Tulip Time in İstanbul and home..

I am sure most of you associated tulips with Holland. Well, you are rather correct but do you know that those precious bulbs brought to Holland in the 16th century from here. Ottomans started the commercial cultivation of this wonderful flower.

The period between 1718-1730 named as the tulip period in Ottoman history. Tulips became important in arts, folklore and the daily life. This period described in Wikipedia as:

"The name of the period derives from the tulip craze among the Ottoman court society. Cultivating this culturally ambiguous emblem had become a celebrated practice.The tulip period illustrated the conflicts brought by early modern consumer culture and was a shared material symbolism. During this period the elite and high-class society of the Ottoman Period had established an immense fondness for the tulip, which were utilized in various occasions. Tulips defined nobility and privilege, both in terms of goods and leisure time."

For the last 5 years the municipality started a tulip festival to reassociate this delicate flower with İstanbul. In the first 2-3 weeks of April all the parks and the roadsides in the city covered with tulips of all colors.




A big bunch of tulips also found their way to our home. Hera the puppy who likes to eat all the flowers at home is rather indifferent to them. They are probably not taste as good as they look.





First two photos are from the facebook page of İstanbul

Blogger Friend in İstanbul

Dont you love blogging?? I especially love it when I finally meet a favorite blogger in the real world.Well, Phivos of Taxidiaris and his wife Poppy are here in İstanbul this weekend.


We have met on Friday afternoon and as you can guess there were so many things to share and learn about each other. It was a lovely evening. I believe that a virtual friendship turned into a lifelong one that evening.


We even managed to visit the Orthodox Patriarchate before the dinner. It was a rainy night before the Easter but still lots of visitors were there..


It was so nice to meet with you guys...Lets try to do it again soon...

The old water mill

They say,its the coldest time of the sea. I am not that brave so I did not test it personally but I believe them..



So what would you do on a day when sun is really burning you? Why not try the calm waters of the old water mill...Again I did not test it personally but people look quite comfortable.Nowadays the restored building is used as the home of Datca local historian society.

Daisies everywhere..

During this time of the year whole Datca peninsula is covered with daisies.In 15 days time another color will be added to this white and yellow symphony. Red of the poppies.




Apart from filling all the vases in so many houses, they are also filling many stomachs in this part of the world. One of my favorite salad of this season is made from daisies. Receipe is very simple: Collect the stems of the unflowered daisies. Boil them and after they cool add lemon, garlick and olive oil. Just yummy....

Daily Excursions

If there is nothing particular to do around the house, our days in Datca start with a big breakfast. Later our family of three usually take a daily excursion in our small peninsula.A long lunch break with couple cold beers usually end the daily tour. Here are couple photos from the last two days. First two were from the very tip of the peninsula where Mediterranean meets with Aegean. Lovely turquoide bays..




The last two are from the Aegean side of the peninsula.Compare to the Mediterranean side it is much less developed and sea shore is mostly rocky. However it is still possible to find beautiful bays. The one below is Gereme bay.

Fresh Herbs

As I have limited internet connection here, I couldnt post in the past days as much as I would love to. But what can I say..Life is slow here, so does the internet. So far no problem..

Our days are filled with long walks and long lunch breaks in different parts of our peninsula. So far weather is so good and I believe I already got some suntan. One of the main activities of the season is to pick wild greens and herbs. Local ladies are extremly succesful in finding them and farmers market is full of wonderful greenstuff every week. Favorite salad of the season is to make one with mixing 7-8 different herbs and greens.


As we are rather amateur in finding them we settled with the easy ones where you could find almost everywhere. Our picks were fresh thyme and french lavender.There are different types of thyme but I like the taste and the smell of the ones that we took.



To make tea from the flowers of the french lavender is good for many health problems and known to be protective against cancer. We use fresh ones nowadays but dried ones are also good for winter months.

Spring

Although you have read couple post here in the past week I havent been around the net much lately. The reason is:



Yes we came to our beach house to enjoy the first days of the spring. The first two days were quite cold compare to Mediterranean standarts, but finally we are having beautiful weathers. We will be here until the end of March. See you very soon..