Istanbul-born food and portrait photographer Emel spent her summer holidays in her mother’s town, Giresun, in their hazelnut fields. Like many of the kids in this town, she helped the grown-ups with picking hazelnuts, making mulberry molasses, fermenting yellow cherries, foraging mushrooms and nettles, and making yufka (phyllo dough).
She learned a lot from her mother, grannies, and neighbours, completed a Vegan Chef School course, and volunteered at MIH many times. After experiencing the therapeutic results of cooking, magical world of fermentation she built a plant based community cookery school called Greens & Others in Manchester. Nowadays, she spreads the healthy plant-based lifestyle to anyone with cooking classes who cares about their health, the planet, and animals.