Edible Orange County Winter Warm 2014

edible Orange County

A Member of Edible Communities

Winter Warm 2014 No. 12

TURKEY – UP CLOSE AND FAR AWAY

Turkey

Up Close and Far Away

WINTER WARM 2014 NO. 12

Off the Menu

In Season

Organic Tree

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Contents Winter Warm 2014

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22 Features

In Each Issue

12

Drink to Your Health

4

14

Touring Turkey

6 Contributors

22

32

By Luke Harper

Editor’s Note

By Gina Mullins Cohen

By Bill Cohen

Historical Cuisine of Turkey

By Bill Cohen

Street Food of Istanbul

By Bill Cohen

8

In Season

10

Off the Menu

44

Fit Foodie®

By Gina Mullins-Cohen

By Gina Mullins-Cohen

38

Local Flavor, Turkish Food in OC

By Bill Cohen

47

OC Farmers’ Market Listings

42

Fast Facts - The Origin of the word “Turkey” and The Origin of Coffee

48

Our Advertisers

Chef Mareya Ibrahim

By Bill Cohen

Cover Photo by Bill Cohen

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Recipe Box

10 Chicken Tagine with

Honeyed Pears and Cinnamon

By Chef Nour Tillo

45

No Bake Power Bites

46

Whole Grain Spaghetti alla Lucca

By Chef Mareya Ibrahim

By Chef Mareya Ibrahim

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Editor’s Note edible Communities 2011 James Beard Foundation Publication of the Year

Travel Dreams and Turkish Cuisine

W

inter - it comes to Southern California like a cruise ship slowly pulling into port.

The weather changes are subtle at first, foggy mornings, which I love, cold nights, when we turn on our heaters and our current hope for rainy days in February.

We are lucky, for the most part, while the rest of the country suffers through arctic blasts, heavy snowfall and ice storms, we go about our daily business with light jackets, umbrellas and UGGs. As the damp season moves in, our eating habits change. Soups simmer on stovetops; we conjure up stews and bake meat pies. We turn on our (gas) fireplaces at night, while we watch the Food Network and Downton Abbey. We are cozy, warm and content…for about two weeks. That is when it happens.

The longing for something exciting to happen hits us and we start daydreaming about travel. It is not that we long for better weather, our weather is ideal, but we long for distant lands, undiscovered cuisines and cultures we read about in the Travel section of the Sunday newspaper.

This issue of Edible Orange County speaks to that longing as we take you to Turkey, a land rich in a history that, to this day, is marked by a variety of cuisines with roots going back hundreds of years.

Bill Cohen explores the history and romance of this vast and magical country. He brings us the historic flavors of Ottoman cuisine, and describes the several fresh and healthy morsels of the street food in Istanbul. He does not stop there. He travels throughout Orange County discovering restaurants that will transport you to this incredible country by way of your palate.

Are you looking for the true taste of an authentic kabob or craving a honeyed dessert? Go to Istanbul Grill in Fountain Valley. Are you hungry for a unique Mediterranean dish? Create an incredible main course from the recipe offered by Chef Nour Tillo, of San Clemente’s Village Mediterranean Rim. It is in our new section, Off the Menu.

Whether drinking fresh squeezed orange juice in the heat of the Turkish sun after a long, arduous hike or sipping one of the many fresh juices offered by Organic Tree, in Dana Point, you will experience Turkey, this wild and beautiful country as if you were there yourself.

Winter can be season of intimate discoveries in Orange County. As you walk through these days of cool, crisp ocean air, daydreaming of your next vacation,” remember to eat well, laugh a lot and choose to be happy.

–Gina Mullins Cohen 4 Winter Warm 2014

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Orange County® Published by Eclipse Media Partners, LLC 1001 Avenida Pico, Ste. C622 San Clemente, CA 92673 Editorial Staff Gina Mullins-Cohen Editor gina@edibleoc.com 949-315-6445 Bill Cohen Editor: Arts and Culture 949-315-6445 info@edibleoc.com Robert D. Mullins Investigative Reporter Editor info@edibleoc.com 949-315-6445 Vi Paynich Editor: Fashion and Design Vi@edibleoc.com 949-315-6445 714-504-1825 Jennifer Sakurai Marketing Director info@edibleoc.com 949-315-6445 Kim Allen Editor: Culinary Arts Kim@edibleoc.com 949-315-6445 Kim Lewis Creative By Design Creative Director klewis@creativebydesign.net 951-226-5617 Moe Goode Web Master info@edibleoc.com Ben Marchbanks Alcemy, Inc. Digital Magazine Producer Ben@magazooms.com Advertising Gina Mullins-Cohen Publisher gina@edibleoc.com 949-315-6445 Femi Lewis Advertising Director olufemilewis@att.net 323-301-9505 No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher ©2014. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.

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Pledge good. Do good. Give good.

Consider gifts that make a difference. Every purchase from the Tools For Change general store at The Ecology Center supports our ecosystems and ongoing educational programming. Find out more and visit us: TheEcologyCenter.org

32701 ALIZPAZ ST., SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO HOURS: WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY 10-4PM

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Contributors Kim Allen has a graduate degree from the University of California, Davis, and often teaches at Orange Coast College (OCC) in Community Education. She owns her own business and still drives her first car, a 1965 VW Beetle. Culinary arts, food and farms are her passion.

Bill Cohen is a writer, musician, cartoonist and humorist. He has a graduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Bill learned to eat under the direction of his mom.

Gina Mullins-Cohen became fascinated with nutrition, as a teenager, when she discovered the benefits of organic food.

Throughout her 20-year career in publishing she has successfully co-launched several domestic and international magazines, as well as two media companies. Gina is the owner of Edible Orange County and lSpends her time in Orange County, California and Loudoun County, Virginia.

Mareya Ibrahim – The Fit Foodie – began her career in the natural products industry as the national marketing director for Wild Oats Market before it became Whole Foods. She experienced the natural products industry from all angles including food and marketing, retail, and all avenues including being a consumer of whole foods.

Kim Lewis is the owner and creative director of Creative By Design, a fullservice graphic design firm located in Corona, California. Kim has over 40 Maggie awards for magazine design, as well as an Eddie and a Communicator award during her 22-year tenure as a creative professional.

Femi Lewis is a native of Lagos, Nigeria.

Lewis emigrated to the U.S. in 1984 with just $50 in his pocket and a single suitcase at the tender age of 17. Since his humble beginnings, he has achieved citizenship, a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing as well as many awards and achievments in his professional career. One of his joys of life in this country is the ability to sample various cuisines from around the world without leaving the city. Lewis lives is Southern California with his wife and three children.

Robert (Bob) David Mullins is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He is the only journalist ever awarded the esteemed Amicus Curiae Award, presented by the state Judicial Council. The prestigious Robert D. Mullins Excellence in Reporting Award, named in his honor, is bestowed annually to journalists considered outstanding in their ethical efforts to report the news.

Vitisia Paynich grew up in Orange County. She has been an editor and writer for more than 20 years. Vitisia co-launched both international and domestic business publications. She has interviewed celebrities, as well as several other high-profile figures throughout her career.

Jennifer Sakurai has been a writer and editor for more than two decades. Several magazines under her direction have won Maggie Awards and both regional and national awards from the American Society of Business Publications. She has also earned an MBA with a marketing concentration.

Jennifer loves both cooking and baking despite having been “the world’s pickiest eater.” Currently, her greatest food challenge is dealing with her newly acquired dairy allergy – and not cheating!

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In Season

Winter Warm Asparagus Avocados Beets Broccoli Cabbage Carambola Cauliflower Celery Chard Cherimoyas

Citrus: Blood Orange Grapefruit Kumquats Lemons Navel Oranges Tangelos/ Tangerines Dates Medjool

Kale Kohlrabi Mushroom Mustard Onion Green Passion Fruit Peas Green Spinach Strawberries Turnips

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Imagine...

Now Make it a

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the Menu F OF

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hat do chef ’s cook-up for close friends and family?

Usually a special, made-to-order meal. Chef Nour Tillo, owner of San Clemente’s Village Mediterranean Rim, believes off-the-menu requests allow for the customer and the chef to connect and share not only in the dinning experience, but in the creation and passion of the meal, as well. When asked to create a special dish, Chef Nour may serve a version of the following recipe.

Try it and enjoy!

Chef Nour Tillo of Village Mediterranean Rim 123 Avenida Del Mar, San Clemente, CA 92673 949 361-8970

RECIPE rs and Cinnamon Chicken Tagine with Honeyed Pea Serves 4 as a main course 2 oz grape seed oil 2 onions, chopped 2 pounds chicken pieces 2 cinnamon sticks 31/2 oz prepared saffron 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper 1 bunch fresh coriander, tied with string 1 teaspoon ground ginger 9 oz chicken stock 1tablespoon tomato paste 5 pears 13/4 oz unsalted butter 4 tablespoons honey 2 tablespoon pecans 2 tablespoons dried apricots 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1. Heat the oil in a tagine pate, or you can use deep sautéed pan on a low heat and put in the onions to caramelize gently until golden.

2. Add the chicken, cinnamon sticks, saffron, salt, pepper, coriander and ginger, pour in the chicken stock, tomato paste, stir and leave to cook, covered for 3.

4.

5.

6.

about 45 minutes.

While the chicken cooks, peel, core and quarter the pears.

On a low heat, melt the butter in a pan, add the honey and cook the pears. turning them gently on each site until they are caramelized.

Ten minutes before the end of the cooking add pears, pecans, dried apricots to the tagine, toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan until golden.

Just before serving, remove the bunch of coriander and scatter the dish with sesame seeds. Serve hot with couscous

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DRINK TO YOUR HEALTH!

By Luke Harper Photo by Andrea Huber

I

t is 9:00 A.M. in Dana Point and the morning haze is starting to burn off the harbor. Across the street, Organic Tree Juice Bar has already survived its early rush. Owner Brian Dunn gives the counter a wipe and pauses long enough to draw one long breath. He flashes a smile at Jessica Else, a long-time employee who is busy feeding ginger root into a juicer. Before Dunn can contemplate his next move, the morning’s delivery of organic produce arrives, needing to be transferred quickly to the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, the flow of customers hasn’t stopped. This seems to be the hour most regulars prefer and when they arrive Dunn and Else are excited to greet them. “For a lot of people, we’re their gateway to a healthier lifestyle,” Dunn explains. “When they discover something new they come in here eager to share it.”

Dunn and his wife Rachel, who founded the juice bar in December of 2011, have been yoga-adherents, juicers, and advocates of healthy living for more than twenty years and they thrive on this information exchange. “We’re discovering that the biggest payoff comes from the seeing people use our products as a stepping stone to transform their lives,” he says. “It’s pretty cool.”

On this count, he’s quick to cite Washington DC-based comedian Matt Kazam who discovered the juice bar while on tour and has quickly become its most enthusiastic supporter. “It’s my first stop every time I’m in Southern California,” Kazam says over the phone. “I started every day of 2013 with a juice and Organic Tree is the gold standard for me, hands down.”

Kazam has good reasons for his unbridled enthusiasm. He credits his conversion to the juicing lifestyle with helping him lose 120 pounds while dropping his cholesterol from 304 to 70. What’s more, after years of trying to get pregnant, Kazam and his wife recently called the Dunns to share that they’re expecting their first baby. “We haven’t changed a thing besides this one major habit,” Kazam says, sounding both thrilled and a touch mystified. “We didn’t go to fertility doctors—we just started juicing.”

Its not the first time that the crew at Organic Tree have heard people talk about juicing like a magic bullet. Many of their most die-hard adherents are quick to credit juicing for anything from clearer skin, to curing diabetes. The studies on juicing as a health solution are limited because, as Kazam says: “all juices aren’t created equal.” But the comedian and Organic Tree’s other supporters feel confident that the proof is in the results. Big wave surfer Greg Long recently gave Organic Tree a shout out from the podium at the Billabong XXL Awards. Gold medal winning swimmer Caitlin Sandeno regularly posts a pic of her morning juice on Instagram.“The secret is leafy greens,” Kazam says. “It’s that simple.”

He’s right to point out that juicing isn’t alchemy, it can only be as good

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as what goes into it. Dunn is keenly aware of this fact—it’s been the centerpiece of his philosophy from the beginning.

“Local, fresh, and always organic,” he says explaining the juice bar’s purchasing choices. “I started out, in the late seventies, studying wheatgrass therapy and living the organic food lifestyle and so when we began the juice bar, the way we wanted to differentiate ourselves was always with the ingredients we used.”

Organic Tree not only sources local produce (in season) but they also compost their pulp at South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano, just a few miles away. Customers are quick to note this commitment to the product’s entire lifecycle but what they really get excited about is the richness of color and flavor that Organic Tree’s juices have. Each jar of juice—with names like Sunrise, Beet Bliss, and Oz—requires six pounds of produce, which explains the daily deliveries.

As Dunn finishes unpacking fruit and vegetables and moves on

to juicing kale, Else waves at a customer through the window. “Hi Alan!” she chirps.“63!” the man calls back, before he’s fully though the door. The number, he explains, represents how much weight he’s lost since May of 2013 while “on the juice.”

“There aren’t many fat old people,” he says. “So I decided to become more conscious about what’s going into my body.

Now all my numbers are on track.”Part of Organic Tree’s focus is giving people like Alan tools for change. They share information, carefully vet other the health products that they sell, and run cleanses with their neighboring yoga studio (Pacific Ashtanga Yoga Shala).

“Good health is contagious,” Dunn says. “We feel lucky that we get to share that by making juice for people.”And the rest of us are lucky that we get to drink it. http://www.organictreejuicebar.com/

So do we.

Like all natural products, extra virgin olive oil delivers the best flavor and health benefits when it is fresh. We taste and test every brand that earns the California Olive Oil Council seal so you know it is certified extra virgin. Next time you pick up a bottle of olive oil, look for the seal—so you know it is California fresh.

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CALIFORNIA GROWN

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g n i r Tou urkey T Two Foodies, One Rental Car and 1500 Kilometers Story by Bill Cohen Photos by Bill Cohen and Gina Mullins-Cohen

In Praise of Random Micromanaging each meal doesn’t make sense when you are traveling through Turkey. All restaurants in the tourist areas, from the good to the bad, have a well-dressed man, on the sidewalk, offering you a glance at the menu while hard-selling you into eating there. We were rarely disappointed. I have found that you get big points in your hotel from eating locally, especially right in the hotel restaurant. You may not know all the restaurants in town, so why not? Do you really think that thousands of summer tourists reading the same Frommer’s translated into all of the world’s major languages are going to physically get into the same cute, atmospheric place at the same time? And guaranteed a continual clientele, would these restaurants have any motivation to create a consistently special dining experience? After a thirty-five dollar cab ride across town are you going to have unrea-

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House fronts lead to cave dwellings, a common site in Gรถreme

Rose Valley

Gรถreme

Tea house along the Rose Valley hiking trail outside of Gรถreme

Yoga classes are taught throughout the day in Love Valley

Love Valley

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Tea, coffee or fresh squeezed orange juice served along the Ihlara trail. Individual floating huts, in the river, help you to cool down on a hot day.

sonable expectations? The kiss of death in guidebooks is the words, “relaxing,” “unspoiled,” and “authentic.” Write them, and whatever it is, the world is going to love it to death.

I am not blessed with a cast-iron stomach, so I am happy to report that we never got sick even though we frequently ate off open air carts on crowded streets in major cities, at unlicensed rest stops in mountain caves, along hiking trails and on picnic tables, placed literally, in the middle of streams, all miles from traditional sanitation.

Breakfast The day starts with the hotel breakfast, complementary at most hotels, no matter how reasonable the price. It is free so it’s a license to pig out. It is well known that free food does not affect your diet. Plus, if you plan to hike, visit a ruin or just drive around the countryside, you may not know where, when or what your nest meal will be. The typical hotel spread has baskets of fresh baked bread, tasty puffy loaves as big as a dinner plate. You must sample five types of olives, six types of jams, seven kinds of cheese, eight kinds of cereals, and fill a bowl with a combo of every kind of dried fruit and nut. Then you have a special omelet made, just for you - Menemen is the taste revelation. Eggs fried up with tomatoes, garlic, onion and peppers. You’ll want it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don’t forget to pile your plate with fruit, because even if you never touch it, it looks like a healthy choice and appearance matters, especially to the Germans and Brits who most likely are sharing your breakfast room with you. Next, there are all kinds

Ihlara

Restaurants line the opening of a hiking trail to the Ihlara Valley. Built on stilts in the river, they offer a unique dining experience. www.edibleorangecounty.com

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Istanbul Lunch time dining along the Bosporus

Street vendor selling plums. Fruit stands are plentiful on the streets of Istanbul

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A favaorite treat on a hot day at the beach, homemade ice cream served in honeydew melon.

Olympos

of drinks - tea, coffee, Nescafe, Turkish coffee, orange juice, pomegranate juice, and yogurt in various forms of thickness. Yes, you can drink the water, because like everywhere, it’s all bottled these days. And as in many European countries, most of the waiters do not expect a tip. They are professionals and just like you, they’d be unsettled if you gave directions to a foreigner and they slipped you a twenty.

Snacks If you honor breakfast as the most important meal of the day, you should be good until dinnertime.

At home, coffee and dry cereal might suffice, but in Turkey, you get to eat twenty-five times that much.

Feel free to try as many stacks of sweets, in designer colors, that cross your path, before dinner. After all, you are from out-of-town and Turkish delight and baklava are a cultural, not a calorie experience. If you are trekking through the countryside, locals might offer you a small, green colored fruit, straight off the tree. It is common to eat this tiny, apple-like morsel months before its ripeness, so take a handful, if you must, and after a few nibbles, invisibly drop them behind you, one by one, so that you can find your way back to your car. Ripe fruit can be found in numerous carts from the street vendors. It’s smaller and sweeter than the store-bought fruits here, and it comes with the leaves still attached. Pesticides are never used and it is unwashed, protecting you from water borne illnesses.

Food Adventures Most of our dining was in conventional restaurants but we did have a few food adventures.

Wherever we went hiking, we would eventually come upon an entrepreneur with a snack stand in the middle of nowhere. This is a charming feature of the country. You eat with dishes, cups and sil-

Kayakoy

Local chefs, in Kayakoy, making pide, a flat bread common throughout Turkey. www.edibleorangecounty.com

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Outside breakfast setting at a small eatery in Kas

Kas verware, and because there is no takeout, there is no trash in the woods. Nothing refreshes during a long walk like taking a break for a steaming cup of tea, Turkish coffee or Nescafe, or nine oranges halved and juiced into a little glass. One entrepreneur in Göreme’s Rose Valley had set up shop in a small cave high in the mountains and had lugged in the full selection of Torani syrups on his back. In Olympos one stand along a creek near the beach offered a half melon that held a scoop of ice cream. How they kept it frozen, I don’t know. The stands are located in a magnificent setting and the seating is low key in little open structures or on carved seats inside an open cave.

Chatting with the owner is done in Turklish or by hand signals.

Refreshment for two can set you back about two Euros.

The evocative Ilhara Valley is located about an hour west of the Cappadoccian region. There is a relaxing seven mile hike along a river that is hemmed in by sheer cliffs that are filled with caves, some still

containing Byzantine church paintings. You can only surface to civilization at the beginning, middle and end, which adds to the feeling of a separate, contained world. At a few spots along the hike, locals have constructed large picnic tables with a roof and covered all of its surfaces in Turkish carpets and pillows. The whole thing is built to be lifted right into the stream. Here you can sit in the middle of the water in supreme comfort and the waiter will bring you fresh fruit drinks, hot coffee or tea and snacks. At one location, we ate an entire multi-course meal in the stream, served by waiters who came to us on little wooden walkways.

In one area of the Bodrum Peninsula the hotels place their tables right on the sand. Nothing is more romantic than a candlelight dinner served literally at the water’s edge, your beach chair slowly sinking into the sand, the waves lapping at your feet, and the sunset silhouetting the bay and nearby islands. Here we carefully deboned a grilled whole fish, accompanied by two cats loving up against us for the head and tail.

Testi Kebabı is a stew of lamb and veggies that is baked for a long time in a sealed clay pot. In the whole steaming container is ceremoniously brought to your table, turning heads as it comes like fajitas and baked Alaska. The waiter whacks it open for you with a mallet or a sword and manages to keep the brick shards and crumbs out of your meal. It takes the food a long time to cool down and the broken pot cannot be reused. We saw this mostly in the Cappadoccian region, where tourists come for adventure.

Just as Americans appreciate authenticity in regional foods such as Texas barbecue, New Orleans Gumbo, and New England clam chowder, Turks have a fondness for authentic regional plates such as Urfa kebab and spicy Adana kebab. At one restaurant, I ordered an Opium kebab.

Haşhaş (pronounced hash hash) is the name for opium, hash, pot, and poppy, but as Cheech and Chong would say, this dish wouldn’t get a fly high. Anytime you need a boost, just say yes to the hyper friendly guy with perfect English who is just dying to drag you into his carpet shop. Immediately little hourglass shaped cups of tea appear. As much as you can drink, and it’s free even if you don’t buy anything.

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Clusters of colorful sweets decorate shop windows in Istanbul

Istanbul Nargile water pipe lounges have invaded many American college towns. The tourist traps in Turkey can be much more exotic. Amid the clouds of fragrant smoke, there are live oud players and hand drummers, swirling Sufi dancers all in white, and groups of Middle Eastern girls out for a night of singing and rhythmic hand clapping. Gözleme is the main dish here, hand-rolled dough hot off the griddle and filled with various toppings, but usually cheese. It looks like a thin small, buttery quesadilla folded in half. Then the check arrives and you need to put it on a credit card.

Things I didn’t try: Bacon and pork is not commonly available and it doesn’t promote international solidarity to order it in a Muslim country. You can find it in the coastal British tourist towns between Antalya and Fethiye. There is also a native wine industry, currently not filling the French with fear. Wine accounts for only three percent of the nation’s grape harvest. Rakı is the national alcoholic drink, an unsweetened anise flavored hard liquor, similar to Greek ouzo. It turns milky white when mixed with water. The national non-alcoholic Turkish beverage is ayran, a thin, salted yogurt drink. It was not love at first sip.

Mantı is pasta with yogurt sauce mixed with oil and pepper. Not for me. A whole class of food is called zeytinyağı – cold appetizers swimming in olive oil. There are also a few unusual meat-processing procedures left over from the old days, but I did not seek these products out.

All-in-all, you can pretty much go into any restaurant and find that the owner takes pride in his work. It’s fun to try new things.

You wouldn’t go all the way there if you didn’t want to find something new. The major food groups are bread, meat, fish, cheese and dessert and you really can’t go wrong.

Tourist food is not any more or less real than other foods and it is a reality of life for the traveler. www.edibleorangecounty.com

The opportunity to sample the best of Turkish cuisine at Hamdi, in Istanbul.

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Historical Cuisine of Turkey

By Bill Cohen Photos by Gina Mullins-Cohen

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A

ccording to one source, there are 240 restaurants that claiming to serve historical food of the Ottoman era, in Istanbul today. Perhaps this is one way of enticing local foodies and adventurous tourists into a particular establishment, but the truth is, most modern Turkish food has its roots in the Ottoman period.

The Ottomans controlled an area encompassing present day Turkey, as well as Greece, the Balkan lands of Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, the former Yugoslavia and the North African nations of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, as well as the Middle Eastern nations of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, and the Caucasus nations of Georgia and Armenia, from the mid-15th century until the 1920s.

During the Ottoman period, the pan-Mediterranean diet that includes olives and olive oil, grilled fish, dates, dolmas, lamb, wine and baklava met the bread, yogurt, cheese and meat diet of the Turkish herding cultures that originally migrated west from Central Asia. The large number of deeply rooted local food cultures absorbed by the Ottomans came together to form one of the world’s great cuisines.

Some Istanbul restaurants make a special effort to document the historic cuisine of the region’s past, employing research staffs to pore over the sultan’s food purchasing logs from the Topkapı Palace or the records of mosques and vakfis, private foundations serving large numbers of students, travelers and the poor. Menus in these modern restaurants may include dates and locations of where the food was first served among the description of the night’s specialties. This article discusses several Istanbul restaurants that strive to provide historically accurate foods of the past. Rather than highlight exotic and delicious menu items, it concentrates on the historical context of the cuisine.

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Inside Asitane, the award winning restaurant in Istanbul, known for serving Ottoman cuisine.

Asitane Kariye Camii Sokak no. 18, Edirnekapi 34240 Istanbul +90 212 534 84 14 www.aistanerestaurant.com Asitane Restaurant is a leader of the current historical restaurant scene in Istanbul. The restaurant is located in the Kariye Hotel directly across from the Kariye Müzesi , known in English as the Chora Church, one of the rare Byzantine era churches that survived with its stunning mosaics and painted murals intact. A nice day in Istanbul could include a visit to the church and dinner at the restaurant. As the Asitane flyer states, “eating here is a live history class.” Asitane’s menu comprises only dishes that were featured in the kitchens of the Ottoman court, such as almond soup from a 16th century recipe, hummus sweetened with cinnamon and currants, and , a lamb and chicken stew with chickpeas and cumin. Their version of dolma is stuffed with sour cherries, rice, onion, and pine nuts.

At Asitane, as in most upscale restaurants, the cuisine most likely to be recreated is Palace Cuisine, not only because it was the peak of Ottoman refinement and diversity, but because tourists would more likely splurge to eat like a sultan than to be treated to ordinary food they could get anywhere for a lower price.

Asitane employs a team of academics, scholars, consultants, private collectors and a library of works on food in the Ottoman era. If other restaurants engage in this research effort they probably do not do so

to the extent that Asitane does. During our interview, owner Batur Durmay regularly jumped up and walked to his library to bring back books in both Turkish and English to substantiate his facts.

Several factors account for the difficulty in reproducing historically accurate Ottoman cuisine. Beginning in 1483, Sultan Bayezid II and his successors prohibited printing in the Ottoman Arabic script for religious reasons. Printing did not come into common use until the 19th century, with the first printed Ottoman cookbook appearing in 1844. Before that, recipes only exist in manuscript form, with limited accessibility to the public. Next, members of cooking guilds kept their techniques a secret from competitors, so few recipes survive from the classic period of palace cuisine. Even when a recipe is discovered, it is often oriented to serving large numbers of people and does not include precise measurements of ingredients, heat sources and cooking times.

In the early days of publishing, rampant plagiarism was responsible for unattributed repetition of early recipes. Asitane researchers start with the name of a dish and try to trace it to the earliest sources. Mr. Durmay refers to Mehmed ibn Mahmoud al-Shirvani’s 15th century Ottoman recipes of foods eaten by the sultans. This book was tacked onto his translation of al-Baghdadi’s al-Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes), a 13th century manuscript.

On a normal day Topkapı Palace served up to 2,000 people including the sultan, his family, the Divan (Royal Council), Viziers, Janis-

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saries (guards), civil servants, and household servants. Three times as many were served on bayrams (holidays), Ramazan (Ramadan) and special occasions such as visiting dignitaries, weddings and circumcision ceremonies. Reminiscent of European courts in the Renaissance, the Ottoman palace was noted for lavish excess. Visiting dignitaries were treated to meals involving seventy to a hundred courses, and some state events went on for days and weeks. Diners were served different foods according to rank and expensive gifts of food changed hands on holidays. One ruler hid a golden chickpea in a plate of food to be discovered by a lucky diner. A driving force for creativity was that chefs were sometimes asked to create new recipes for important social occasions. Despite the need to serve so much food and so many different dishes, prepared food was rarely brought in from the outside.

Topkapı today still has the domes of nine kitchens. There were two main kitchens, the Imperial Kitchen of the Sultan located in the Harem area where he lived and for the Valıde, the mother of the sultan who had her own area of the palace. Another kitchen prepared food for the rest of the court. The kitchen staff was organized along military lines and divided into master, servants and apprentices. Three hundred cooks held titles referring to the names of their specialties, such as the head bakery chef, head fish chef, and specialists in pilaf. There were royal halvah makers, sherbet and syrup makers.

Many Istanbul restaurants may base recipes on historical accounts but change them to fit modern tastes. Five hundred years ago court chefs mixed contrasting flavors like honey and vinegar in the same dish, and frequently added fruit to dishes, such as fruit-filled dolmas.

Red meat was almost exclusively lamb and mutton. Beef was only rarely used in configurations such as sausage and pastirma, uncooked beef that is salted, spiced and air dried for two weeks. Asitane serves a lamb trotter with garlic on rye crispbread and a lamb medallion with lamb’s brains in thyme and plum sauce, based on an entry from 500 Years of Ottoman cuisine by Marianna Yerasimos. Some dishes are richer than the modern palate would like to accept. For example, Palace Rice calls for sheep tail fat and olive oil to be mixed in with jasmine rice, expensive spices, and fruit. Asitane decided to skim some of the fat, use lighter rice, and boil the mixture in rose water and sour cherry juice to substitute for heavier fruit. Foods of the court called for high quality produce and lengthy food preparation steps. One court chef who prepared a favorite dish called Palace Eggs, essentially an onion omelet, browned the onions on extremely low heat for three hours before adding the eggs.

Owner of Asitane, Batur Durmay

Menus have always changed with seasonal availability of ingredients, but today some raw materials are hard to find. Take the popular 15th century dish, Terkibi Ceşidiye ( Composition of Varieties) made from apricots, prunes, apples, almonds and the stomach tissue of Musk Deer, found high in the mountains of Asia. Mr. Durmay created a special seasonal menu and determined he would need about 250 geese, so starting a few years in advance he had to convince a local farmer to breed geese in quantity. A few seasons later when the farmer reported that he had many geese, it was discovered that “many” amounted to thirty two birds. The next year the harvest was half that number because of weather conditions. He bought the farmer a second hand incubator only to learn that “God cut our electricity.” Eventually the restaurant has helped to sustain local production as it certain restaurants do in our own urban areas.

The importance of documenting sources is important when claims are made for the historical origin of foods. One interesting question is whether the Ottoman sultans employed food tasters to guard against attempts at poisoning, as did their European contemporaries. A World Café TV show on Istanbul featuring Bobby Chinn discussed the meze, the numerous small plate appetizers of-

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fered at the beginning of Turkish meals in restaurants today. The show described the origin of the meze as an upper class emulation of the numerous small samples of food placed in front of the sultan’s tasters checking for poison. Mr. Durmay of Asitane made an extensive study of court tasters and court poisoning attempts for a BBC and National Geographic video on Ottoman food. He did not find documentation of anyone ever attempting such a murder technique, possibly because of the highly organized court security system and the public’s fear of consequences. The Byzantine royal family was certainly poisoned on occasion, but Ottoman food tasters seem to have been concerned with quality checks, not poison.

Kitchen staff at Asitane However, food rituals at the palace do show some concern with food security. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the sultan dined alone and was served by dedicated personnel bringing dishes on golden platters wrapped in a cover and sealed by a ribbon. As the food moved from the kitchen to the sultan, all doorways were watched by palace guards. His food was not pre-cut into bite size pieces as it was for the princes. Some food was served on celadon dishes, a glaze that was believed to change color in contact with poison.

There are not a lot of records describing each sultan’s favorite foods. But there is a meticulous Palace accounting record listing the names and costs of food purchased for the various kitchens in the

Topkapı. So Asitane’s menu includes a shrimp stew which is based on a 1453 entry which states the palace bought shrimp for 3 silver coins every day. Mehmet II liked lobsters and often had seafood on his table. One sultan seems to have preferred offal, since kidneys, hearts, spleens, and intestines were purchased for him. Wine and other intoxicating drinks had always been available to the Turks but this was prohibited in the Muslim religion and so could be thought to unwelcome at this Islamic court. As the most powerful Islamic nation, the Ottoman Empire and its ruler was the seat of the Caliphate, the nation and the ruler who upheld Islamic law. However, at least one sultan, Selim II (ruled 1576 to 1574), was fond enough of alcohol to be nicknamed “Selim the Sot,” and died when he tripped and hit his head on the palace floor after a drinking bout.

During this period, food of the Old World was transformed by foods from the New World and India such as maize, potato, sweet potato, tomato, navy beans, turkey, chili pepper, vanilla, chocolate, coffee and tea. Spices that had previously been unaffordable to most such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger now had broader availability.

Daily consumption of a rich diet and large portions is not considered healthy today. However, contemporary doctors in both Europe and the Middle East had a different conception of health, based on balance of the body’s four humors. Types of food, along with age, geography, and occupation was believed to have an effect on the humors, which determined personality, emotional outlook, and state of health. Doctors would recommend more or less of one food or another to adjust the balance.

For example it was thought that young people should concentrate on cold foods to cool down their impetuous hot blood, with warm food recommended for less passionate older people.

When you study Ottoman court dining over a period extending from 1299 to 1923, it is clear that since customs changed over time, no one set of practices represents the entire period. The time frame referred to by today’s historical food re-creationists usually extends from the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul in 1453 to about 1750, a time when the empire reached its height and when enough details on food at the court were recorded that recipes can begin to be reconstructed. After that there was a long, slow period of decline. Food without a glamorous connection appears less often on the menu of today’s historical restaurants. Certain popular Turkish dishes today were developed in this period when economic crises called for less

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Casual cafe dining is located directly across from Chora Church in Istanbul

expensive ingredients. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the New World staples of potatoes and tomatoes were cheap and available because they were easy to grow in the Turkish climate. At the end of the 19th century, the sultan moved from Topkapı to the European style Dolmabahce Palace, where traditional Ottoman creativity was fused with interpretations of European haute cuisine. On a visit to the Dolmabahce we were led to an over the top gilded age dining room where we could not venture outside the velvet rope or take photos, but where President Clinton was said to have dined.

Asitane has re-created or developed 360 dishes in the last 23 years. In some sense this is an art form, like the completion of the unfinished musical score of a famous composer. However Mr. Durmay is not thrilled about other restaurants making un-credited and unreimbursed use of his research. Since 2000, he has seen dishes he pioneered in in the menus of fourteen other establishments from a la carte restaurants to those in five star hotels.

In Asitane’s kitchen there is a large sign on the wall, traced in calligraphic flourishes and only visible to the kitchen crew. It is apparently a quote from Professor İlber Ortaylı, Head of the Topkapı Museum since 2005: “ İyi yemek yapmak bu kulture göster gesidir.” With my limited grasp of the Turkish language I was able to understand the significance. According to Durmay, this was intended only as an instruction to kitchen workers that the restaurant would be judged by the quality of their output. However to me it has a larger meaning food represents the culture that created it. In response Durmay says,”

You can glimpse history by visiting mosques and churches, but that is a specific kind of information. The study of food is the study of social history.” The fundamental reason for the study of food is the insight it lends into the culture and history of a people.

Matbah Caferiye Sokak No 6/1 34400 Sultanahmet, Istanbul in the Ottoman Hotel Imperial 0090-212-513 61 51 http://www.matbahrestaurant.com/index.htm Matbah restaurant is located in the heart of Istanbul’s tourist center of Sultanahmet, inside the Ottoman Hotel Imperial. It is an easy stroll from the Topkapı, the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern and the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, so reservations are a must. On a nice evening the outside dining terrace is truly enchanting with its view of domes, a crescent moon above and the city below.

The word, ‘Matbah’ is Ottoman for ‘kitchen’. However, here the name refers to Palace Kitchen, so you know you will be dining like a Topkapı-dwelling sultan from the Golden Age. Like Asitane and Dârüzziyafe Restaurants, the restaurant engages in historical research to recreate Palace Cuisine and creates seasonal menus in order to feature the freshest ingredients. Indeed, some of Matbah’s staff were formerly employed by Asitane. The menu cover is an Ottoman painting of a dining scene and the food list contains a description of the

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Firin Sütlac, a double oven-baked rice pudding with both a texture and taste similar to creme bruleé

dish along with the date that it was first served. So you will find a “calamari stuffed with rice, pine nuts, currants, cinnamon, mint and baked in the oven. From the 18th century.” Or choose a neck of lamb stew with apricot, damson (a tart plum) and spices from the 14th century, a baked quince stuffed with minced meat from 1539 or even a scorpion fish soup.

Many contemporary European traveler accounts of Palace Cuisine note that desserts that were too sweet for their taste. Today even Ottoman fusion chefs have written that desserts from the Ottoman era must be modified for the modern palate. We’ve all experienced the sticky sweet baklava that originated in this period. Because of this it is usually served in small pieces in the US. Matbah’s offerings include pounded almond halva with powdered sugar from 1539 and a breaded almond and cinnamon flavored dessert in syrup topped with clotted cream from the 15th century.

There is a reason that restaurants recreating Palace Cuisine emphasize exotic spices and unusual ingredients. These dishes are just far enough from the familiarity of Turks and modern Europeans that they are enticing to the local and international middle and upper classes. Defne Karaosmanoğlu writes about how the exotic exerts its hold on us because it is ‘the other.’ Acceptance of food that is remote from us in time and geographical space is a feature of the modern cosmopolitan city dweller and his aspirations. However politically,

this represents a sea change from a Republican Turkey that forced a complete break from the Ottoman past. Only recently did a government that enforced a shift to a Western alphabet, European styles of dress, a secular legal and educational system and regular pogroms of its ethnic groups begin to accept the commodification of cuisine for its own ends.

The Ottomans have just recently been considered the roots of modern Turkey by the Turkish Republic and are now marketed as ‘tolerant’ of the many cultures once within its realm.

The European side of Turkey is emphasized - the Byzantines, Romans and Greeks do not stand in opposition to the migrating Asian conquerors, but flowered on Turkish soil.

In this gaze to the West, emulated for its wealth, scientific achievements and modernism lay the benefits of membership in the European Union, the Eurozone and possibility of hosting the Olympics. Ottoman cuisine is one of the primary ways that this outreach is consciously taking place.

Dârüzziyafe Restaurant Sifahane Street No.6, Süleymaniye, Istanbul 34430 90 (212) 511 84 14 http://www.daruzziyafe.com.tr/Default.aspx?pageID=1&ln=en Just as the Topkapı Palace employed extensive kitchens and teams of cooks to send food to palace staff and religious, social and political events, large kitchens for mass distribution of food were associated with the mosques. Most mosques of any size were compounds that included not only the main religious structure, but other buildings to serve religious and educational purposes. Istanbul’s grandest mosque is the Süleymaniye. Completed in 1558, it is the masterpiece of Mimar Sinan, the greatest architect in Turkish history. The complex contained a mosque, hospital, public baths, a caravanserai to protect traveling merchants, a primary school, four Qur’an schools, a hadith school, a medical college, a cemetery, tombs including Sinan’s own tomb, and a kitchen which served food to the poor. These activities were funded in perpetuity by nearly 300 surplus-producing businesses owned by the complex as sort of an endowment.

Since 1992 the former soup kitchen has been used as an upscale restaurant, called Dârüzziyafe. The restaurant today is a serene

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place. You enter a small gate set in a stone wall that forms the edge of a cobblestone side street across from the mosque. There you discover a refuge from the bustling tourist destination and university outside. The tables are set under the arches surrounding an interior courtyard with a small fountain and some ancient trees. The original location’s offerings that were limited to a ladle of soup and a loaf of bread now references palace cuisine because it caters to wellheeled tourists visiting the Süleymaniye.

To try and get close to the food served by the imarets (soup kitchens) of five centuries ago, I ordered a vegetable soup and some bread.

We also ordered a combination plate to sample the maximum number of the different dishes offered by the modern restaurant. Süleymaniye Soup is a thick vegetable soup puree with large chunks of vegetables and sometimes served with small meatballs. If you plan to stop eating right there I would recommend it, otherwise it is too filling to leave room for dishes to come. The combination plate assembled different meat and vegetable stuffed pastries, some covered in sauce, and several stewed meat and vegetable samples around a central mound of pilaf.

The use of mayonnaise, mousse, and creamy sauces reflects the Ottoman court’s emulation of mid-19th century French cuisine.

Since we were in a historically religious institution I was surprised when we were offered wine. This was because I was struggling to order in a hybrid Turkish and English. It turned out I had confused the word şarap (wine) and şurup (syrup or sherbet) which sound similar. You still can’t drink alcohol here adjacent to a mosque, but the fruit drinks at Dârüzziyafe are thick, rich, subtly sweet and truly fit for a sultan. The

Located accross from the famed architectural site, Süleymaniye Mosque, Dárüzziyafe restaurant welcomes visitors with a courtyard garden entry. “syrup” drinks include kuşburnu (rosehip) – literally “bird beak” in Turkish, cornel cherry and grenadine (pomegranate). The street food section of this article contains a photo of a şerbetçi, a costumed street vendor who serves a cold sherbet drink as if he were a human teapot.

For dessert we tried two kinds of ‘pudding,’ Fukâra Keşkülü and Fırın Sütlaç. Fukâra Keşkülü means the poor (people’s) keşkül.

Keşkül is an almond based milk pudding topped with crumbled coconut or pistachios and served in a bowl. It dates to the days of Süleyman, (ruled 1520 – 1566) the sultan honored by the Süleymaniye mosque complex, of which Dârüzziyafe is a part. Ottoman religious judges and Sufis would occasionally go out and beg alms for the poor and the money was donated to the soup kitchens that would prepare this dish. The pudding seems rich to us but to those who could not afford food, it was filling and nutritious. Fırın Sütlaç (oven-baked rice pudding) looks and tastes like crème brulée. It references palace cuisine and at Topkapı Palace it was sometimes flavored with rose water. The two get along just fine here although they originally represented opposite social classes.

The waiter and his assistant went out of their way to serve us. If the head waiter recommended a dish or a drink and sensed that we declined it because of the cost, he just gave it to us for free. He gave us a tour, helped us take photos and like many Turkish professionals, absolutely refused a tip for a whole evening of service.

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Amy Singer has written extensively on imarets, the Ottoman public kitchen offering free meals to the poor, the aged, sick, students and ascetic mystics. The practice of food donations was promoted by the Koran and had precedents throughout the Islamic world. It was the Ottomans who elevated the practice to a grand scale, serving thousands of people daily. Imarets are just one example of vakifs, ongoing charitable endowments that broadly include other Islamic social welfare services, extending to mosques, cemeteries, water supply, roads, and bridges.

Imarets were built throughout the Ottoman Empire from 1335 to 1890, with most dating from the first three centuries of that period.

When the Süleymaniye was built, up to 10% of the population of Edirne and Istanbul dined daily at imarets. The practice was now extended beyond widows and orphans to travelers, visiting digni-

taries, hospital workers, students, scholars and the facilities staff of colleges. Christians were invited as part of proselytizing activities.

Istanbul alone had fifty imarets. Cooking food for others was part of Sufi education and rituals. Artifacts of the Sufi kitchen are on display at Rumi’s mosque and tomb complex in Konya. Free meals were available in Sufi lodges, hans (caravanserays), palaces and the homes of rich people. The Süleymaniye imaret alone, today’s location of Dârüzziyafe Restaurant, served over 1,000 people a day.

Singer studied Ottoman imaret endowment deeds, often established by individuals, and found them to be as specific as some wills, directing services provided, staff, salaries, equipment and types of income generating properties that supported them. Deeds laid out the menu, ingredients, servers, and food budget right down to how many ladles of soup and pieces of bread were doled out to each class of recipient and in what order people ate. Information on the food served by imarets is also available from purchasing logs, a historical source similar to that used by researchers of palace cuisine.

The practice largely died out by the 19th century. Dârüzziyafe actually means ‘feasting building’ stemming from its use as a dining or banquet hall after its original use as an imaret. For much of the 20th century it was the home of the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. But the legendary hospitality extended to travelers by the Turkish people is still going strong and is embodied in the saying, “Say hello to a Turk and don’t worry about your meal.”

For most social classes, soup was the traditional start of each meal in Ottoman times. A surviving remnant of this is the container of hot soup that still appears amid the lavish breakfast offerings at your hotel. Just in case you were wondering how many people needed mushroom soup at 7:30am and whether this was just something random left over from dinner the night before.

For the traveler today it is possible to sense at least the spirit if not the meager variety and portions of the original humble cuisine at a series of restaurants located between Dârüzziyafe and the University and directly across from the Süleymaniye. Kuru Fasulye, literally “dried beans” is the specialty here. The word ‘dried’ refers to a classification based on storage, not their presentation.

Made with a colorful spicy sauce and served in generous portions with rice, salad, a round loaf of homemade bread and a coffee Süleymaniye Mosque - a top destination in Istanbul for tourists who are also architectural buffs.

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Süleymaniye Soup - a delicious pureed vegetable soup

or coke for $3.50, it fits the student budget and appetite. Other restaurants and lokantas on the side streets in this region have the lowest prices of any that I saw in Istanbul.

In all social classes, in religious practice, and attitude toward others, we see the mass distribution of free food is well documented, as well as the near military level of organization required to execute it day after day. Where did this idea come from? Dr. Bahaeddin Ögel traces it back to the original migrant Turkic Central Asian groups. In his article, “The Development of Turkish Cuisine and Historical Turkish Traditions,” he points out that food was a symbol of social order. Turkic societies developed as military units and the place where people came together was at feasts and banquets. Clan leaders were obligated to hold feasts and people had the right to complain if they didn’t. At Central Asian feasts guests were seated according to rank which in turn governed the amount, types, and quality of food. It mandated the specific parts of animals that a group could eat, as well as tables, dinnerware, and the time food was served. Groups could increase or decrease their entitlement to food through bravery or military service. In the Ottoman court, the symbol of the Janissaries (palace guard) was the large metal cooking pot. Janissaries could accept food from the sultan or express displeasure or rebellion by overturning the pot.

This discussion of historical cuisine exists today as one of a variety of Turkish food experiences. These include modern fusion, specialty restaurants such as those devoted to fish, foreign cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese or Thai food, lokantas, (casual small eateries), coffee houses, meyhane (bars and bistros), fast food, street food, dessert shops, nargile smoking establishments, and homemade dishes served at home, among many others. A lot of Turkish food today embraces the European fast food complex where the döner (rotary) kebab shares the menu with pizza, fries, and coke. Although the diversity and creativity may be on the wane, some food in Turkey today seems less processed than American food. There are still a lot of small, local farms producing unmodified produce without using a lot of pesticides. Fruits and vegetables are smaller and naturally sweeter, and staples such as bread are freshly made, often right in the home, hotel, or restaurant. A rich variety of fish are available from the Aegean, Mediterranean, Black, and Marmara seas that surround Turkey on three sides. Geographical diversity

of the country allows food from all elevations to be grown locally, including tea, nuts, fruit, vegetables, grains, meat and fish. Some of the fruits and grains used throughout the world today, such as wheat and bulgur were originally domesticated in Anatolia and the earliest known wine press is in adjacent Georgia.

Until recently it was possible for Dr. Ögel to bemoan, “Now kebab shops, which have entered our large cities with a millennia-old cooking tradition, have reduced the numbers of our classic restaurants nearly to the point of eliminating them.”

In her 2006 dissertation entitled, Cooking the past: The revival of Ottoman Cuisine, Defne Karaosmanoğlu noted that “Since the 1990s, Turkey has started to develop an extensive interest in its Ottoman past. The view of the Ottomans as ‘backward’ and ‘premodern’ that once held sway has given way to a view that grasps the Ottoman past as ‘open,’ ‘tolerant,’ and ‘cosmopolitan.’ The production, representation, and commodification of Ottoman cuisine in Istanbul is presented as the foundation of traditional Turkish cuisine, but … is also turned into a national image and a national cultural asset.”

Or maybe someone just realized that the enormous crowd of tourists flooding Istanbul’s historical sites, watching a play in an ancient Greek theater and cramming themselves into 3,000 year old Cappadoccian cave hotels might be interested in a meal marketed as historical as well. Now is anyone out there interested in a Byzantine themed restaurant?

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Street Food of Istanbul

By Bill Cohen Photos By Bill Cohen and Gina MullinsCohen

Balik Ekmek, literally Fish Bread – Lots of hungry folks, all in a hurry. The fish is fried, shoved in a roll, tossed with lettuce, wrapped in paper and literally thrown off the boat across the water to your table in five seconds. You’re here for the throwing part.

Taze Nohut – On an Istanbul back street, fresh chickpea pods right off the bush. For those who prefer to make their hummus from scratch.

The owner of an apple cart cuts the competition to the core with a home-made apple peeler.

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What looks like a human teapot in a historical costume may actually be a şerbetçi – a person who historically made and served a thick, cold “sherbet” drink made from rose hips, pomegranate, cherry, or other fruits. Today he may just serve apple tea. The drink, is carried on his back in a large brass samovarlike vessel and he holds brass cups in his sash. To serve it, the şerbetçi leans bows to you and pours from the long spout over his shoulder into the cup.

On a Bosporus bridge, a man balances a stack of simits on his head. A simit looks like a large sesame bagel, but is larger and tastier. At this location, it is a commuter favorite, as people from less expensive homes in Asia take the ferry to their jobs in Europe and enjoy the snack or feed it to the seagulls.

Tarıhı Osmanlı Lokmacısı – A maker of Historical Ottoman Lokma. Lokma is sort of a heavy, gooey donut hole. It is deep fried dough covered in a sugary syrup or honey and cinnamon, and sometimes sprinkled with sesame. There is also a salty version. www.edibleorangecounty.com

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Street Food of Istanbul

At the Spice Market, jasmine tea flower pods are so beautiful, you don’t know whether to make tea or display them in a vase.

At a lokum shop, about $3.50 will buy you all the dessert you can eat.

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A fun feature of hiking in Turkey is discovering a drink vendor miles from the road. Drinks include freshsqueezed orange or pomegranate juice, hot tea, Turkish coffee and Nescafe.

A Byzantine cave in the Red Valley near Goreme even had a full selection of Torani syrups hiked in by the vendor.

Bread can be baked anywhere.

Here a woman bakes bread in a niche in a garden wall. www.edibleorangecounty.com

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Street Food of Istanbul Lahmacun – Order a snack and end up with six of the large spicy lanb pizza-like lahmacuns.... shucks, there goes dinner.

Corn and chestnut stands serve only two items and manage to turn them into charred, overcooked stubbles of carbon. They are probably more fulfilling on a snowy day than in a three hour Hagia Sofia line in 97 degree heat.

Turkish delight comes in all shapes and colors.

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Slow time at the cheese stand.

“Not exactly street food...Our good friends, Dave and Yesim Harbath dig into a world-class meze at the internationally known Hamdi Restaurant, in Istanbul. You need fast hads to conquer the meze.�

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Local Flavor

Turkish Cuisine in Orange County

By Bill Cohen Photos by Gina Mullins-Cohen

T

here are a growing number of Turks in Orange County, but still not many restaurants that market themselves as Turkish, as opposed to pan-Mediterranean. The people and food come together most prominently in the annual Anatolian Cultures and Food Festival at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. The Festival hosts a recreation of an Ottoman coffee house, a food court, cooking stage and homemade food for sale.

Here in So Cal, the few Turkish restaurants are oriented to the American palate and do not overtly reference Ottoman cuisine as is done in Istanbul. The menu is heavily oriented to kebabs and falafel (not a Turkish dish) and there is rarely more than one chicken, fish, or soup dish on the menu. The large selection of meze appetizers in some Istanbul restaurants is usually limited here to dolma and a salad. Middle Eastern pita substitutes for the large, fresh homemade bread served throughout Turkey.

Two new locations in Fountain Valley aim to present authentic Turkish food acceptable to the American palate: Istanbul Grill and Ä°kram Bakery. Other restaurants may be Turkish owned and serve Turkish dishes, but choose to market themselves as pan-Mediterranean, possibly because Americans are more comfortable when they know what foods to expect.

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A baker at Ikrim Bakery, in Fountain Valley, serves fresh, warm Simit rounds and peynerli pogoca - rolls with ground meat.

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Owners of Istanbul Grill from Left to Right) ....to come

İkram Bakery 9895 Warner Ave, Suite F Fountain Valley, CA 92708 (714) 964-5726 İkram Bakery serves fresh traditional Turkish desserts. All food is baked on site and served at a couple of tables or packaged as takeout. “İkram” means a treat or a food offering in Turkish. Baked goods flew off the racks when we visited, barely giving us the opportunity to sample it or even photograph it. If you are lucky you will find: • Peynerli poğoca – A pastry filled with feta and ground beef, or just cheese.

• Simit – a round, oily, chewy bread shaped like a large thin bagel and covered with sesame seeds. Eat these outside, because the seeds fall off easily.

• Profetorol – from the English profiterole, is a cream puff filled with chocolate pudding.

• Sütlaç – rice pudding that has been burned on the top. Making this is a skill because it is easy to burn up the pudding or boil the milk inside.

• Tatlı kuru pasta – cookies filled with coconut, chocolate, nutella or strawberry jam and topped with hazelnut, sesame or coconut.

There is also a salty variety.

• Şeker pare – a small round pastry covered in syrup.

• Baklava – layers of phyllo dough stacked with honey and walnuts.

Istanbul Grill 18010 Newhope Street #D Fountain Valley, CA 92708 (714) 430-1434 www.istanbulgrill.com Istanbul Grill is a family oriented, sit down restaurant that offers Turkish cuisine in a classy but comfortable setting. Located in a Fountain Valley complex that is home to a few other restaurants, it has the high ceilings, exposed ductwork, and minimalist décor of fine restaurants. A TV plays Turkish music videos at a low volume.

Although a bar would attract business clients, the lack of alcohol is an attempt to preserve a family atmosphere and not alienate religious clientele. A large, enclosed outdoor dining patio can seat fifty people. When we visited, the restaurant had only been open a month and was doing a brisk business at 3pm on a Sunday. Diners are quick to notice great food at a great price.

The three Ustun brothers who own the restaurant have made a tremendous effort to understand the taste preferences of their clients. Chefs were sent out to cook at fine dining restaurants in the

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All dishes are cooked to order, ingredients are fresh, and cooking times are perfect.

The kitchen avoids the oil, spice and salt that can seem excessive to Americans eating at restaurants in Turkey.

traditional American Midwest and all of the staff grew up in and studied in hospitality at the popular international hotels on the Turkish Mediterranean. The result is a high level of service and cuisine that is an excellent value.

All dishes are cooked to order, ingredients are fresh, and cooking times are perfect. The kitchen avoids the oil, spice and salt that can seem excessive to Americans eating at restaurants in Turkey. Californians always appreciate a salad selection that can serve as a dinner option so there are four salad choices here. We tried the Roka Salata composed of arugula/field greens with dried cranberries, walnuts, feta and apricots. There are many vegetarian dishes for those who like to limit meat in their diet and the entire restaurant is halal, to accommodate those who require meat prepared according to religious law.

Of the appetizers we tried the dolmas which were the tastiest we have sampled anywhere, with just a hint of oil. We always start our Turkish dinners with the traditional lentil soup, which is fully ground and creamy, not filled with the tiny beans as in the American version. You can get traditional dishes here, such as Arnavut çiger, pide, and five types of lamb dishes. We had the Çoban Kavurma, a lamb stew with garlic, onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and herbs, with a side of rice pilaf. A kebab combination dinner let us choose two, and I selected the Adana kebab, not as spicy as its counterpart in southern Turkey and the Köfte kebab, translated as ‘meatball,’ but actually a flavorful combination of beef and lamb. It comes with grilled vegetables and pilaf. You can really taste the grill here. Unfortunately there is not yet room in the kitchen for our beloved lahmacun. The desserts are large, rich and should be shared. Solely in the interest of scientific thoroughness we tried the sütlaç (rice

pudding), keşkul (almond pudding), baklava, and kunefe (shredded phyllo baked with sweet goat cheese). The Turkish coffee here is the only one we have sampled in the world that did not leave you with half a glass of grounds.

Both Ikram Bakery and Istanbul Grill happen to be in Fountain Valley, but this is not because this town is a center of the Turkish community. There were a handful of Turkish speakers in the restaurant but most were the same diverse Orange County group we see everywhere. Apparently the Turks in this part of the world aspire to professional degrees and job opportunities, so not many are interested in opening a restaurant.

But many will come for miles as we did for a chance to enjoy this special cuisine.

Turkish Tea, keskul (almond pudding) and kunefe ( shredded phyllo baked with sweet goat cheese) served at Istanbul Grill www.edibleorangecounty.com

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Fast Facts

Origin of the Word "Turkey"

T

he Indians of North and Middle America domesticated the turkey as a food source. In 1523 the Spanish brought the bird to Spain and North Africa. The Venetians traded turkeys along the Mediterranean to the Ottomans. The bird became popular and was traded by the Turks to the Hapsburg realms of Europe. Here the Europeans referred to the bird by the ethnic group at its place of origin, the Turks. Just as in English, the word, “turkey” means both the bird and the country of Turkey, in Turkish, “hint” means the bird and the country of India.

One theory is that the original European name of the bird was from the French “Poulet d’Indes” (Chicken of the Indies) or Indian Chicken. The French would have encountered the bird in Canada, a French colony. In time, “d’Indes” was shortened to a literal transliteration, “dind,” which by itself would mean just, “from the Indies.” The word “Indies” could easily be confused with the word for India. Parallel to this development, the Turkish word for turkey, the bird, is “hint.” This word in Turkish has another meaning - the name for the country of India. This Turkish word “hint” is similar to the English, “hindi,” meaning a major language and religion of India. Another theory would have the Turks originally encountering the bird in India, which is not as plausible geo-historically.

Origin of Coffee

C

offee plants come from Ethiopia but the drink was developed in Yemen, at the time an Ottoman province, and it was spread by the Turks throughout their domain.

Our word for it comes from the Turkish, “kahve.” Like many outlook altering substances it was at first banned by both the Muslim and Christian religions. We can thank Sultan Selim I for overturning the ban in 1524. In Europe it was first traded to Venice and was widely available throughout England and parts of Europe by the mid-17th century. About 1683 the first coffee houses appeared in Vienna, supplied by the spoils of a key battle between the Ottomans and the combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire, Poland and Lithuania. While it was acceptable to drink coffee, coffeehouses were intermittently banned in Turkey, especially at the time of Murad IV (1623-1640). This was because the earliest coffee house patrons hung out for long periods of time and often held politics critical of the government. Coincidentally this was often the outlook of European rulers regarding the earliest European coffee houses. The Ottomans introduced the coffee trade but Europeans soon founded colonial plantations of their own. Turkish coffee is available throughout Turkey today, but Nescafe is just as popular.

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The Fit Foodie®

DIET IS A 4-LETTER WORD

BY MAREYA IBRAHIM, THE FIT FOODIE

Mareya Ibrahim is The Fit Foodie. She is the creator of EAT CLEANER® and the Cleaner Plate Club, teaching families how to enjoy cleaner, safer, longer lasting fresh food. She is also a featured chef on “Everyday Health’s Recipe Rehab” and hosts “Fit Foodie” Fridays on Channel 6 San Diego. This time of year, she can’t get enough of golden beets, butternut squash and Branzino.

H

e loves me, he loves me not.

When it comes to mealtime, the love/hate relationship with our plates can be a tumultuous one, to say the least. There are a lot of words in the food lexicon that strike fear and loathing into the hearts of people. For me, it’s the 4-letter word called DIET. Now, I’ve never quite understood why you’d want to follow something that starts with DIE, but any time we adopt a highly restrictive approach, the results are usually lackluster and very temporary. Diets that want to eliminate a major food group, fat or carbs, or only focus on very specific ingredients are not sustainable nor enjoyable because our bodies were built to thrive on balance.

Whenever I coach clients on their nutrient intake and advise they increase their fat intake or up their carb intake, the room gets very quit, and you’d think I dropped an ‘F’ bomb.

Fat is an important part of our daily intake, can lower cholesterol, helps with brain function and balances hormones, an essential part of weight control. Carbs

are a critical part of your daily nutrition intake and give you quick energy, brain fuel, and the fact is, you can’t metabolize protein – the building blocks of your muscles - without them.

So let’s set the record straight on what’s on our plate.

In developing the Cleaner Plate Club program, I created what I call “the Fit Foodie Triangle” approach. The Triangle is an easy way to remember how to get the balance you need at every mini meal and it’s based on sound, documented nutritional needs: 40/30/30 breakdown of macronutrients – 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat.

That’s right, 30% fat! Now of that 30%, I recommend only 5% or less to be saturated.

You can easily find this breakout on any nutrition label and the good news is, you don’t have to sacrifice flavor for it.

Good sources of fat in moderation include: • Nuts (raw, milk, butters, oils), coconut (raw, oil, milk), seeds (raw, milk, butters, oils), avocados, olives, and Omega 3-rich seafood, like salmon and mackerel.

• Instead of full fat butter, try alternatives that are free of trans fats, like Earth Balance™ Natural Buttery Spread and Baking Sticks.

• Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil and other nut/seed oils (hemp, flax, chia, sesame, sunflower, etc.). For sautéing, I like coconut, sesame and grape seed oils since they do better in high heat. Save the extra virgin olive

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oil for dressings and uncooked dishes.

• Cook with low sodium stocks, broths, and wine for lots of added flavor.

• Use pureed beets, butternut squash and apple sauce to replace fat in baked goods.

• Enjoy dark chocolate with 70% or more pure unsweetened cocoa.

Now, what about carbs? Good sources of slow burning carbohydrates metabolize differently in your body than refined versions.

This is a fundamental part of maintaining blood sugar at healthy levels. The higher the glycemic index, the harder your body has to work to keep your blood sugar balanced. Here’s how some average foods pan out. Don’t be fooled by sweetness as an indicator of glycemic index. Some fruits are much lower than you might think.

RECIPE NO-BAKE POWER BITES Recipe From The Daniel Plan by Mareya Ibrahim, The Fit Foodie Recipe Servings: About 20-25 Balls Serving Size: 2 Pieces 1 cup Gluten-free oats 1/2 cup Unsweetened shredded coconut plus 1/3 cup for topping 1 scoop Chocolate protein powder 2 Tbsp Natural almond or peanut butter 1/2 cup Ground flax meal 1/2 cup Dark chocolate chips (70% or more cocoa powder) 1 tsp Stevia liquid 2/3 cup Unsweetened coconut milk 1 tsp. Pure vanilla extract Recipe instructions: In a small bowl, mix all ingredients together in a bowl until thoroughly mixed. 2. Chill in the refrigerator for an hour. 3.

Roll into 2" balls and roll in shredded coconut. Wrap individual balls in wax paper and store in an airtight container refrigerated or freeze. 4. Allow to rest at room temperature for 5 minutes before eating.

On the High End Baguette Bagels White Potatoes White Rice White Bread Corn Flakes Pretzels

On the Low End Whole Wheat Tortillas Pearled Barley Chickpeas (hummus) Peanuts Grapefruit, cherries Green Veggies Lentils

While ‘gluten-free’ has become a big buzzword, it often contains white rice and starch, which can also spike your blood sugar. Be sure to read your product labels and look out for these hidden processed carbs.

A balanced approach to health, wellness and a fabulously fit life is where it’s at.

The Daniel Plan When I found out about an approach that integrated five principles of faith, food, fitness, focus and friends to help people get healthy, I was intrigued, especially when I heard about the initial results . The program was developed and originated at Saddleback Church in 2011 and within the first year more than 15,000 church members lost a collective of more than 250,000 pounds while experiencing decreases in health issues and stress and increases in spiritual growth and energy.

Developed by Pastor Rick Warren, Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Daniel Amen, three #1 New York Times bestsellers, “The Daniel Plan” is intended to hold up one’s life, enliven one’s body, enrich one’s mind and fill one’s heart. Warren dives into spiritual health and the importance of building a foundation on God for all other areas of life. Hyman, a family physician and Functional Medicine expert, discusses the power of food as medicine and a source of abundance, noting that eating real, whole food can be a doorway to reverse chronic disease, create resilient health and easy weight loss and a clear mind. And Amen, a physician and double-board certified psychiatrist, helps readers boost their brain’s physical health to turn his or her mind into a powerful tool to fight off cravings, bad decisions and toxic thoughts.

“The Daniel Plan” focuses on practical tips such as eating real, whole food; viewing physical activity as play, rather than exercise; setting SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound – goals; and finding a group of individuals to provide encouragement for healthy lifestyle choices.

I personally led a focus group for The Daniel Plan and I dis-

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The Fit Foodie

Mareya on stage with Dr. Amen and Dr. Hyman

covered that the foundation of providing people with a support system created that safe haven that is so important when it comes to adopting a new habit or lifestyle. The book also outlines three simple exercise programs as well as a balanced meal plan, complete with recipes, which yours truly contributed to the book!

The concept for The Daniel Plan, on which the book is based, was developed by Warren after baptizing 827 adults in one day by lowering each under the water and lifting them back up. At that time, Warren literally felt the weight of America’s health problems while being simultaneously convicted by his own unhealthy weight and habits.

Find out more about The Daniel Plan at www.danielplan.com and pick up the book. It’s one you’ll that I believe will become your go-to resource for a fit lifestyle.

RECIPE WHOLE GRAIN SPAGHETTI ALLA LUCCA Recipe From The Daniel Plan by Mareya Ibrahim, The Fit Foodie Recipe Servings: 4 1 Tbsp Grapeseed oil 1/2 C Chopped onion 3 Garlic cloves crushed 1 lb Lean chicken sausage, casings removed 2 1/2 C Tomato puree 1 Red bell pepper, chopped 4 leaves Fresh basil, chopped Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 1 can Cannelini beans, drained and rinsed ½ cup Freshly grated Parmesan cheese 1 pound Whole grain spaghetti (swap out with gluten-free pasta for GF option)

for about 15 minutes.

3. In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, give it a stir, and cook until al dente (firm, not mushy).

Drain and set aside.

4. In a large bowl, combine the meat mixture and tomato puree mixture. Toss with spaghetti until uniform. Top with freshly grated parmesan and serve.

1. Coat a large skillet with oil and place over medium-low heat. Add the onion and crushed garlic, cook and stir until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the sausage. Cook and stir for 5 to 10 minutes until the meat is no longer pink.

2. Place a separate pot over medium-low heat, add the tomato puree, bell pepper, basil and black pepper. Season with a dash of sea salt. Add the beans. Cover and gently simmer

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OUR ADVERTISERS

Orange County Farmers’ Markets

ORANGE COUNTY FARMERS’ MARKETS ANAHEIM Downtown Center St. Promenade and Lemon St. Thursdays noon – 8 pm

FOOTHILL RANCH

NEWPORT BEACH

26612 Towne Center Dr. Parking lot of Food Festival Thursday 3pm – 7pm

The Great Park in Irvine Certified Farmers Market Marine Way off Sand Canyon Rd Sunday 10am – 2pm

Newport Beach Certified Farmers Market Lido Marina Village Sunday 9am – 2pm

Kaiser Permanente Certified Farmers Market 3430 E. La Palma Friday 9am -2pm

FULLERTON 801 W. Valencia Dr. Wednesdays 8 am – 1:30 pm

Kaiser Permanente Certified Farmers Market Sand Canyon Rd and Alton Parkway Wednesday 9am – 1pm

OLD TOWNE ORANGE 145 S. Lemon St. Thursday 2pm – 6pm

Kaiser Permanente Farmers’ Market Lakeview and Riverdale Fridays 10 am – 2 pm

Wilshire & Pomona Thursdays Apr–Oct: 4 pm – 8:30 pm

THE GREAT PARK IN IRVINE

Orange Home Grown Certified Farmers Market 304 N. Cypress St. Saturday 9am – 1pm

BREA Brea Blvd. and Birch St. Tuesdays 4 pm – 8 pm BUENA PARK Corner of La Palma and Stanton Sears Parking Lot Saturdays 9 am – 2 pm Local Harvest Farmers Market Corner of La Palma & Stanton Saturday 9am – 2pm CORONA DEL MAR Corona Del Mar Certified Farmers Market Margarite & Pacific Coast Hwy Saturday 9am – 1pm COSTA MESA Orange County Fairgrounds 88 Fair Dr. Thursdays 9 am – 1 pm (rain or shine) SOCO Farmers Market 3315 Hyland Ave (South Coast Collection’s Central Lot) Saturday 9am – 2pm DANA POINT Pacific Coast Hwy. and Golden Lantern South Saturdays 9 am – 1 pm

GARDEN GROVE Local Harvest Certified Farmers Market Main and Garden Grove Blvd.

Sunday 9am – 2pm HUNTINGTON BEACH Huntington Beach Mercada Farms Market S.W. Corner of Warner Ave & Gothard Ave. Ocean View High School Saturday 9am – 1pm Huntington Beach Certified Farmers Market Main St between Pacific Coast Hwy & Orange St. Tuesday 5pm – 9pm Local Harvest Certified Farmers Market Pacific Coast Hwy and Anderson Saturday 9am – 2pm Pier Plaza Main St. and Pacific Coast Hwy. (next to the pier) Fridays 1 pm – 5 pm (rain or shine)

Marine Way off Sand Canyon Sundays 10 am – 2 pm (rain or shine) LADERA RANCH Ladera Ranch Town Green 28801 Sienna Pkwy.

Saturdays 8 am – 1 pm LAGUNA HILLS Laguna Hills Mall Parking Lot I-5 and El Toro Rd. Fridays 9 am – 1 pm (rain or shine) LAGUNA BEACH Lumberyard Parking Lot Next to City Hall Saturdays 8 am – noon Jul–Aug: 8 am – 11 am (rain or shine) LAGUNA NIGUEL Plaza De La Paz Shopping Center Corner of La Paz and Pacific Park Sundays 9 am – 1 pm (rain or shine)

IRVINE Historic Park at the Irvine Ranch 13042 Old Myford Rd. Tuesdays 9 am – 1 pm (rain or shine)

LA PALMA Kaiser Permanente Certified Farmers Market 5 Centerpointe Dr. Every Other Friday 9am – 2pm

IRVINE CENTER Corner of Bridge & Campus Across from UCI Saturday 8am – Noon

MISSION VIEJO 200 Civic Center Dr. City Hall Parking Lot Saturday 9am – 1pm

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ORANGE 1500 E. Village Way btw Katella and Lincoln on Tustin St. Thursdays 9 am – 1 pm (rain or shine) PLACENTIA Downtown at corner of Bradford and Santa Fe Ave. Saturdays 9 am – 1 pm SAN CLEMENTE 200 Block Avenida Del Mar Dr. Sunday 9am – 1pm SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO El Camino Real & Yorba Linda Wednesday October – March 3pm – 6pm April – Sept 3pm – 7pm SEAL BEACH 13960 Seal Beach Blvd.

Thursdays 1 pm – 6 pm TUSTIN Corner of El Camino Real and 3rd St. Wednesdays 9 am – 1 pm (rain or shine) YORBA LINDA Main St. and Imperial Hwy. Saturdays 9 am – 1 pm

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OUR ADVERTISERS CALIFORNIA OLIVE OILS (P. 13) www. COOC.com Like all natural products, extra virgin olive oil delivers the best flavor and health benefits when it is fresh. We taste and test every brand that earns the California Olive Oil Council seal so you know it is certified extra virgin. Next time you pick up a bottle of olive oil, look for the seal—so you know it is California fresh.

CELLAR,THE (P. 3) 156 Avenida Del Mar San Clemente, CA 92672 949.492.3663 www.thecellarsite.com The Cellar is a wine bar, a restaurant and cheese shop that features live music, nightly. The goal, at The Cellar, is to offer customers a wide selection of perfectly ripe cheeses in a friendly environment that will entice both a novice and veteran cheese lover.

CHEESE SHOP, THE (P. 3) South Coast Collection 3313 Hyland Avenue, Suite C Costa Mesa, CA 92626 949.284.0558 www.cellarcheeseshop.com The Cheese Shop @ The Mix is a full-service cheese shop stocked full of domestic and imported farmstead and artisanal cheeses. All of the cheeses are cut to order, which means your cheese is of the best quality

and that it has been handled properly to ensure that when it hits your mouth, you will experience the ultimate cheese moment. Specially trained “Cheesemongers” are ready to help you select the perfect specimen. They also stock gluten free crackers, hand rolled crackers, jams, mustard and other gourmet goodies.

EAT CLEANER (P. 11) Info@eatcleaner.com www.eatcleaner.com Protect and preserve your family’s food with EAT CLEANER, the award-winning line of all natural food wash a + wipes that remove wax, pesticide, residue and bacteria that can cause food borne illness. EAT CLEANER is an Orange County-based company.

ECOLOGY CENTER, THE (P. 5) 32701 Alipaz Street San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675 949.443.4223 www.theecologycenter.org Located in San Juan Capistrano, California, The Ecology Center provides the community with solution-based education to inspire ecologically sound solutions at the household and community level.

EDIBLE COMMUNITIES PUBLICATIONS (Inside Back Cover) 800.652.4217 www.ediblecommunities.com Edible Communities, Inc., is

a publishing and information services company that creates editorially rich, communitybased, local-foods publications in distinct culinary regions throughout the United States and Canada.

LOCAL FARE (P. 5) 3313 Hyland Avenue Costa Mesa, CA 92626 714.348.0715 www.oclocalfare.com This fun shop features local products for your kitchen and home that are made in California - most of them from right here in OC. NOVICA (Inside Front Cover & 1) with National Geographic cdukes@novica.com www.novica.com NOVICA LIVE provides a unique cultural shopping experience, where you can travel the world through entertaining home shows and see multimedia presentations of artisans creating the very items you will hold in your hands.

ORGANICS OUT BACK (P. 9) www.organicsoutback.com 949.354.2258 Get organic vegetables from your own backyard. Organics Out Back specializes in healthy, seasonal garden installation and maintenance.

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ROCKY® AND ROSIE® PETALUMA POULTRY (P. 7) 800.473.7383 www.petalumapoultry.com Locally grown chickens, raised to meet the culinary demands of area chefs, as well as environmentally conscious home cooks.

SANTA YNEZ VALLEY (Back Cover) www.StaySYV.com Visit Santa Ynez Valley! Located in northern Santa Barbara County, California, the Santa Ynez Valley is just 35 miles from the beaches of Santa Barbara and only 150 miles up the coast from Orange County. The region is easily accessible via vehicles on U.S. Highway 101 and State Highways 154 & 246. Six distinctive communities make up this beautiful valley: Ballard, Buellton, Los Alamos, Los Olivos, Santa Ynez and Solvang. Bicycle, golf, hiking, shopping and wine tasting are all the joys to be discovered in this region.

VILLAGE MEDITERRANEAN RIM (P. 5) 123 Del Mar San Clemente, CA 92672 949.361.8970 www.villagemedrim.com Be tempted by Chef Nour Tillo’s distinguished Mediterranean cuisine. The intimate setting is a backdrop to the friendly staff and delicious fare. www.edibleorangecounty.com