The 2016 season of the TCF-WACA Spotlight on Turkey program was launched this month. Over the course of the next three months, 10 WACA councils selected as partners for this year's program will each organize a Teachers' Workshop on Turkey, supported through a TCF grant. Teachers who are interested in participating in the Teacher Study Tour this summer are required to participate in the workshop to become eligible to apply for the tours. TCF will host 30 American teachers in July 2016. While priority will be given to teachers residing in the council areas listed below, councils may allow out of area teachers to participate in their programs and apply for the tour. For more information, contact the councils directly or send an e-mail to washington@turkishculture.org. Please visit the TCF Education Portal to learn more about the Spotlight on Turkey program and to access lesson plans and other educational resources on Turkey. The selected Councils are: World Denver, CO; World Affairs Council, Washington, DC; Pacific and Asian Affairs Council, HI; International Relations Council Kansas City, MO; Santa Fe Council on International Relations, NM; International Center of the Capital Region, Albany, NY; Dayton Council on World Affairs, OH; Cleveland Council on World Affairs, OH; World Affairs Council of Tennessee, TN; World Affairs Council of Seattle, WA.

The Golden Age of King Midas, a world premier exhibition at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, opens on February 13. The exhibition will run from February 13-November 27, 2016. TCF provided a major grant to underwrite the exhibition. Through a special agreement signed between the Republic of Turkey and the University of Pennsylvania, Turkey will lend the Penn Museum much of the material unearthed in the main Gordion tumulus, as well as a number of important objects from the tumuli in Lydia and Lycia. These pieces will appear alongside select examples from the Penn Museum's own collections. Archaeologists from Penn have been excavating and conducting research at Gordion since 1950. In 2009-2010, TCF underwrote another major exhibition on Gordion at Penn Museum entitled “His Golden Touch: The Gordion Drawings by Piet de Jong,” which showcased illustrations about the site made by Piet de Jong in 1957.

TCF has provided a grant to underwrite the 8th Annual Nazım Hikmet Poetry Festival organized by the American Turkish Association of North Carolina (ATA-NC). TCF has underwritten this event since its inception. The Festival will be held on April 10, 2016 at the Page Walker Arts & History Center in Cary, NC and celebrates the life and poetry of Nazım Hikmet, regarded widely as the greatest Turkish contemporary poet. The festival also pays tribute to a different international poet each year.  This year's festival focus is the Turkish poet Rumi and the selected poet is Betty Adcock. Finalists are invited to read their poetry at the Festival alongside other noted poets. Scrapbooks of past festivals' winning poems can be ordered here.

A TCF grant will support an exhibition of Anatolian kilims at the Turkish Consulate General in Zurich, Switzerland from March 16-22, 2016. The exhibition is organized by Hisar Anadolu Destek Dernegi.

Makam New York has received a TCF grant in support of its project Turkish Story Time. The program is a one hour weekly recorded session running January through June and September through December 2016, totaling 37 weeks. It will bring children and their caregivers together to learn about Turkish culture by reading stories in Turkish, learning rhymes and riddles, being introduced to Turkish musical instruments, and working on literacy. There are currently no such programs in Turkish in New York City. The stories and materials will also be available on Makam New York's website, and the program will be video recorded and streamed online.

On January 14, YESAM hosted Asst. Prof. Ahmet Uhri, archeologist and food engineer, who presented a seminar on "Cultural Roots of Baklava.” This seminar discussed the roots of baklava and how it was made and evolved through nations and time. YESAM also collaborated with NAR Restaurant for a seminar and dinner event on January 23. The seminar was presented by journalist and food culture researcher Nedim Atilla. It highlighted the dishes of the Balkans and Crete in Anatolia, which resulted from the population exchange that took place 93 years ago. Past YESAM lectures are periodically uploaded for online viewing on the TCF Video Gallery.

Turkish cooking traditions are highlighted every month with the YESAM Recipe of the Month, which currently features “Stuffed Cabbage Leaves with Herbed Rice and Chestnut.”