Welcome back to Meze!
A (re-)introduction to myself and this newsletter.
In this newsletter:
My journey from rural Norway to Istanbul, via London
A kitchen in Istanbul and the Meze newsletter
What’s coming
Hey there,
Hope you’ve had a great summer! Or winter, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere.
It’s been a minute since you heard from me. While I took a break from my newsletter, there was no time for holidays. I diverted all my attention to my latest book. There’s still more work to be done on that, I’m planning to once again become a regular again in your inbox.
A lot of you are new here – and half of you signed up within the last year. I therefore thought it was a good idea to introduce my self and what the Meze newsletter is all about.
Regulars will be aware that this newsletter is mostly free, but has an optional paid add-on:
Free subscribers receive 3–4 newsletters a month, one of which is a brand new recipe. The others will be stories, recipe roundups etc.
Paying subscribers receive an additional 3 brand new recipes per month, for a total of 4 new recipes per month.
What you receive may change over time, but this is the current format.
As a token of my appreciation for bearing with me over the summer, I’m currently offering 20% off the first year of paid subscriptions:
My journey from rural Norway to Istanbul
I wasn’t always a food writer, but I’ve always been interested in food.
My mother got me started early, insisting there should be no difference between the son and the daughter when it comes to household duties. It planted the seed of what was to become a dear interest.
I never intended for food to be more than just a hobby, though. I studied business, moved to London and pursued a career in finance. On the way, I picked up another degree in Global Politics.
My free time was increasingly spent eating or cooking, preferably while attempting to solve the world’s problems with good friends. This was an exciting time to be in London. Ottolenghi was having a break-through, changing the London food scene with Middle Eastern inspired joints front and centre. My Turkish partner and his friends introduced me to not just their incredible cuisine, but also the culture and history that comes with it.
Though I couldn’t have found a better job in finance than the one I had, by the mid 2010s, I was ready to see if life had more to offer than meetings and spreadsheets. My partner was of the same mind. And so it was that we decided to start from anew in Istanbul.
We’d bought an old house in Balat, a historical but run down and somewhat neglected neighbourhood on the outskirts of Istanbul’s old town. After a year of renovations, we moved in in the fall of 2015.
The lower cost of living allowed me time to find my feet and figure out the next steps, but I knew it was going to involve food in some way. My first idea didn’t work out, but an unexpected development opened up a new path.
Alongside learning the language, I’d started a food blog in Norwegian. No one in my home country was writing about the food I loved and ate every day. When it did make a rare appearance, the dishes were so Westernified as to be almost unrecognisable, and entirely stripped of their cultural and historical context.
My food blog was different. The background and history were as important as the recipes. It didn’t have a lot of visitors, but – as it turned out – the people that mattered found me. Within a year, I’d started working on what would become the first of many cookbooks.
Hummus & granateple (“Hummus & Pomegranate”) was published to absolutely no fanfare in early 2018. It did briefly enter the lower ends of the bestseller list, thanks to a week of generally very low sales and my own efforts to get my small following to pre-order the book.
It wasn’t long before it was clear we’d hit a nerve. My story from finance in London to food writing from an old house in Istanbul piqued the interest of media, but even before my face was “everywhere”, the book was already selling steadily through word-of-mouth. Six and a half years on, we’re on 11 prints – and most bookshops still keep it in stock.
Two more books have followed since, and a fourth is on the way next year. Like my online work, the books feature not only delicious recipes, but also the story behind them. From the food culture to the ingredients and my travels throughout the region over the years.
For now, unfortunately, my books are only available in Norway. The first one was also published in German, but appears to have sold out entirely. I’ve an agent working on selling the rights for translations. If you work in publishing – or know someone who does – feel free to get in touch with them for more info.
A kitchen in Istanbul and the Meze newsletter
Since day one, my friends were pushing me to publish in English rather than Norwegian. A much bigger market, right? But also a more crowded one.
There were already many excellent sources for Middle Eastern and Turkish food. Was my voice really needed?
Perhaps it wasn’t then, but I think it is, if not needed, then certainly a valuable and unique additional perspective on these food cultures today.
After nearly a decade living in Istanbul, I’ve travelled far and wide and eaten more variations of traditional dishes than I can remember. I’ve delved deep into books about the regions food, culture and history and spoken to so many people about their relationship to their own food culture. I’m fully familiar with all the intricate uses of local ingredients like pomegranate molasses, tahini and red pepper paste.
Yet, I still remember the times when I didn’t know what pomegranate molasses was all about, or when I didn’t understand why they’d use so much tomato paste when canned tomatoes were available. This gives me, I think, a useful perspective for introducing other to the ins and outs of the cuisines of this region. An understanding of where some extra explanation is needed, and which recipes that translate better to a Western audience than others.
I’m hopeful that my website and this newsletter will be helpful in this regard.
A kitchen in Istanbul
I launched A kitchen in Istanbul in 2016, but it was soon left dormant as I refocused on Norway for my first and subsequent book. I returned to it in 2021 and gave it a complete overhaul. Many recipes were deleted, and every single remaining one completely rewritten.
A kitchen in Istanbul is now fully focused on more traditional recipes from Turkey, with occasional visits to the Middle East and other nearby or related cuisines.
While I keep certain best practices for showing up on Google searches in mind (the website lives on the internet, after all), I’ve never followed the approach of most food blogs. Where they repeat the recipe three times over, interspersed with endless pictures, I instead give you the cultural context and background story of the dish, along with a few tips that are hopefully helpful when you attempt to make the recipe at home.
The reception has been astonishing. A kitchen in Istanbul now draws as many visitors as its Norwegian equivalent, even though it’s only got a fraction of the posts (127 vs 700+ at current count). This has come as a bit of a surprise to me – but a wonderful one!
The ad income from this steady stream of readers has allowed me to dedicate more time and resource to A kitchen in Istanbul, and I’m planning to develop it further in 2025.
Meze newsletter
The accompanying Meze newsletter – which you’re currently reading! – followed last year. Again, what you get is a little different to your regular food blog.
I know most of you are here mainly for the recipes, so don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of seasonal offerings from the archives – and brand new recipes every month.
But more than that, I want to take you behind the scenes and into the cultures of these latitudes.
This newsletter is where I recount my experiences from travelling around Turkey. It’s where I do deep dives into ingredients, so you can learn to use sumac, za’atar and pomegranate molasses in your everyday cooking – not just when a recipe happens to call for it. It’s where I give you a glimpse into life in Istanbul.
It’s also a place where those who feel so inclined, can support my work by taking up a paid subscription at a reasonable price. This is entirely optional, but a huge contribution towards enabling me to write stories and recipes that resonate with you – not whatever algorithm is at play at Google search, Instagram or TikTok.
As a thank you, paying subscribers get three brand new bonus recipes every month. These are mostly dishes from my cookbooks, inspired by the flavours around me. The archive now counts nearly 50 exclusive recipes.
Paid subscriptions are entirely optional, but if you enjoy what you receive – or just want full access to all the recipes – I hope you’ll consider one.
The newsletter is hosted on a platform called Substack, which may or may not mean anything to you. The useful thing with Substack is that they store the full newsletter archives on a stand-alone website. I regularly link to relevant past editions in my pieces, but the website’s there for your perusal any time should you wish to read through some older editions.
What’s coming
I’ve made a dedicated effort to devote more time to A kitchen in Istanbul and Meze over the past couple of years. I’ve loved sharing my passion for the food cultures of Turkey and the Middle East, and the knowledge and repertoire of recipes I’ve built up over these years.
For now, I’ll be sticking to the format that will be familiar to regular readers:
3–4 newsletters per month for all subscribers (free and paid), including 1 new free recipe
3 bonus new recipes for paying subscribers
If all goes to plan, I’ll be making some changes (for the better!) in 2025. That’s still some way out, so you’ll hear more about that later.
I hope you’ll want to stick around for a while, and look forward to having you here with me with a lot of delicious recipes, interesting stories and ingredient deep dives over the next few months!
With that, I’ll leave you with a few highlights from the archives that are worth (re)visiting, plus a tease of two new recipes coming for paying subscribers this week.
From the archives
As I return from my break, I have not one, but two delicious recipes for paying subscribers this week. One will hit your inbox shortly after this one, the other on Friday. Hope you’ll enjoy them!
🔜 Coming today for paying subscribers:
Spiced orzo with prawns & feta
Inspired by an Ottolenghi recipe, with flavours more typical of the Middle East. My method is also simpler, but no less delicious!
🔜 Coming Friday for paying subscribers:
Lebanese inspired macaroni with spiced lamb & garlic yoghurt
Dousing pasta with garlic yoghurt is common across Turkey and the Middle East. It may sound strange, but it’s gooooood… Add some Lebanese spiced lamb on top, and it’s all I need for dinner.
Until next week,
Vidar 🧿
Hi, always looking forward to the newsletters and the recipes. Would your next cookbook be in English? Otherwise I would have to start learning Norwegian... 😉