Baking like a mad (wo)man
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It all started in December 2010. I had been running my restaurant for ten years, and I felt it was finally time to bake and serve our own bread.
The problem was, I didn’t know how to bake bread—not even a little. I’d always been an intuitive cook, never particularly interested in baking. Until that December, the bread we served was, at best, a mediocre baguette—not sourdough, not even well-made. No one really knew what great bread could be. Sure, I’d enjoyed beautiful breads abroad, but it seemed impossible to achieve that level of quality here.
In fact, no one served good bread in their establishments, at least not to my knowledge. There was, however, one person: Sandra. She opened a bakery in Istanbul with the goal of baking and selling proper bread. When she started, she made some wonderful loaves, but due to health issues, her production was inconsistent. Still, she was the first to dare to open a small-scale artisanal bakery.
At first, I served her bread in my restaurant, but the daily inconsistency eventually led me back to relying on conventional bakeries—places where, at least, the quality was stable, if uninspiring.
Then, as if by fate, two books I had ordered from Amazon arrived at the same time: Tartine Bread and Bourke Street Bakery. That’s when everything started to change. With those two books, I became obsessed with the idea of creating a decent loaf of sourdough to serve in my restaurant. The more I read, the more fixated I became. My guiding principles about food became part of the mission: I wanted to use organic, local heirloom varieties of wheat, in line with all the other ingredients in our kitchen. Flour was no exception. The search had begun. In Kars, in eastern Anatolia, I found the answer: an ancient wheat variety, possibly 8,000 years old. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the original emmer wheat, from the region of Upper Mesopotamia—the Fertile Crescent.
The problem was, the yield was low and demand was non-existent. Farmers didn’t want to grow this wheat variety. A handful of small farmers had to be convinced to go ahead, with our promise that we would buy their entire crop. Of course, the promise itself wasn’t enough, so we pre-paid them to encourage the planting.
Then we found a water mill nearby to stone-grind the wheat. The miller, a recluse nursing a heartbreak after being denied the hand of the woman he loved, lived alone at the mill. He drank heavily, and his level of inebriation affected the flour. Sometimes, when he was less drunk, he ground our wheat well; other times, the consistency varied. Once, a single sack contained two different textures—one half coarser than the other. Still, I insisted on using this man’s labor. I couldn’t bear to break his heart one more time, he was such a romantic.
On April 4th, 2011, we filled the bread baskets in the restaurant with bread we had baked ourselves, made with a starter I began on December 21st, 2010, from scratch.
What happiness! What passion! That passion launched a whole business on the side. Apart from serving our own bread, we started selling it. We supplied other chefs for their establishments—not on a huge scale, of course, but we proudly produced over +300 loaves each day, in addition to baguettes, club sandwich loaves, and other baked goods. Yes, that passion gave rise to a bakery.
After closing both the bakery and the restaurant in 2018 and moving to the Northern Aegean for a new life, I only baked when necessary—maybe twice a year—just to stay in touch with the craft.
Now, without the daily practice of the bakery, it seems I’ve lost some of that touch. When I moved from my beloved homeland, heartbroken, I found solace in baking bread. It helped me stay grounded, to heal. The feeling of dough in my hands made adapting to a new life easier. Once again, I became obsessed, exploring local flours, experimenting with methods, and learning all over again.
Through it all, I was grateful I’d kept my starter from the restaurant alive. I still bake with it today. One thing about it changed, though: it was a liquid starter all these years, but after attending Richard Bertinet’s five-day bread program, I’ve turned it into a stiff starter. Last February, I registered for his program, which took place in October. It was a long wait, but absolutely worth it. I enjoyed every moment, from exploring different types of bread to learning under Richard’s guidance. Yet one thing still eludes me: I struggle with scoring the dough. The bread turns out fine, but I can’t seem to achieve that perfect “ear” on the crust. Thirteen years ago, I could score bread beautifully, with perfect ears every time. Now, not so much. Do I want to master this skill again? Yes, I do. Does it truly matter? No, it doesn’t.
The whole process—having your hands in the dough, thinking methodically, keeping a log, waiting in anticipation, and ultimately eating real bread—is priceless.