Turkey is fast gaining in popularity as a destination, and, so is its cuisine. Turkey Tales from the Road by Leanne Kitchen, gives a fabulous glimpse into both the country and its food.

Leanne Kitchen is a Sydney-based food and travel writer. Her articles and photographs have regularly appeared in many Australasian magazines and she has held senior editorial positions on publications such as Vogue Entertaining + Travel and Australian Gourmet Traveller. She has 10 cookbooks to her name.

She travels regularly, and is particularly passionate about the food and cultures of the Middle East. She is a trained professional chef and has spent over 14 years in the kitchen.

Leanne spent much of 2009 travelling around Turkey, researching the food, collecting stories and shooting the location photography for this book. While doing research, she went to the less  touristy places and it is in many of these off the beaten track locations that she found the recipes that appear in this book.  Back home in Australia she reworked many of them, so that they have become easy to follow and ingredients easy to find.

Turkish food traverses the extremes of sophistication – from the refined cooking of the Ottoman court to the rustic simplicity of peasant food. From spicy red lentil kofte and slow-roasted lamb with pomegranate juice to rose cream meringues and Turkish coffee custard, Leanne unveils not just the inspiration for her collection of authentic and contemporary recipes but the very essence of Turkish hospitality. This is a book that Wickedfood Cooking School can highly recommend and one that we will certainly use as a constant reference when developing Turkish cooking classes.

Click here for and recipes from the book.

Interested in buying this book? Visit – Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, is able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for, and they deliver to your door. Pay only R338 for this book (Recommended Retail Price = R395)! Red Pepper Books is offering Wickedfood Cooking School subscribers an EXTRA 10% off this book. Simply type in the promotional code WICKEDFOOD on the shipping page of the checkout process and your purchase will be reduced by a further 10%, a total saving of R57.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference. Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.