Fındık Baklava, Nothing Short of Heaven
Yesterday after leaving the school, I took advantage of the longer daylight to go around Mecidiyeköy and visited the bakery that supplies Funky Cafe with breakfast rolls. The whole business is family run, a collection of brothers, sisters, and cousins who seem to be split between Istanbul and New York City. We sat sipping tea from istikans watching the crowds move along the sidewalk outside.
The shop is much more than a simple bread bakery, they don't actually bake loaves of bread but have trays of small rolls with cheese, olives, and other delights in them. And in the display cases I saw all kinds of baklava and chocolates that had been shaped in moulds and decorated. I was given a piece of hazelnut baklava and wow. I really love the sweets here, they aren't just lumps of high fructose corn syrup and coco but gooey experiences wrapped in flaky pastry. But back to the shop.
This place was really amazing, it's next to the Türk Telekom building (which is how I found it in the first place, going to pay a bill) in a nice part of the district, wide streets and people with friendly faces going about the day. I bought a few things from a street vendor near the bakery and entered the shop. It was very beautiful in a classic and simple way, dark wood ceiling beams and canary walls with a tile pattern reminiscent of Ottoman designs. I chatted with one of the women who runs the shop, she had spent a year in high school as a foreign exchange student in America. We talked a lot about Istanbul and Turkey, she lives on the Anatolia side (it's not called the Asian side by Turks) in a district full of trees. I can see it across the Bosporus when I am at the top of the hill. It looks as though a whole forest has invaded the city, spilling over a rise and running down nearly to the water.
During my walk this morning a light, cool rain began to fall. It's a different kind of rain than what we had experianced up until
A few times today the power has gone out, but it's so momentary nothing besides the wireless router is disrupted in an annoying way. The students use it as an excuse to whoop and yell in the dark.
The shop is much more than a simple bread bakery, they don't actually bake loaves of bread but have trays of small rolls with cheese, olives, and other delights in them. And in the display cases I saw all kinds of baklava and chocolates that had been shaped in moulds and decorated. I was given a piece of hazelnut baklava and wow. I really love the sweets here, they aren't just lumps of high fructose corn syrup and coco but gooey experiences wrapped in flaky pastry. But back to the shop.
This place was really amazing, it's next to the Türk Telekom building (which is how I found it in the first place, going to pay a bill) in a nice part of the district, wide streets and people with friendly faces going about the day. I bought a few things from a street vendor near the bakery and entered the shop. It was very beautiful in a classic and simple way, dark wood ceiling beams and canary walls with a tile pattern reminiscent of Ottoman designs. I chatted with one of the women who runs the shop, she had spent a year in high school as a foreign exchange student in America. We talked a lot about Istanbul and Turkey, she lives on the Anatolia side (it's not called the Asian side by Turks) in a district full of trees. I can see it across the Bosporus when I am at the top of the hill. It looks as though a whole forest has invaded the city, spilling over a rise and running down nearly to the water.
During my walk this morning a light, cool rain began to fall. It's a different kind of rain than what we had experianced up until
A few times today the power has gone out, but it's so momentary nothing besides the wireless router is disrupted in an annoying way. The students use it as an excuse to whoop and yell in the dark.
posted by Alex Gray at 13:30
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