It’s 2010 and Greece is pretty well wired with the rest of the world and depsite the distance from Toronto to Greece (9 1/2 hour flight), the interwebs has brought the diaspora closer to the Patrida. One of my friends in Greece recently sent me some cooking magazines & booklets and one of them was [...]

Growing up in Canada and the US, one is never too far from a burger joint. I can’t think of any friends who didn’t enjoy a hamburger – be it at home or out with family or friends. One of my earliest memories of a eating hamburgers was at McDonald’s….long time ago when they were [...]

Soon your garden will be ripe with lots and lots of zucchini. My previous post featured Zucchini patties…a summer time favourite for many Greeks. There is also Kolokithakia Gemista with an Avgolemono Sauce, one of my personal faves and I had my mom make this for me last year for my arrival in Greece. There’s [...]

Like many other countries, Greece has a hunting heritage. I remember my Uncle Pavlo (dearly departed) going out for all-day and weekend hunts and he would often come back with game birds. Squab (pigeon), pheasant, duck, grouse and other game birds…like quail. Most of you by now have seen little quail eggs being offered at [...]

For those of you who are in the northern hemisphere, you probably have seen artichokes in the stands. Hopefully those artichokes are local and I assume you’re trying out some recipes with this very seasonal vegetable. I used to be intimidated by cleaning artichokes but not anymore. I’ve always loved the taste of artichokes. love [...]

This is a recipe update from July 2008. Souvlaki is probably the best known as most popular Greek offering. It is made and enjiyed by Greeks in their home and it appears on practically every Greek restaurant and taverna’s menu. Here, I present to you the pork souvlaki. For best results, marinade the pork the [...]

I recently caught Chef Jacques Pepin serving up some paupiettes of sole. Now don’t go scrambling for your French-English dictionaries, a paupiette is simply sometime rolled-up – in this case a fillet of sole. I immediately had to use this method of baking sole as it looks gorgeous and the fillet will cook more evenly. [...]

Most of you are familiar with dolmades, where small packets of rice and aromatics are bundled using grape-vine leaves or “ampelofyla” in Greek. These small morsels may also contain meat or be wrapped with Swiss chard cabbage. The cabbage rolls are also often called “lahano-dolmades”. The use of grape-vine leaves is not limited to just [...]

Oh how many ways to cook a lamb there are. I’m just a Greek guy sharing the many ways. You have braised, boiled, grilled, rotisserie and roast. Then you have your whole lamb, or sections of lamb on the spit, leg of lamb, shoulder, chops, steaks and in this case, the shank. All these recipes [...]

Each time I go to Greece I have to stop by the “Kourdisto Gouroni” (Wind-up Pig) in the Agia Sophia neighborhood of central Thessaloniki. This eatery has been in operation since the early 1990′s and the feel of the place and the food could be best described as “Greek Bistro”. Lots of beers on tap [...]