AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Joy of June AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Joy of June

Half of the year is almost over. Fifteenth day of the sixth month! For some it felt like ages, for some it flew away in the blink of an eye. Corona times had a dual effect on many; it felt strangely both. The world got slower, but time went fast. For some of us, like myself, time was never enough. Forever meeting and missing deadlines, I found myself in a writing marathon. Some, on the other hand, could not figure out what to do with time, like my daughter running into depression when furloughed by the law firm she was working for, a deep contrast to be in complete uselessness after having worked day and night for months. But one thing is certain: Our perception of time has changed. We realized that before corona we were living our lives as if running amok.

June 14 2020
Lick without guilt AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Lick without guilt!

Summer has come and with the heat waves ahead we’ll all scream for ice cream. One thing almost obligatory of an evening passeggiata is to have a cone of ice cream. No summer evening is well spent without idly licking the chilling treat. Ice cream is the guilty pleasure of summer nights. Guilt? But how guilty a scoop of ice cream can be? Well, we’ll see why.

June 07 2020
Disruption and resumption AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Disruption and resumption

For six years, end of May has been Dublin time for me. One year I’m actually there, the other, I miss being there. This year, I was supposed to be in Dublin, but because of obvious reasons I’m here in Istanbul, in lockdown. The reason for my biannual pilgrimage to Ireland is because of Dublin Gastronomy Symposium, organized by the School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology within the Dublin Institute of Technology. To admit, the symposium was an excuse to visit Ireland to start with, I attended the first year, because I wanted to see Dublin and a bit of the country, as I have never been there before. Being there for once, made me hooked forever.

May 31 2020
DIY fine dining AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

DIY fine dining

Every country is announcing their plans on going back to normal, or as it is usually called, to the new normal. Whatever that means often remain obscure. Normally, the summer season was supposed to begin. Countries, regions and cities that are much dependent economically on tourism are desperate to start again. Will that happen, or is it wishful thinking?

May 17 2020
A helping hand AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

A helping hand

We are going through tough times, every sector is affected from the pandemic, but as always, some suffer more. It is almost sure by now that it will take time to get back to normal, and at this point there are already arguments discussing what should be the norm of the “normal.” Our world is disrupted abruptly, and the near future does not seem to be going back to what it was a few months ago.

May 10 2020
Spring spacing AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Spring spacing

Vibrant festivities of dance, music, food and beverages, verdant landscape, ice cold streams still bearing the chill of melting snow, children playing, men wrestling, women clustering to giggly gossip… This would have been the scene in May 5-6 for Hıdrellez celebrations in countryside in a wide region stretching from Central Asia to Eastern Europe. Spring celebrations are all about conviviality, bringing people out to nature, getting them together after a long closure indoors during the winter months. Totally in contrast with the lockdown and social spacing corona-struck isolation days.

May 03 2020
Skeleton in the cupboard AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Skeleton in the cupboard

No joke! We food people all do have skeletons in our cupboards. Not one, but several indeed. The stark and naked truth came out from a thread of Facebook confessions, all revealed as if shriving for the last time for the mercy of God for all our sins before the apocalypse. It was a question by a food writer friend from Iceland asking about what strange things we found when sorting our pantry in these lockdown days.

April 26 2020
Spargelzeit AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Spargelzeit!

The news sounded almost surreal. When borders were closed and inter-country travels were stopped, it was about 12 airplanes packed with passengers taking off for Germany. The scene at the airport was of a packed crowd, far from social distancing.

April 19 2020
Panem et circenses AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Panem et circenses

Bread and circuses is a useful phrase to keep in mind that can easily be used for any populist policies round the globe, if not here. The coronavirus spread proved that many countries, including the richest and most powerful ones, do need to get better governance, especially in reinforcing their healthcare systems. The virus also showed that it is capable of making people go out of their minds within minutes and turn them into circus performers in the maddest circus ever.

April 12 2020