I am Martli

My name is Martli. I am a wife to the best husband, mother of 3 beautiful girls and also a very passionate cook.

In the beginning, there was salad…

My very first memory of food dates back to my grandmother’s kitchen. She used to make the most amazing Sunday lunches and when I turned 6, the salad baton was handed over to me. Back then we all made very boring pseudo-Greek salads with rubbery feta, bitter black olives, white onions, quartered large tomatoes and very unimaginative iceberg lettuce. My mother did teach me a “hoity toity” version by making a vinaigrette with smashed garlic in our very well-seasoned wooden salad bowl first. I actually have that bowl to this day. I very soon realised that the traditional way of making salad with the lettuce leaves at the bottom and all the good stuff exposed to thieving hands on the top was no good because by the time my grandmother’s delicious lamb hit the table, all that was left was anaemic iceberg and white onions in a very well-seasoned salad bowl! That is probably when my solutioning skills were born! I solved the thieving problem by making the most boring salad the eye had ever seen because I made it bottoms up! Vinaigrette at the bottom with onion rings, tomatoes, feta & olives soaking up the delicious garlicky juices, topped with (the still unimaginative) iceberg and voila! The salad reached the table intact and once tossed it oozed with flavour and it all got devoured – iceberg and all! From then onwards, the salad duties fell on me (and they still do)!

Man shall not live on salad alone

My fascination with salads remains firmly in place to this day. I love taking a humble vegetable and turning it into something unusual.

I don’t remember exactly when, but at some point, my house became the venue for a weekly Sunday lunch get-together with friends. Friends brought their friends, and they in turn brought theirs and that is how Notachef’s was born!