Highlights

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  Painter in the Palace

  The pictures that fired Europe’s imagination with their visions of Istanbul and the Ottoman court returned to the city for the first time in more than 250 years. Philip Mansel looks at the extraordinary paintings of Jean Baptiste Vanmour

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  Fruits of the Earth

  The knobbly tubers stay fresh and crisp, and even become sweeter, if they are left in the ground; after frost and snow, they really taste like apples. Nutritionally, the tuber has valuable properties: as a diuretic, it benefits the kidneys; it stimulates the milk of nursing mothers; and it is considered a potent aphrodisiac.
  More cookery features

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  An American Nomad

  There has been no road map in the life of Josephine Powell. As restless as the nomadic tribes she followed, she has simply let things happen. But along the way, she has become a photographer and an expert on the nomads of Turkey and their textiles. And now she dreams of a permanent home for her exceptional kilims and photographs. Andrew Finkel pays tribute to a remarkable friend

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  Beyond the Euphrates

  Until 1950, no travellers were permitted to cross the Euphrates. Southeast Turkey was simply out of bounds. Among the first to visit when restrictions were finally lifted was the photographer Cafer Türkmen. Travelling by train, truck, Jeep and mule, he discovered a place of dramatic beauty and a way of life barely changed for thousands of years.

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  From Lunacy to Diplomacy

  The Hôtel de Lamballe was home to a doomed princess and an asylum for mad artists before it became Turkey’s embassy in Paris. Patricia Daunt reveals the turbulent past behind its serene facade. Photographs by Jean Marie del Moral