Ela! Ela! To Italy, Georgia, Bulgaria and Home

Ela! Ela! To Italy, Georgia, Bulgaria and Home is Ella Mittas's second cookbook, following her bestselling debut Ela! Ela! From Turkey to Greece and then Home. The essays trace her grandparents' backyard in Melbourne through a biodynamic vineyard in Lucca, a mountain festival in the Georgian Caucasus, and the archives of Bulgaria's Slow Food network, built around a single question: what gets carried forward, and what gets left behind. Mittas researched the essays through a fellowship at the State Library of Victoria, and wrote much of the book during her first pregnancy, a fact she credits with sharpening its focus on inheritance.

The book moves through four sections, Home, Greece and Bulgaria, Italy, and Georgia, pairing familiar dishes like avgolemono and moussaka with less expected ones such as lobio and lutenitsa. Recipes are approachable rather than simplified, and each section opens with an essay that gives the food context before the method. The photography was shot on film, and the illustrations are one-colour woodcuts, printed by hand at Baldassin Studio.