We had just gotten an enormous cabbage from our neighbor’s garden and I was contemplating using the outer leaves to make lahano-dolmades –stuffed cabbage leaves— or maybe my simpler stuffed cabbage logs.

Then I saw Ozlem Warren’s recipe for kapuska, a kind of de-constructed stuffed cabbage leaves, where cabbage, ground meat and bulgur are braised together. I also remembered that in my book The Foods of the Greek Islands (published in 2000) I had a kapuska recipe from Chios; it was pork with cabbage in a fragrant, and spicy tomato sauce.

Here is what I wrote in the head-note:

“This dish is called kapuska in Olympi, an unspoiled medieval village on the island of Chios. The word is probably Slavic, and it is also used in Turkey for a similar dish. (more…)

Read More

(I wrote and photographed this a few year back; I doubt that I could do it better today…)

Despite the usually bitter cold of the January morning, there are always brave young men, different each year, who dive to retrieve the cross the third and final time the priest casts it into the sea… 

Epiphany (January 6), or Day of the Light –ton Photon in Greek— is an important religious and cultural celebration that marks the end of the holiday season. Up until the 4th century A.D. Epiphany was considered the first day of the year, observed as a three-day commemoration of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. People believed that on the eve of the 6th the skies open, granting the prayers of the devout.

Some anthropologists link Epiphany with the ancient Athenian ceremony of plynterion, the cleansing of the goddess Athena’s statue. During that ceremony, she was taken to the seaside in Faliron to be washed in the sea, thereby renewing her mythical powers. Similarly, as the anthropologists have noted, the church icons are often washed prior to the Epiphany celebration.

Nearly 2000 years ago the first Christians celebrated with long street processions, white candles in hand (a tradition modern Greeks preserve during the Resurrection ceremony, on Easter), hence the term Epiphany, the Day of the Light. Jesus intrinsically blessed the water by his immersion in it, and each year Greek Orthodox priests perform a ritual, casting the cross into the water, replenishing Jesus’ blessing in the water and on the community, as well.

 

All over Greece different forms of fried pastry are prepared in celebration: dilpes, pastry squares or ribbons, like the spectacular kserotigana of Crete, and loukoumades, dough puffs similar to Italian zepolli; photopites, the spicy-sweet fritters of Amorgos are the most interesting of the kind. (more…)

Read More

In less than ten days I made two batches of melomakarona –my favorite spiced olive oil and orange cookies that are soaked in honey syrup– and also kourambiedes, the buttery, toasted almond cookies that are dredged in confectioner’s sugar. But first I baked two different variations of savory grissini and ring-shaped cookies with aniseed, coriander, mahleb and cumin; and this for me is definitely a ‘baking frenzy!’ (more…)

Read More

An afternoon in the beginning of summer, Ela, my next-door neighbor, brought us a piece of airy, bright yellow cake.  The cake, she said, was a traditional south Albanian recipe she got from her mother, who in her turn had gotten it from her own mother. She called it pendespan and I immediately recognized the word as a variation of what we call pandespani, the rich cake my aunt Katina occasionally would make.

The basic cake recipe in our family was the one called Tou Giaourtiou (meaning ‘made with yogurt’), a much heavier and filling dessert, with batter that, besides yogurt, also included olive oil, and margarine or butter. Apparently, both the Albanian pendespan and the Greek pandespani originate from the very old Italian Pan di Spagna (Spanish Bread) and the French Pain de Gênes (Genoa Bread or Cake). In modern patisserie that old name was lost, and these cakes evolved into the various common Sponge and Pound Cakes, with the addition of butter.   (more…)

Read More

I was desperately trying to find ways to use up the quince surplus we had this year, but I know mine is hardly a ‘problem’ many of you are likely to have…

Besides making Quince Spoon-sweet, cooking quince with sausage or poaching slices in sweet wine and honey, I wanted to find some simpler way to use the tart fruit in savory preparations, besides braising quince with meat or poultry –a favorite Greek Sunday and festive dish.  (more…)

Read More