While most of our Instagram feed has been living it up in Europe this winter, Melbourne chef and food writer Ella Mittas has been working on her debut cookbook – which promises to give the rest of us stuck at home a taste of Greece!

We’ve previously featured Ella’s recipes here on TDF and you might have even eaten her food at one of her pop-ups in some of Melbourne’s best local restaurants. But in her first book, Ela! Ela! – To Turkey and Greece, Then Home, she shares some of her most beloved recipes and the stories behind them.

It’s a personal collection of recipes and essays she’s compiled after years of working in kitchens overseas, and some passed down from her own Greek-Australian family. Think of cultural dishes like a ‘village salad’, buttery chicken pilaf, octopus cooked in red wine and a classic chicken souvlaki!

Each chapter is dedicated to a different place, taking readers on a culinary journey from Istanbul to Alaçati and Crete with Ella’s own nostalgic film photos.

‘The recipes are a mix of things I saw, ate and was taught,’ she says. ‘Years of cooking them have turned them into something more my own.’

It’s equal parts heartwarming and hunger inducing, just like all good cookbooks should be!

Ela! Ela! To Turkey and Greece, Then Home is available for pre-order now here, or from all good bookstores from October 15.