The week before Easter it is customary throughout Greece to bake biscuits; but these bright yellow, spicy ones were very different from the sweet, laden with eggs cookies I was familiar with…

Ever since I tasted these yellow biscuits in a bakery in Astypalaia–the butterfly-shaped, first island of the Dodecanese–about twenty years ago, I’ve been addicted to their slightly peppery taste and crunchy texture. When I first sampled the original, made with yeasted dough, I was startled by their lightness. The ring-shaped cookies were fragrant with allspice, nutmeg and another aroma that I couldn’t make out. The baker told me it was saffron that the women of the island collected from the hills each November, especially for these Easter cookies.

 

The week before Easter it is customary throughout Greece to bake Easter biscuits, but the ones I was familiar with were sweet and laden with eggs. As I learned later saffron biscuits are found only on this tiny island.

 

 

In the ancient texts of Athenaeus bread with saffron is described as one of the foods served at symposia, but in modern Greece—although we produce and export excellent saffron from Kozani— we use hardly any of the precious spice in our traditional dishes. (more…)

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Invited by José Andrés and his Think Food Group I took part in Zaytinya’s Greek Easter events and worked for six days in the restaurant’s dream kitchen!

Before opening Zaytinya–more than ten years ago–José Andrés came to see me in Kea, introduced by our mutual friend Mark Furstenberg. He wanted to get my opinion and discuss ideas about the Greek meze he was planning to include in the menu. From the moment he stepped out of the ferry, an early summer day, we started to talk as if we were old friends, almost finishing each other’s sentences, as we shared our common passion for authentic food.

He had one of the first iPhones I had seen, and while he talked enthusiastically about his vision for the Eastern Mediterranean meze restaurant, he showed me snapshots of the dishes he served at Jaleo and Oyamel. I don’t remember exactly what we cooked, or what we tasted at the various taverns in Kea, but he was constantly taking notes and pictures of everything, and he certainly accepted as true my conviction that he needed to roll phylo in his kitchen and not rely on the packaged stuff. (more…)

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Unusually warm, with a few days of fierce southern winds, our spring in Kea is progressing rapidly. I heard that this year the Golf Stream moved our way pushing warm air to the southeastern Mediterranean, while Europe’s north is still under quite a bit of snow. Cold temperatures are predicted to persist all through the Easter weekend.

After an appreciated wet winter the abundant wild flowers in our property have already started to fade. My favorite sign of spring is the fig tree’s first leaves, somewhat translucent with the most attractive velvety green color that won’t last; very soon the leaves will grow large and thick, ready to impart a sweet-smoky flavor to the fish Costas wraps in them, protecting the delicate flesh as he grills them over charcoal fire. (more…)

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The only crop we can always depend on, is fava. Fava has never failed us, even when we first planted a few beans in Kea, in our rocky, poor soil, before adding compost and lots of manure. Everything else failed those first years, but favas thrived! No wonder that since antiquity the prolific fava has been such an important staple for the people around the Mediterranean.

Part of the Old World legumes–together with chickpeas and lentils—fava was a most nutritious bean that fed ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Called ‘broad bean’ by the British, it has been found in Neolithic sites in Israel dated back to 6800-6500 BC. Ancients believed that the plant’s roots lead straight to Hades, to theunderworld, reaching and communicating with the souls of the dead. Pythagoras and his followers, who abstained from eating meat and fish, included fava beans in their forbidden foods because they believed that the souls of men are transformed into beans after death. (more…)

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This time of the year our vegetable garden displays various shades of green and only the glorious dark red beets, once unearthed, break this winter monotony. We are very fond of our beet salad in Greece, and try to have a year-round supply, planting seeds twice a year.

In the summer, beets can be overshadowed by the tomatoes, but many people here cannot imagine fried or grilled fish without a side dish of sweet beets. Their taste, we think, complements beautifully the saltiness of seafood, so beet salad is always served at Greek fish taverns. Unlike northern Europeans, though, we don’t use beets in soups, or cook them together with other vegetables, grains or pasta. We just boil them in plenty of water, and when they become tender we slip off their skins, chop them and dress them in vinegar and fruity olive oil with chopped garlic, or better accompany them with a creamy skordalia, the ubiquitous garlic sauce, in one of its countless Mediterranean variations. (more…)

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