MissAdventures

Three Best Travel Secrets

I’ve been tagged by Robin Locker at My Mélange to provide my three best travel secrets. She actually tagged me on my Italofile.com site. But I had so many good secrets beyond Italy that I wanted to share my top three non-Italy secrets here. To see the Italy list, head over to Italofile. Have a [...]

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Planting Season at MissAdventures

Dear friends, I must apologize for the long delay in writing. But, I have been up to big things. First of all, I have been concentrating on my writing and my other blog Italofile.com. I am using Italofile as a way to explore the Italy travel landscape beyond the pages of my books The Unofficial Guide [...]

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Perfect Summer Salad

My staple during this hot Turkish summer has been kisir, what some call Turkish Tabbouleh. It’s not really a salad, but it makes the perfect cold side for stuffed peppers or karniyarik (another Turkish dish I’m making a lot lately). I learned this recipe from my maid, but you can also find a perfectly good version [...]

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Three Great Books

There are a ton of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about Turkey and the Middle East. While most of them are useful in learning about the region’s history and culture, few hold my interest for more than a couple pages. That’s not the case for the following three books, which I am reading or have [...]

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Beypazarı and the Food of Anatolia

Last weekend we went to Beypazarı, a small village an hour and a half by bus from Ankara. Located on the old “Istanbul to Baghdad route,” Beypazarı has been inhabitated by various tribes and peoples, including the Seljuks, who left behind a 12C mosque, and the Ottomans, whose “konak” houses dot the town’s hillside. Beypazarı [...]

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Welcome to Turkey

We arrived in Turkey at a very interesting time. The Battle for Turkey’s Soul is afoot, pitting the “sons and daughters” of Atatürk (as well as the Turkish military) versus the “headscarf republic,” or Islamists. Hundreds of thousands of Turkish secularists have marched in Istanbul and Ankara at the slightest hint that the prime minister [...]

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