Your hand in mine

These are the hands that taught me what is soft and what is hard.
Showed the difference between cold and hot, explained the dos and the don'ts.
I have always had an extravagant relation with my mother's mom.
Pure love and strong misunderstandings haunted my childhood and puberty.

I was sleeping with her until I was 12, spent my summertime vacations till my 17.
She spent with me more days than with her own children, controlled her patience,
re- estimated responsibility and family affairs,
cooked for me so many breakfasts, lunches and dinners, made me gain 29 kilos in 4 months.
 

This is Mariό.

Last August she had an accident, routine for the elderly.
She is now recovering after a big stroke, trying to figure out life.
Again.
Since then she is living with me, because she believes that I take a good care of her. 
Also because she wants to make sure that I cook for her family, like she did, everyday.

She likes eating mostly candies and desserts, is a passionate vegeterian at her 82 and enjoys drinking red wine like there is no tomorrow.
Today she made her first steps, alone, after eight months.
We had to celebrate her victory against imbalance with something concise and full.
Cheers gradma'.

a Silicon Inspiration

I enjoy buying kitchen utensils almost as much as I enjoy buying shoes. 

To make the long story short, with this baking mold, I was thrilled. 

One of my collegues at work (ok, not just a collegue, the absolute working-with-person) bought it for me, just one day after I said I liked it. 

So that I thank and please her, I wanted to make an exeptional recipe. 

Chocolate was the basic ingredient, as always. 

Dozens of recipes passed on my mind. Cakes, brownies, mousses. 

Until it was NYT and a marvellous recipe with Nutella. 

 It's name provoked salivation: Chocolate Hazelnut Panna Cotta. 

You can follow the link to see the recipe as it was published in NYT, 

or continue reading to make my version, a customised one. 

 9 gelatin leaves, 3 gr. each

80 gr. of chocolate, bitter or milk, finely chopped

300 gr of Nutella

300 gr. cream

1 cup whole milk

seeds of one vanilla stick 


1. In a medium bowl, whisk gelatin with 3 tablespoons cold water. Place chopped chocolate in another medium bowl. In a large bowl, place Nutella.  

2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring cream to a boil. Pour half the cream over gelatin mixture and whisk gently to combine; add vanilla seeds. Pour remaining cream over chopped chocolate; whisk until smooth. Combine two mixtures; whisk well.

3. Pour one-third of the gelatin-chocolate mixture over Nutella; beat using an electric mixer on low speed until a smooth paste forms. Pour in remaining mixture and milk; beat until fully combined.

4. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into the mold. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator until set, about six hours or overnight. 

Chop, melt, boil, mix, whisk, freeze, unmold and share the ones you love. 

Bakalao or Cod?

The only cod I knew till 5 years before, was the salted one that my grandmother was cooking traditionally on the 25 of March
served with a harsh and lethal pure garlic paste.
When in Thessaloniki, my boyfriend had prepared for me a delicious meal
consisted of little cods (the entire fish, which seems like tiny shark)
and I was thrilled about how tasteful their flesh was fried.
Then I also taste them on a yummy soup. Marvellous.
After living in northern Spain, I cooked bakalao al pil pil
and learned how to tell apart the two species
(from about 60 that swim in the freezing North Sea).
Bakalao en salazon, full of salt, in fillets or just cod
(what remind me of a baby shark).
Then it was Nobu's famous worldwide Black Cod, for which I can return again and again in Matsuhisa restaurants.  Some days ago, I had a fully step-by- step lesson from a famous chef,
how to cook cod on vapor.  And then I decided I love that fish.

Although I do not usually post recepies, I am giving an amazing-so- deadly- garlic-paste,
so that you can accompany cod in every way you cook it.
Ok, not with soups.

Spicy garlic paste

Ingredients 

4 slices of bread, soaked in milk

200 gr of white almonds

4 cloves of garlic (or as many as we want to kill the vampires)

15- 20 saffron fibers soaked in a bowl with 2 tbs water for about an hour

2 raw egg yolks 

200 ml extra virgin olive oil 

75-100 ml white vinegar 

spicy paprikasalt and pepper

Put in the blender almonds, bread,  egg yolks and mix well for 2 min. Add the saffron, paprika and the olive oil. Then vinegar, salt and pepper.
Thick and creamy. A smelly heaven.

The recipe is from Cristoforos Peskias and it was published in Gastronomos, issue 69, January 2012.

Egg is the new black

I hadn't fully realized how much I like eggs. 

As a Greek, raised by grandma, when I think of eggs, almost automatically remember 
my daily over-proteined brunch (the Spanish call it "merenda"), 

with one raw egg, scrambled in a pot with sugar and cocoa powder. 

A thick cream, so sweet and greasy I couldn't swallow. 

Everytime the pot should end, though.

Most restaurants I visited those last months 

had an egg version on their menu- starter, salad or first plate. 

Combined with chives or anoints, salmon or even truffle, 
egg can be the perfect canvas for a chef, 

and at the same time a hyper cheap material for the restaurant owners. 

Mayonnaise, tortilla de patata, oeuf poche benedicte, eggnog, 

or just boiled for 4 minutes with extra pepper - egg can make a rich meal. 

By all means. 

 The photo depicts the reason why I do like them so much. 

Fried in pure butter, with potato chips, thyme, black pepper and salt. 

 And in my case, chef made. 

Special thanx to Alexandros Papandreou, 

who after a 5-hour step- by- step-recipe photoshoot 

was still willing to continue cooking just because we were hungry. 

The week before X-mas

Absent from blogging for more than two months, away from cooking for so long.
I have left aside two of my favorite leisure activities because of ...

different kinds of trouble. 

Generally.

No ganas de Navidad.  

One week before Christmas we only hear bad news. And bad news, is actuallly news.

People lose their jobs, get fired, close down forever their small, family buisiness, can't afford to pay the rent, leave their appartments to move back at their parents house, are on strike for more than three months, don't have any money to buy food, are not being able to feed their own children. 

Not at X-mas mood at all.
Can't help but wonder, is there any hope?

I hear about restaurants that offer their food in common meals and messes. 

I feel lucky and grateful that I can help.

I want to sing my favorite Christmas song, just like when I was a child, praying for the kids to enjoy their new toys. 

Only now, I will pray for people's food and survival with dignity.

fall is bringing summer memories

Eating out in a chic restaurant might be ordinary or special event.Visiting one when on vacation, is common.

Me eating in one, when visiting Crete, is rare.

Mostly because there I enjoy rural, simple food more than stylish, new cuisine.

Isla is a bar restaurant in Gouves, Irakleion. 

We attended a sushi night, but just asian wasn't enough.

 So we added an italian saffron risotto,
a mediterranean fresh green salad,
a greek dip of feta cheese and juicy tomatoes, oregano and olive oil.
We were in Crete, afterall.
 Sharing dinner was better than food itself.

My Oly, a promising -producer- to- be.
(who I have to thank for taking those pictures, like a professional food photographer)

My Antonella, a young businesswoman,
full of joy.  And passion (about him). 

Vasilis, her guy. A pilates master.
Athletic ,adventurous and calm.

And me. Eating. With all my senses.
Feeling grateful about taste and friends in my life.

Hope next summer it will be all of us around the same table.

When friends come to visit...

at your own house. 

the one you made chosing one by one its colors, furniture, every detail,

so it would be "homy" enough to raise your newborn 

and keep forever alive the love of its family. 

To live happily in it ever after. 

Hapinness is all around.

Alexia is now a proud mom and we were so willing to see her cuddling her child. 

Such a caring mother. 

And now twice as beautiful. 

Ice cream macarons from Sucre,
a new pastry store in Irakleion. 

Oly's photos. Merci.

Blessing. Cretan food and People.

When it comes to summer vacation, 

Creta
is my number one on the list. 

 

Since 2005, when I visited the island for the very first time

 not even one year has passed without me

swimming in its deep, wild seas

wandering around its picturesque little villages with the extraordinary names

meeting the locals and hear the most weird stories about people and life

making new friends while choosing the sweetest watermellon

connecting with animals and nature while walking along its gorges

dancing in the naughty and playful sounds of lira

drinking crystal clear alcohol in tiny small shots till blindness

eating the real taste of every ingridient

filling my lungs with air without acidity

living pure life. 

I trully hope someday to call this everyday life. 

For Antonella and Creta I love, for its blessings. 

p.s. Photos taken by Olympia and Antonella, one night full of flavors and laughters.