To breath or not to breath

For a dearest friend, who knocked on my door, after all those years, to remind how important breathing is!

Olive oil

This oliveoil photo was taken in Sirince which is a small, beautiful town 9 km from Selçuk. Selçuk is the home town for Ephesus, if you've visited or have heard. It was one of the first days of 2007 and this was a virgin olive oil just pressed (cold) at an old, traditional (more or less) factory. You can imagine how great it was to have it for breakfast. What else was there for breakfast? The usual stuff. Black and green olives, cheeses (in Selçuk, you can get great local cheeses from local cheesemakers), dried tomato sauce with capers (this isn't the usual breakfast item!), freshly baked -again- local bread and of course tea. What you do is to get a piece of bread, dip it in the golden olive oil and just eat it. That's it. The simple pleasure of life yet a unique experience!

Photos from an olive harvest

Last week, I was at an olive harvest festival. I shouldn't call it a festival may be. It was more of a press tour which is organized by Verde Olive Oil Company for their 10th anniversary. There were journalists, food writers, tv producers... We were in Izmir, the weather was perfect, olive trees were dramatic (as always!) and the food was delicious. Yes we definitely fell in love with the 'just pressed' olive oil. The juice of olive, the 'immortal' tree of the Mediterranean. And the farmer's market walk at the end of the tour was a good way of finishing a 'hard to forget' trip. We were at the Urla Farmer's Market, tangerines had this amazing flavor and all the wild greens were waiting to be purchased and all the wild mushrooms wanted to be cooked... Here are the photos from the trip.