4 May 2013. Well here I am again, the first night of another season … this one will be my 34th!!
I remember very clearly an evening in June 1979. My father and I together with a family friend drove down from Istanbul, in those days it took well over fourteen hours, and we arrived in Kalkan after dark. On arrival we sat down for something to eat at the one and only place in town, it was a small lokanta located where Doy Doy is now. I asked my Dad where our restaurant was going to be and with a simple hand gesture he said ‘walk a few meters that way and you will find it’. That short walk is still very vivid in my mind, it was very dark and there was not a single soul around. At the end of the short walk I found a one story, stone arched, building with buckets of white wash and paint brushes everywhere.
Korsan had it’s first ever opening night a few days later and I had my first ever waitering experience. The first night was a very busy one with lots of Istanbul Turks coming ashore off boats for the evening.
Those early years are included in my count of 34. I was a school boy in Istanbul and came down every summer during the school holidays to be the only English speaking waiter in Kalkan!
If any of you reading this blog are fortunate enough to have spent some time in Kalkan in the late 70’s early 80’s you will know how magical the place was, even for an Istanbul city boy in his mid teens!
Whether the first, fourth or thirty fourth season, it is great to be starting another new one. we hope it is a peaceful and successful one ….. and not too hot please. Judging by how hot it is now, I am either loosing my tolerance for the heat as I get older, or it is going to be a hot hot summer.
As we say HAYIRILI OLSUN!
Uluc
