All posts tagged: Events

wine

Korean New Year Feast and Chamlija Wine Tasting

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I’m back home after finishing the three-day Korean New Year Feast event and spending extra days catching up on personal affairs in Istanbul. The event was great, especially the part of meeting new amazing people, which is why I love what I do. Here I’ll share the atmosphere and delicious foods we ate and the special wines we drank for those who couldn’t join us. As promised, I presented 4 good wines from Chamlija (Papaskarasi is missing in the photo). Many thanks to Ozkan Uner from A2A Photography for excellent photos. He’s a very talented and respected photographer and, though his expertise is in aviation photography, he takes great food photos as well. By sheer coincidence, two chefs were in matching red to celebrate the year of Rooster. Really, I didn’t think of it when I decided to put on my red skirt. Anyway, since it’s a special day, for one of the starters, I offered a royal dish, which goes by the name of ‘Gujeolpan – Nine Delicacies‘. We started with the colourfully arranged little delicacies with seasonal vegetables and home-smoked trout and …

radish miso tahini

KIMCHI Workshop and Radish Spinach Miso Tahini Rice Bowl

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It was fun making kimchi with many people and I was proud to share my know-hows and clarify some of the myths surrounding the most essential Korean food. I was also very surprised by the enthusiasm of the participants, who seemed more obsessed with kimchi than me!

I would like to thank those who joined the event and also, Istanbul Cooking School for opening their space for us.

korean food

Flavours of Korea and Far East @Revolte Cafe Pub

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Another Korean food event took place last Saturday. This time it was a little different to the previous as I, self-taught and instinctive cook, was joined by a professionally trained chef, Seçkin @5KitchenModa. While working together in the kitchen, I was reminded of ‘The Cook and the Chef‘, the Australian TV show, though I’m not as old as Maggie! I’m hoping to mature like her though. A lot of people showed interest in the event again and the tables got quickly booked out. This time it was for finger foods rather than a full course meal, which is usually more labour intensive. Imagine rolling out 100 dumpling wrappers and rolling 100 spring rolls! What makes it even more difficult is the lack of access to basic ingredients. I could have easily bought the tofu and bean sprouts but I made both from scratch because I don’t like the taste of tofu sold here. And Seckin even smoked the fish for the sushi because we didn’t want to use imported farmed salmon. When I was introduced to him, I sensed that we …

Korean Soirée @Eat with Me Istanbul

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Last Friday I was invited as a chef to cook in a dream kitchen for Korean Soirée. What an honour, a professional chef promoting a home-cook to a ‘Chef’! The idea of a Korean night came as Mr.O and I recently returned from our Korean trip and had some Korean goodies. People would normally keep them to themselves as they’re often very difficult to get hold of if you live abroad, but I wanted to share as I always do. That’s why I did my first Soiree des Gourmandes after returning from my Jura wine tour where I met my life saving foodie friend, Dolores. A Korean dinner had already happened two nights ago but people who saw the menu post on my Facebook page got so excited that they demanded that it be held soon or they will die. I didn’t know there was so much interest in Korean food. Yes, I’m not so Korean inside as outside and I hardly cook Korean at home; I had enough of it growing up! Though I …

Special Lunch by the Chef and Spanish Priorat Wine

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Finally, she kept her promise of reciprocation. Dolores the chef came to my soiree and shared her passion and experiences with me. It was such a delightful session that I’d been waiting to meet her again ever since. The life in Istanbul is unimaginable for most of the people who have never set foot in this world. It’s big; it’s chaotic; it’s frustrating; it’s addictive. Compared to the size of the city, I feel the city is the smallest when I long for exciting food experiences. It’ll be even worse when the bans on alcohol and social activities become more serious. I feel bad talking about food when people are going about, angry after the disappointing election results. But let’s forget about the politics for a second. Foodies living in Istanbul have a dilemma. Where should we go to eat? Hmm….after some searching and thinking, ok, they come to this: let’s cook at home. Yes, we foodies cook better than any restaurants in Istanbul, believe or not, and even better, it costs far less for …