Spring Planting

Spring has finally arrived and so we have brightened our apartment up with Spring flowers!  Every time I look at them I sigh - they are so pretty!  :)

And Yashar is so excited about them - he's continually telling me excitedly 'Look!  Mum! Our plants are growing!!'

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sage Tea = Delicious!

While in Antalya I stumbled across another way to use all that sage that's growing in my fruit crate herb garden (finally...after my confession that the only reason I had grown it was for that delicious sage butter sauce!)

This was simple and delicious - a turkish tea glass filled with hot water and a couple of dried sprigs of sage in the top.  It was best when the sage wasn't left in too long - otherwise the flavour became quite strong.  I had mine with a little sugar - yummy!

Friday Dreaming: An Outdoor Space

This week I'm dreaming of a beautifully landscaped garden, a paved terrace, long lunches under a shady tree, an evening barbeque with some good friends and some good wine!  I'm dreaming of Yashar being able to play on soft grass in the backyard, of a productive garden, maybe an outdoor fire for Autumn evenings...

I recently came across Sage Outdoor Designs and wished I lived in the US so that I could get Kate, the principal landscape designer there, to come and design something beautiful for me!  Her designs are interesting and personal and I really like the way she combines the modern and more rustic pieces...and of course the Turkish/Moroccan influences had me hooked!

Kate also writes a useful waterwise gardening blog called Kate Presents.   In Australia, where I am from, this is such an important topic! Unfortunately not so much here in Istanbul.  We have been on 'stage 3a' water restrictions in Melbourne for quite a few years now -which means that gardens can only be watered on certain days at certain times -with the next stage meaning that water could not be used outdoors at all.  This means that many people have been designing and planting gardens that are waterwise - a great idea whether you have water restrictions or not I think!  I will definitely be referring back to Kate's blog in the future!

Now I just have to move to San Diego and find myself a nice space for a garden!

PS.  Friday dreaming is a little early, and Making Mondays may be a little late because we are off on a short beach break!!! Woohoo!  Have a great weekend!

Pine nuts and sage leaves

Well, it feels like I am just beginning to get caught up on everything and Yashar is on the mend. Phew! We have been spending lots of time together just relaxing, playing and giving him lots of attention. We spent time in the garden yesterday together and you know you have great neighbours when they hand these over the fence!
Pine nuts! Collected from under their tree. They were delicious and they kept Yashar entertained for quite a while...he was actually pretty good at smashing them open with a stone!

And that reminded me of these photos...from the first 'harvest' we had from our mini herb garden in a fruit crate, that I have been meaning to post for ages!

I love gnocchi with sage butter sauce! All I do is prepare the gnocchi and then fry the sage leaves in some butter until they are crispy. Then I pour a little over the gnocchi and sprinkle it with cracked pepper and sea salt.

I usually do a very small serve as an entree (not that I usually serve entrees!) because too much of this good thing is really too much! And I make sure we are having a fairly light dinner afterwards - those gnocchi are filling!

This dish is basically the whole reason I grow sage. But you know, I'm thinking I should branch out a little ;) Do you know any yummy recipes that use sage? I would love to try them!

Tulip time at Emirgan Park

It is tulip festival time here in Istanbul. Although tulips are mostly associated with the Netherlands, they are actually indigenous to Turkey and central Asia. And so tulip season here is celebrated, especially at Emirgan Park.

It is so gorgeous there! If you ever have the chance to visit Istanbul at this time of year don't miss it. We always take our guests there and when we took my mother in law there she cried!



The park and the three restaurants within it (I have posted about one of them -Sarı Köşk- and some of its history before) are all run by the council and they have spent a lot of money recently improving the park, building new playgrounds and preparing for the tulip festival.



The amount of tulips alone is amazing. What a gorgeous way to spend a morning!

Making Mondays: Terrarium

I really enjoyed making this! It's a terrarium - I found the instructions over at SmoothPebble (via Maya*Made).

I bought a jar at the pazar (local market) with what would have to be the most ugly lid known to man, so I quickly covered it up with some linen. Then I used a little Eiffel Tower my sister brought me back from Paris and I cut some clouds out of an old milk container. I thought this would last better than paper because there is so much moisture in the terrarium.


Of course Yashar had lots of fun doing a bit of digging for this project. And then carefully putting the dirt into the jar for about 30 seconds before deciding to tip the rest of the dirt over his head!


I snapped a photo of him just before the 'incident'. I think this is his concentrating face!



I put it all together very late one night - which was lucky because if I wasn't so tired I could have spent hours on it. I am slowly coming to the realisation that I adore all things miniature - especially those totally overpriced miniature designer chairs you can buy in art gallery shops. I had thoughts of little flying birds and city skylines made out of wire...next time?

Photos from the hood

I realised that I hadn't posted many photos of our neighbourhood, so here are a few before the Autumn leaves totally disappear.

The leaves on this very old wooden house are amazing - such a vibrant pink.

The house is very dilapidated and boarded up, with a Doberman and a Rottweiler guarding it - which keeps us from taking a closer look at some of the beautiful details we have spied :( I heard on the grapevine that someone on a neighbouring property has bought it and the next old house along and will probably pull them down at some stage. Until then we get to enjoy a peek as we pass by (and a fright when the dogs appear with a snarl!)

Yashar update

Yashar loved the water, having swims every day in Edremit. A little water baby! And we've now discovered that he loves to push his stroller along - very funny!

I have also included a few more shots from Edremit. There were lots of different fruit trees, vines and lots of crickets! It would be so fantastic to have a garden that produces all sorts of delicious things (instead of the bare balcony we have at the moment). At the place we rented there were grape vines covering the terraces, pomegranate trees (that's a pomegranate tree behind the pink gate), nectarines... so good to stand barefoot on the grass on a warm summer morning, pick a nectarine and eat it on the spot.








We discovered this little friend one morning on Yashar's little floaty thing. I think it looks like a little alien, don't you?

One idea I stumbled on while we were away that I loved were the rosemary hedges lining so many of the holiday houses. In the evening, while I was pushing Yashar around in the stroller trying to get him to sleep (yes still having trouble with that!) I would skim my hand along the top of the hedge . It smelt delicious and reminded me of roast lamb. Mmmmm....

Rosemary is pretty tough and usually doesn't need too much water so perfect for Australian summers and my gardening style! I don't know how they kept them looking so green and bushy though. And I wonder how long they take to grow.

Ok, so obviously I'm just an armchair gardener at the moment. I've already managed to kill my only pot plant here. But I have high expectations and aspirations. Rosemary hedges are definitely going on the list for my dream home/garden, along with chickens, a day bed and fruit trees. I want a garden that would be the perfect setting for these little cuties. Is it wrong to love babyGap?

The bird house

Imagine getting this design brief:
Design me a house for resting and guests, two floors, located in gorgeous garden surrounds, overlooking the Bosporus - oh - and make it look like a bird house.

Sarı Köşk was designed in the 1870's by the Ottoman architect Serkiş Balyan with this concept in mind after receiving this 'interesting' request from the owner at the time, General Khedive Ismail.

Painted yellow for the same reason, Sarı Köşk is now open to the public and has a huge buffet style breakfast, including delicious Turkish pastries and amazing looking sheets of honeycomb, with the honey dripping off ready for your toast! It is owned by the Istanbul council which has a policy of making Istanbul's parks and historical buildings open to the public at reasonable prices. Excellent.

Sarı Köşk is in Emirgan Park, a huge park with forest areas, water fountains, playgrounds and masses and masses of flowers.


We had a gorgeous morning there with my sister and her family, filling up on pastries and cherry juice and then walking it off through the cool forest and parkland. I love going to huge parks like this when the weather is hot. All those shady trees, lush grass and the fountains really do make it so much cooler. Sure, you could go to an air-conditioned shopping mall to get out of the heat, but this is so much more fun and leaves you feeling all good inside!