Private Seasonal Turkish Home Cooked Meal with a Local

This is a unique opportunity to visit the home of a local and explore traditional culture and cuisine. Your experience begins by meeting your host Çiğdem at her home. Çiğdem prepares seasonal dishes using the freshest produce from her local market. Join her at her table for a typical home-style meal which focuses on soups, vegetables and rice dishes in which meat is an accent, not the focus of the meal. Depending on the season, your meal might begin with a hot or cold soup, perhaps mercimek çorbası (red lentil soup) in winter or cacık (chilled cucumber and yogurt soup) in summer. She loves to prepare dolma (stuffed vegetables) like eggplant, peppers or zucchini which are filled with a savory mixture of rice and mincemeat and is an expert at preparing fresh, vibrant zeytinyağlılar (seasonal vegetable cooked in olive oil and dressed with herbs) which is typically served at room temperature. Like most Turkish homes, no meal at Çiğdem's home is complete without a salad and fresh bread.