Jennifer Hattam

With the world's largest collection of living plants, and its scientists working around the globe to preserve biodiversity, the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London is internationally renowned for its conservation work. Less well known, perhaps, is the fact that its 300-acre grounds harbor the ingredients for some darn good cocktails... While visiting London earlier this summer, I ventured out to the Kew Gardens with a journalist friend from the International New York Times  to partake in an impossible-to-resist combination: fancy cocktails, fresh air, and a fantastic setting. As we sipped on Kew-cumbers, Rose Gardens, Gooseberry & Fennels, and Strawberry Cups -- all gin-based drinks concocted from fresh botanicals and seasonal fruits that grow in Kew Gardens -- we chatted with Gin Garden founder Jo Farish about her enviable job creating plant-based pop-up bars at all kinds of interesting places in and around London. Read my article  for Zester Daily ,  " Cocktai...

Eighty modern and contemporary art galleries hailing from Helsinki to Hong Kong are set to join ArtInternational for its return to the banks of Istanbul’s Golden Horn in the fall. This year, the fair will bring with it a fresh focus on collecting practices and on experimental film and video art. The inaugural edition last September of ArtInternational, brought to Istanbul by Art HK co-founder Sandy Angus, netted an estimated 21 million euros in sales for its participating galleries. “It’s a truly international art fair with high-quality works, coherence and a good ratio between Turkish and international galleries. That differentiates it from other fairs in Turkey and the region,” says Istanbul collector Tansa Ekşioğlu... Read the rest of my preview of ArtInternational, which will be held held 26-28 September at Istanbul's Haliç Congress Center, in the Fall 2014 issue of Selections magazine's  Art Paper supplement: " Bringing the World to Istanbul...

The Altan Şekerleme candy shop was a frequent and favorite stop during my time as a  tour guide  for  Istanbul Eats ’  culinary walks, but what happened in the candy-making operation upstairs was always a closely guarded secret. At a recent press event at the  Istanbul Culinary Arts Center , however, I finally had the chance to  see  how those glistening hard candies were made, and to return for a chat with one of the master  şekerci  (confectioners) carrying on a tradition that dates back, with little change, to Ottoman times: Inside a weathered storefront surrounded by hardware shops, colorful gems gleam in the dim light — large jars full of hard candies flavored with sesame, cinnamon, rose, orange, bergamot and lemon. Candy-maker Hüseyin Aksoy at work Proprietor Hakan Altanoğlu and his forefathers have been making and selling the Turkish candy called akide şekeri at this shop in Istanbul’s Fatih district since 1865, b...

Initially ignored and dismissed for her experimental approach, Füsun Onur has become recognised as one of Turkey’s most influential contemporary artists by steadfastly continuing to follow her own path. She has described her art as "musical work without sound," explaining, "I am taking everyday objects and using them as notes." Born in 1938, Onur got her undergraduate degree at what is now the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul, where she studied with Ali Hadi Bara. The Iranian-born sculptor was influential in moving Turkish sculpture away from official monuments and into more abstract realms. Onur made her own mark by pioneering installation art that pushes the boundaries of both sculpture and painting, incorporating everyday objects and aspects of daily life but taking them out of their normal context in a way that prompts the viewer to reassess the meanings typically attributed to them.. . Read the rest of my preview of "Füsun Onur: Thro...

High above the street, construction workers scale rickety scaffolding without helmets or harnesses. Near the sidewalk, a man welds a piece of metal, his face bare as sparks shoot all around. These are common sights in Turkey, where worker safety often seems to be an afterthought. The horrific death of at least 301 workers in the Soma coal mine disaster last month has put the spotlight on Turkey’s dangerous, under-regulated mining industry, but the construction industry that has fueled the country’s recent economic growth and boosted its global profile is rife with dangers too: One-third of all work accidents reported in Turkey come from the building sector, more than any other industry. With the deaths in Soma still weighing heavily on my mind, I looked into the safety risks faced by construction workers in Turkey for the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), and filed this report: " Turkey's Building Boom Takes Toll on Worker Safety ."

The inaugural GREAT Festival of Creativity rolls into Istanbul next week (20-22 May at SEED ), showcasing innovative ideas in a wide range of fields -- from fashion and design to technology and education to food and drink. The festival, which travels next to Hong Kong and Shanghai, is part of the British Prime Ministry's GREAT campaign, an ongoing drive to promote Britain abroad as a place to visit and do business. To further inspire the "cross-section of creative and commercial Britain" visiting Istanbul for the event, I contributed pithy write-ups of galleries, restaurants, shops and other spots across the city to the GREAT Festival Guide to Creative Istanbul , an online "directory of all that's creative and unusual in one of the world's GREAT cities."

It's a warm July day in the small harbor town of Ayvalık, on Turkey's Aegean coast. A horse cart with wooden wheels clatters down a cobblestone street, past a bustling, sun-drenched workshop, its front door flung open. Inside, a half dozen women are hunkered down over long wooden tables, cutting, stitching and crafting. Using bits of thrown-away packaging and factory rejects -- leather scraps, swaths of felt, surplus canned-food labels -- they're transforming trash destined for the dump into colorful clutches, purses and wallets to be sold in trendy gift shops around Turkey. Even more remarkably, the women, most of whom have no more than a fifth-grade education, are also transforming their lives: For the first time ever, they're being paid for their work... I met American expat Tara Hopkins not long after I moved to Istanbul, when she had recently founded Çöp(m)adam , a path-breaking social enterprise that combined women's empowerment with environmental respo...