My father’s side of the family is Greek. They all live on one street, in houses next door to each other. There are holes cut between backyard fences, so everyone can be together easily. That one small section of street has given me a sense of community and belonging I haven’t been able to locate in the rest of my life. It seems separate from the rest of Australia, but it’s a version of Greece abstracted from the real thing; its traditions are built on distant memories. The language spoken is Gringlish, a mix of both places.

I’ve always felt that somewhere inside that place, among the carved-out fences, is where my true identity lies. I looked for more concrete examples of that elusive sense of community for years: a place where it exists in its entirety, where it was set in stone. That was the conception of my food journey: travelling and working in Greece to try to find it.

Through all my travel, roads only led home. It turned out I felt most full in Little Greece in Brunswick, Melbourne. Now I use my work to recreate the meals that make me feel at home. My debut cookbook Ela! Ela! To Turkey and Greece, Then Home can be purchased at ellamittas.com