18 days ago
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Posted On: October 15th 2026, 04:58 pm
Mum making bakllava, 1998.
This was just a couple of months after we arrived in the UK, preparing for a quiet New Year’s Eve in a new country.
Bakllava is a dessert usually reserved for special occasions - in Albania it tends to be NYE and weddings - and is often made a week before eating, giving the pastry time to soak up the syrup. When this photo was taken, Mum would have rolled around 50 sheets of thin pastry and was layering them into the tray with crushed walnuts and syrup.
New Years has always been a family celebration for us, as it is for many Albanian families. I learnt that religious celebrations were prohibited during communist times, so New Years became an especially important occasion for families to gather.
To this day, I still prefer a family New Year’s Eve, gathered around a table full of food, drinks and the annual bakllava.
Unfortunately, my culinary skills haven't progressed much beyond holding this rolling pin at four years old.
#albaniacollected
This was just a couple of months after we arrived in the UK, preparing for a quiet New Year’s Eve in a new country.
Bakllava is a dessert usually reserved for special occasions - in Albania it tends to be NYE and weddings - and is often made a week before eating, giving the pastry time to soak up the syrup. When this photo was taken, Mum would have rolled around 50 sheets of thin pastry and was layering them into the tray with crushed walnuts and syrup.
New Years has always been a family celebration for us, as it is for many Albanian families. I learnt that religious celebrations were prohibited during communist times, so New Years became an especially important occasion for families to gather.
To this day, I still prefer a family New Year’s Eve, gathered around a table full of food, drinks and the annual bakllava.
Unfortunately, my culinary skills haven't progressed much beyond holding this rolling pin at four years old.
#albaniacollected
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