Turkish Meatballs

My paternal grandparents' summer house was in Sarkoy, a small village on the Marmara Sea coast in the Thrace region. My dad used to drive us up the coast to spend a week with my maternal grandparents at the end of every summer.

My granddad, a retired captain pilot, was a man of leisure and he knew how to have a good time. His day always started with an early morning walk with his buddies. After breakfast, he would pack up his gear and go to prepare his bright red boat to take us fishing. My dad would put a piece of bait on the fishing line and then give one to me and one to my brother. There would always be a competition, who will catch the first fish, the biggest fish or the most fish. We would spend hours on the boat trying.

Then at night time my granddad would cook the catch of the day. As he was serving the fish, my dad would announce this one is Zeynep's catch or Yalin's catch and my mom and grandma would be shouting "Bravo" and clapping at each announcement enthusiastically.

Another favourite memory from the Sarkoy era is the grand picnics that used to take place with all my grandparents' friends. Everyone would start preparing early in the morning and pack the cars. By mid-morning, a convoy of cars would drive to Ucmakdere, a little cove of paradise on the outskirts of a coastal village that could only be reached by a one-lane dirt road winding on a mountain cliff.

Lentil Soup

There is nothing I like more than coming home to a big bowl of steaming hot soup in winter. As the days get shorter and a golden brown blanket of leaves cover the ground, I find myself craving the warm and familiar tastes of my childhood.

I used to come home from school all worn out from being stuck in a classroom all day to find my mother stirring a big pot of soup patiently over the stove. The smell of exciting ingredients would start to flirt with my nose even before I opened the front door. With each spoonful, my worries would start to melt away and the heaviness on my chest would be replaced by a warm and fuzzy feeling instead.

No Turkish dinner table is complete without a soup, especially in winter. We love our soups so much that sometimes we have soup even if it is the middle of summer. In all the Turkish restaurants, there would at least be "one soup of the day" all year round, rain, hail or shine.