On October 31, the TCF Culinary Arts Center-YESAM received the Ateşbaz-ı Veli Culinary Culture Award for its contributions to Turkey's culinary culture and heritage. The award was established by the Anatolian Folk Kitchen Association in cooperation with Selçuk University, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the province of Konya to recognize individuals and organizations for their efforts to promote Turkish cuisine inside and outside of Turkey. It takes its name from Ateşbaz-ı Veli, the chef of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, and an important figure in Sufism. The only chef to have a tomb built in his name, his tomb in Konya is a pilgrimage site for chefs and cooks.

TCF inaugurated a new portal for educators, which provides easy access to lesson plans and other educational resources on Turkey. The TCF Education Portal also serves as a platform for the TCF "Spotlight on Turkey" program, a year-round educational program organized in cooperation with the World Affairs Councils of America and funded by TCF.

The "Spotlight on Turkey" 2014 program's Portrait of Turkey phase continues with a variety of programs organized  by participating World Affairs Councils around the United States. The Portrait of Turkey program features cultural and educational events with Turkey experts, as well as teachers who traveled to Turkey last summer on the TCF Teacher Study Tours (TST). On December 2-4, TST partipant Susan Seilstad will organize classes at the Lockwood Cummunity Center in Montana teaching Ebru. On December 15, the World Affairs Council of Seattle will host Prof. Reşat Kasaba, Director of the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington for an evening of discussions on US-Turkey relations. For more information on upcoming Spotlight on Turkey events, visit the TCF Education Portal.

The Turkish Cultural Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2015 TCF Cultural Exchange Fellowship Program. Established in 2012, the Fellowship is awarded twice a year and aims to support international exchanges between artists and other culture professionals. The deadline to apply for the first term is January 16, 2015; and June 30, 2015 for the second term. For more information on eligibility, terms and application forms, please visit the TCF website.

The TCF Culinary Arts Center-YESAM hosted Asst. Prof. Ahmet Uhri of 9 Eylül University on November 27^th for a seminar on "Bread and Civilization." The October lecture of YESAM featured Aylin Öney Tan who spoke about the use of dried vegetables in Turkish cuisine. A summary of the lecture may be read here. For more information on upcoming YESAM seminars, please visit the YESAM website. Past YESAM lectures are periodically uploaded and are available for viewing on the TCF Video Portal. The latest video addition is the lecture on Offal Culture in Turkish Cuisine by Pelin Dumanlı.

YESAM also highlights Turkish cooking traditions every month with the YESAM Recipe of the Month, which features a recipe for Aşure - Noah's Pudding for November.

Assoc. Prof. Yonca Kösebay Erkan of Kadir Has University gave a lecture on the UNESCO World Heritage Convention on November 18. At her lecture, Dr. Erkan presented a comprehensive overview of the convention’s application, achievements and challenges. The second TCF lecture of the month featured Prof. Ayla Ersoy of Yeditepe University, who spoke on the history and art of Turkish painting in the 18th and 19th centuries.  All TCF Istanbul lectures are recorded and may be watched online on the TCF Video Gallery. The videos of the lectures on Balkan Music and Turkish Culture by Brenna McCrimmon and Signatures of Sultans, Signs of Love: Uses of Turkish Language in the Ottoman Empire by Assoc. Prof. Selim Kuru have now been added. For more information on upcoming TCF Lecture Series in Turkish Culture and Art, visit here.

Prof. Dr. Recep Karadağ of the TCF Cultural Preservation and Natural Dyes Laboratory-DATU participated in the 33rd Annual Dyes in History and Archaeology Conference at the University of Glasgow, UK on October 29-November 1, with three poster presentations. On November 3-5, he gave a presentation on "Non-destructive micro-analytical methods for the conservation of textiles from cultural heritage" at the 19th International Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies.

On November 22, TCF Executive Director Güler Köknar was a featured speaker at a Bosporus University conference in İstanbul, where she spoke on the topic of "Investing in the People Component of US-Turkey Relations."

Seven Turkish artists showcased their work at the Turkish contemporary art exhibition at the 21st International Sculpture Objects & Functional Art-SOFA Fair in Chicago on November 7-9, 2014. The featured artists were İpek Altunmaral, Gül Delemen, Meral Değer, İpek Kotan, Çetin Pireci, Tan Taşpolatoğlu, and Canan Ustaoğlu. This is the eighth year that TCF has sponsored Turkish artists at SOFA and the third year that it has partnered with ARMAGGAN Art and Design Gallery in İstanbul for the event.

On November 7-9, the TCF Culinary Arts Center-YESAM took a group of food enthusiasts to Ayvalık for a tour on olive and olive oil culture in the Western Anatolian region. The group, guided by author and food culture researcher Nedim Atilla, had a chance to meet olive growers, harvest workers, olive oil producers, and a world champion olive oil taster, Selin Ertür.

TCF provided a grant to the American Turkish Friendship Council-ATFC to underwrite a Turkish movie night and fundraiser in support of their charitable projects in Turkey. This year’s event will take place on December 6 in Atlanta and feature Kelebeğin Rüyası-A Butterfly’s Dream. It will benefit the Multi-Purpose Community Centers (Çok Amaçlı Toplum Merkezleri-ÇATOM), which operate in cooperation with the Southeast Region Development Project-GAP and UNESCO in the Eastern and Black Sea regions of Turkey, working on local capacity building, women and children’s services.

Makam New York received a major TCF grant in support of its project Pearl Beneath the Sea. As part of the project, Ahmet Erdoğdular spoke about Music of the Ottoman Empire at Columbia University on November 6 and Ms. Eda Özbekkangay presented Ebru at Columbia on November 13. On November 19, a concert took place at Kaufman Music Center, featuring music by Ahmet Erdoğdular, Ara Dinkjian, and Ali Osman Erdoğdular, accompanied with dance by Khadija Radin and an Ebru visual art presentation by Eda Özbekkangay.

Sponsored by a major TCF grant and organized by the Turkish American Cultural Society of New England-TACSNE, the 19th Boston Turkish Festival continues through December 15 with a rich variety of programs. For upcoming events, please visit the Festival website. Meanwhile, the 1st Ahiska Turks Friendship Festival will take place in Seattle on November 30. The event is organized by the Turkish American Cultural Association of Washington-TACAWA as part of "Turkish Heritage Month" and supported by a major TCF grant.

Refik Anadol (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2013) premiered his video work for Edgard Varèse’s masterpiece for large orchestra "Visions of America: Amériques" at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on November 6-8.

On November 1, Özlem Uzun Hazneci (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2014) presented a selection of 20^th century Turkish art at the German Protestant Community Language Center, as part of the Jack Bowman Organ and Art Concert tour.