Turkish Delights

So, Alex is has officially been shipped off to his Naval training at the Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) in Dartmouth, and the children and I have made it to Turkey. It was rather touch and go actually getting here, since we almost weren't allowed to fly out of Gatwick! My current UK passport is valid from 7th Jan 2013 - 7th Oct 2023, which meant that it was just over ten years old on the date of our flight (12th January). Apparently a change has come in over the past few months, which means that UK passports must be less than ten years old in order to be valid for international travel. I was gobsmacked when the lady at the bag drop said my passport wasn't valid for travel, wondering where on earth I was going to go at 5 o'clock in the morning, if we weren't allowed to fly! I pleaded with her and she checked with her manager, who also said no. So, I pleaded with him too and gave a sob story about my husband being in the Navy, telling him we were going away for a month and had nowhere else to go. This manager consulted his superior, and I think they got the wrong end of the stick thinking we were off to see Alex on duty somewhere, so they finally agreed to let me fly! I didn't bother correcting his mistake, but thanked him profusely and rushed off to the bag drop as quickly as I could! The thing I find ridiculous about this new rule is that easyJet doesn't check the passport start date, given this is now so important, but perhaps there are plans to put these checks in place. I do hope so.

Our home for the month, complete with friendly cats and dogs

Anyhow, we made it here eventually and are nearing the end of our first full week. We are staying in an Airbnb on an organic smallholding near Antalya, in a small village. We have acres of forest on our doorstep, and are right on the edge of the Taurus Mountains. The location is superb; so remote and peaceful, and the locals are incredibly welcoming and friendly. They keep goats and chickens, and have numerous very friendly dogs and cats wandering around, which the children love. We have settled in so well and I feel it is somewhere I could easily live but, goodness, we don’t need any more plots of land so I will ignore that feeling for now! The Airbnb is managed by a lovely guy called Fatih and the farm belongs his parents, Hatice and Muammer, who live in another house just across the driveway from ours. We have no car and the closest shop is just over a kilometre's walk from here, but it seems to contain mainly snacks such as chocolate and crisps. It did have a few essential items, such as milk, eggs and flour, but it certainly can't provide much in the way of nutritional fare. Hatice and Muammer produce their own honey, olive oil, olives, eggs, goats cheese, bread and much more, so we have bought some supplies from them (at very reasonable prices) and they have been incredibly kind in giving us lots of other delicious foods to try, refusing to accept payment. They have also offered to buy produce for us whenever they go to the shops, so we have plenty of supplies here in the cupboards.

A walk to the shop, showing the edge of the mountains; this photo doesn't do it justice

We spent a few days this week helping Hatice to gather olives; the last of the season. I think that most were collected using sheets spread around the base of the trees over the past few months (these will have been the best quality olives) and the ones we are collecting now are the last to fall from the tree, which will be used for oil. It is quite time-consuming work, since we are collecting them by hand from the floor, and they are often hidden in clumps of vegetation or mud. At first, I think I was being too picky about the quality - I have now learned that anything goes, regardless of how muddy, squashed or shrivelled they are! It has been a nice way to while away the hours, with the children helping at times, but mainly playing games around us whilst we gather. Away from the house, without an internet connection, Hatice and I have no way to communicate other than basic Turkish and sign language, but we get along just fine! My Turkish is improving slowly, such that I can now comment on the sun being hot, or the olive supply of a given tree being plentiful!

Off on a walk to gather olives with Hatice Teyze (Auntie Hatice)

After gathering olives, Hatice has been inviting us in for tea and, often, some food as well. In fact, I don’t think a day goes by (whether we have collected olives or not) when I do not get invited over there for a cup of tea, or given something delicious to eat. We are really being spoiled! When she cooks meals for us, Hatice has been getting me to help out, so I have been learning some basics about Turkish cooking. Hatice says that every meal in Turkey starts with onions and tomatoes… and, from what I can see, it must also contain a LOT of olive oil! The meals always contain lots of fresh, home-produced ingredients, such as fresh herbs, lemon juice from the trees, a sour pomegranate sauce made from their own produce, and so much more. One day we made gözleme (Turkish pancakes) which were filled with leeks, spinach and home-produced goats cheese - they tasted so good!

The children, enjoying freshly cooked gözleme

Last Sunday, the whole family came over to help out on the farm here (children and grandchildren), and that was really nice. Fatih invited me over to drink tea and watch them making huge flatbreads, which go very dry and last for up to six months. They are cooked over an open fire on a very large mushroom-shaped piece of metal, then stacked in a large pile on a tray. They look like humongous poppadoms! The loaded tray is now in Hatice’s kitchen, on top of the fridge, and when they want to use one they simply splash it with water and leave it to rehydrate for 5-10 minutes, then cook with it. These are used to make the gözleme, amongst other things. As well as making the breads, the two male goats were sheared by hand, wood was collected and chopped ready for use in the wood burning stoves and there was a bonfire. There were three boys here around the same age as Beth, so they took her and Zach off exploring up the hill, to the edge of the forest. They all spent much of the afternoon with the toy diggers outside, excavating and moving piles of sawdust and charcoal. They made an awful mess with it all, but nobody seemed to mind and, in fact, some rain overnight soon cleared the worst of it away!

Plenty of natural materials around to dig, such as sawdust, mud and charcoal!

This was also the day that a wood-burning stove was installed for us, and what a huge difference it has made to our lives here! The house has air conditioning units, which can heat as well as cool, but I was concerned about the cost of using them (for Fatih and his parents) so, when they offered the wood-burning stove, I jumped at the opportunity. We don’t need to light it until the evening, since the days are around 16-18°C and the house retains a lot of the heat overnight such that the mornings are not too chilly. I tend to light it around 4.30pm, and within a matter of minutes it is roaring and ready to cook on/in! I especially love the oven, which I have used to cook stuffed peppers and jacket potatoes, so far. Having got so used to avoiding ovens over recent years (mainly due to their energy consumption), it seems unbelievable to be able to cook anything I like in the oven, completely for free! I can see that if you live as they do here, on the edge of a forest with effectively a limitless supply of deadwood to burn, then you can really heat your home and cook your meals without worrying at all about fluctuating energy prices. It is a shame that stoves like this aren’t more commonplace in western Europe. Wood-burning stoves these days will rarely have a place for heating a pan on top, and almost never contain an oven.

Cooking dinner and making tea on the top of the stove, whilst roasting peppers in the oven

Today, Hatice and Muammer took us to the market in the nearby town of Serik. It was the best fresh produce market I have been to, outside of Thailand. Perhaps it was even better than Thailand, in terms of the amount of produce on offer. As is the case in Thailand, it seems that most local people buy their fresh produce (that which they do not grow themselves) at these incredibly cheap, well-stocked markets which run multiple times per week. Our fridge and cupboards are now bursting at the seams, full with onions, tomatoes, potatoes, apples, bananas, and much more, and it cost me very little indeed. It was all rather hectic, since Muammer was doing most of the talking for me, as well as quality control - I don’t think he thought much of my produce selection! He was being very careful to select the best quality items, whereas I was just rushing to fill my bags whilst making sure the children didn’t disappear out of sight! So, it is hard for me to remember exact prices, but pretty much everything was 5-15 turkish lira (20-60 pence) per kilo, and I was buying 2kg of most things. We splashed out on a kilo of kumquats, which I think cost me 20 lira… and I think the children have eaten about half of that kilo already!

We managed to squeeze in a playground visit after the market