A case of kismet
“I CUT MY TEETH as a young cook by helping my mother, Ayhan, around our house in Ankara,” says Tayfun Aras in the introduction to the book. “My odd jobs included stoking the coal burner – the heart of our family life – throughout long winter nights that dropped to -20 degrees Celsius, and presenting the butcher with my mother’s handwritten order. Walking to the lively Friday market to buy fruit and vegetables turned into an art itself. My parents taught me at an early age what to look for when choosing brinjals, watermelon, tomatoes and so on. Mostly our meals were a soup and stew of a kind, accompanied by olive oil-based dishes and, for pudding, a milk dessert or fruit.
My childhood in the neighbourhood of Bahçelievler was a happy one of roses, honeysuckle and fruit trees dotted around our U-shaped garden; of innocents playing unsupervised in the streets until dusk; of the kind of seasonal, organic diet that inspired longevity.
Over weekends and summer holidays we trundled by municipal bus to my grandparents’ smallholding 90 minutes outside Ankara. Dinner was a in the main stone house.
