Turkey’s cuisine is recognized as being one of the most sophisticated in the world and it wasn’t well represented in the Boston area at the time Chef Ana Sortun decided to open Oleana in 2001. With a degree from La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris, the Seattle-born Ana Sortun opened Moncef Medeb’s Aigo Bistro in Concord, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s. Stints at 8 Holyoke and Casablanca in Harvard Square, Cambridge soon followed.

When she first stepped in Calandra’s which is still the largest bakery in New York, New Jersey and, Pennsylvania states today, she was a 23-year-old student. She was going to school, on the other hand working at the bakery in the early hours of the morning. Amide Turan who was a political science student dreaming of being a diplomat, all of a sudden found herself at Calandra’s that she, later on, became passionately attached to and felt like in a family environment. She has been working at the same company for 20 years now. Calandra’s was founded in one of New Jersey’s poorest places in 1962 by 28-year-old Luciano Calandra and his wife Ortenza who immigrated from Sicily in 1957.

Justin A. McCarthy is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar of the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey and the Middle East.  He has published eleven books, most recently The Armenian Rebellion at Van (2006). In 1996 University of Louisville recognized him with the Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Creative Activity. He holds an honorary doctorate from Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and is a board member of the Institute of Turkish Studies and the Center for Eurasian Studies (AVIM). McCarthy served in the Peace Corps in Turkey in 1969, where he taught at Middle East Technical University and Ankara University.

Raquy Danziger is a celebrated performer, teacher and composer known for her expertise on the darbuka, the Middle-Eastern goblet drum. Raquy has performed and taught around the globe from the great concert halls of Egypt to remote towns in Siberia, spreading love and excitement for darbuka drumming.  Her unique and systematic approach has helped elevate this ancient drum to be a shining solo instrument fit for a concert hall. Raquy specializes in the split hand technique, which is a fast and elaborate drumming style. She also plays the mystical twelve- string King Kemenche Tarhu, a rare and exotic bowed instrument.