"I was a student in middle school in my early teens when I found my true calling in life. But before, I attempted to sell cold water, lemonade, pens and pencils at local bazaars and failed miserably, shone shoes to moderate success, and did a couple of other miserable stints as an apprentice with some local merchants. Then I started helping out a close relative at his Kahvehane, a tea shop in Bağcılar, a slum and a ghetto in the eighties, now a big Metropol in an even bigger megapolis, İstanbul.
And this was where my distinguished career as a waiter began. I had strong legs from my days of roaming around Mezopotamia's high mountains herding animals, and it turned out that was all I needed to ferry Çay, brewed black tea and Turkish Coffee to the other shops at the bazaar. I was quick on my feet, cruising the streets all day, holding the copper tray full of drinks with its handle and swinging it in the air like a windmill"
It is funny how life makes a circle and brings you back to where you have started. As I wrote in my memoir, Waiter: Reflections and Memories, my serving career started with making coffee and tea in Bağcılar, a slum in Istanbul and now almost forty years later, I do the same things: Serve coffee and tea on the street from a custom-designed truck in Ballston.
"I was a student in middle school in my early teens when I found my true calling in life. But before, I attempted to sell cold water, lemonade, pens and pencils at local bazaars and failed miserably, shone shoes to moderate success, and did a couple of other miserable stints as an apprentice with some local merchants. Then I started helping out a close relative at his Kahvehane, a tea shop in Bağcılar, a slum and a ghetto in the eighties, now a big Metropol in an even bigger megapolis, İstanbul.
And this was where my distinguished career as a waiter began. I had strong legs from my days of roaming around Mezopotamia's high mountains herding animals, and it turned out that was all I needed to ferry Çay, brewed black tea and Turkish Coffee to the other shops at the bazaar. I was quick on my feet, cruising the streets all day, holding the copper tray full of drinks with its handle and swinging it in the air like a windmill"
It is funny how life makes a circle and brings you back to where you have started. As I wrote in my memoir, Waiter: Reflections and Memories, my serving career started with making coffee and tea in Bağcılar, a slum in Istanbul and now almost forty years later, I do the same things: Serve coffee and tea on the street from a custom-designed truck in Ballston.