Medium • 05/11/2025

Tasted Like Obedience: Some Sacred Myths

Any criticism of what is deemed sacred is not only an intellectual act—it is also an emotional rupture.
If the thing you are criticizing is part of who you are, then to criticize it is also to touch yourself.
And that hurts.

Medium • 05/10/2025

Do You Remember, We Were Once Mortal

“The soul is sweet, life is sweet. Even if you lived a hundred years, with all the gold and silver in the world, one night you will be a guest of a grave without desire. The dark grave is our home. Mendo, don’t weep. It is useless. That pitch-black grave — it is our home. Let no one delight their heart too much with this world. We will die. Let us at least not leave behind broken hearts.” — Eda Mahdo*

Medium • 22/07/2025

Let Us Grow Old in Peace!

Let me be. Let us age in peace — or “age gracefully,” or whatever euphemism the new world prefers. Being a woman is already a full-time fight.

Medium • 23/06/2025

The Taste of Freedom

The year is 2012. About a year has passed since Gaddafi was overthrown and lynched to death. A young man in his mid-20s, one of those who took part in the lynching of Gaddafi, holds up his fried chicken sandwich at a fast-food-style restaurant called Uncle Kentucky in Tripoli, Libya. He says, “This is why I fought, this is why so much blood was shed in my country. Because I want to feel how good freedom tastes.”

Medium • 19/06/2025

A recipe, a Sunday and the book of women

For my research, I ask every local I know about traditional Maltese recipes, especially those with stories passed down from mothers and grandmothers. Among the list of local winter sweets, the one I’m most eager to try is called Imbuljuta tal-Qastan, which translates to “Chestnut Christmas Drink of Malta.”

Medium • 19/06/2025

The Refrigerator: Every Home’s Unique Museum

Have you ever thought about which electronics you use most often at home, apart from your phone and computer?

Medium • 19/06/2025

More Than a Meal: Becoming a Cultural Ambassador

When a restaurant owner offers the flavors of their homeland far from home, is their role only to serve good food? Human beings are natural storytellers. We carry our languages, our cultures, our foods — and most importantly, our memories and stories — wherever we go.

Medium • 19/06/2025

A Traditional, Kitchen-Based Form of Therapy: Rolling “Sarma”

Imagine a table: aunts, grandmothers, sisters-in-law, cousins — all gathered together, all making the same dish. This time-consuming dish, made by filling grape leaves with a rice-based mixture, is called “sarma”.For the women in my large family — who had migrated from east to west — preparing sarma was a wonderful excuse to gather.

Medium • 19/06/2025

The Photograph Without a Name

I realize, at that moment, that I’ve planted my invisible flag on a land where I dream of harvesting the fruit of a tree I planted. That’s also how I remember why I’ve been looking at this photo for so long.

MaltaToday.com.mt • 12/12/2024

Never-ending Exile Soup | Kivilcim Akay

It’s a sunny afternoon, and I’m sitting in a café chatting with John. John P. Portelli is a poet and author who retired as a philosophy professor from the University of Toronto. For John, retirement is merely a term on official documents. His mind, ever-active, is a marvel of clarity woven with humour and conscience. He has authored numerous works of fiction and poetry. After signing a copy of his poetry collection “Here Was”—translated into Turkish—for my father, a lifelong devotee of poetry, h...