The Turkish Cultural Foundation’s Culinary Arts Center is organizing a culinary cultural tour to the town of Ayvalık from November 11-13, 2016. Journalist and culinary culture researcher Nedim Atilla will lead the tour. Participants will visit olive groves and olive oil factories and have the opportunity to taste delicious local dishes prepared with olive oil and seasonal ingredients. For more information about the tour please click here.

Turkish cooking traditions are highlighted every month with the YESAM Recipe of the Month. This month’s featured recipe is a seafood favorite of the fall season, “Salt Cured Bonito.”

Dr. Recep Karadağ, Head of the TCF Cultural Preservation and Natural Dyes Project at ARMAGGAN Laboratory participated in the DHA 35 Dyes in History and Archaeology meeting at the University of Pisa (Università di Pisa) in Pisa, Italy on October 5-8, 2016. Dr. Karadağ gave a presentation entitled “A natural dyeing method for obtaining Turkey’s red color.” Ms.Emine Torgan of ARMAGGAN Laboratory presented her work conducted in conjunction with Dr.Karadağ on “Antifungal activity and HPLC analyses of silk fabrics dyed with madder and gallnut,” “Identification of Ottoman tent textiles for sustainability of cultural heritage,” and “Multidirectional investigation of organic cotton fabrics dyed with Anatolian buckthorn and gallnut by historical recipes.”

Dr. Sumiyo Okumura (TCF Art Historian) attended the Textile Society of America 15th Biennial Symposium "Cross Currents Land, Labor and the Port" in Savannah, GA to present her paper entitled “Velvet and Patronage, The Origin and the Historical Background of Ottoman and Italian Velvets” on October 20, 2016.

A TCF grant will underwrite a series of presentations by Dr. George Gawrych,  professor at Baylor University’s Middle Eastern History Department and visiting Scholar at West Point Academy, who will give his presentation “Kemal Atatürk, the Art of Leadership, and the Kemalist Revolution" on the occasion of Atatürk Week. The yearly commemoration is organized by the American Turkish Association of Southern California (ATA-SC) and the ATA-SC Atatürk Monuments in Los Angeles (ATAMLA) special project. The lectures will take place on November 9-13, at the Chapman Global Education Institute, Cal State Channel Islands as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Cal State Northridge, and UC San Diego. TCF has been a long-time supporter of the ATA-SC commemorations of the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on the anniversary of his passing on November 10.

The Golden Age of King Midas, a world premier exhibition at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, continues to be on display through November 27, 2016. Supported by a major grant by TCF, the exhibition features artifacts unearthed in the main tumulus in Gordion, as well as a number of important objects from the tumuli in Lydia and Lycia. These pieces appear alongside select examples from the Penn Museum's own collections.

Makam New York's program Turkish Story Time, supported by a TCF grant, continues to present weekly programs in New York City. Turkish Story Time brings children and their caregivers together to learn about Turkish culture through reading stories in Turkish, learning songs, rhymes, and riddles, introducing instruments and advancing literacy. The program is recorded every Thursday at 4:00 pm at Book Culture on Columbus in New York City and is open to the public. The recordings, stories and materials are available on Makam New York’s website.

Photographer Mehveş Lelic (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2015) participated in the "Limited" (Sinirli) exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery in Istanbul, which lasted until October 29, 2016. The show featured innovative artwork Lelic created in France as a TCF fellow.

Oud virtuoso Mehmet Polat  (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016) performed at the Oud Festival in Amsterdam in mid-October following his North America Tour, which was supported by TCF. Mehmet Polat's music has roots in Ottoman, Anatolian, and Balkan traditions and introduces traditional Turkish musical instruments to audiences around the world.

Media artist Refik Anadol’s (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2013) artwork "Warhol x Anadol" will be on display at the Young Projects Gallery in Los Angeles’ Pacific Design Center through February 2017.  Anadol's digital project brings Andy Warhol's "Rain Machine" back to life after 45 years. The installation was featured in the Los Angeles Times’ Arts & Culture section and can be read here.

Grammy nominated composer, singer, performer and scholar Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2013) released his new album “Resolution,” which connects traditional Turkish music with American jazz, funk and R&B. He introduced his new album at performances in New York City and Boston.

Painter Tan Taşpolatoğlu (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016) held a solo exhibition entitled “Derealisation II” at the Dank Haus German American Cultural Center in Chicago, IL from September 10-October 1, 2016.

Ceramist İpek Kotan (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016) is participating in a residency program at the European Ceramic Workcentre in Oisterwijk, Netherlands to make large scale works from September 5-November 5, 2016.

Visual artist Ayşe Gül Süter (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016) and Naz Cuguoğlu (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016), a freelance curator, art writer, and cultural researcher, participated in the group exhibition “Asymmetric Kin” at the Coop Gallery in Nashville, TN from October 1-29, 2016.

Painter and contemporary artist Zeyno Pekünlü (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016) is participating in an exhibition entitled "The world precedes the eye, which runs until February 1, 2017 at LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore. The exhibition is an affiliate project of the Singapore Biennial and was also featured at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore from October 24-30, 2016.