Introducing: Leyla & Granny Says

Do you ever wish you had a grandmother around to share recipes and tips or just to say a few kind words? We're happy to announce a new column here on the Attic that will give you just that! Grandmothers are very dear to us: mother-figures who play important roles in our lives, best friends who ally themselves with us at a young age, lifelong role models. I personally was raised by my grandmother, and I'm proud to say that she steadfastly remains an important member of my three-generation, all-women household and still acts as one of my best friends. Now, she will play a role in the Attic, as well.

Having been everything from a young woman studying fashion in Istanbul in the 1940s, a diplomat's wife in New York in the 1960s, a divorcée and working mother in the 1970s, to a fiercely doting grandmother as of the 1990s, Leyla has seen and done it all. She's lived in Manhattan by herself, raised one child, one grandchild, and proved to be a tough entity on her own. She cares for no man's opinion and has absolutely no patience for nonsense. Though she's been a homemaker at different points in her life, she hates to cook and clean but likes to eat well and be in a perfectly kept home, so her tips promise to be to the point and her recipes easy to make. She's always been an inspiration to me, and I hope that now she can also be one for you.

As Dear Lee has us covered when it comes to advice, Granny Says will be something different altogether. From time to time, she'll come to you with a Q&A, an anecdote, a Turkish recipe, or a homemaking tip (which might have to do with fashion or flowers or with how to make a man quiver in his boots).