Dinner & Meze

When we were kids, Mum and Dad would take us to visit our grandparents in the village. Back then there was no electricity — the only light at night came from cooking fires or gasoline lamps.

Outside it would be so dark at night — pitch black — that as kids we would be scared to use the toilet, which was outside the house.

Years later my grandfather said that he’d come into the world too early. He wished he had been born at a later time, when the bright lights of electricity were shining above his head.

In those days my grandmother collected all the dried cow pats she could find and used them as fuel for her fire. She was a very sustainable cook, without even knowing it. Maybe this is how I got my passion for being a self-sufficient little Turk!

For dinner, once again, all the different hot and cold dishes would be laid out together on the table (or on a mat on the floor, back in the old days).

And the feasting and sharing and talking and laughing would begin all over again.