Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

Greek Recipes

Seafood Restaurant in the Heart of Athens: Logia tis Ploris

Beets

Traveling provides opportunities to encounter new foods, new ingredients, and new preparations. I’m always on the lookout for eateries run by talented chefs. I’m thrilled when I find a dish I’ve never heard of before, and order it immediately, just to discover what I’ve been missing.

As a visitor, it can ...

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Anatomy of a Recipe (with Recipe for Savory Fish Cakes / Ψαροκεφτέδες)

Recipe Book 002

Before I wrote Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, I rarely wrote down recipes, though I occasionally made a few notes about what I’d prepared. If I ever went back to the notes, and I rarely did, they were incomprensible, full of half sentences and incomplete thoughts. I could ...

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How to Prep Celery Roots and Roast Beets

Prepping Celery Root (Celeriac)

Pristine beets, fresh from the garden or farmers’ market, make me crave skordalia, an intensely flavored Greek garlic spread that combines perfectly with oven-roasted beets. When the two are eaten together, each flavor improves and completes the other.

Our latest CSA box contained beets and two healthy celery roots (aka celeriac). ...

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All About Leaf Celery aka Cutting Celery

Leaf Celery and Onions

Two readers asked for information about leaf celery, also known as cutting celery, the celery I often recommend using in Mediterranean recipes: “What is the difference between leaf celery and the celery at the grocery store? Can I substitute one for the other?” “Where can I buy leaf celery?”

Three kinds ...

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Leftovers: I Love Them, You Should Too; or Don’t Throw Away Your Pie Dough

Melitzanosalata (Eggplant and Red Pepper Spread)

Some time ago we went to a friend’s house for a wonderful, well-cooked meal. I helped her clean up afterwards, and asked where she kept her storage containers so I could stick the leftovers in the refrigerator. She laughed, and said, “Just throw it in the garbage; I don’t bother ...

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Cookbook: Pork with Celery-Lemon Sauce (Hirino me Selino kai Lemoni)

Pork Celery Lemon Stew

Pork with Celery-Lemon Sauce is a popular Greek stew with countless variations, but it’s a tricky recipe to get right. Too often the sauce overwhelms the pork, or goes in the opposite direction and vanishes into blandness. Some recipes taste good, but because the sauce is thick, gloppy, and pale, ...

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