Archive for September, 2008

The fifth video is up on Thursday for Dinner titled The Perfect Biscotti. Biscotti is one of those perfect desserts that go so well with a Greek coffee or espresso shot. An Italian cookie twice-baked, what more could you ask for?

Biscotti is an Italian cookie which is twice-baked. It makes a wonderful snack and is a great accompaniment to coffee, tea or wine. It is a light and textured cookie and makes a great alternative to the more sugary cookies available at the local supermarket. With biscotti you can really experiment with the ingredients: you can add chocolate chips, any time of nut, and even dried fruit like cranberries. Here Eva shows us her recipe for biscotti. We’ve tried many different biscotti recipes and found this one to be the best.

Check out the recipe and video on thursdayfordinner.com.

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The fourth video is up on Thursday for Dinner titled How to make Greek Coffee. Looking for a quick caffeine shot?

Greek coffee is both delicious and mysterious! It is a wonderful drink to serve your house guests, but also provides a window into your past, present and future…well, apparently, but we’re not quite sure. Greek coffee is quite strong and is served with the foam at the top and the grounds at the bottom of the cup. It is made using a small pot, called a briki in Greek, and is sweetened according to taste: bitter, medium, sweet, or very sweet….

Check out the recipe and video on thursdayfordinner.com.

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This past August I went on trip to Paris (for a week) and Greece afterwards (for a little more than 2 weeks). It was my first time in Paris – needless to say the city is beautiful. Everything there is so purposeful, so symmetrical, just perfect. If your heading down I recommend you buy the 2 or 4 day museum/monument pass – it’s vital cause you bypass lines (and save money). The Museum D’Orsey is a must, as is the Louvre. If you want to see everything in the Louvre don’t try and do it all in a single day. Also, make sure you get the headset before you go inside as everything is in French. Check out the Picasso museum if you like his work – be warned that a lot of his famous pieces aren’t there. If you have time check out the Palace of Versailles and the gardens behind them, you’ll need to take a train there, but you can grab the one at the stop beside the Eiffel Tower. Your pass gets you in there also.

Greece was just as I remembered it last year, but then again that’s why I keep going back. A highlight from Greece was visiting the Benaki Museum in Athens. Benaki was a wealthy man living in Alexandria who migrated to Greece in the early 1900s. He was an avid collector of Greek history and art, particularly that of Modern Greek history. After his death he donated his estate and his entire collection to the Greek government – hence the Benaki Museum was formed. I don’t think there is any place in the world with a more impressive collection of Modern Greek history than here. On the third floor was the traveling photo exhibit of Hubert Pernot. In the late 1800s Hubert was commissioned by the French government to come to Greece, take photos and convince the French people to vacation there. I’m not sure why the French government wanted the French people to vacation in Greece, perhaps moral was low and Greece was seen as an exciting new land just coming out of a 400 year war. In any case, Hubert fell in love with Greece and spent the next 30 years of his life touching every part, during which he compiled three amazing photo albums. This exhibit is a collection of his best photos (digitally enhanced of course).

You can look at photos from my trip here.

Photos

The third video is up on Thursday for Dinner titled Eva’s Delicious Dolmathes. Aside from the fact that the recipe involves rolling and stuffing grapevine leaves, the really interesting part is the sauce my mom makes at the end. Most people would simply roll the Dolmathes and leave it at that, but the real taste, the part which makes the dolmathes unforgettable is all the end of the video.

Dolmathes, also known as stuffed grapevine leaves, are a Greek specialty. There are many different variations of this dish, depending on the region of Greece. Some prepare it with an avgolemono (egg and lemon) sauce, others prefer a tomato sauce. Some Greeks cook the dolmathes in a pan in the oven, while others prefer to cook the dolmathes on the stovetop. In this recipe Eva shows us her unique way of preparing this classic Greek dish.

Check out the recipe and the video on ThursdayForDinner.com.

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The second video is up on Thursday For Dinner titled Eva’s Tasty Tyropita (Cheese puffs). I grew up on this food as tyropita is a staple in a Greek household.

Tyropita are delicious Greek pastries made with feta or ricotta cheese (or a combination of both) wrapped in layers of buttered phyllo. Tyropita are great as a snack or as a side dish for lunch or dinner, although in Greece they are usually eaten as a breakfast food. What I love about tyropita is that you can make a large batch and then freeze them. Take some out of the freezer about 40 minutes before dinner, pop them in the oven, and you’ll have a wonderful side dish for the family meal.

Check out the recipe and the video on ThursdayForDinner.com.

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Last January I was in Italy with my girlfriend and we got talking about how we would remember all the classic dishes of our culture. That conversation planted a seed in our minds and earlier this summer we got to recording a bunch of different recipes. I’m proud to say we have launched our pet project ThursdayForDinner.com. The videos, as to be expected early on, are rough around the edges – but they achieve their purpose (and they’ll get better). As the site says:

Thursday for Dinner is a video blog dedicated to preserving family recipes. Our mission is to capture our family’s most treasured recipes and make them available to everyone.

Take a look at our first video blog post titled Eva’s Scrumptious Baklava.

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