Pushed by the wind!

The first and only time I met Hülya Koç Rousseau in person was swift. We were on our way to Oxford from London, passing from Newington Green. My food writer friend Fuchsia Dunlop asked me to hop out of the car at the corner of a French bakery - obviously her favorite - grab one "Pain au Chocolat" and one plain and one almond croissant and, as she made a detour, be at the same corner to get back into the car as soon as possible. I had to be very quick. I cannot forget the rush of the intoxicating smell that hit me when I stepped into the small place. I was suddenly in another world, a paradise redolent of sweet butter and caramel sugar with a whiff of brewing coffee, which made me want to stay forever. Early in the morning, most of their exquisite patisserie work was not yet on display, but what I saw was more than enough. I remember blabbering a few words to her trying to say that I was also from Turkey and I was a friend of Fuchsia. She looked awkwardly familiar; I was yet to discover why much later.

I never forgot the taste of that "Croissant aux Amandes," the sublime crescent roll with almond cream and roasted almond flakes. Stopping at the Belle Epoque Patisserie became like a ritual for Fuchsia and me at our yearly pilgrimage to the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Sometimes we would take our time and have breakfast there, or just grab our favorites to mess Fuchsia's never-clean-anyway car with flying flakes of buttery pastry. Alas, this happened only every few years, and coincidentally, Hülya, was never there again in our brief visits. Years later, when I was working on my Gaziantep cookery book, my designer Suzan Aral, who was based in the United Kingdom, solved the mystery of my familiarity with Hülya. During our endless working sessions on...