The older, animal part of you knows, long before language does, that something is wrong and that you must move on. I had one of those days recently. It came unexpectedly, and it hurt. It hurt more because my heart and soul was involved. I will not go into detail here, only that I listened to that wordless instinct, my intuition, the one we are so often taught to talk ourselves out of, and it carried me to the other side.
What no one warns you about is the after. The adrenaline recedes and leaves a strange, ringing emptiness where it had been, and the body, so lately trusted, wants only to be filled. For me the reflex is old and familiar. I eat. Not from hunger but from a wish to feel held, to press something warm against the hollow place. I have written before about the shame our culture teaches us to fasten to appetite, in an earlier post. For a long time, I projected that shame inward, on myself. Lately I am trying something gentler: to meet the impulse with tenderness rather than reproach, and to ask, honestly, what it is I actually need.
This is where the kitchen becomes more than a kitchen. In the culture I grew up inside and have spent my life studying, food has never been only fuel. It is protection, memory, a shared act, a language for speaking to the unseen. Anthropologists have a word for the objects and gestures we use to turn harm away: apotropaic, from the Greek, to ward off. In Anatolia the harm has a name of its own, nazar, the evil eye, and a whole grammar of defence has grown up around it. Basil on the windowsill to guard the house. Rosemary at the threshold. The bittersweet steam of sage rising from a glass. A line of salt scattered along the threshold. I wanted to gather a few of these ingredients, the ones our grandmothers once pressed into our palms to turn the eye away and to keep us cared for, and to cook with them on purpose. Not to discipline the appetite, but to feed it well.
What follows, then, is less a set of instructions than a rigid recipe of such, arranged in three small movements: one to cleanse, one to nourish, one to remind us of our own worth. Cooking, like writing, is one of the ways I heal. Not to resolve anything in a controlling structural way, but to turn the sting into something I can taste, and share. It is high summer as I write, the markets heavy with stone fruit and tomatoes still warm from the sun, so I have let August lead the way.
One, to cleanse: an iced sage and rosemary tisane
Take a small handful of fresh sage leaves and a single short sprig of rosemary. Bruise them lightly between your fingers, just enough to wake the oils, and drop them into a jug with a long strip of lemon peel. Pour over just-boiled water and let it sit while the steam does its quiet work, five minutes or so, then stir through honey to taste while it is still warm. Leave it to cool, lift out the herbs, and pour it over plenty of ice.
Sage has been drunk for centuries across Anatolia to steady the nerves, adaçayı, the grandmother’s answer to a shaken afternoon. Rosemary is for remembrance and for clearing the air. Drink it slowly. This first movement is not really about thirst. And if you want the comfort of sage on the plate as well as in the glass, let a few leaves crisp in butter and fold them through boiled potatoes or a bowl of pasta. Plain, easy, restoring.
Two, to nourish: a peach, tomato and basil panzanella
For the second movement, abundance. Cut a few slices of good day-old bread into rough pieces and let them toast until the edges catch. Chop the ripest tomatoes you can find into generous wedges over a bowl, so you keep every drop of their juice, then add a white peach, sliced, its sweetness meeting the acidity of the fruit. Dress with olive oil that tastes green and peppery, a little red wine vinegar, and salt, and let the bread sit in all of it until it softens and drinks the tomato in. Tear over as much basil as your hands can hold.
In many town houses, basil is often grown by the door and on the sill, a small green guardian against ill will and biting insects alike. In this dish, it is doing the same work at the table: protective, generous, asking nothing of you but that you sit down and eat.
Three, to remember your worth: apricots in rosewater over cold labneh
And to close, I end with sweetness turned inward. Halve a handful of ripe apricots, or peaches if the apricots have gone over, and warm them gently in a pan with a spoon of honey until they slump and glisten, then stir through a few drops of rosewater at the very end, off the heat, so the perfume stays. Spoon them, still warm, over cold labneh or thick strained yoghurt (I use Greek or Turkish süzme yoghurt). Scatter with crushed pistachios and a few dried rose petals if you have them.
Rose has carried the meaning of love in this part of the world for as long as anyone has written it down, and there is no rule that says the love has to be for someone else. Eat this one for yourself, slowly, and without apology. And on the mornings when even that feels like too much, a single drop of rosewater stirred into your tea will carry the same message, quietly.
So beautiful, I will make them all🤍