Category: Food Blog

Deb Perelman is amazing! Deb is the genius behind the popular website, Smitten Kitchen. She’s such an inspiration, cooking and taking fabulous photos of her cooking creations in a “tiny NYC apartment.” Recently, I had an opportunity to cook a couple of recipes from her book “Smitten Kitchen Keepers” for our community cookbook club gathering.…

I have a Greek friend who loves pickled cabbage so much that he’s been known to use it when making stuffed cabbage rolls! Strange, right? Well, not so much. Greek people love pickled and fermented foods. Here’s a short list: Kalamata olives Feta cheese Anchovies (Actually, they’re marinated, but it’s close enough.) Sea fennel (Kritamo)…

Creativity in the Kitchen. Click this link to connect with Beer & Napkins, and to read my post relative to a Zoom talk I gave earlier this year. If you’d like to link directly to my informal and fun talk, you can follow this link to Zoom, and enter this passcode: Passcode &v5zF^e7  I’d love your…

I say, Ban the butter boards! Yes, and let’s replace them with a tastier and more creative option. Let’s start the Greek-style fava board movement!  My FAVA BOARD WITH GREEK SALAD in all its glory. Fava is a dip made by cooking yellow split peas and pureeing with lemon juice and olive oil. Famous on…

Are you tired of going to a barbeque and getting dessert served as a side? Me too! What am I talking about? I’m referring to all of the ultra-sweet baked bean casseroles served at a home barbeque and at many barbeque restaurants. There’s so much sugar or honey or maple syrup in there, that we…

Did you know that the classic Provencal fish soup, Bouillabaisse, is a Greek recipe? Seriously! Not seriously. Actually, ancient Greeks did set up housekeeping in France, in an area that we now know as  Marseille. Because they were fishermen, whatever they caught that they couldn’t sell became dinner, hence a Greek soup recipe called Kakavia,…

It’s true, petit fours aren’t just cute bites of little layered cakes. They can be savory too! They don’t even have to be layered, but my mind always defaults to a delectable layered bite. Our recent Afternoon Tea was missing savory items. We had beautiful sandwiches, but nothing as dainty as a chocolate or cookie.…

Recently, I hosted an Afternoon Tea honoring two friends who have back-to-back birthdays. It was a lot of work to prepare everything (surprisingly), but I had the support of other friends who each brought a savory or sweet treat and flowers to the event. Thank you, Brenda, Martha, Angela, Donna, and Caroline! It takes a…

We hate to say goodbye, don’t we? Ending something usually hurts. We leave a job, we end a relationship, a loved one passes on to another realm, and children leave home to marry or to follow a career path in other parts of the country or the world. Of course, as we all know, there’s…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2010. Somehow, I changed the settings and can’t figure out how to put this back to the original date. I gave in and left it here. —————————- Having grown up in Greece and then in Australia, I knew nothing about Thanksgiving, that wonderful coming-together of family and friends to eat too much…