Spices

Marianthe’s Baked Octopus and Eggplant

Feb 5th, 2012 | By
Marianthe’s Baked Octopus and Eggplant

Last year when I visited the Gerovassliou winery in Epanomi (near Thessaloniki), it was my second time for a tour of the winery and museum. As you will recall the first visit was cut-short because I arrived late and the winery was closing. I had to wait one whole year to come back tho this [...]



Art Smith’s Fried Chicken

Dec 30th, 2011 | By
Art Smith’s Fried Chicken

I’ve always been in awe of southern American cooking – both high & low country, born of rustic beginnings and absolutely delicious! There’s corn bread, macaroni & cheese, biscuits, meatloaf, hush puppies, ribs, roast ham and one of my favourites, fried chicken. My very first fried chicken came out of a bucket by way of [...]



Baked Brie With Roasted Garlic & Cranberry-Mavrodaphne Sauce

Dec 29th, 2011 | By
Baked Brie With Roasted Garlic & Cranberry-Mavrodaphne Sauce

One of the surprise hits at Christmas dinner was this baked Brie cheese i paired with cranberry sauce. Brie on its own is always welcome on a cheese plate but when baked it’s even creamier, more of its flavour comes out and it’s great when paired with something savory and something sweet. I’veĀ  always loved [...]



Egg Nog Ice Cream With Salted Caramel Rum Sauce

Dec 26th, 2011 | By
Egg Nog Ice Cream With Salted Caramel Rum Sauce

One of the adopted traditions of my family is to have egg nog offered during the Christmas holidays to family and friends. Egg nog is a milk-based drink that’s offered at supermarkets just before and during Christmas. It also has eggs, nutmeg and may contain other spices. Often it gets spiked with rum, whiskey or [...]



Sublime, Sexy Walnut-Stuffed Figs

Dec 22nd, 2011 | By
Sublime, Sexy Walnut-Stuffed Figs

Traditionally, figs get stuffed with walnuts and are laid out to be served among the array of sweet and savory bites during the Christmas season, [...]



Dukem – Ethiopian at Your Finger Tips!

Dec 15th, 2011 | By
Dukem – Ethiopian at Your Finger Tips!

A couple of weekends ago I met an Ethiopian fellow and after chatting about foods, spices and the many, many foods and restaurants available here in Toronto, I asked Abye where one should go for Ethiopian food here in the city. He directed me to Dukem, named after the city that sits just south of [...]



Nacho Macaroni & Cheese

Dec 13th, 2011 | By
Nacho Macaroni & Cheese

A couple of weeks ago I did a cooking demo at Toronto’s Harbourfront. No stranger to crowds, cooking in front of strangers didn’t present a problem and besides..I was doing what I love – sharing good, comforting food. When I was asked to conduct some cooking demos the prerequisite was that I showcase comforting dishes [...]



Sauerkraut Rice

Dec 12th, 2011 | By
Sauerkraut Rice

Here’s a dish my family’s made since I can recall holiday dinners like Thanksgiving and Christmas. This rice comes together rather easily which is good to have in your arsenal of holiday side dishes, what with the mad dash going on in the kitchen. The dish would originally be made with “ksinolahano”…a coarser Greek version [...]



Classic Hunkar Begendi With Lamb

Dec 8th, 2011 | By
Classic Hunkar Begendi With Lamb

Anytime I travel I like to do some homework on the particular destination and the research becomes feverish when I look into food options. Last year I went to Istanbul for the second time and regardless of if you’re been to Istanbul or not – its reputation as a “food lover’s city” is justified. I [...]



Lahmacun – Turkish Pizza

Dec 1st, 2011 | By
Lahmacun – Turkish Pizza

This past summer in Greece i didn’t get a chance to go to Istanbul but memories from last year are still vivid: people everywhere, a mix of modern and traditional as Istanbul is a city over 20 million that straddles both Europe and Asia, the smells of street vendors hawking their food, the restaurants for [...]