Shahpasand Kebab a truly #Persian dish made with tender lamb fillet, grilled tail fat, and charred tomatoes, served with fragrant buttery Persian rice. #foodstr

My search for the best cağ (pronounced “ja”) kebab brought me to Koç in Erzurum, and I have to say, it made me reconsider my standards. Coming from a culture that takes great pride in its kebabs, this was seriously impressive. The service is excellent, you’re welcomed and served almost immediately with a selection of meze. There’s no traditional menu here; once you’re seated, the cağ kebab keeps coming, one skewer at a time, until you say “tamam.” It’s a simple concept, but done perfectly. The kebab itself is delicious, tender, flavorful, and best enjoyed with lavash bread. Pairing it with ayran completes the experience. #foodstr

Hello #datca #knidos

#foodstr

#Fethiye

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting a Turkish couple in #Alanya, Meral and Omar, who run a wonderful seafood spot called Karides. They lived in the Netherlands for many years before recently returning to #Turkey, and you can really feel that blend of perspectives in both their food and their hospitality. There’s no fixed menu; just a kind of daily, evolving kitchen. You begin with meze and rakı, and for the main course it’s whatever fresh catch they have that day, often served simply, sometimes with their own twist on fish and chips. As a cook, I’m not easily impressed, but this food was genuinely exceptional. What stayed with me even more than the food, though, was the spirit behind it. Meral and Omar are both travelers and bikers, and as a biker and traveler myself, I connected with them instantly. There’s something very open, grounded, and borderless about them. From the moment you walk in, you feel at home, t felt less like visiting a restaurant and more like reconnecting with old friends I hadn’t seen in years. Meral was also kind enough to share tips on beautiful spots along the road to #Fethiye, which made the journey even more special. I think one of the greatest rewards of traveling is meeting people like this. They go beyond nationality, they’re simply, genuinely human.

Drove 650 km from #Doğubayazıt to #Kayseri in a single day, what a route. The scenery was stunning the whole way. #Turkey feels incredibly green and lush compared to #Iran, which is mostly desert aside from the northern and western regions. Funny contrast too: Turkey has little oil, while Iran has plenty, sometimes feels more like a curse than a blessing. Road trip day 2

The only thing that kept me going during the war was cooking and experimenting in the kitchen—it helped my creativity flow and took the edge off the pain. But with no internet for nearly three months, I couldn’t share any of it on Nostr. So here it is now. #foodstr #grownostr

There was a lot of hassle at the border crossing with the car, but the view of Mount #Ararat shrouded in clouds made it all worthwhile. Road trip day 1

Set free, if only for a while, Beyond the border. Road trip day 1 #Iran #Turkey #Bazargan

Something remarkable is happening in #Iran right now. In the aftermath of state violence—after young protesters are killed—many families are choosing to mourn in a way that quietly breaks expectations. They still wear black. The grief is visible. The loss is undeniable. But instead of ritual lamentation and orchestrated weeping, you hear percussion. You see clapping. And then, you see dance. Some call it a “dance of mourning.” And no, it’s not denial. It’s not a party. It’s something far more layered—and far more powerful. To understand why this matters, you have to understand the backdrop. For over four decades, the Islamic Republic has cultivated a very specific aesthetic of grief. Mourning has been stylized, ritualized, and politicized. Public sorrow often comes with a script—chants, elegies, martyrdom imagery. Grief, in many ways, has been choreographed. What these families are doing is stepping out of that choreography. They haven’t abandoned sorrow. The black clothing remains. Faces are heavy. The air carries that unmistakable density of fresh loss. But then the rhythm begins—hands striking drums, palms meeting in unison. Bodies begin to move. Not wildly. Not euphorically. But deliberately. When a mother dances at her child’s funeral, she isn’t saying she doesn’t hurt. The pain is right there, visible in every gesture. But she’s also saying something else: You don’t get to own this moment. You don’t get to turn my child into your symbol. You don’t get to dictate how I love, how I grieve, how I remember. That shift changes everything. Rituals are never neutral. They carry power. They shape meaning. When people alter the ritual—even slightly—they alter the story. By introducing rhythm and collective clapping into spaces long dominated by lamentation, these families reclaim authorship. The body itself becomes a statement. It says: you may have taken a life, but you will not define it. There’s something deeply human happening here, too. Trauma freezes the body. It locks grief inside the chest. Rhythm does the opposite—it moves energy. It synchronizes people. It creates a pulse that says, we are still here. The scenes are haunting precisely because they hold contradiction so openly: black clothes, tearful eyes, and yet steady percussion echoing through the space. It’s not joy replacing sorrow. It’s sorrow finding motion. In many cultures, funerals include music or even dance. But in Iran’s current context, this carries extra weight. When a state has spent decades promoting a singular, sanctified model of mourning, any deviation becomes quietly political. Choosing percussion over prescribed lament becomes symbolic independence. It signals that culture isn’t fixed. It isn’t owned. And maybe that’s the most striking part. This isn’t loud resistance. It’s not slogans or confrontation. It’s intimate. It’s about reclaiming meaning at the moment of farewell. The message feels clear: yes, you caused this loss. Yes, the grief is real. But we refuse to let death dictate the entire atmosphere. We refuse to let darkness be the only language available to us. There’s a melancholic gravity in these gatherings. The dancing isn’t celebratory in a shallow way. It carries weight. It honors the wound. But it also insists that the person who was lost was alive—vibrant, rhythmic, embodied. And so they are remembered in motion, not only in silence. That’s why this phenomenon feels so powerful. It holds two truths at once: profound sorrow and unbroken dignity. It doesn’t erase grief. It reshapes it. Sometimes resistance isn’t about shouting louder. Sometimes it’s about changing the rhythm—while still dressed in black—and moving anyway. #dance_of_mourning

#BBC News just labeled the Iranian regime’s 22 Bahman (Feb 11) rally a “family festival.” Let that sink in. 22 Bahman is not a celebration. It marks the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution — the moment that ended freedom in Iran and ushered in decades of repression, executions, censorship, and state violence. For the regime, it is a carefully staged display of loyalty; for millions of Iranians, it symbolizes the loss of their country. Framing this day as a “family festival” normalizes an authoritarian regime while conveniently ignoring the recent massacre of tens of thousands of protesters whose only crime was demanding basic rights and freedom. This isn’t neutral journalism — it’s propaganda laundering. It’s misleading. It’s deeply insensitive. And it legitimizes state violence and mass murder. Worse, it mocks the very struggle Western values claim to be built on: the fight for freedom, dignity, and human life. If freedom matters — and it does — this kind of coverage must be called out. People deserve truth, not sanitized narratives that protect power and erase victims. #AyatollahBBC #nostr