“Vida-Victoria, my father's mom, was born in Istanbul. His cuisine was the Judeo-Spanish cuisine of the Jews settled in the former Ottoman Empire. It was difficult to get the recipe for his dishes because the dosages were vague and approximate: a bit of this, a little bit of that. As a young girl, I had the opportunity to go see her with my future husband. She made us a lemon artichoke salad, garato, pieces of marinated mackerel and armi, a dish of tomatoes simmered with onions and a little bit of rice. All the accuracy of this dish comes from that 'a little'. And that day, in the complicity of a unique moment since we were just us, my grandmother explained to me how to make an armi. She explained to me that to succeed you had to know how to spend a little time there. She told me about tomatoes to be cut, about onions that had to be left to color in oil with garlic, and about the time that should therefore be left for all this for tomatoes and onions to cook, melt, and stew gently, slowly, imbuing each other with their scents. Then just add a small handful of rice. 'How much rice grandma? - Just a little, the palm of your hand, a small cup, because sami is a tomato compote with a little bit of rice and especially not tomato rice. 'It takes some time my daughter but that's how it will be good. ' My grandma's sarmi is the only recipe she gave me in person. She left us two weeks later.” - Catherine