An offhanded remark leads me down the rabbit hole in search of the mysterious – yet ubiquitous – mallow plant. Who knew how important this weed was to the Eastern Mediterranean?
Greek
How to Cure Green Olives
Year after year in my new home here in Northern California, I feel myself sinking down roots and developing new traditions. One of them is curing my own olives, which begins for me in early October. On some crisp autumn Saturday, I will head out into one of the many public parks near my home
Tinkering with Sausages
I have been making a lot of sausages lately, and as each batch will typically give me some new insight into this craft, I have much to tell from my recent adventures. You can learn all kinds of things from books on the subject; I recently went through a quick review of my sausage-making library. But
Loukaniko: Traditional Greek Sausage
Every year or so Holly and I host a Greek-themed, springtime hootenany we call our Big Fat Greek Parties. We roast goats and lambs, eat octopus, sometimes grill sardines. But the mainstay of the party food is always this more or less traditional Greek loukaniko sausage. Loukaniko is an ancient sausage, dating back to Classical times.
Bacchus Biscuits: Greek Fennel Cookies
I first made these fennel cookies for our annual Big Fat Greek Party, a festival of all things Greek we hold every spring. They’ve been dubbed Bacchus Biscuits. I support that. They turned out to be quite a hit, much to my relief — I’d never made them before the party. They are a riff off
Oregano Ice Cream
They say that nothing is new under the sun. And I suppose oregano ice cream has been done by someone somewhere, but at least to my knowledge this recipe exists nowhere else. With good reason, you say? Feh. Walk with me. If you have ever smelled Greek oregano in springtime, on those first warm days
Sykomaitha: Greek Fig Cakes
Sometimes the strangest thing will send me off on one of my little adventures. We needed to saw off an errant fig branch on our tree, and I finally got around to it this past weekend. As I carried the branch to the fire pile I remembered that you can wrap things in fig leaves
Cretan Olives with Seville Oranges
A found olive is a rare thing, unless you live in Northern California. They grow everywhere here, yet few people even know the olives that fall in oily masses from their trees every year are actually the same as those they pay exorbitant prices for at places like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. But they are. Whole