Beautiful and delicious looking - good job! Yum
2 Likes
Opa!
3 Likes
Super Melitzanosalata !!!
It has a different texture profile than Ba Ba gha nug … Or Mutabal in Morocco …
I am a fan of all 3 …
2 Likes
Since apple season is beginning
6 Likes
Still making Greek roasted vegetables over here as summer has turned to fall. Slender Asian eggplant made this tasty version. I’ll be making briam until the frost hits.
5 Likes
Sneaking in one more family dish before the end of the quarter, lamb braised in tomato, with orzo added to the braise at the end, with grated haloumi since I can’t find myzithra around here anymore. We called this manestra, but in restaurants I’ve only seen it called youvetsi. One online source says that manestra is one of the greek words for orzo, but I haven’t seen that anywhere else (krithari is the usual word for orzo). Mom made it often, and it was always a treat coming home from school to find a big pot of lamb simmering (Mom simmered instead of braising); this was also the case with her yourvarlakia.
9 Likes
Not food related but am devastated by the multiple large earthquakes in Crete this week. These villages are fragile. Sending all positive thoughts.
1 Like
Yes, thinking of the earthquakes there as well…hopefully there wasn’t too much damage sustained, or worse, injuries suffered. Not the kind of excitement Presunto needs on vacation, for sure.
Reminds me of a driving trip to Southern California and Disneyland a couple decades ago. After our 10 days there, found myself breathing a sigh of relief that there’d been no earthquakes as we were driving out of state. Had only been home a few days when we had a 6.9 quake here, kind of strange - misplaced worry, I guess. Some scattered damage in the area, but saving grace was that the epicenter was deep in the Puget Sound. We are on a major subduction zone, and a bigger one could happen anytime. 
Hoping that this topic will be left open for awhile after the quarter ends. I tend to cook Greek food more in the fall, winter, and spring, except for salads, that is.
2 Likes
Ernie, minestra is what my family calls the orzo/ kritharaki pasta.
My family is also Greek Californian- I suspect minestra is what Greeks in the Bay Area have been calling orzo for 70plus years. The Greeks in Toronto don’t use the term minestra much.
We call the braised orzo and meat dish giouvetsi- which is called gevech or various equivalents in Romania and Bulgaria. The giouvetsi refers to the pan itself, just like casserole itself in French, and saganaki in Greek, rather than the ingredients.
Minestra is related to minestrone etymologically. Minestrone would mean a big minestra.
I have seen minestra on menus in Greece and Italy, and it’s usually been used to describe a dish or soup that’s got a mixture of ingredients, but doesn’t resemble giouvetsi.
Here’s an Italian minestra
Looks like the Maltese also make a minestra.
https://www.amaltesemouthful.com/maltese-minestra-wonderful-vegetable-soup/
Interestingly, there are quite a few Greek Manestra recipes with tomato online, when spelled Manestra. Some are pasta main course dishes, some are pasta soups, some are vegetarian.
3 Likes
Goodness, I forgot about this thread.
I’m not originally a California Greek–I grew up on Long Island, NY. One thing I found strange on moving here (first Los Angeles, then the Bay Area) is that there aren’t any inexpensive Greek restaurants. We have a few high-end places that are good, but that braised lamb shank that I made above, for around $8.00, costs around $40.00 at one of them. There is a Persian deli and an Indian food stall that have the shanks for around $14, in their own style with rice.
I will continue to post here, as the occasion arises. I still have some very nice lamb chops and a small leg of lamb in the freezer, and imported Greek branzino is readily available (for roasting, since I don’t have a grill and my broiler doesn’t work anymore).
3 Likes
When I was at the Vintage Oaks shopping center in Novato recently, I noticed a “coming soon” sign for a chain called Nick the Greek’s. I have no idea if it’s any good, but one lives in hope.
1 Like
I like your idea. That way a cuisine of the quarter thread can have a useful life that goes beyond a calendar quarter.
3 Likes
Hi Ernie, my family used to run restaurants in northern CA. We tended to go out for Greek food in the Bay Area when we would visit.
I haven’t been recently- my last visit was for a Greek wedding in 2017.
In 2010, when my uncle was slipping, we went to a few inexpensive Greek restaurants that were down-to-earth, not high end. I remember one was in Alameda, and it was fairly dated (not sure if it was Troy, I thought it was closer to the water, so maybe it was another restaurant).
I remember going to a basic Greek resto on Piedmont Ave (Simply Greek- mostly souvlaki, gyros, salad), and another one in a strip plaza in Orinda ( Petra Cafe ) Of course, things would have changed over the past 11 years.
My cousin who lives outside Los Gatos shops for Greek groceries at a Greek market in San Jose. Dio Deka in San Jose is a nice upscale Greek restaurant that I’ve visited a couple times.
I guess church festivals are the place to get inexpensive Greek food. I believe the Oakland Church Festival used to take place in May.
1 Like
Hi Diana. I noticed your user name here and on other forums and I thought about those honey-soaked oil cookies, but I guess they’re spelled “finikia”. Simply Greek is still there, and Troy has a couple of restaurants, but they’re mostly the souvlaki/gyro kinds of places, with the requisite-but-not-quite-Greek falafels. The Greek product store by the cathedral in San Francisco closed years ago.
And yes, the church festivals can’t be beat. The one in Oakland, always the weekend after Mothers’ Day, has been cancelled for two years now.
1 Like
It’s a transliteration, so phoenikia and finikia are both correct spellings in English for the Eastern Aegean regional word for melomakarona.
That’s my handle, named after the cookie. I’ve been using the handle since 2006, when they were my favourite cookie.
I got into a disagreement with a Peloponesian Canadian about Finikia/Phoenikia. He claimed they were different than Melomakarona. Maybe a distinct Peloponesian Finikia exists. I’ve never seen it if it does.
They’re the same thing as Melomakarona in the Aegean islands . Same recipe, potato, potatto.
2 Likes
My grandmother used to make big batches of them. I made them once, in college, and an upstate NY friend who baked a lot was horrified that they called for both butter and oil.
2 Likes
There’s both butter-only versions and oil-only versions, as well.
The oil-only versions are for Lent and some fast days. The olive oil-only versions are surprisingly good.
I’ve never had a version made with oil and butter.
