MEHMET AKSEL
It is quite difficult for me to write when I am away from Istanbul, partly because I find it hard to find the time and partly because I can’t gather my thoughts.
That’s why I haven’t been able to write for the past two weeks, I’m sorry.
I think I’m going to be in a good but equally tiring tempo with regards to my work until the New Year.
Because I know it will be quite busy work-wise, I had an easy two weeks, chilling out with my wife.
Each year, Teri and I try to visit the Mercanteinfiera held in Parma, Italy (only time it didn’t take place was during the Covid-19 pandemic).
This fair is a true gem, which is often instructive and informative, and where we often buy items we like, but more importantly, it provides us with a few days to spend quality time as husband and wife.
We look forward to it every year. We start planning for the next one the moment we return from it, looking at dates, arranging the fair and plane tickets, even organize our rental car in advance, and we start waiting for the next iteration.
I can categorize the fair in four parts. In fact, it is an event that is often organized across four large halls, except when there is a need for more space in which case there are five or six large halls.
In the first hall (hall number 2), there are classic and retro cars, motorcycles, scooters (mostly Italian brands), their used or new parts, accessories, user’s manuals and clothes, accessories and various items of interest for auto-enthusiasts.
Although it is small in scale, it is a hall that is very well attended by collectors, patrons and repairers alike who also visit Techno-Classica Essen in Germany or Paris Rétromobile in France.
In the second hall (hall number 3), there is classical furniture.
This is a vast hall where you can find everything you have and have not been looking for, spanning a wide period that I can crudely describe as ‘since the birth of Jesus’ and including a range of objects from furniture, paintings, sculptures, religious objects and accessories to garden items (fountains, gazebos, benches, and etc.), kitchen materials, and simple ornaments.
The third hall (hall 5) is my beloved.
This hall features furniture, lighting accessories, paintings, sculptures, kitchen-tableware and more from the 20th century (art deco, art nouveau, the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and more).
I can shortly say that the third hall is every item found in the second hall but closer to my heart both in terms of taste and period.
There is also the fourth hall (hall number 6), which could be the subject of a whole article on its own. (In fact all the halls could have their own articles but this one is especially dear).
Classic and retro jewelry, watches, clothes and personal items.
We spent two full days, and ended up walking 14 kilometers per day with Teri.
There is also another feature of this fair that I can’t do without mentioning.
Of course, there are simple food and beverage kiosks and ice cream shops where visitors can have a breather from time to time inside each hall, but there is one particularfood and beverage area located in the large space to the left of the main entrance hall (hall number 3), which has been operated by the same company for years and, which is a place I wish everyone I know and beyond to be able to try at least once in their lives.
I can shortly describe it as a huge exhibition buffet, featuring mainly delicatessen meats, cheeses, wine and wonderful breads.
Usually there are two different queues at its entrance.
The queue on the right is for people who solely want to shop. At all hours of the day, this queue starts from the entrance of the hall and reaches the other end, and never seems to get shorter.
The second queue is not like the first one; it is a queue of at least a hundred people at any given time, made up of people who want to get some food to eat, and you can only imagine noon-time!
From ‘Parma Ham’ to ‘Parmesan Cheese’, from other Italian cheeses to sausages, from wonderful Italian wines to bread, desserts, ice cream and coffee; it is the place of flavors and pleasure for both visitors and participants.
Usually, my wife and I fly to Milan or Bologna and then rent a car to drive to Parma. The journey is about 175 kilometers from Milan or 100 kilometers from Bologna.
Since the flight options to Bologna are more limited, we often prefer the Milan option. It is also a great pleasure to be able to meet up with cousins who are living in Milan or a dear friend of ours who is living in Lugano, whenwe get the chance.
In the earlier paragraph, I specifically wrote parma ham and parmesan cheese in bold and with capital letters.
I’m not sure if you’ve read it but in my article on Turkish cuisine from January 14, 2021, titled Can Turkish cuisine make it? (I got a good scolding in response) had said that ‘the names of each region are attached to an ingredient’.
The sense of branding in Italy is truly something.
The name of the city we went to gave its name to the world’s (not just Italy’s) most famous cheese and ham.
The second we landed at the Milan airport, we got the feeling that this is the ‘fashion capital’.
We went on the highway, and even the traffic signs resembled advertising billboards. On the left there isMonza, on the right there is Turin, and if you go forward you get to Imola, or in other words you are bang in the middle of the world of automobiles.
Do you want gastronomic destinations or historical destinations? Do you prefer work, fair, agriculture, and production or hobbies, sports, art, sun and the sea? Every city, every town, every region is a world brand on its own.
I hear you going, but so are our cities, towns and regions.
Yes they are, but unfortunately not LIKE that. I wish they were.
You feel the strong force of being a brand in your bones.
When our neighbor and dear friends from Lisbon, husband and wife Catarina and Pedro joined us on our trip, the four of us had a lovely weekend together.
We stayed in Parma for two nights and three days. The fair was packed, as were the streets of Parma. Every time we go with Teri, we stay in different hotels, wander around the beautiful and lively streets, and try different restaurants of Parma. There is only one restaurant we always go to, Gallo d’Oro. It’s a simple Italian restaurant but we love it and we never skip it. It makes us feel like we are in Italy.
On our way back, when we met our dear friend Muriel, whom I mentioned earlier, in Como instead of Lugano (so that we could go to the airport more easily), that became our little fair trip’s cream on top.
We came back to Lisbon, and in between the daily chores of our life in Lisbon, Istanbul MSA, MSA’s Restaurant, Formula 1’s catering in Istanbul this week, Moscow MSA, I had to suddenly go to Barcelona for something that appeared out of the blue just two weeks earlier, and that really warmed our hearts.
While I thought that even though this was a day trip, I would have a nice feast with the city’s buildings, sculptures, paintings and tapas, I found myself in a completely different feast in this impressive city.
My reason for going to Barcelona was to meet with Lázaro Rosa-Violán, who I think is one of the most important designers of the world, and who describes himself saying “I am a painter (he also has sculptures that I am a big fan of), a traveler and an atmosphere creator”, and to invite him to Istanbul for an important and ongoing project.
I flew to Barcelona with Portuguese Airlines (TAP) at 07:50 in the morning (oh how I miss Turkish Airlines).
The signaling systems were a mess (I think it was under repair), and it took me a while to get myself out of the airport and hail a cab to make it only a minute late to my 11:30 appointment.
Look, I’m a pedantic person who can drown himself inthe details. Perhaps it would be an understatement to say that making me like something or a place is like ‘pulling teeth’. I respect anything that has been created with knowledge, taste and effort, but that doesn’t mean that I like what I see.
I have never seen such an office, such a working environment in my life.
It is a three to four storey building on Ronda da Sant Pere. I entered through a simple, elegant, dark blue wooden door and immediately felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland.
The interior of the building, the furniture, the giant statues, the paintings, the lighting, and all the details… As someone who is often difficult to please, I was soutterly pleased, I could hardly breathe.
I think 50-60 people work there. Everyone works in groups of five or ten people inside wonderfully decorated halls specific to the subject they are interested in. Downstairs, there is a dining hall reminiscent of old mansion kitchens, and an exhibition hall of unbelievable size, displaying a vast variety of products for selecting or matching materials.
I cannot, for the life of me begin to describe the meeting rooms, the libraries in those rooms, the paintings and sculptures, furniture, chandeliers, and all the details.
After our meeting, I had lunch at Cervecería Catalana, a Barcelona classic, and tried wonderful tapas (I came up with good ideas for MSA’s Restaurant) and then spent the whole afternoon wandering around Lázaro’srelatively recently finished works in Barcelona (all on foot since they are relatively close to one another).
I finished my tour drooling all over a gallery on my way, which displayed Lázaro’s paintings and sculptures.
Following an afternoon meeting with Lázaro, we made our evaluation over a cup of coffee and shook hands to meet in Istanbul next week.
What I have realized over the last two weeks of travel to Italy and Spain (and of course our life in Lisbon) is that the Covid cloud that has been shadowing over people for almost two years has dispersed quite a bit. People are relatively relaxed.
I did not write this article to reach a conclusion or to draw a lesson.
I just wanted to share with you two beautiful trips I’ve had.
And if I really must say something in the sense of a conclusion is that cities, products, people or anything else for that matter do not become a brand in vain.
One piece of advice:
My friends working in the service department at restaurants in Turkey should all keep this in mind; in fact, everyone should keep this in mind.
I wrote about our dinner at Gallo d’Oro in Parma. A 22-23 year old young woman named Elena served us. We were so pleased with her service and positive attitude that we had a little chat.
– She studied psychology and is continuing her internship at a clinic during the day.
– She works at Gallo d’Oro in the evenings and pays herrent this way.
– She does not rest for a single day, and does babysitting when she is not at the clinic or the restaurant.
She said something similar to “I will be a very good doctor in the future, now I have to work very hard”, and that stuck with me for a while.
