This week I am

thinking about Turkey and the Gallipoli peninsula in particular, a century after the centenary commemoration of the battles of Lone Pine and The Nek. We mark Anzac Day in April, but that was not the start of it all, nor the end. The campaign began with British and French submarines trying to get through the Dardanelles, but Turkish defences were too strong. So there were land forces, and the start of months of bloody battles. The diaries of the soldiers who were there tell bleak and awful stories. It was odd to realise that Troy was not so far away, only 40 kilometres from Canakkale, which is across the water from Anzac Cove. And all the stories of courage and bravery and bloodymindedness and grief that are contained in Honer's Iliad, about the Trojan War, are repeated millenia later.I stayed at Gallipoli Houses http://www.thegallipolihouses.com , a small guest house that was built in the local style by Eric Goossens and his wife Ozleme. It's a magic place, in a tiny village called Kocadere (pronounced kojadereh) which seems to have more chooks freely ranging than people. The sounds of it stay with me: the call to prayer from the minaret, the goats bleating, the roosters crowing, the hens clucking.Gallipoli Houses closes for the winter. It's too cold, no one comes. There's often snow.What brings most people here is an interest in the Gallipoli campaign, so people tend to talk over dinner and breakfast (no lunch is served), sharing stories and information. I met teachers from Mackay who often bring students to Gallipoli, Ministry of Defence people from New Zealand, and an English writer who had written a book about four brothers who were killed at Gallipoli. Two of them had settled in Australia, and had enlisted from there.Food in Turkey? Oh yes, In high summer, it's all tomatoes and melons, with the fig season just starting. It occurred to me that so much of the food grown in the area - wheat, melons, grapes, figs, olives - would have been known to the Trojans, all those centuries ago. Tomatoes are new(ish), of course, and so is the sweet corn.I don't know where they grow onions, but they're local, fresh, and a quite delicious combination of crisp, sweet and biting. Every salad included tomatoes, onions, some peppers (variably hot), occasionally a few herbs.Street food in Turkey could teach us a few things: grilled sweet corn, grilled chestnuts, watermelon and pineapple. Little carts sell simit, circular rolls covered is sesame seeds.If you should be in Canakkale, I'd recommend two restaurants. There's Kavala, which is seriously Greek http://www.canakkalekavala.com  and open for dinner. If no one tells you what fish is best that night, ask. Most waiters speak English. Sardines are just in season now, so I ordered those. A whole plate of them, presented headless. Hmmm, I thought, how do I know they really are fresh? Silly: taste them. Four of us ate well for about $100, including salads, beers, a glass of wine, and service charge.Try also Yalova (no website) which is not far from the ferry, on the edge of an area used for a carpark. It's got a great view from upstairs, but when four of us asked for a table, we had to sit downstairs because upstairs was full. Downstairs was set up with four huge tables, as if for a group, and indeed, while we had lunch, a huge group came in and filled the tables. They began with soup (served by waiters from tureens), and had some kind of meat dish and rice. Everyone had a bowl of salad, too. They even managed dessert in the time it took us to eat. I thought the fish here was very good fish, and and the sea bass (called levrek) was outstanding. Three of us shared a whole fish, which is priced by the kilo. Ours cost about $80. The predominantly tomato salad was the best we had eaten in a week of good tomato salads, and included purslane and fresh mint. If you don't speak much Turkish, be patient, because the waiters don't speak much English.