Hi, my name is Lulu and I lived in Australia until I was 19. I then took off on a variety of adventures and have spent my adult life in the Northern Hemisphere. I have a passion for culture and international cuisine. As I spent 18 years in Turkey, it is the cuisine that I have learnt to appreciate enormously, with its wide use of seasonal ingredients.
I now live in Denmark which means that I am learning to use different products in the kitchen. Some which I have never had access to before. This includes Ramsløg (wild garlic) which grows abundantly here in the Spring, and a huge variety of amazing berries that we can freely pick in parks and forests. Of course there are many others and I hope to replicate the dishes here.
For the moment I am studying the Danish language, and have had to put the blog on hold whilst I undertake this task. In order to become fully integrated, the government require all immigrants to learn Danish, so that we can become fully immersed members of the community. It has been a really interesting experience and I wish that Australia would consider such a step, rather than having so many small communities around the big cities, where many of the older immigrants are still unable to communicate in English.
Lulu Witt in Turkey
My story in Turkey goes back to 1984 when I first moved here and fell in love with the country, the food and the people. I spent in total 18 fantastic years in Turkey and was continually learning little things about the culture and about the food right up to the time that I left. There was so much tradition and interesting beliefs involved in the preparation of their ingredients and meals.
I lived the village life in Turkey with my Danish husband Henrik. We lived in Yaniklar, 17km out of Fethiye. Our house was perched on a hill. We were the second of 4 houses in a hamlet called Aydinlik Mahallesi. Our hill was edged with forest on either side and the beach was less than a kilometre away, at the end of the road. A seven-minute walk away.
The Eastern view from our hill-perch
We were quite remote here with the only normal sounds being those of cows mooing, goats’ bells ringing, the mosque calling to prayer and the occasional dog letting us know someone was passing.
Once a fortnight a market farmer truck sang out his wares down the bottom of the hill. Sometimes we had a sweets and baklava seller shouting through his megaphone about his tulumba but I never made it down the hill in time.
Our neighbours lived off the land, rarely leaving the little enclave and nearly everyone in the vicinity was related. On our hill of 4, two houses shared an old jalopy, a 1983 navy blue Renault to be exact, which I think was once a police car and it seemed to me that they spent more time under the car than in it!
Chickens ran through everybody’s garden but never laid any eggs in ours!… and every household had a dog and not one of them was tied up. That was something quite remarkable and we loved the fact that all the dogs popped in an out of everybody’s place checking up on who was doing what.
We walked our dog morning and night and invariably had at least 2 other dogs and up to 7 who joined us for part, if not all of the trek.
On a sunny morning, our preference was to walk down towards the beach then take the dirt track through the nature reserve.
There was a large freshwater lake that just missed out on reaching the sea and many birds called this home. There was also a family of geese that tried to keep us at bay and provided some entertaining moments with the dogs.
Most mornings on our way back up the hill we passed the lovely family with their pregnant cow and a one-year-old calf. For some reason, the calf had a crush on me and would turn and follow me if I was going the opposite direction. I don’t really want to think what that was about but it was very sweet.
When we needed to buy milk, I can buy it from a neighbour on either side of our house. Two litres of steaming hot milk straight from the cow each day and through such ease of access, that I played with making all kinds of labne and cheeses and this is where I will add my first, very simple recipe.
Labne is so incredibly easy to make and if you want to be rewarded with something made exactly to your taste, then this is a good place to start.
Here is a truly easy, tasty recipe with which to begin. Labne with Herbs.
Thank you for joining me and I really look forward to hearing from many of you over time.
Lulu Witt