From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman and you're listening to good food.

Occasionally a cookbook seduces me precisely because the food presented is not overly played with or shot with filters.

Instead, the simplicity and honesty on the plate is foundational to the story,

and the homeliness of the food reaches out and grabs you.

Such is the case with Melisburg, a household name in the UK who is just now gaining

an American audience. Melis's parents grew up in the same remote fishing village on the Turkish side of Cyprus.

Her debut book, Malize's kitchen, brings to life her mother's memories of the island and the food that defines it.

I opened a book and immediately knew this is food I want to cook and eat.

Hi. Hello, hi.

Could you remind us where Cyprus is geographically and what the influence on the food are from being in that geographical location.

Absolutely. I mean Cyprus I remember reading

Othello, Shakespeare's Othello when I was in high school and one of the kind of the sentences in there was how it was just kind of this melting pot in the middle of the world really I guess it's where East me's west it's in the

Mediterranean Sea it's just below Turkey it's just above North Africa.

You know, when you're looking at the map,

geographically to the right, it's very close to Syria and Lebanon.

So you've got, and obviously on the Western side,

you've got the, you've got the you've got Greece you've got that kind of

Eastern part of Europe as well in the Balkans so it's really in that kind of epicenter of Europe and Africa and veering towards obviously the

Middle East as well.

So it's surrounded obviously by sea and so as a result it became the kind of crossing point and the crossroads for so many other

cultures and armies and peoples to travel through and consequently we've taken on a lot of those flavours.

So although it's where it's located would suggest that and obviously being inhabited by Turkish

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