does not have money to spend on a hotel so he asks the young French girl if she will join him until he has to leave for his flight the next morning. And to his luck the French girl says yes! They spend the night walking the streets of Vienna talking about, well, anything really :). So there is a lot of talking going on in the movie and to admit at first I was a little bored but I kept watching. Finally when the movie was over I thought it was very different from the movies I watched recently and was I glad that I kept watching!

Before Sunset Poster

The second movie, Before Sunset was released in 2004, 9 years after the initial movie. The same characters from the first movie reunite after 9 years. The young American man has written a book about his encounter with a French girl in Europe 9 years ago and that same French girl has read the book. The man comes to Europe to promote his book and in his final destination, which is Paris, the French girl makes an appearance at his last interview. Afterwards, they spend the rest of the day together until the man has to leave for America again. As expected they do a lot of talking and catching up :). They are both curious about what the other one was up to during the 9 years they were apart.

Both of the movies' ratings are the same, 8.1 out of 10 on IMDB and this means a lot of people liked it :). If you're looking for something original I can definitely suggest this series. However, if you're in the mood for a classic Hollywood movie you may get bored while watching.

Human Planet

We started watching Human Planet last week. We watched  "Episode 2: Deserts: Life in the Furnace" and "Episode 3: Arctic: Life in the Deep Freeze". Actually my husband also watched "Episode 1: Oceans: In to the Blue" so I have to watch that on my own.

IMDB categorizes Human Planet as a documentary and yet its rating is 9.2/10. I think the rating truly reflects how well the series is. The show takes us to places where Mother Nature's hostility shapes the way humans live.I was never bored while watching the episodes, everything was fascinating! I got to learn many things.

For example, in Episode 2 the men of Niger’s Woodabe tribe put themselves on display. These men actually enter a beauty contest and dance for the judges. The judges are women and if they choose a man, the chosen man gets the honor of spending the night with the judge who picked him. Even if the men are married their wives do not protest because if a judge chooses their husband this means that he is very beautiful and it is an honor to be married to such a man. I've put a picture of the men that are competing in the beauty contest. As you can see they also paint their faces for the judges.

From Episode 2: Deserts: Life in the Furnace

In Episode 3, we learned that you can eat fermented sea birds. In the Arctic, more specifically several families in the far north of Greenland catch sea birds during the summer and wait until the summer is over to eat them. The winters are very harsh in this part of the world so they prepare food for the coming winter by fermenting sea birds. During the summer the sea birds are placed inside seal skin that contains fat. A single seal skin can hold up to 200 sea birds. After the seal skin is full of sea birds it is sewn up so that it is airtight. To avoid flies the sewn part of the seal skin is rubbed with seal fat. Finally, the seal skin full of sea birds is placed under a pile of rocks until the sea birds are fermented and ready to eat. This dish is called kiviaq and loved by the Inuit families.

Main ingredient of kiviaq: Auk birds

 

 

 

 

There are so many other interesting things I haven't mentioned here. You have to watch at least 1 episode and see the fascinating lives of people that stand up to very harsh living conditions!

Red Lentil Curry Recipe

Red Lentil Curry

We will be away for nearly a month starting on June 30th that's why I'm trying to empty the pantry as much as I can. I had red lentils and I didn't want to make lentil soup. I was looking for a recipe that would be considered a meal. I found a red lentil curry recipe. It didn't take long to make and we really liked it. I'm sure you'll love it if you're craving for Indian food or curry. I know it doesn't look very nice but it tastes good. I think it is pretty healthy considering you're mostly eating protein and carbohydrates. There is very little fat in this recipe. Also as the link suggests it doesn't take more than 40 minutes to prepare and cook it.