Fethiye Turkey Slideshow

Fethiye

Turkey's For Life First Birthday - Part 2

Well, I know the first anniversary of Turkey's For Life was a couple of days ago but the post was getting too long...and then I didn't post yesterday...and so here's a slightly later than planned Part 2. 



As it's the start of a whole new 'blogging about Turkey' year for us, we thought we should take this opportunity to point out some of last year's achievements and one of the changes we made to the blog to make it more useful to you in the future. 



The change...

New search boxes

To make it easier for you to find what you are looking for in Turkey's For Life, we have changed the search box again. In the past, if you typed a word into the box, you would have been shown all posts containing that word and you had to scroll through them all to find what you needed. A tad laborious if the post you were looking for was way down the page. Also, if we had used Turkish letters and you used English letters, the post would not appear. 



Hooray! All that has now changed! We've changed the search box to 'Custom Google Search' and there is one at the top and bottom of every page in the left hand column. So now, if you type in a word or words, you will be shown a list (exactly like Google search results) of all our posts containing that word. You can do a quick scan for the post you're looking for. 



For example, if you type in 'kayakoy cin bal', any post containing those words will show in the search results. Posts containing kayakoy or cin bal in the title will be displayed first, and kayakoy and cin bal will be in bold lettering. And, Google being Google, if you mistype a word or use English instead of Turkish letters (or vice versa), it's very good at working out what you are looking for, so the search results should still be accurate.

Fethiye - Our beautiful Turkey blogging base

Some Achievements

In our first blogging year, we...

• Took action to actually start Turkey's For Life and fortunately, you decided to read it.


• Set up a Twitter account; created a Facebook page; joined the food bloggers' site, Foodbuzz; joined the travel bloggers' site TBEX; joined the expat bloggers' site Expat Blog; set up a Flickr account and created a Turkey's For Life Flickr group, and as a result, communicated with countless people and ended up very busy on the laptop! (There are others but we'll be here all day...)

Achievements in themselves, but we are also very proud of...

• Our 'Lonely Planet Featured Blogger' badge. Some of you may have noticed that this has only recently appeared on the blog (it's half way down, on the left if you haven't seen it.) It should have been there since April but, well, it's there now. We applied to the Lonely Planet Blog Sherpa Programme in April and were really pleased to be accepted. Occasionally, we submit a post that we feel would be useful to people who are looking for information about Fethiye and other places in Turkey. Through Blog Sherpa, our post about Kayaköy was selected as a 'favourite' and featured on the front page of the BBC World website. Not bad!


• To top our first blogging year off nicely, we were voted into the daily Top 9 by other Foodbuzz users for my attempt at a Turkish dish; spicy cheese and spinach börek.

And for this year and years to come?

• Well hopefully, we will be able to keep posting and Turkey's For Life will keep improving and growing...inşallah!

Fethiye Festive Season - Photo Story

A Turkish family enjoying a Sunday barbecue in the mountains around Nif

I love this photo and as we've just woken up to the second day of Advent and the UK and much of northern Europe is covered in snow, I've taken the opportunity to use it. I'm hoping it will help us to feel more wintery and festive in a still very mild Fethiye.



I took the photo when we were part of the Fethiye mass exodus to Nif one day, two years ago. Pleasant, sunny days are not the only barbecue days in this part of Turkey. Any day is a barbecue day; especially if that day is a Sunday. The weather is completely irrelevant. The day we went to Nif (one of my best days out ever!), people built snowmen, sledged down mountainsides, threw snowballs, got very cold, very wet and then ate köfte and drank tea, grilled and heated by their roadside barbecue. 



We have to keep reminding ourselves that it's December. We should be getting organised for the festive season. Christmas cards need to be posted to friends and family. We ought to be deciding what we're doing for Christmas Day. What are we cooking? Who do we need to buy presents for? Hopefully, this snowy photo will work its magic and get the ball rolling...

Turkish Treats

And it's another new addition to our growing blog. If you cast your eyes towards the far right tab underneath the Turkey's for Life title banner, you'll see there's a new tab called 'Turkey Books, Turkish Music & Film'. When you click on this tab, you'll see a Turkey's For Life Amazon store where you can buy loads of Turkey related goodies.

Turkey's Lycian coastline

We've been thinking about this for a long time - and putting it together for quite a long time - and we hope it complements all that we write about in our posts about Fethiye and Turkey. We've scanned and scoured the pages of Amazon for Turkish books, Turkish films and Turkish music that we like - and we'll be making more additions to the 'store' as and when new items become available.



Clicking on any of the individual Turkish books, CDs or films will give you loads more details and, in many cases, customer reviews. Hope you like it. Let us know what you think! 



If you can think of anything which Amazon offer that we've missed from our Turkish store then let us know and we'll add it in there.  

Exploring Fethiye - Koca Çalış

If you're familiar with the Fethiye region, you'll no doubt have heard of Fethiye, Çalış Beach, Ovacık, Hisarönü and Ölü Deniz. However, there is one area that we have (until now) neglected to mention. That's because, for some reason or other, we haven't walked down to that area in a long time.



After yesterday's cloudy downpours, the air was crisp and fresh today. The mountain scenery was clearly visible, fresh snow had settled on the higher mountain tops overnight and the sun was shining. Perfect weather for a gentle stroll through Çalış, along the beach and into the area known as Koca Çalış. 

 Looking over to Çalış and Fethiye from Birlik in Koca Çalış

In (quite recent) days gone by, Koca Çalış was a wild area of beach, marsh and reeds and was reached from Çalış Beach via a pebble road (beach extension) and sandy track. Some days, it would be impassable because rain would create a lake. There was a small housing complex and a wooden shack on the beach that passed as a bar/restaurant. It was called Birlik. We would go down to there in the winter months with friends and feel like we were sitting in a secret, hidden place, watching over the rest of civilisation. (You can see Çalış Beach and Fethiye from Koca Çalış.)

Mendos glows red as the sun sets over Koca Çalış

The Fethiye region is a fast-growing area and there are now lots more villas in Koca Çalış. You can also reach it from Çalış Beach via a tarmacked road no less and there are a couple more restaurants. Birlik has 'progressed' from a wooden shack to a concrete structure but what a great place to sit and ponder life.

A winter Koca Çalış sunset

The sunset from Koca Çalış is just as beautiful as the famous Çalış Beach sunset and today, as you can see, the sea was peaceful and calm - just the occasional crash of the odd wave.

Reeds grow along the roadside in Koca Çalış

It was an afternoon stroll that we embarked upon but the sun is setting earlier and earlier and the light was fading as we headed back towards home.

Deserted winter Koca Çalış

And, as you can see from the photos, despite the growth of the area that is Koca Çalış, it is still possible to have that feeling of being in a secret area, where no one else goes, overlooking the rest of civilisation.

Çintar Mushroom Risotto Recipe

It's that time of year again; the days are shorter and cooler, there's a dampness to the cold night air...and the beautiful çintar mushrooms sprout beneath the pine trees of Fethiye. As you are no doubt aware by now, we enjoy our Turkish seasonal produce and the çintar mushroom season is one we particularly look forward to. Perhaps it's because the season is really short so we feel the need to dive straight in there and snap up as many as we can. Or, maybe it's just simply because this mushroom is downright delicious!

Çintar mushrooms on Çalış Market last December

I mentioned in last year's çintar mushroom post that they were really tasty, eaten with scrambled egg. They are! This year however, we're trying to add a bit of variation to our mushroom diet. After I did the spinach and cheese börek recipe last week, we still had some spinach left over so Barry decided to produce Çintar Mushroom and Spinach Risotto. Risotto is perfect this time of year; oozy and comforting and these seasonal mushrooms fitted the dish perfectly.

The traditional rice for making risotto is arborio rice. You can buy it from supermarkets in Fethiye but it's expensive compared to local rice and to be honest, Turkish rice is just as starchy. We always use Turkish rice and the results are perfectly acceptable.

   Mmm - meaty but meat-free risotto

Many people are put off making risotto because you have to stand over it and tend to it constantly. But, it's not difficult and it's worth a little attention just for the final results. We love risotto! This recipe makes two decent-sized portions.

• First of all, in a pan, bring around 1.5 litres of stock (chicken or veg) to the boil and leave to simmer.


• In a separate pan, melt a knob of butter, add a chopped onion and fry gently for a couple of minutes.


• Next, throw in some chopped chillies (optional), a clove of garlic and fry for a few minutes.


• Once the onion has softened, add one mug of Arborio or Turkish rice and stir to coat all the grains. Add some salt at this point.


• Throw in a few handfuls of roughly chopped (not too small because you want to keep the flavour and feel the texture of the mushroom) çintar mushroom and stir. Obviously, you can use other types of mushroom if you can't get çintar mushrooms!


• Stir the mixture for a couple of minutes. At this point, it's traditional to add a splash of vermouth to your risotto but we stick to the stock otherwise, in Turkey, your risotto will suddenly rocket in price. 


• Get a ladle full of stock from your simmering pan and add it to the rice and mushroom. Stir gently with a wooden spoon until the stock evaporates.


• Take another ladle full and repeat the process. Keep adding a ladle full of the stock and stirring till it evaporates until your rice is al dente. 


• Keep testing it as you don't want to end up with a plate of mush. A risotto should have the rice grains intact and the starch should have created an oozy sauce.

Delicious, oozy çintar mushroom & spinach risotto

• Once you're happy the rice is cooked, remove from the heat, add a small knob of butter and some Parmesan cheese and stir.


• Add a couple of handfuls of chopped spinach, cover the pan and leave it to stand for five minutes.


• Mix in the spinach and serve. (If you're being very naughty, a drizzle of olive oil over the top does taste really nice - but I don't put it on. Cheese and butter is more than enough guilt for me.)