Our cookbook of the week is Sebze by Turkish culinary expert Özlem Warren. Jump to the recipes: Turkish şakşuka (baked eggplant, zucchini, peppers with tomato sauce), muhammara (walnut and red pepper paste dip) and tahinli fasulye piyazı (Antalya-style bean salad with tahini sauce). Through her second book, Sebze, cooking teacher and Turkish culinary expert Özlem Warren hoped to bring readers a glimpse of her homeland — “to take them on a culinary journey.
” Antakya in southern Turkey has been her family’s home for more than five generations. Two earthquakes rocked the region on Feb. 6, 2023, leaving the city in ruins and killing more than 50,000 people.
Warren returned to Antakya while working on Sebze, gathering with family at a friend’s farm in Altınözü on the outskirts of the city. Photographer Sam A. Harris joined her for the book’s location shoots.
Meriç Çiftliği (Meriç Farm) is one of the many artisanal producers that found ways to rebuild after the earthquakes. They turned their farm into a “massive vegetable patch” and started an online business selling biber salçası (red pepper paste), olives and marmalades across Turkey. “Miraculously, the farm was intact, being up in the mountains.
It was very important to gather there with family. I hadn’t seen them since the earthquake. We lost many of our dear family members, extended family, but the cousins and whoever could make it came to Meriç Farm with me.
We made mezes around .