THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA

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TURKEY: SLOW FOODS AND BUSTLING BAZAARS

i t inerary: APRIL 28 -

MAY 8

2008

Culinary Educator: Nancy Harmon Jenkins

Day 1: Monday, April 28 (Istanbul) You will be met at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport and taken individually

to the hotel based on the flight information you give us. We will be staying at the five-star Sultanhan Hotel, a

small but delightful hotel in the central Sultanahmet section of Istanbul. Your culinary educator, Nancy Harmon

Jenkins, will welcome and meet everyone on the rooftop of the hotel for a welcome reception and orientation

meeting. Dinner will be a full-fledged meze – the tastiest introduction to traditional Turkish cuisine – at one of

our favorite restaurants. Hotel: Sultanhan, D

Day 2: Tuesday, April 29 (Istanbul) The day will begin with a brief talk outlining the highlights of Turkish

cuisine, ancient and modern, with some suggestions about what to look for during our trip. Afterwards, we’ll be

off for a guided tour of the bustling Spice Market, with its eclectic selection

of shops, restaurants, teahouses, and more. This is one of Istanbul’s most

important and most historic bazaars where merchants and tradespeople

from Asia, Europe, and Africa have met to exchange goods down through

the centuries. Our guide, a prominent Turkish food historian, will take us

to a coffee merchant in the bazaar where we’ll sample the wares and learn

about Turkey’s role in transferring this product, so vital in our everyday

lives, to the rest of Europe.

Lunch will be at one of our favorite restaurants, which is within walking distance of the bazaar and highly

regarded for its southeastern Turkish cuisine. After lunch, we will tour several of Istanbul’s most noted sites.

We will start with a tour of Sultan Ahmet Square, the center of historical and cultural activities of the Byzantine

and Ottoman Empires, and go on to the dazzling Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia, one of the single most

important architectural monuments ever erected. You will have the late afternoon free to relax or explore this

amazing city on your own. In the evening our bus will take us out along the Bosporos for a cocktail reception at

the splendid home of the prominent Turkish food writer, Engin Akin, and her husband Nuri. After we return to

the hotel, the rest of the evening will be free for you to do as you wish. Hotel: Sultanhan, B, L

Day 3: Wednesday, April 30 (Istanbul) In the morning we will take a short ferry ride across the Bosporus to

visit the market on the Asian side. We’ll be met by a very knowledgeable food expert who will take us through

the Kadikoy market – an open-air street market, very different from the Spice Market and more in tune with the

way most Istanbulus cook and eat. We’ll see a huge variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables, plus fish mongers,

butchers, bakers, pastry and pudding shops, and olive oil merchants. We’ll taste some of these exciting products

before we walk on to a restaurant where the chef, one of Turkey’s foremost cooks who is devoted to letting

the world know about the glorious food of his homeland, will introduce us to some of his most splendid and

interesting dishes. Following the demonstration we will eat lunch, enjoy some very special desserts only available

there, and have a lively lecture and discussion about Turkish food with two food historian writers.

turkey itinerary

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After lunch, we’ll cruise back over to Europe and our hotel for a rest. Those who are up for it may wish to take

advantage of a guided visit to the Kariye (Santa Chora) monument, one of the most stunning ancient churches of

Istanbul with a dazzling series of mosaics and frescoes. In the evening we’ll stroll along Istiklal, the spirited center

of Beyoglu and the heart of contemporary Istanbul. It has shops, restaurants, bars, art galleries, and street food

vendors whose unusual and delightful wares we’ll sample. Hotel: Sultanhan, B, L, D

Day 4: Thursday, May 1 (Istanbul – Bodrum) We will check out of our hotel first thing in the morning, even

though our flight to Bodrum will not be until later in the afternoon. Then we’ll be off for a hands-on cooking

class at a prominent Istanbul cooking school that will feature, among other dishes, a deliciously fragrant red

lentil and bulgur soup (bulgur being one of Turkey’s staple grains) and stuffed vine leaves (prizes will be offered

to those who master this tricky technique). Lunch will consist of our efforts and we will finish just in time to

speed out to the airport for our flight to Bodrum. We should be in our hotel, the Marmara, by 7:30 p.m. The

stylish and spacious hotel overlooks the blue Bodrum bay, and is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the

World. Selected by Conde Nast Traveler as one of The Top New 36 Hotels in the World, the Marmara has been

described as “Turkey’s posh new pad.” Your evening will be free to rest and relax or explore the city on your

own. There is a Western-style spa and a Turkish hammam bath at the hotel. Or there’s plenty to see and do for

those who want to explore a little night life, and the hotel is just a five-minute cab ride from the lively port.

Hotel: Marmara, B, L

Day 5: Friday, May 2 (Bodrum) We’ll start the day off with an exploration of the food and foodways of this

southeastern corner of Turkey with Frank Marciano, an American who is a long-time resident and head of the

very active Slow Food group in Turkey. Frank will introduce us to a splendid local cook who is a walking and

working advertisement for the sustainable Slow Food lifestyle. We’ll cook with her, including borek pastries in

her beehive oven, and have lunch. Then we’ll spend the afternoon afloat on a gulet, a modern adaptation of the

traditional wooden working craft of the Aegean, while we relax and discover what the past has been and what

the future holds for these pristine waters. Back on land we’ll enjoy a reception with local Slow Food members

and a tasting of raki, the potent but fascinating anise-flavored drink (similar to Arab arak and Greek ouzo) that is

a must in this part of the world. Hotel: Marmara, B, L, D

Day 6: Saturday, May 3 (Bodrum – Ula – Bodrum) In the early morning we will take a two-hour bus ride

to the small Aegean village of Ula, for a cooking demonstration by Engin Akin at her beautifully restored family

house. There we’ll experience more traditional Turkish cooking from this region where olive oil is the cooking

medium of choice, and put to great use in dishes like tender fresh fava beans, herbed zucchini fritters, flaky

pastries, and more. We’ll spend the day in this lovely town, and then return to Bodrum in the evening. Dinner will

be on your own, and you may want to have a very light meal at the hotel since tomorrow will be another early

start. Hotel: Marmara, B, L

Day 7: Sunday, May 4 (Bodrum – Cappadocia) We’ll be up very early

in order to get a good start to Izmir, farther north along the Aegean coast,

where we will catch a flight to Cappadocia. En route we’ll stop at Ephesus,

one of the greatest Roman sites in all of the Eastern Mediterranean, and a

worthy rival to Pompeii and Baalbek. We’ll have just enough time to hit the

highlights of this magnificent site, then grab a sandwich to sustain us before

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we head to the Izmir airport and take a flight to Kayseri in Cappadocia. Cappadocia is that fabulous dream

landscape of Central Anatolia, with fairy chimneys carved by the wind and the hand of man (and woman). There

we will stay at the Yunak Evleri, a completely modern and quite luxurious cave hotel that is actually part of

the cliff structures that dominate this windswept and dramatic landscape. This inspiring hotel includes six cave

houses, 30 rooms dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries, and a 19th century Greek Mansion. The region is also

one of Turkey’s noted wine-producing areas, so we’ll start our visit off with a tasting of some of the fine wines

produced there. Hotel: Yunak Evleri, B, L, D

Day 8: Monday, May 5 (Cappadocia) For the next two days we will

focus on the very particular culture and foods of Anatolia. We’ll begin with

a visit to a local market and then a cooking demonstration with the women

of Sinassos village. They will show us how to make manti, borek, and other

traditional dishes whose heritage stretches back into the Central Asian

origins of modern Turkey. After lunch and a rest, we’ll take advantage of

this incredible site and take a short walk to visit some of the 9th century

churches carved into the soft rock of the valley. Dinner will be a very special

meal in a nearby village where clay-pot and tandir cookery is particularly valued. (What is a tandir? Think of an

Indian tandoor oven—the words come from the same origin.) Hotel: Yunak Evleri, B, L, D

Day 9: Tuesday, May 6 (Cappadocia) Continuing our visit to Cappadocia (often spelled Kappadokya), we’ll

meet with a food anthropologist who will guide us through a tasting of kaymak, a sort of clotted cream often

made from buffalo milk. She’ll also tell us about the importance of opium poppy cultivation in this part of Turkey

– and the uses, beyond morphine, to which poppies are put. We’ll have lunch in another village nearby our hotel,

then assemble for a demonstration of testi kebap cookery. In the late afternoon we’ll visit the pottery workshops

that have been on this same site for thousands of years. We will conclude our brief visit to this fascinating part

of Turkey with a simple dinner, followed by one of the most entrancing aspects of the local heritage – a whirling

dervish ceremony. This is not mere folk dancing, or a performance for tourists, but rather a solemn yet intensely

joyful rite of worship followed by Sufis for many generations. Hotel: Yunak Evleri, B, L, D

Day 10: Wednesday, May 7 (Cappadocia – Istanbul) In the morning we will fly back to Istanbul for our

last day, arriving there by noon. We’ll have lunch at a doner restaurant, then spend the afternoon cruising the

Bosporus while tasting some traditional Turkish sweets from one of the most prominent baklava purveyors in the

city. The rest of the afternoon will be free, but we will gather in the evening at one of the city’s finest restaurants

for a very special goodbye dinner based on Ottoman palace cuisine.

Hotel: Sultanhan, B, L, D

Day 11: Thursday, May 8 Departure. We will provide transfers to the Istanbul airport.

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TRAVEL INFORMATIONWe highly recommend that you plan to arrive in Turkey at least a day or two early in order to acclimate to the

time change. If you require hotel reservations in Istanbul before the tour begins, we would be delighted to

make them for you. For those who wish to stay on in Istanbul after the tour is finished, we strongly advise you

to make your reservations now. There are important Formula One races in Istanbul beginning May 9th and hotel

reservations may be difficult to come by. Again, we’d be happy to help you make arrangements.

Please note that U.S. and Canadian (and other) citizens are required to buy a visa at the airport or other entry

point. The visa is good for 30 days and currently costs $20 US. It must be paid for in cash, either US dollars or

euros. With currency fluctuations, the price may change. Check with a nearby Turkish consulate to see what the

situation is when you are traveling. We will monitor and let you know of any change in price at least two weeks

before the tour begins.

HOTEL WEB SITESIstanbul: www.sultanhanhotel.com

Bodrum: http://www.themarmarahotels.com/bodrum/overview.php

Cappadocia: http://www.yunak.com/

CULINARY EDUCATORNancy Harmon Jenkins is a food writer and author of cookbooks such as The

Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, Flavors of Puglia, Flavors of Tuscany, and Essential

Mediterranean. Her latest book, Cucina del Sole: A Celebration of Southern Italian

Cooking, was recently published by HarperCollins. Ms. Jenkins divides her time between a

farmhouse in Tuscany and a home on the coast of Maine.

A former staff writer for The New York Times, she continues to freelance for the Times, and

also writes for Food & Wine and a number of other national publications. Ms. Jenkins also

leads culinary tours to Spain, Sicily, and other parts of Italy.

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