Chargrilled Eggplant Salad

I think I mentioned before how, even after almost 10 years of living Down Under, my body clock is still getting confused when the calendar hits July and with it peaks the cold and misery of winter.

July is the middle of summer in another part of the world where I grew up and where it is all about long sunny days full of swimming, eating and relaxing (not necessarily in that particular order) and cool breezy evenings with long dinners and conversations around the table till the early hours of the morning.

Naturally, when July arrives, rather than layering up like a cabbage to keep warm, I want to shed everything off and spend the whole day lazing around in a pair of swimmers and a sarong to soak up the sun.

It does not help when, on each phone conversation, my dad religiously reports the temperature and wind conditions for the day in Cesme and how they are planning to take the boat out in a couple of hours, or when mum gives me a detailed list of what she has just bought "soooo fresh" from the markets and is cooking for dinner.

Adele's Cabbage Salad

So we have found out very early this year what our Christmas present is going to be: A little bundle of joy to turn our company of two into a crowd of three!

Over the last three months, I have also found out that I do not only have the character trades of my mother but I also get the same pregnancy symptoms. When I was 1,5 years old and my mother was pregnant with my brother, my response to "What is your mum doing?" was simply "Mummy, toilet, baaarrf!", which was pretty much all I did when I was not dozing on and off on the couch.

For someone addicted to her olive oil, garlic, feta, yoghurt and greens, it was really hard and surprising to find out that all I could stomach or stand the smell of was Vegemite toast and green apples. (Well, this is going to be an Australian baby as much as a Turkish one after all.)

So after being away from my kitchen for over eight weeks, the coast is now clear and my appetite is slowly coming back. But for someone who has been deprived of her vegetables for over three months, I am not craving the usual suspects such as chocolate or pickles but rather colorful salads, cold olive oil platters and lots and lots of fresh vegetables.