Turkish Delights Living, eating in San Francisco infuses Istanbul

 Turkish Pistachios(06-11) 04:00 PDT Istanbul -- In preparation for a recent vacation in Turkey, I was pokingaround online, trolling for tips for the food-obsessed traveler.Eureka. A lavishly photographed food blog from Istanbul caught myeye, and the more I read, the wider my eyes got. Cenk Sonmezsoy, the blog's 31-year-old creator, had spent fiveyears in San Francisco after college, and his posts were laced withreminiscences of his food life in the city. In moments, theblogosphere had transformed the world into a ridiculously smallplace. After an exchange of e-mails, Sonmezsoy (pronouncedsun-MASS-soy) agreed to meet me in Istanbul in early May and toprepare for me a Turkish meal that would reflect his Californiaexperience - a little taste of San Francisco on the Bosporus. "A food story involving me? That sounds surreal!" wrote theself-effacing Sonmezsoy in an early e-mail. In fact, his 21/2-year-old blog ( cafefernando.com ) has already built a following and garnered some critical acclaim.Recently, in what Sonmezsoy describes as his country's "WebOscars," Cafe Fernando was voted the best blog in Turkey. "San Francisco was a whole different world for me," recallsSonmezsoy, an Istanbul native who moved here at the age of 21 toget a master of business administration at University of SanFrancisco. "I couldn't believe how many types of restaurants therewere on one street." By comparison, the Turkish food of his youth seemed like a bookwith chapters missing. Here, Sonmezsoy reveled in garlicky Italianfare in North Beach, dim sum at Ton Kiang and the "double-doubleanimal style" burgers at In-N-Out Burger. When his parents came tovisit, he took them to the Slanted Door - "my most favoriterestaurant in the whole world" - for clay-pot chicken andVietnamese coffee. San Francisco refined his palate, saysSonmezsoy, who now stocks his sleek Istanbul kitchen with foreigningredients like Maldon salt and coconut milk. Despite his enthusiasm for the city's multicultural table,Sonmezsoy's dining experiences here did not start on a high note.On one of his first days in San Francisco, the young student gothopelessly lost and wound up at a Burger King, frustrated andhungry. "For here or to go?" asked the counterperson after takinghis order. Sonmeszoy, his English still rough, didn't understandthe question but took a stab at an answer. "No," he replied. "For here or to go?" repeated the counterperson. The flusteredSonmeszoy tried an alternative. "Yes," he ventured. Bilingual baking Today, his English is all but flawless and he composes his blog inboth English and Turkish. Eighty percent of the posts revolvearound baking and Sonmeszoy's dogged kitchen experiments. Usuallyriffing on published recipes, he adds artful touches of his own: ajaunty white chocolate and pistachio wafer garnishing chocolatecupcakes; a raspberry cream filling in swan-shaped chocolateeclairs. Sonmezsoy's subjects are often homespun - bread pudding, muffins,granola bars - but his results are elegant. In his most-read post,he offers his recipe for the ultimate brownie, a tantalizingcreation dripping with chocolate glaze and bejeweled withpistachios. Sonmezsoy's heroes are America's baking and pastry experts: DorieGreenspan, Alice Medrich, David Lebovitz, Peter Reinhart. Hefollows their recipes meticulously, documenting the outcome inmagazine-quality images. With help from Reinhart's book, "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" (TenSpeed Press), he even tackled and mastered bagels in hopes ofduplicating his ritual San Francisco breakfast: the toasted bagelwith cream cheese and tomatoes at Caffe Sapore, at the foot ofLombard Street. Unfortunately, reports Sonmezsoy, Istanbul lacksPhiladelphia cream cheese. After graduating from the University of San Francisco, Sonmezsoygot a job with a public relations firm in North Beach, writingpress releases for high-tech companies - "clients whose technologyI couldn't even pronounce," he says. He moved from Geary Street toa studio apartment on Chestnut Street and took up in-line skatingin the Marina. "I wouldn't miss San Francisco this much if I hadn't lived onChestnut Street," he says. "There is no place to Rollerblade inIstanbul." International acclaim In 2003, after five years in San Francisco, Sonmezsoy decided itwas time to leave. "I always wanted to study abroad," says theblogger, but "I always knew I would come back to Turkey." He nowworks with his older brother and father at the family's boutique adagency, a job that doesn't interest him nearly as much as the foodwriting and photography he does for his blog. The response to the blog has astonished everyone in the family,most of all Sonmezsoy. "My parents thought I was wasting my time,"he admits. But when the blog got a mention in Turkey's biggestnewspaper, his brother bought him a fancy camera. Another mention, in a New York Times travel story on Istanbul, gothis father's attention. Recently, pastry expert Nick Malgieri did astory on baking blogs for the Washington Post and listed CafeFernando. Sonmezsoy says his hands were shaking when he read thee-mail from Malgieri asking for his brownie recipe. When Sonmezsoywrote a piece on a cookie he had adapted from a Dorie Greenspanrecipe, made with a Buddha-shaped mold from San Francisco'sChinatown, Greenspan herself posted a compliment. "I couldn't sleepthat night," says the star-struck Sonmezsoy. Chinese, Indian inspirations For his San Francisco-influenced Turkish menu, the young bloggerfound inspiration in some of his favorite food memories. The springrolls at Ton Kiang reminded him of cigarette borek, finger-sizefried savory pastries made with the thin, floppy, lavash-likeflatbread known as yufka. He filled one version with feta and dill,another with pastirma (spicy air-dried beef) and a Jack-likecheese. With mung beans, a legume he first encountered in Bay Area Chineseand Indian restaurants, he made a Turkish salad typically preparedwith white beans. Initially, Sonmezsoy proposed making a variation of Slanted Door'scaramel-sweetened clay-pot chicken, using chickpeas and greenpeppers from his father's garden. But the concept failed intranslation. "Chicken with sugar will never be a Turkish recipe,"muttered Sonmezsoy when I asked why he had dropped the dish. In its place, he made karniyarik - "split bellies" - a Turkishstuffed-eggplant preparation named for the manner in which theeggplant are pried open and filled, like a plump baked potato. Itis, Sonmezsoy says, his favorite dish in the whole Turkishrepertoire; predictably, nobody makes it as well as his mother. Bulgur pilaf has little to do with Sonmezsoy's San Francisco days,but it typically accompanies karniyarik, so it made the menu. Fordessert, he turned to a classic finale at Istanbul's kebab shops: ascoop of ice cream encased in warm semolina halvah, a Turkish sweettraditionally made with semolina, pistachios and milk. Yet Sonmezsoy introduced a twist. He served the ice cream andhalvah separately and made the halvah with sweetened condensedmilk, an item virtually unknown in Turkey but familiar to him fromthe Slanted Door's Vietnamese coffee. Despite living in a countryfamous for its coffee, Sonmezsoy still makes the Vietnamese versionon occasion with cans of condensed milk scored at a cake-decoratingshop in Istanbul. San Francisco souvenirs Sonmezsoy writes and photographs his blog in a spacious, stylishapartment in Istanbul's Ulus neighborhood. A large image of theGolden Gate Bridge complements the contemporary furnishings in hisliving room, and a whimsical map of San Francisco hangs in thebathroom. With its pumpkin-orange Kitchen-Aid mixer and orderlyrows of spices and water bottles, Sonmezsoy's tidy kitchen lookslike it was propped by Martha Stewart herself. "My mom ate a lot of food last week," confessed the blogger, whowanted to make sure every dish passed muster with her before heserved them to me. He need not have worried. After five hours ofchopping, simmering, frying and photographing, Sonmezsoy brought afeast to the table. In the end, the menu's California accent was less pronounced than Imight have hoped, but he clearly remains smitten with the state.When he returns, says the blogger, one of his destinations will beBig Sur, for Nepenthe's famed steamed artichoke with balsamicvinaigrette Recipes and ingredient resources F6