Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

Cooking with Black-Eyed Peas from a Northern Greek Island

Mixed Kales

When we return to Alaska from Greece, we carry home enough food to last until we next visit the island. We stuff our bags to the very edge of the airlines’ weight limit. As a result, our Alaska meals are enhanced by hand-gathered, hand-crafted, and hand-grown island products that remind ...

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Gold Out of Straw: A Kitchen Disaster that Wasn’t

Who Spilled the Nuts

Without a kitchen disaster, this amazingly moist and flavorful cake would not have come into being.

Last September we ate at a restaurant in Athens called Logia tis Ploris. The food was wonderful. When we returned to Alaska, I recreated a few of Logia tis Ploris’ recipes, including Beet-Yogurt Spread and ...

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The Bountiful Greek Holiday Table

Soutzoukakia Oblong

Greek holiday tables are spread with more food than is possible for assembled family members to eat. Every square inch of table is covered with food-laden plates and bowls.

Salads, spreads, cheeses, olives, savory filo-wrapped pastries, meatballs, pilafs, potatoes, and braised vegetables all make an appearance. The Greek holiday table is ...

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Cold Weather Blues? Eat Greek Potatoes Yiachni!

Potatoes

This morning it was icy cold, and we had a mountain of bottles, paper, and cans to unload at the outdoor recycling center. Before heading outside, I wanted a fortifying lunch. Potatoes cooked in tomato-onion sauce, lightly scented with cinnamon, fit the bill perfectly.

In Greece, vegetables cooked until tender in ...

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Cooking from the Pantry: Canned Beans and Tuna

Tuna Beans Ingredients

We all have kitchen standbys: recipes we’ve cooked a hundred times and can throw together without thinking. Standbys are delicious and turn out well even when we’re tired or inattentive.

One of my reliable standbys is white beans, baked with olive oil, garlic, sage, tuna, and lemon juice. I’ve never been ...

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Celebrating Thanksgiving with Traditional East Thracian Fare

 

As families gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, there’s peace within American borders. Others in the world aren’t so blessed.

In the Middle East, religious and ethnic differences contribute to seemingly intractable political conflicts. So it is now, and so it was in the first decades of the twentieth century, and so it ...

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