Pesto burgers there and here

Friday afternoons in Istanbul we usually left the school where we lived through the week and drove over to the European side. Crossing the bridge was always a treat for us because it meant we had left the work week behind and were heading for Ortaköy to spend the weekend in the studio.

One of our Friday night treats, once we had found a place to leave the car and carted our stuff into the studio and maybe had a bit of wine or a cold beer from the tekel, was to head for the waterfront for some supper at Sedir, our favourite restaurant in Ortaköy. For most of the years we went to Sedir there was neither beer nor wine available, perhaps because of its proximity to the famous seaside mosque, Büyük Mecidiye Camii (here’s a picture of it), but the atmosphere and the food were consistently great.

I thought of Sedir on Friday night after the first full (or almost full) week of school, as we talked about supper. We had wanted to spend a little time outside after getting home because Lorraine had been inside the classroom and the photo lab for too long, so we found squeegees and buckets, hooked up the borrowed pressure washer, and started to wash off the salt spray, shredded leaf bits, and pine needles that Hurricane Earl had stuck to our walls and windows last weekend. It was satisfying work and the view improved considerably, but it wasn’t very long before we decided we had done enough of that and it was time to think about eating.

What about burgers? I asked.

Sure, Lorraine said, can we make pesto burgers?

One of our favourite Friday night suppers at Sedir was their pesto burger. It was always a nicely done ground sirloin burger with a generous spread of good pesto on the bun, accompanied by a small dish of shredded, slightly caramelized onions and a side of fried potatoes cut in wedges – in Turkish they were sometimes called “apple-sliced potatoes” or “village potatoes” if I remember (and translated) correctly – and the usual dispensers of mayonnaise and ketchup. It was always a treat and a great way to start off our weekend.

So I told Lorraine we could make pesto burgers, I just needed to pick the basel, get out the food processor, chop up some good Turkish hazelnuts we bought in the spring at Ölmezler Kuruyemiş (Siz taze taze ve ucuz alın diye, biz ince eleyip sık dokuyoruz is what it says on the bag, meaning something like Because you want fresh fresh and not expensive, we weave thin and thick. Maybe one of my Turkish friends can give me a better translation – I certainly won’t bother with the gibberish that the online translator gave me), mix in some good olive oil and parmesan, and spread it generously on the bun.

It didn’t take long, and we soon had a nice jar of fresh pesto to go with the Angus burgers that sizzled on the barbecue. We didn’t have the cute little dish of onions or elma dilim potatoes, but we had great pesto burgers with a glass of wine and memories of those wonderful Friday night suppers down by the Bosphorus in Ortaköy to start us off on this happy weekend in Ferguson’s Cove.