Since last 3 weeks I've been trying out making salads with different kind of veggies. The motivation is to consume season raw vegetables and fruits; and trying to get the most out of them in terms of nutrition.

Today I am going to give u a salad recipe that I invented up. Some of u may know "Cucina Bianca', it is basically art of preparing good food out of simple ingredients. I was inspired about that fact for todays recipe.

I bought cauliflowers last time when  I visited the Sunday market. When the market man was preparing to cut its leaves and roots and I told it him that I was buying it especially for its thick stems; and he admitted that he  also like that part :)

So the main item of the salad is cauliflowers stems.

- stems of a cauliflower
- a white onion
- a red onion
- an avocado
- olive oil
- "nar ekşisi" a sour sauce made from pomegranate
- fresh lemon juice
- sumac
- salt
- ginger powder

Preparation: Peel out the cauliflower leaves from its stems and wash them carefully Cut the stems and onions in small cubes and mix them with a tea spoon of salt and ginger powder. Add adequate amount of olive oil and lemon juice, I leave that part to ur preference. Add a table spoon of sumac and "nar ekşisi" and again mix them all. Finally add the avocado cut in larger cubes with a final gentle mix. You are done ;)

You can enjoy the salad with fish dishes accompanied with white wine or Syrah

Try wine with pomegranate...

Just writing a very short text about my last night experience. I opened my favorite bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon Frontera 2010 (Chili wine) which is great wine with very reasonable price. I wanted to taste it with a very different combination this time with fruits. I was wondering if any fruit could add extra flavor to my experience. Thinking so; I chose  pomegranate...

It really add more flavor to my tongue, besides prunes flavor from the wine pomegranate added absolutely an amazing booster effect. Next time I will try the same combination, but this time by adding some smoked cheese beside them...

MONTES Cabernet de Sauvignon Colchauga Valley

Re-united with my university colleagues and their wives, friends at Big-Chef Beyoğlu last week. Back in the university we formed a group of 4 people , Fırat, Emrah, Ibrahim and me. We have been meeting since than except Ibrahim. Ibrahim we will keep calling you and i hope we will achieve having you with us one day :)

Well before leaving the office for heading the restaurant i had a look at the list of the wines and found the MONTES Cabernet de Sauvignon Colchauga Valley to be worth trying for. Looking at the menu in the restaurant i was not surprised seeing the price of it being more reasonable than the others. Chili wines tend to be cheaper in Türkiye. Well maybe because there is some kind of import agreement with Chili which effects its market price?

I would not recommend you the place. The service was not good, the dishes were ok so so.... Not quite what you would expect from that kind of restaurant. Because of these bad impressions about the food and place our wine experience was also
distracted.

The ambience lighting was dark for me to judge the color of the wine; it was like dark pink. The smell of the wine was fruitful, with a very stable and bitter taste on the rear ends and right tip of my tongue. I ordered Kuzu Dibi which was served on a pizza plate! with "Beğendi" puree of barbecued eggplant and with vegetables as garnish. I found the dish cold, Fırat also found his pasta served cold. Tendu my wife and others who ordered fajita were naturally happy with theirs.

We went for another bottle of wine afterwards. Than we were talking about having second children which was opposed by us and defended by others. In the mean time I was drinking the wine alone without any food, my tongue was so bruised that on the background I started to think what kind of similarities did Bogazkere had with Cabernet Sauvignon. Though I dont suggest this wine drinking alone.

Chianti with Pizza at Big Chef Bakırköy A Plus

18 March 2012 we took Okan our team mate out for lunch to celebrate his birthday. Well initially we were planning to take Okan to a Mexican Restaurant in Yeşilköy. One of the restaurants which Mehmet Yaşin in one of his TV program visited and which I felt like it was worth trying. When I called the restaurant for lunch and trying to make a reservation , and saw some pictures of the restaurant I felt like the place was more like a boutique restaurant for a romantic dinner. Than the Big Chef in Ataköy Plus Mall was decided finally.

It was a lunch with 11 of us including Ahmet Kara our super secret new hire :) After a quick discussion on what to drink we were divided into two groups one drinking a Turkish wine and others going for a more special selection. I remember myself looking in the menu for a long time to decide what to eat in between those discussions. Well the dishes all looked pretty, until I saw the waitress serving the next table nice thin dough pizza, than came my decision for a pepperoni pizza with an inevitable DOCG Chianti selection.

The wine is Melini Chianti Pian Del Masso %85 sangiovese grosso with %15 complementary varieties and it is mentioned that Merlot in particular is basing the complementary ones. The official presentation wine is as follows:

Chianti Pian del Masso owes its name to an imposing rock on one of the Melini farms. A “creamy” and “round” wine thanks to a larger proportion of Bordeaux grape varieties, especially Merlot, and thanks also to a particular and unique vinification, which provides for a partial use of the practice of the “governo all’uso toscano”: a slow and steady fermentation of part of the grapes from which is obtained a “rich” product, a percentage of which is then added to the finished wine.

The color of the wine accoring to me was bright dark pink. The odour definitely has cherry traces, still not good at selecting other florish ones though. The taste is light at the beginning and remains afterwards which made me like this wine. The tongue feeling was on the tip and edges. It is a young wine from year 2010 even it could be kept more I was not annoyed with the current experience. And finally, the pizza pepporoni really goes very well with any Chianti again as ussual...

Marques de Caceres 2009 Crianza

Marques de Caceres 2009 Crianza bought this wine for father, well you now what...? When ever we go to my father&mother for dinner there is always good food so their home is a really good place to bring the wines. We reunite all/partially the family like twice a month. So there is no other better place to keep those wines than their home.

So my adventure for tasting wine with good food restarted that night. I dive into the kitchen to see what was on the menu . Aysel (my mother) is a very special woman, she gives so much love to her grandchildren including our naughty boy Poyraz. According to her cooking is like an art which she really pays a lot of attention, and that's why sometimes we starve while waiting for her delicious foods.

My father went for a French Cabernet, well I stopped him and dive into the kitchen to see what was there for dinner. There was dolma (stuffed minced meat in different kinds of vegetables like special kind of pepper, dried tomato, marrow etc..) . And special spicy rice cooked ala Turkish style. In dolma there is also some rice, which made me think it was a good night to open a bottle of Marques de Caceres 2009 Crianza %85 Tempranillo and %15 Garnacha Tinto & Graciano.

You could hardly see that onion skin color on the beautiful rioja which made me think that it was opened a little bit early? But man the smell was fruitful, well I could definetly smell cherry. It has been a little while since I tasted the wine and could not actually remember the tongue feelings but what I remember it is that it was a really good combination with mainly rice based food. According to me this wine should have been opened 1-2 years later. But the general feeling was good...

As an amateur wine taster since 2002, I quit drinking on 2005. It took 7 years for me to decide start drinking again. My friends always asked me why I quit drinking alcohol, I usually answered them "I was too drunk to remember the reason". People who know me well, dont ask such questions as I may have always changed the pace in my life at some point....

Well I kept tasting smelling and spitting wine :) since then. Lets say I quit spitting now :) Coming soon with a Melini Chianti DOCG, A French APC and a Turkish wine tasted with different kinds of food...