Local cookbook author and social media sensation Betül Tunç caters to an international audience from her home base in Blacksburg.
In 2021, a video of Tunç punching down dough for a chocolate caramel babka went viral, and ever since her fans have devoured her stylized content.
So what inspires the Turkish-born content creator and the vision for her food and lifestyle brand known as Turkuaz Kitchen?
"I enjoy visiting historical places and antique stores," Tunç says, "watching old movies and TV shows, especially if they have kitchen scenes like such as Anne with an E.
Tunç is the creative force behind Turkuaz Kitchen, turkuaz meaning turquoise, a reference to the mineral that was first brought to Europe via the Ottoman Empire from the Middle East, and also the word for Turkish in old French. Her wildly popular Instagram account has over 10 million followers, and her cookbook of the same name was published last fall.
Fans on Instagram swoon over a finely curated aesthetic of vintage clothing and tools, and the soft focus of images that depict the cooking process in a cinematic way, often including elements like cracked eggshells, and bespoke cutlery with wooden handles, and audio that highlights the sounds of those tools whirring, whisking, and grating.
Tunç hopes that aesthetic inspires her followers to slow down and savor the experience of not just eating but also the baking and cooking process.
Tunç hails from Erzurum in Eastern Turkey where winters are cold and snowy. She told Garden and Gun Magazine that the frigid winters growing up in her hometown fostered her “love for a warm kitchen.”
She is a self-taught cook and baker, and cites her mother and older sisters as important mentors in learning about the finer details of working with dough.
Tunç also self-built her brand by absorbing the aesthetics of cooking shows, ingesting cooking magazine design, and training her eye on the details of websites devoted to the craft of cooking.
In time she developed her own sense of not only what she wanted to communicate to her audience but how. Her design style emphasizes savoring the slow process of working in the kitchen without mechanized, newfangled tools.
"Many of us miss this slow time," Tunç says. "When I am cooking, I imagine myself in a very cozy and real 19th century kitchen and using simple and nonelectrical tools. It's the smell of bread baking in the oven. That's the feeling I try to bring into my content, a sense of comfort and at the same time nostalgia."
"What I love about working with the dough is how simple yet complex it is. It has, of course, generally, a few basic ingredients that everybody has in their pantry, flour, water, yeast, just like very simple ingredients, but there are so many small details and techniques that can change the final result."
While Tunç’s brand deals in nostalgia, she’s also not shy about jumping on trends. When fans requested a recipe for fashionable Dubai chocolate, a candy bar with pistachio filling, she gladly accommodated.
"It's a combination of the pistachio and chocolate. It is so good. There is some crispiness with the kataifi. Kataifi is a very popular phylo dough in Turkey. We are using the kataifi for so many desserts."
Tunç also makes use of farmers markets in the area to source local produce.
"I love tomatoes," Tunç admits. "And we find the best tomatoes and peaches in Blacksburg. I love to serve tomatoes just like with burrata or just my stracciatella recipe. As a Turkish woman we generally serve tomatoes for our breakfast with some cheese. And also I love to make peach rolls. This is my son’s favorite."
What’s next for Betül Tunç? Fans will be excited to know that even more sweet and savory recipes are on the way in a second cookbook. Tunç is also working on much requested longer-form content for a Youtube channel. And for those who aren’t so inclined to don an apron, devotees will soon be able to visit a restaurant in Washington, D.C. that will tout Tunç’s brand and baked goods later this year.