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94 Ra­ kija and Meze At sun­ set, my ­ father would set down his book on the bal­ cony after a long after­ noon of read­ ing; this was the sign for my ­ mother to come with a small glass of home­ made ra­ kija. My ­ mother in­ tuited when my ­ father was in the mood for just a sip of ra­ kija and when he ­ wanted to eat some meze with his ­ brandy. The lat­ ter was most often the case when ­ guests ar­ rived, a fre­ quent oc­ cur­ rence.­ Mother was a real mas­ ter at tak­ ing lit­ tle bits of ­ things and turn­ ing them into won­ der­ ful meze. Dur­ ing the years of pov­ erty and So­ cial­ ist col­ lec­ tiv­ iza­ tion, my ­ mother se­ cretly ­ planted some pep­ pers, egg­ plants, to­ ma­ toes, gar­ lic, onion, par­ sley, and cu­ cum­ bers in a lit­ tle plot of land in our gar­ den. She man­ aged to hide them so well among the roses, the car­ na­ tions, and the oblig­ a­ tory basil that al­ most no one knew of ­ mother’s se­ cret gar­ den. And ­ though they ­ shared the earth with the flow­ ers, these veg­ e­ ta­ bles grew suc­ cess­ fully for my ­ mother year in and year out. As the first egg­ plants ri­ pened, my ­ father would say in jest that the earth it­ self loved my ­ mother. At that time there was ­ scarcely any such pro­ duce in the mar­ kets, and what there was ­ quickly van­ ished, al­ most cer­ tain to end up on ta­ bles in great din­ ing halls, which were not open to every­ one. My ­ mother made the best meze for my ­ father and his ­ friends when the veg­ e­ ta­ bles in her gar­ den were ripe. She made an un­ usual salad from­ finely ­ chopped par­ sley and used the left­ overs for her ­ yogurt dip, made from but­ ter­ milk that had, in turn, been made from the milk of our hid­ den goats. When my ­ father’s ­ friends came over, I ­ started hang­ ing­ around just for the meze. My ­ father and his ­ friends did not no­ tice how­ quickly the ap­ pe­ tiz­ ers dis­ ap­ peared. From time to time my ­ father shot a stern ­ glance in my di­ rec­ tion, but to no avail. Later on, when I was a bit older and was in­ cluded in the con­ ver­ sa­ tions ­ between my ­ father and his 95­ friends and al­ lowed a sip or two of ­ brandy, I ate more, way more, than I drank. The food still dis­ ap­ peared quite ­ quickly. But my ­ father no ­ longer­ scolded me. With time it be­ came ever ­ clearer to me that ­ between the ra­ kija and the meze, the time and the con­ ver­ sa­ tion, there was some sort of order, some mu­ tual con­ sent not easy to ­ achieve . . . ...

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