30 DAYS, 30 DISHES – DAY 20: CHICKEN DÖNER

Posted on December 4, 2017 by livingtheturkishdream

A Turkish döner kebab is nothing like the ones you’ve come across in the UK. I’ve never had a lamb one, but chicken döner is one of my favourite fast foods!

The name relates to the way the seasoned meat is cooked slowly on a vertical rotisserie. As the outside layers of meat get cooked, they are carved off and served. There are various ways the meat is served – over rice with salad, in a wrap (dürüm) or in a half-bread like a sandwich (yarım ekmek). We usually get the half-bread – the perfectly cooked chicken is shaved off and put inside along with onion, tomato and lettuce.

It’s served with a side of pickled hot chili peppers. The English in me means I sometimes order chips, cover them in salt and vinegar and stuff them inside too!

Denizli – The City Centre, the Cable Car & the Cool Cockerel.

Posted on July 6, 2017 by livingtheturkishdream

Around 1.5-2 hours away from Berkay’s family village Beyagac, is the busy city of Denizli.

Both Beyagac and Denizli City are in the province of Denizli, but Denizli City Centre is the capital of the whole province. The city is very much a working, industrial centre with factories and a lot of textile production. In summer it’s hot, in winter it’s cold, even down to snow, so the climate varies a lot with the seasons!

It has a lot of tourists passing through, but mainly just on their way to Pammukale and Hieropolis, a short distance away from the city centre. The city seems to get more modern every time we visit, with new buildings, shopping centres, and even a cable car being built since our last visit 2.5 year ago.

We were in Denizli visiting Berkay’s uncle, his wife and their two children. They rent an apartment right in the centre of the city. Berkay doesn’t know his way around, so we met his cousin e-route. While waiting for him, we had some beautiful views across the area, if a little foggy due to weather and pollution! The rest of the family were out, so me, Berkay and his cousin went straight towards the ‘Denizli Telferik’ – the cable car up the side of the mountain with absolutely amazing views. I plan to write about this more in a separate post, because I loved it so much, so I’ll save the further details for then!

After coming back down to ground level, we drove to the family home. I really like visiting their home, they’re so welcoming and friendly and after a few days in the village sitting on the floor for every meal, it was nice to see an actual dining room table and chairs again. Berkay’s uncle is a fireman in summer, and goes off to the mountains for days at a time, to wait at look out points and search for first sight of wild fires. In winter, he is a bus driver. His wife is a stay at home mum at the moment, but used to work in local factories making slippers – part of the cities big textile industry. They have a 15 year old son, and a 6 year old daughter, Berkay’s two cousins. It’s funny to me because that’s quite an age gap and it’s identical to the age gap between my brother and sister, who are the exact same ages. A few years ago, my family came to visit us in Calis, and Berkay’s uncle came from Denizli to spend the day with us – with Berkay’s cousin and my sister the same age, only 1 at the time, we got a cute photo of them sat in a hammock together in Guvens restaurant. 4 years later, in April 2016, they were reunited again at Guven’s restaurant and danced together at our wedding – bless them!

Berkay’s little cousin, Eylul (which means September in Turkish.. guess when her birthday is…), was trying to communicate with me in Turkish, and although I do know some, not enough to hold a conversation. She had a little toy laptop which said the alphabet and words in Turkish and English, so she tried to teach me some using that bless her!

We had lunch which Berkay’s aunt had prepared, and just sat relaxing in their home for a few hours. It was nice to eat around a proper dining table whilst sitting on a chair – no pins and needles from sitting cross legged on the floor , although its not without sacrifice – they don’t have a ‘normal’ toilet, only a hole in the floor style, so I tried to limit my wee breaks. I still haven’t entirely mastered the art of the Turkish toilet and have to strip naked on the bottom half of my body to avoid splashes… awkward!

A while after, we walked to their local weekly market, which was really busy, full of people buying their weekly fruit, veg and other goods. It was even bigger than Fethiye market and actually covered two levels, one underground! It had all the usual stuff, food, clothes, shoes, nuts, baggy pants! It was so noisy and a bit overwhelming – the photos I took make it look quiet, but they were taken in a more quiet spot away from the hustle and bustle of the fruit and veg section which was just chaos. On the way back we saw a weird rainbow, a kind of upside down very faint small arc – I’d never seen one like that before!

In the evening, Berkays uncle, aunt and youngest cousin, went to a friends ‘going to the army’ party – they asked if we wanted to go but I said no.. I still don’t really understand the mentality behind gatecrashing strangers parties! It’s a bit odd. Instead, Berkay’s older cousin showed us around a part of the the city centre called Çınar, just a short walk from their house.

This is a very modern part of the city, very popular with young people and families, even late at night. We were out around 9pm but it was busy and bustling! There are lot of bright lights, bars, cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, street food stalls, big name brand shops and some quirkier ones. “Googil cafe” and “Woops” just made me giggle. There are also several McDonalds, Burger King’s and even a Starbucks in the city. Whenever I read about such places coming to Fethiye or other areas, it seems to cause arguments as people assume these places are only popping up to appease tourists or expats – it’s just not true. Whilst a lot would prefer their little tea houses, the more modern, younger Turkish people appreciate a big Mac or a Frappucino as much as the rest of us, and you can find these places in most of the big cities in the country, even the least touristy ones possible.

Another thing that seems to be increasingly present all over the country is the multi-coloured umbrella. We all know and love photographing the famous ‘umbrella street’ in Fethiye, but I’m not sure which was actually the first in the country, there is now one in a lot of different places, some more impressive than others!

Wherever you go in Denizli, you will see the famous Denizli Rooster everywhere – statues, posters, humorous references etc. It has been the symbol for Denizli City and province for over 900 years. This special breed of chicken is unique to Denizli and is only bred in the area, it has very specific characteristics and is valued highly. I’m no chicken expert, but research has told me that they are unique in their long crowing abilty, colour and weight, and a great lot of effort goes into the conservation of the population of these special chickens.

After wandering around for an hour or two, and a quick trip to LC Waikiki, we went back to the families house. I do love how hospitable they are, without a second thought they gave up the children’s beds for us and made sure we had plenty of clean bedding and pillows. It does amaze me though, where exactly they keep their clothes as there’s never any wardrobes etc! Although I’ve spent some time with Berkay’s other family members, it’s usually us who are the youngest in the room, so the one thing that I really noticed from being around Berkay’s younger cousin, is the respect he showed to me. He’s 15 years old, and has clearly been raised to respect his elders, which sounds weird as I’m only 25 myself! Around Berkay, he acts ‘normal’ as they are cousins and more like brothers, but as soon as I walked into the room he stopped slouching or laying and immediately sat up straight and ‘proper’. He also has a lot of respect for his own parents, there was one point where his mum smashed a tea glass in the kitchen and he jumped up off the sofa, asked her if she was okay and grabbed the hoover to help her clean up – he’s not a stereotypical moody teenager that’s for sure!

The morning after, we had planned to go back to Fethiye after breakfast, but as I’ve already tried to make clear, these particular family members are just so nice it’s hard to say no, so when they suggested we stay for lunch and go with them to a local picnic place, we couldn’t resist. We decided we didn’t have time for a BBQ, so instead took bags full of coke, nuts, sunflower seeds and of course blankets to sit on. The place we went to was called ‘Servergazi Piknik Alani’ and was really nice with big tall trees all over, BBQ facilities, benches and play areas for the kids. It was really pretty, and Berkay’s youngest cousin picked out a whole bucket full of daisies for me, bless her. Despite a lot of begging, we declined their offer of dinner and managed to ‘escape’ back to the car and get on the main road out of Denizli to make the 3.5 hour journey back to Fethiye.

I really like spending time in the city of Denizli and there’s so much to see that we haven’t even explored. It’s very ‘normal’, not touristy, not villagey, just ‘normal’ life, and I think it would be a nice place to live. Hopefully we’ll go back to visit and can go and see some different places, there’s always something interesting to photograph!

Sunday market day in Calis..

Posted on September 8, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

We went to the market for the first time in over a month yesterday, we used to go every week but haven’t been recently for one reason or another – I was ill, we had plans with friends, it was too hot, etc. We normally wait for the Tuesday Fethiye market as it’s bigger, but we needed fruit and vegetables for this weeks meals, so we headed to the Sunday market in Calis instead.

I love the food on market days, we used to always go to one of the snack cafe’s inside to have a Turkish pancake for lunch, but we had leftovers from yesterday’s dinner today so we didn’t go there. I’ve written posts about our favourite market cafe food before, click HERE to read that.

We bypassed all the cafes and went straight to the fruit and vegetable stalls, this is where we buy all our weekly fruit and vegetables as it’s generally much cheaper than the supermarkets or small shops. Prices vary dramatically throughout the year for certain things, obviously it depends what is in season and what is not, for example – a month ago we got kiwi’s for 6tl per kg, now they’re 20tl per kg, that is one crazy price increase.

The colours you see in the market are so diverse, vibrant and fresh, from the multi-coloured spices to the pastel coloured Turkish delight and the bright fruits and vegetables. It all smells so good too, apart from the olive and cheese sections, I always hold my nose around both of those stalls…stinky.

I was surprised at how quiet the market was, there were very few tourists around at all, in fact I can’t recall seeing, or hearing any! We went around 5.30pm, perhaps it was too late? That’s another trick you quickly learn, shop in the early evening to take advantage of both the cooler air and the lower prices as people prepare to pack up their stock and go home. The atmosphere at the Calis market compared to the Fethiye one is very different – its less busy and there’s less of a sense of urgency, everyone is always in such a rush during the Tuesday one! There was even a cute fluffy dog just strolling around.

As well as all our fruit and vegetables we usually buy all our chicken here too, from the ‘ay pilic’ van which is our favourite place to buy from. They also sell eggs, but we usually avoid buying those here as the whole tray rarely survives the journey home, there are always a few casualties! My favourite thing about this stall is the fact is sells HP Sauce. This is the only ‘English’ item I regularly buy and insist on always having in my cupboard! I ran out a few weeks ago and we were waiting for pay day to arrive to restock my supply, so I was very pleased when I saw some on the shelf today! Last year they sold it for 4.5tl, now it’s gone up to 6.5tl (£1.85) , along with the beans. Who in their right mind would pay 6.5tl for a tin of baked beans? They’re not even Heinz! The price of imported goods has rapidly increased here. While we were at their van/stall I spotted a big bottle of sweet chili sauce and asked how much it was, 11tl they said (a good deal for the size of the bottle!). We only had enough money on us to buy this or the HP sauce, and of course the latter option won. “We’ll buy the other one next week” Berkay told them, “no, no, take it now, you can pay next week, we know you!” they said. Now this made my day, how kind and how trusting? People are always complaining about Turkish people ripping them off in resorts, and I don’t deny that that does happen, but some of them are so kind and really lovely, genuine people. It makes no difference to them whatsoever if we bought the sauce this week or next, yet they let us take it away anyway. They know us, we use them all the time, but that’s still a really trusting, nice thing to do.

Apart from food, of course there are other aspects to the market too – there are stalls selling clothes, shoes, belts, bags, toys, homewares, baby clothes, towels, sunglasses and an abundance of ‘genuine fakes’. I wrote about some of that in a previous post from last year, click HERE to read.

We ended up coming home with 1kg of chicken wings, 1 chicken breast, 2 chicken drumsticks, HP sauce, several kilograms of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, peppers, bell peppers, green beans, apples, pears, 2 garlic bulbs and one huge 8.6kg watermelon. (Ouch!) This will probably last us 7-10 days and all came to a total of 60tl or £17, which yes is cheaper than you’d pay in the UK, but please consider the wage differences here in Turkey, this is more than a days wages for Berkay.

When we lived at our old house, the bus route didn’t run along our road, so we had to walk for 15 minutes, that was never fun with several kilograms of fruit and vegetables (we certainly wouldn’t have been able to carry that massive watermelon!), so I’m thankful the bus now goes practically to our front door!

The markets are always worth a visit even if you don’t intend to buy anything, it’s a brilliant place to sit and enjoy a cool drink, a Turkish pancake and do some people watching too. (:

Fethiye’s best chicken döner kebab?..

Posted on September 3, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

We don’t often eat out in restaurants here in Calis/Fethiye, it’s nice every once in a while to splash out and go out for dinner but it’s expensive when you’re on a tight budget. We do however, go to small Turkish cafe’s regularly – usually once a week.

You can’t beat the small cafe’s in Fethiye for their Turkish food, whether it be beans and rice, green beans, pide, köfte, chicken saute or our good old favourite – chicken döner. It’s all so cheap, in fact I think a lot of it is cheaper than actually buying the ingredients and cooking it yourself at home.

Our favourite place to go for a good chicken döner kebab is Dönercim. It’s located in Fethiye on the corner of the main town centre road behind Mercan Pastanesi and Cem Optik.

A Turkish döner kebab is nothing like the ones you’ve come across in the UK. They’re not greasy, mixed meats all slung together into a brown pile served in a pitta bread with chili sauce and greasy chips… When we were in a kebab shop in Essex, Berkay asked the owners (they were Turkish too) what the meat was in their version of a ‘doner kebab’ and was shocked at their answer – it was a mixture of everything and made up of several meats including pork, something Turkish people do not normally eat.

The döner kebabs here are different. There’s no such thing as ‘doner meat’ – it’s either seasoned chicken, beef or lamb. The name relates to the way the meat is cooked slowly on a vertical rotisserie. As the outside layers of meat get cooked, they are carved off and served. There are various ways the meat is served – e.g, over rice with salad, in a wrap (dürüm) or in a half-bread like a sandwich (yarım ekmek).

We usually get the half-bread, the perfectly cooked chicken is shaved off and put inside along with onion, tomato and lettuce. It’s always served with a side of pickled hot chili peppers too – I love them, although they took a bit of getting used to, once I managed to control the mouth burning sensation I grew to love them. (;

It’s not a very ‘Turkish’ thing to do, but we always order a side of chips, pour some salt and vinegar on them and stick them inside the half-bread too – trust me, it’s perfect!

We love this cafe so much, the staff know us. They see us walking down the road towards it, Berkay gestures to let them know we’re coming in, they know our order (including drinks) off by heart and have it ready and waiting by the time we’ve sat down at the table. That’s how you know you visit a place a little too often, isn’t it? The first few times we went they had to ask if we wanted ketchup and mayonnaise in the half bread (ewww no), what drink we wanted and always gave us weird looks when we asked for the vinegar (apparently vinegar on chips isn’t a normal thing to do here), but now they don’t even have to ask and the bottle of vinegar is always bought out to the table without thinking twice. They are so friendly and I really recommend the place. Our bill usually comes to around 12.5 lira. 3.5tl for one half-bread with ayran, 5tl for one half-bread with a cola light, and 4tl for the side portion of chips. Bargain.

This cafe doesn’t just sell döner kebabs of course, it has other Turkish meals – various kebabs, chicken saute, fish, liver, meatballs etc and it also caters for those wanting something more ‘British’ although I’ve never tried any of these meals, so I can’t comment. The prices are clearly displayed outside so there’s no ‘double price’ system for local people v tourists, something that is an issue in a lot of places.

If you’re in Fethiye give it a try – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, and for the prices you really can’t go wrong. There’s a good chance you’ll bump into us there too! 😉

Disclaimer – I’m not being paid to advertise, the owners have no idea I’m writing this post.

Busy, Birthdays & Brad

Posted on April 13, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

I’ve been so busy I don’t have time to update here much! I had a 4 day working-week this week as it was my birthday on Friday so I took the day off!

Me and Berkay went to London for the day and had a really good time, I’ll be doing a big post about that tomorrow, hopefully, with lots of photos!

Today though, we spent the day at mums house. She picked us up this morning and bought us to her house where a pile of presents, birthday cake and a balloon were waiting for me! Can always rely on mum for birthday celebrations hehe. They got me some lovely presents, including this Frozen Dvd, box of Ferrero Rocher and bag of chocolates, which apparently were from her Shih Tzu, Brad, as we are currently dog-sitting him until tomorrow evening – Mum and her husband have gone to London for the night and tomorrow to cheer on runners at the Marathon!

Before they went out, we all went to Nandos this afternoon, surprisingly it’s only the second time Berkay has been there in the two and a half weeks he’s been here! It’s his favourite place. I was feeling pretty festive so wore my new Easter t-shirt, why not wear cute chickens on your clothes while tucking into some tasty Nandos chicken eh? 😉

After our Nandos we came back home and had birthday cake! Don’t ask why it’s Spongebob – mum saw it and thought of me as I’m a little strange haha Who doesn’t love spongebob? Minions are favourite thing but she couldn’t find a cake version of one of those- instead she bought these little sugar paper cake toppers and stuck them on some little cupcakes herself – how cute, I love them!!\

Mum’s wedding was 2 weeks ago today, but she picked up the photos from the photographer today so we spent some time this afternoon looking through those – they turned out really cute, I love the ones of me and Berkay.

The one of mum and Berkay makes me smile too – how cute is this? Real happy faces.

We’ve just spent the evening watching Britain’s got Talent, Frozen, eating chocolate and looking after Brad the dog. We’re just about to go off to bed, the dog is spoilt and usually always sleeps on it with me so it’ll be interesting to see how two people and a dog squish on the sofabed.. I’ll look forward to my 6am wake up call for his morning pee-walk.

As promised, I’ll be back tomorrow with the photos from London… and trust me there are hundreds. I also haven’t forgotten about my 100,000 views giveaway, I’m planning to do an update about that next week if I have time. I’m trying to make the most of the last 6 days I have with Berkay…

Goodnight all ❤

BERKAYS FAVOURITE PLACE – NANDOS

Posted on December 21, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Nandos is most definitely Berkay’s favourite thing about England. He absolutely loves it.

After work on Friday, we had a spare couple of hours before we had to babysit my brother & sister, so we took a detour to spicy chicken heaven, Nandos.

Being a Turk, Berkay loves spicy stuff. Very spicy. Not content with the hot chicken he had, he tipped loads of extra hot sauce over his garlic bread, pitta, chicken and chips. How he eats it without smoke coming out of his ears I have no idea, good job you get free refills for the drinks!

Nandos is my favourite too. Red pepper dip, chicken in pitta, spicy chips… yummy.
Afterwards we got the bus home, but not before stopping to take a photo of this pretty tree.
3 days til Christmas 🙂
Writing this post is making me so hungry, Im going out with my friends for dinner tonight and table isn’t booked til 8pm… mmmmm, We’re spending the weekend back in Essex in mums house, we are celebrating Christmas tomorrow here, 3 days early, as we won’t see her, so lots of festive photos coming tomorrow!

🙂

An afternoon at the beach..

Posted on September 13, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

I always used to think how odd it looked when Turkish families rocked up to the beach in the height of summer, fully clothed with rugs, cushions and pots and pans in tow to enjoy a full on family feast. Today I realised I have become one of these people.

My level of Turkish-ness definitely peaked today. I wanted to for a swim with Berkay and thought it would be nice to take some food along with us, I found myself marinating some chicken breast in Nandos sauce (we’re addicted to it) at 6am this morning, ready to cook in the oven before we went this afternoon. We ended up taking the chicken, some pasta and salad all nicely stored in saucepans and old ice-cream tubs and shoved in my bag… along with towels, a blanket, 2 cushions, plates, cutlery, a bottle of coke and the trusty salt pot. God knows what the tourists thought, Calis Beach was pretty busy with bikini clad sun worshiping tourists, and there we were, walking along trying to find an empty spot to set up our little feast. We did find a fairly quiet spot luckily.

It was lovely, but by the time we had walked 20 minutes in the 38 degree heat and were sweaty, hot and bothered, we weren’t all that hungry and couldn’t finish it all. Boncuk was grateful for the leftovers for dinner though!

After a little mini photo-shoot (I am way too snap happy, 7000 photos taken on my iPod in just 5 months..) we had a little swim, the sea is still lovely and warm at this time of year, perfect.

We had time for a quick walk and hugs with Boncuk before Berkay went to work too, isn’t this photo adorable? True love 🙂