Inseparable bayram duo: Kahve & lokum

Now that the sweetest holiday has started, it's time for sweets of all kinds, all to go along with little cups of bitter Turkish coffee. The true essence of the Ramadan holiday is an endless chain of visits, and serving coffee with sweet morsels of delight is a must. In my childhood, Eid al-Fitr was called "Şeker Bayramı," that can be translated as "Sugar or Candy Feast or Holiday" nowadays with the waves of a more religious attitude it is called "Ramazan Bayramı," the Ramadan Holiday. Bayram in Turkish is a word that refers to any holy day, but also covers any festivity or festival, or even commemoration days dedicated to celebrating any event or subject worth memorializing. It is time to exchange visits and at every Bayram visit there will be coffee served, and there will definitely be sweet treats, with Turkish coffee and Turkish delight being the classic duo of the sugar feast.

Nowadays, the urban white-collar generation seems to take Bayram as an opportunity to take a break from work and head to holiday destinations. People of rural origin take the opportunity to go to their villages to visit the elderly, of course if they are still living there. In any case, a Bayram, especially when it is a 9-day break opportunity, means that there will be a lot of traffic leaving metropoles like Istanbul. In the past, the traffic used to be across houses with endless reciprocal home visits. There used be an infinite succession of guests visiting my paternal mother's house as she was the eldest in the whole family. My spinster aunts living with my grandmother would be busy brewing coffee and filling little dainty glasses of liquor to serve along with coffee and keeping an eye on the elaborate candy bonbonnieres to make sure that they are not emptied, probably by me....