The Turkish Cultural Foundation’s Culinary Arts Center is organizing a culinary cultural tour to the town of Ayvalık on December 3-4, 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 and Anatolian cooking traditions are highlighted every month with the YESAM Recipe of the Month. This month’s featured recipe is “Topik” (Chickpea puree stuffed with caramelized onions), a traditional Armenian dish.

Dr. Recep Karadağ of the TCF Cultural Preservation and Natural Dyes Laboratory-DATU participated in CHNT 21 (Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies) at the City Hall of Vienna, Vienna - Austria from November 16 – 18, 2016.  He gave an oral presentation entitled “Resin Analysis and Characterization in the Yenikapı Byzantine-Era Shipwrecks”.

TCF sponsored the American Turkish Friendship Council's (ATFC) Fourth Annual Turkish Movie Night in Atlanta, GA on November 12, 2016. The event featured Annemin Yarası-My Mother’s Wound. Funds raised through sponsorship and ticket sales for the event are used to support the education and basic needs of disadvantaged children through ATFC’s partnership with ÇATOM’s (Çok Amaçlı Toplum Merkezleri) in Turkey.

TCF sponsored  a series of lectures on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in California, organized by the Association of Turkish Americans of Southern California (ATASC). The lectures were presented by Professor George Gawrych, author of “The Young Ataturk: From Ottoman Soldier to Statesman of Turkey,” which was awarded the 2014 Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History.

The Golden Age of King Midas, a world premier exhibition at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, concluded on November 27, 2016. Supported by a major grant by TCF, the exhibition featured 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 appeared 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 the first Saturday of every month 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.

Ceramist İpek Kotan (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016)  completed  her residency program at the European Ceramic Workcentre in Oisterwijk, Netherlands. She also participated in Contemporary Istanbul 2016 and her works are currently on view at Puls Contemporary Ceramics Gallery in Brussels through December 22, 2016.

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.