Last night’s dinner was probably my most ambitious to date…record sold out crowd of over 60 guests, a menu with a over a dozen items and all this being cooked in a kitchen I have never worked in before. My first Tsiknopempti dinner was a delicious success with lots of Kechribari retsina, Babatzim Ouzo, Alfa [...]
This dish is a play on a Greek favourite – roasted beet salad with lots of garlic. This is a side dish enjoyed my many and more creative types have even come up with doing a mash-up (pun intended) of a beet skordalia. Inspired by a dish from the Kokkari cookbook and restaurant in San [...]
When in Greece you’ll likely dine at one of the tavernas that dot the entire country. These eateries are more informal, great meeting/gathering places for family and friends and usually the prices are affordable. I love taverna fare as you often get a combo of classics and some of the chef/owner’s creativity in the menu [...]
When I speak to friends who attended the Thalassa Supper Club I got varying opinions on who liked what the most. One of the dishes I was very pleased with is an Ouzo-cured salmon I served as part of a trio of appetizers to begin the evening. You need a fresh as can be salmon, [...]
Last month saw travel to the Boston area, where I was invited to do some cooking demos at the St. Spyridon Grecian Festival in Worcester, Mass. (just outside of Boston). The Greek community of Worcester is an old, established one with the earliest Greeks arriving there in the 1900′s. This rock-solid Greek community has a [...]
It’s been really busy around the Kalofagas camp – prepping and cooking for over 2000 guests at TUM, planning, recipe-testing and executing my last Greek Supper Club, I’m participating in a Taco Throwdown this week and in between all this I am also entertaining friends from out of town and finding the time to feed [...]
Stories of my ancestors were usually related by my mother or one of her sisters. Stories kept my family connected with my mother’s side of the family who mostly still live back in Greece. My mom would paint stories of how my grandmother was like, how my grandfather was like, how aunts and uncles were [...]
The darling of my last Greek Supper Club had to be these canapes with shrimp butter, poached shrimp and caviar on top. To ensure that these didn’t get gobbled-up prematurely I had sent them out to our hungry guests one platter at a time. This works in theory unless your guests barge into the kitchen [...]
The first time I saw or heard of octopus meatballs were from Maria’s blog at Kali Orexi (BonAppeti. Maria is a Greek blogger resided in the NYC suburbs and she shares dishes she’s created or ones inspired by her ancestral homeland of the island of Kalymnos. For those not familiar with Greek geography, Kalymnos is [...]
A recent article by Diana Farr Louis titled “Cucina Povera – Greek Style” got me thinking about all the tasty dishes in Greek cookery that were concocted during times of poverty and necessity. There’s the Macedonian Makalo, a flour-based sauce, there’s potato stew (Yiachni), the countless boiled greens harvested from the countryside, Bobota (bread from [...]
