A Greek meal worthy of the gods.

This weekend, Oakland's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension is hosting their annual Oakland Greek Festival. Besides being a gathering of some of the East Bay's most colorful and enthusiastic Greek residents, the festival is home to some of the best Greek food the Bay Area has to offer.

Yesterday I hit up the festival's opening day, and was completely bowled over by the amount of food available. Every possible Greek delight you can imagine was being prepared by local cooks, from whole lamb on a spit to flaming cheese (seriously -- stand back when they set it on fire!). Saturday and Sunday are filled with Greek cooking demonstrations. If you've got some free time this weekend, can you think of a better way to spend a few hours?

Fresh calamari and French fries

Breading the calamari by hand.

John Constantine, calamari Superman

Flaming cheese -- this you really have to try.

Lamb goddess Karen Kolokithas

Fresh baklava, ready for a new home.

What kind of Greek festival would it be without the requisite feta and olives?

Loukoumades, or honey-dipped pastry puffs. There are not words.

Assorted Greek goodies for sale.

Alyssa Landis dishes out some of the most incredible lamb I've ever tasted.

Happy Greek chefs!

More luscious lamby bits...

Harry Greer unwrapping his lamb on a spit.

The [rather large] lamb, in all its glory.

Anna Wade grills meat for gyros.

Brittany Wade shows off her winning gyro-making skills.

2011 Oakland Greek Orthodox Festival: May 13, 14, 15
Oakland's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension
4700 Lincoln Ave
Oakland, CA 94602

Admission: $6 for adults, children under 12 free. With a coupon, you can receive $1 off adult admission.

If the kleig lights circling out front didn't show you the way to the Contra Costa Festival of Greek Food & Wine at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Concord, the smell of spit-roasting lamb surely would.

Autumn, it seems, is the time for the Bay Area's moussaka-loving, retsina-toasting, fisherman-cap-wearing lovers of all things Greek to wander from booth to booth in church parking lots, dusting their shirtfronts with buttery shards of phyllo, munching souvlaki and sampling olive oils.

And while most street fairs start breaking down and sweeping up at 5 or 6 pm, the Greeks keep partying through dinnertime and beyond. At 9:30 last night in Concord, you could still get a paper plate of baklava or syrup-drenched loukoumas, a glass of red wine, a lamb sandwich or some garlicky Greek potatoes. The band was still playing, and a loose circle of dancers, hands joined, were revolving around the floor. Someone was doing a brisk business in glow-stick light sabers, seen waving from the hand of every child under 10.

There were tchotchkes for sale, carved wooden items, bits of painted pottery, t-shirts, the ubiquitous Zorba-style black fisherman's caps, but, judging by the vast sea of white plastic tables set up under the tent, food (and wine) was the point here.

A whole lamb was roasting on a spit next to one booth, ready to be turned into plates of lamb, lamb sandwiches, lamb dinners with rice and salad. There were booths for fried calamari, for gyros, for souvlaki on a stick. Several bars offered a selection of Greek wines, along with a few local wines made by Greeks. Made from the Assyritko grape, the Hatziyiannis white wine from Santorini was beautifully golden, with notes of honeysuckle and peaches.

The place to get the real deal, though, was inside, where the ladies of Philoptochos, the church's good-works organization, were earning their place in heaven by dishing out generous platefuls of roast lamb, moussaka, pastitsio (baked macaroni), baked chicken, stuffed eggplant, stuffed peppers, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), green beans with tomato, and more. For under twenty bucks, we got a cup of feta cubes, a cup of kalamata olives, a hefty square of moussaka, cinnamon-scented ground beef layered with eggplant and potatoes under a thick layer of creamy bechamel sauce, some sesame bread, and an enormous lamb shank braised with tomato.

We cleaned up the moussaka, feta, and olives in no time; the lamb shank we picked at, then realized that what it really needed was to go home with us, destined to be the centerpiece of a thrown-together rainy-day soup. The next day, into the pot it went, with sauteed onions, celery, carrots, and garlic, some tomatoes from the garden, sage and thyme, some soaked and parboiled white beans, a few chunks of potato, a glug of wine and just enough water to cover. A long, slow simmer, and last night's dinner becomes tonight's, and probably tomorrow's, too.

As we paid for our plate, I asked the woman making change if all the food was made here. Oh yes, she told me, they've been working for months, chopping, cooking, and freezing. It's the church's 32nd annual festival, and by now they've got it down. "I call us the YaYa Sisterhood, you know, because "yaya" means grandmother in Greek," she said.

Over at the pastry stall, we hear the same thing: all volunteers, working for months. I ask the woman handing us our baklava and kataifi if she was one of the bakers. "No, I'm a runner!" she laughed. "The bakers are these 85-year-old women. I call them 'the machines'--their hands move boom-boom-boom, so fast! Me, I run for them--I run to get the butter, I run to put the trays in the oven, I run to take them out. It's exhausting, but it's easier." She's working on her own baklava, though. First try, the nuts--too big. Second try--too small. So she's getting up her courage for round three, sure to be the charm.

Now, I don't know if my own baklava would pass the yaya test, but I can tell that there's nothing like freshly made baklava, made with lots of nuts, honey, and butter, the pastry crackling and shiny with syrup infused with cinnamon or orange.

The best way to get the consistency of the nuts right is to chop them by hand, handful by handful, on a heavy cutting board with a big knife. You want them rough and nubbly, and even one pulse too many in the food processor will turn them to powder. If you don't already have a pastry brush, get one before you start. There's a lot of buttering that needs to happen, and while you could use your fingertips or the back of a spoon in a pinch, a pastry brush is neater and does a much more consistent job.

Baklava

The trick to getting the perfect balance of sticky and crisp (rather than stolid and soggy) is to have the syrup and pastry at opposite temperatures when they meet. Either pour hot syrup over cold pastry, or pour cold syrup over hot pastry. Let the syrup soak into the pastry for a few hours before serving. The baklava is best on the day it's made, but it will keep for a few days, if you can possibly resist it for that long.

You can find frozen phyllo dough in the freezer aisle of most supermarkets, usually next to the puff pastry and frozen cakes. Let it defrost a little before you use it. Unroll the sheets carefully, and always keep a clean, barely damp dishtowel draped over the sheets while you're using them, to keep them from drying out and becoming crackly and hard to use.

Ingredients
For pastry:
2 1/2 cups walnuts, almonds, and/or pistachios, or a combination, finely chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
pinch salt
One of the following flavorings: 1 tsp grated orange or lemon peel and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom; 1 teaspoon cinnamon and a pinch of ground cloves; 1 teaspoon rosewater; 1 teaspoon orange-flower water

1/2 lb phyllo dough (half a standard package)
1/2 cup butter, melted

Syrup:
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp lemon juice
1/3 cup water
One of the following flavorings: 1 tablespoon grated orange rind; 1 cinnamon stick; 1 tablespoon rosewater or orange-flower water

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly grease an 8-by-8-inch baking pan.

2. In a small bowl, mix nuts, honey, sugar, salt, and your choice of flavoring.

3. Unfold phyllo dough and trim into 8-by-8-inch squares. Spread a sheet over the bottom of the baking pan. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush sheet with melted butter. Repeat with 5 more sheets, lightly buttering each sheet before adding the next.

4. Spread half of the nut mixture over the top phyllo sheet in the pan. Top with another four sheets, lightly buttering each sheet before adding the next. Rewarm melted butter slightly if it gets too thick.

5. Spread remaining nut mixture over the top phyllo sheet. Top with another 6 sheets, lightly buttering each sheet before adding the next. Lightly butter the top sheet.

6. Using a sharp knife, make four equal vertical cuts (about 1 1/2 inches apart) through the top layer of pastry. Then, make eight equally-spaced diagonal cuts (about 1 inch apart) across these strips to form 18 diamond shapes. There will be a few triangular pieces left over along the edges --perfect for the cook to snack on before serving!

7. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until pastry is crisp and pale golden.

8. While pastry is baking, make the syrup. In a small, heavy-bottomed pan, bring sugar, honey, water, and lemon juice to a boil. Keep a close eye on it, as it will tend to froth and foam up. Add orange rind or cinnamon stick if using. Over low heat, simmer for 5 minutes until syrup has thickened slightly. Remove from heat. If using rosewater or orange-flower water, add now. Pour into a pitcher and let cool.

9. When pastry is baked, pour cooled syrup over hot pastry. Alternately, let pastry cool to room temperature. Reheat syrup to almost boiling, then pour hot syrup over cooled pasty. You may not need all the syrup; you want the pastry to be glossy and sticky but not drowned.

10. Following the previously made cuts, cut the pastry all the way through into diamonds. Let syrup soak in for at least 3 hours before serving.

The Contra Costa Festival of Greek Food & Wine continues through Sunday at the St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, 1955 Kirker Pass Road, Concord, across from the Concord Pavilion. Sat., 9/18, Noon-11pm; Sun., 9/19, noon-8pm. Admission $5 adults, $3 seniors (55+), children under 12 free.

In San Francisco, the Annunciation Cathedral at 245 Valencia St will be hosting its annual A Taste of Greece festival Sept. 24-26th. Fri., 9/24, 11am-10pm; Sat., 9/25, 11am-10pm; 12pm-9pm.

The Greeks have their own, particular way of doing things: eating, speaking, dancing with chairs balanced on their chins, dressing, getting excited when anything that can be broken is smashed onto the floor.

I like to call it Greek style. Or Greek-style, depending upon the activity.

Whatever they are doing, it is often loud and (sometimes irritatingly) proud. This brashness isn't particularly different from any other once-great culture who happened to spend centuries getting kicked around by other Empires-du-jour. It's just the culture I am surrounded by for thirty hours every week at work.

Five or six days a week, I see the Greek men who proudly show off my place of business to their dinner guests as if it were their own home. I count the little Greek flags pinned to their lapels, I bring them more food than anyone could possibly eat because, as one Greek said to me years ago when I quietly suggested he might be ordering too much food for his guests:

"Of course it's too much. I want these people overwhelmed. I can't have them saying they never got enough to eat."

Well, okay then. When I went upstairs to order the 27,000,000 plates of mezethes he demanded, I realized something: This guy may have been one of the richest men in San Francisco-- a self-made, honest-to-God Greek Tycoon, but he was also a child of the Great Depression who grew into an early manhood under the oppressive thumb of Nazi occupation and its resulting near-starvation-- a time when people survived on little more than boiled weeds (horta)-- a dish we also serve, but was conspicuously absent from his order.

The Greeks-- at least the old ones-- know about starvation. To let anyone who comes under their roof go hungry is to shame an entire culture. It would break the laws of philoxenia (hospitality) or, worse-- it would break the heart of their dear, sainted yia-yias.

Perhaps that last statement was a little melodramatic, but it's the Greeks we're talking about here. I mean, they invented drama. I can't say I blame them for overdoing it on the food.

The odd thing I find about Greek people versus Greek food is that, where the Greeks themselves can be frequently over the top in their hand gestures, speaking voices, clothing and just about everything else, Greek food is refreshingly, wonderfully simple. It is what it is, which is often straightforward, fresh, and unadorned. And totally delicious.

Maybe they avoid high numbers of ingredients for any given dish because they know they're going to wind up cooking enough of it to feed Alexander the Great's army.

Ah, those were the days. I can just hear an old Greek woman saying, "Now there was a great Greek man. Of course, he broke his mother's heart by not marrying a Greek girl and look what happened..."

Rizogalo

Greek rice pudding is just one of those delightfully straightforward, simple dishes.

However simple it may be to make, it is not so simple for non-Greek people to pronounce. And I feel strongly that this dessert must be pronounced correctly before one should be allowed to eat it. Otherwise, one is just eating some rice pudding that any other culture might make. And then it wouldn't be Greek, so what would be the point?

It didn't take me long grasp the need to tackle the difficulties of mastering Greek pronunciation. In fact, it was this particular dessert that made me realize that, if I was going to be working in a Greek restaurant, I was going to have to start saying things correctly in order to be taken seriously.

One evening as I delivered dessert menus to a sweet, elderly, Old Country Greek couple, I mentioned that our Ree-zo-Gah-low was delicious. The woman blanched and said to me, "You are not Greek!" and then, took my arm and uttered the correct way to say it, pulling down as if to tear my limb from its socket at the correct moment of emphasis.

"Ri-Zho-gha-loh!"

She then let go of my arm, ordered some Greek coffee and asked,"If you are not Greek-- and you are not Greek, where are your people from, because you look like you could be Greek."

"Well, my dad's family is Sicilian," I answered, not wanting to explain that my father is, in fact, only half Sicilian.

"Sicilian?" she said as she looked at her husband. "That's okay, isn't it?"

To which he replied, "Una faccia, una razza." One face, one race.

His wife beamed. She took my same arm, but this time, she patted it. She gave me a barely perceptible nod and then said, "You're okay. We like you, but learn to pronounce Greek!"

Serves 4 to 6 old greek men, a mere scraping of the bowl by their standards.

Ingredients:

4 ½ cups whole milk

3/4 cups arborio rice, washed

1 cinnamon stick

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or more to taste)

1/2- 3/4 cups of granulated sugar, depending upon your love of sweetness

Powdered cinnamon for garnish.

Preparation:

1. In a medium saucepan (why is it that I feel as though I begin everything with "In a medium saucepan?"), pour the milk and add the cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, then let simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add rice and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently (think of it as a very loose risotto-- you want to release the rice starch).

2. Temper your awaiting, lightly beaten egg yolks with some of the hot milk, then add the yolk/milk mixture to the simmering rice. Stir in sugar. Stir everything. Stir Crazy, for all I'm concerned. Continue to cook until the you can draw a line in the custardy sauce on the back of a wooden spoon (see: above photo). Add Vanilla extract. If you like your rice pudding loose and very creamy, stop cooking now. If you like it firmer and drier, continue to cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

3. Pour out into a large bowl to cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

4. To serve, spoon the pudding into little yogurt glasses you bought for breakfast at the little grocery store in the Marais and then took home with you because they remind you of someone from a Greek family who makes you very, very happy whenever you think about him. Garnish with cinnamon.

5. Eat.

See these Greek coffee grounds? They just told me my future.

I am sitting here, wired and edgy from two cups of the stuff, trying to let my mind become open to what the residue left behind is trying to tell me.

And I am not entirely sure what to make of it.

Of course, there are a lot of people who might not know what I'm talking about, since I have encountered a hell of a lot of people who don't even know what Greek coffee is, let alone what Greek coffee can tell a person.

Greek Coffee

A lot of people who come into our restaurant have no idea what Greek coffee is. When I ask these people if they have ever had Turkish coffee and they reply in the affirmative, I can simply say, "Well, it's just like that, only we don't say 'Turkish' much around here." If they reply in the negative, well, that's a different story. I explain that Greek coffee is made from a fine, powdery coffee grounds, that sugar is added to suit the drinker's taste and that, after it has come to a boil, the coffee-- grounds and all-- are poured into a little, white cup. And, of course, that it is an excellent beverage to consume if one has a lot of house cleaning to do in the immediate future or if one is about to go out dancing-- it's that caffeinated.

When guests see the huge, heated cauldron of sand we use for making the coffee at the end of a hallway that leads into the main dining room point and ask "Oooh! What's that for?", most of the time I will cheerfully tell them it is where we make the coffee. Other times, when I have tired of answering that question for the twentieth time that evening, I remain polite, but tell people it's a repurposed baptismal font-- a sad reminder of how everyone seems to have lost their faith these days or, more commonly, that it is a more sanitary place for the cats who roam the restaurant after hours to do their business.

When people read our dessert menu and see the coffee advertised as heated over hot sand and ask, "So there's sand in the coffee?" I tell them that Greeks, like most birds, need to eat sand and small rocks to help them grind up their food. It's a genetic fluke, but it they make it work for them.

And then I might tell them the truth-- that, traditionally, coffee was heated over hot coals and that, since placing the boiling vessel (briki) directly over the coals would burn the coffee, sand was used to diffuse the heat and provide stability for the wide-bottomed, long-handled thing. I then mention that most people now boil their coffee on their stove tops (as pictured above), but that wouldn't be nearly as attractive as doing it in the sand, now would it?

Fortune Telling

Apart from the caffeine, the best thing about drinking a cup of Greek coffee is knowing that, as you drink it, you are sealing your own fate-- from how you sip, to how you swirl the cup-- you are influencing the placement of the grounds that settle into a sort of mud at the bottom. It is from this mud that one's future can be divined. It's an old tradition that dates back to the Turks (who introduced their own, slightly darker-roasted coffee to the Greeks), of course, but one never mentions that.

I've been reading Greek coffee cups for years. Not that I'm Greek, mind you-- I just work in a Greek restaurant where, unsurprisingly, Greek coffee is served. And I look just Greek enough that people don't think twice about asking me to tell their fortune.

"You want me to read your fortune?" I'd say when people first started asking. "Oh, I'm not Greek. Let me go find a Greek person who can do it for you." Of course, this irritated the hell out of most of the ethnically Greek staff. It's not as if they weren't busy enough what with chain-smoking outside, eating in the back hallway, or overwhelming their bussers with work.

So, one day, I just pretended I knew what I was doing and started reading peoples' coffee grounds. And I quickly found out how good I was at it.

My foray into cafeomancy (the reading of coffee grounds) began when I was stuck serving a private dinner in our downstairs dining room-- where one is fairly isolated from the main action of the restaurant. Two members of the party were drinking Greek coffee. When one of them asked if I could read her cup, I thought, "Well, why not?" I just might be able to bee-ess my way through it.

As I examined her grounds, mindful of the fact that I had absolutely no knowledge of what any of the traditional symbols might mean, I looked at the grounds as if it were my own, personal Rorschach Test and went to town.

"I see two figures-- one is hunched, the other is walking upright. Both are moving away from the handle of the cup. I'm not certain that these are two, separate people." And then I thought a moment and said, "I think they both represent you. My guess it that you have just gone through or are going through something difficult or painful (crouched figure). The upright figure, however, tells me that you are going to come out of it just fine."

There. Nice and vague, but with a happy ending.

And then, the woman's husband said,"Let me see that thing. My wife has been recovering from major back surgery." He and his wife were more than a little shocked that such a thing could be told from the sludge found along the side of a cup, but they both saw what I saw. Score one for the non-Greek, bee-essing waiter. Beginner's luck, I thought.

The second coffee drinker enthusiastically handed me his cup. I held the cup under the light of a floor lamp, did a bit of chin-scratching, uttering "hmmms" and "well, this is interesting" as I looked, then finally came back to the man to say, "I see two men in a rowboat. One of the men is you. The other person, it seems, is rowing in the opposite direction-- against you. All I can say is that you and someone important in your life are working against each other." Not exactly a rosy future, but that was the first thing that came to mind.

He grabbed the cup and showed it to his wife. "I had a huge fight with my best friend this weekend." His wife added that her husband and his erstwhile best friend were on a crew team together. I had stunned the crowd. And myself a little, too-- I had no idea I was such a gifted bee-ess artist. I received an enormous gratuity that night, in case you were wondering.

Perhaps the greatest fortune of all was not divined by me-- I merely confirmed it. Shortly after my success in the private dining room below, I waited on a husband and wife upstairs at the table closest to the Greek coffee sand pit. As the husband was sipping his coffee, I offered to read his fortune when he had finished. "That's okay, I'll read it for him," said his wife. When he got down to the mud, he swirled his cup three times, placed the saucer upside down over his cup and turned them both over to do their thing.

A few minutes later, the wife called me over. "You looked puzzled," I said, "what's the matter? Bad fortune or something?"

"Oh, it's not bad. I just want to know if you see what I see, because I've never seen anything like this." I took the cup and held it under the light. There was no mistaking what I saw. There on the side of the cup was the profile of a woman (it was unmistakably a woman with big, poofy hair and almond-shaped eyes) with her mouth wide open around (but not quite touching) something protruding horizontally from the middle part of a male figure.

"Well? Do you see what I see or am I just crazy?" she asked.

"I see something, but I don't quite know how to phrase it without sounding, um, crude. That's the most sexually graphic cup I've ever seen." I replied.

"Then you saw exactly what we both saw," she answered with a grin. Her husband immediately asked for the check. The cup, by the way, went straight to the office downstairs where everyone could take a look.

I've had enough with other peoples' fortunes for the moment. I want to know a little more about my own future, for a change. No one has ever read my coffee grounds. So I would like you to do it for me, since one is not supposed to read one's own grounds, according to the Greeks (the Turks, however, are not so strict upon this matter).

But I'm going to do it anyway.

In my cup, I see a giant rabbit falling from a rock onto a small dolphin with water spouting from its blow hole. Or maybe it's a whale. According to one source, a rabbit implies timidity, while a whale is representative of financial success. Personally, I feel I must be the timid, shy little rabbit (Rabbit, incidentally, was the pet name given to me by a boyfriend many years ago). Does this mean I will fall upon better times in the year ahead? Fall (I hope figuratively rather than literally) into money and good fortune? Well, that would certainly be welcome news, since 2009 was pretty much a washout in terms of, well, just about everything.

Here's hoping we all fall upon better times in 2010.

Happy, happy New Year or, as my Greek brethren say it Chronia pola.

Evvia -- sister to Kokkari in San Francisco -- is one of our favorite of the favorites down here. Evvia serves wonderfully classic Greek fare along with dishes they describe as "local interpretations of many traditional Hellenic favorites." Because of a minor kitchen fire, Evvia had to close for a few weeks this fall and my husband and I were clutching our stomachs in fear that they would never reopen. Lucky for us and for Palo Alto, they did.

For us, It's all about the octopus. I mean, I suppose you COULD order the succulent lamb chops, or the piping hot gigantes beans with herbed feta, or even the eggplant and artichoke saganaki with the huge drift of Greek yogurt that needs to be spread over everything I eat for the rest of my life. But really, Evvia is all about the octopus.

On the menu, it's listed as "Octapadaki tou Yiorgou" and described as "traditional grilled octopus with lemon, oregano, and olive oil." Like the best things in life, this dish is simple. No foam, no gelees, no essences of boiled-down essences. All it takes is four ingredients -- five, really, if you count the wood fire grill needed to edge the chopped cephalopod with charred, smoky goodness -- for that dish to wend its tentacled way into my hungry, waking moments.

Though normally quite generous with one another when it comes to food, my husband and I now have to put in a double order, because where Evvia's octopus is concerned, we're way too greedy to share a single.

Of course, as much as we'd like to, diner can not live on octopus alone, and we do have other standard favorites at Evvia. The gigantes beans are the legume equivalent of a hot bath. Simmered in a rich marinara sauce with molten feta and oregano oil, Evvia's beans keep me from missing my favorite wood-baked beans at Nopa. They're definitely a must-order for us. When tomatoes are in season the Horiatiki salad is another winner. Crisp and refreshing with shavings of sweet purple onion, dusky olives, cucumber chunks, and salty squares of feta, it's the best classic Greek salad I've ever had.

For me, eating Greek almost always means that the meal is incomplete without lamb of some sort. Evvia's simple lamb chops are perfectly cooked and served with a lemon half and crackly, roasted potatoes. They're lovely. I've also become very fond of the loukanika -- plump lengths of mesquite-grilled lamb sausage -- which beg to be dragged through their cucumber-yogurt side sauce.

In a way, it's unfortunate that we have such firm favorites, because while Evvia has so many other things I'd like to try, I'm not willing to sacrifice one of our usuals to do so. Maybe some day we'll have a large enough party that we'll have to order more food and then I'll finally get to try the moussaka with yogurt béchamel. Or the braised goat with tomatoes and orzo. Oooh, or the egg-lemon soup!

You now, it was really quite stupid of me to write this post on an empty stomach because I'm putting all my dinner plans back in the fridge, and we're getting Evvia in.

Evvia Estiatorio
420 Emerson Street (at Lytton)
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650)326-0983

Hours
Monday-Thurday: 11:30am-2:00pm (lunch)
Monday-Thursday: 5:30pm-10:00pm (dinner)
Friday: 5:30pm-11:00pm (dinner)
Saturday: 5:00pm-11:00pm (dinner)
Sunday: 5:00pm-9:00pm (dinner)

Skordalia. Skor-dahl-YA. Please say it with me, because it is a word one should know, use, and use often. It is from the Greek skordalia, in case you were wondering.

Made from potatoes, olive oil, garlic, and more garlic, skordalia is a purée that may be served as a dip for bread or, even better, as an accompaniment to fried fish or roasted beets. To me, it pretty much sums up the Greeks' love of soft food, which may or may not have derived from earlier times of poverty, when, as a subject nation to the Ottomans, good dental care was difficult to come by.

That is just a theory, however, and completely my own.

Okay, I Make You Some!

A couple of years ago, while sailing through the Cyclades, seven friends, our game-for-anything Kiwi sea captain, and I dropped anchor in a little port town on the island of Iraklia. After a full, hard day of sailing and gin-and-tonic drinking, we found ourselves extremely hungry, but without many dining options, thanks to our arriving very late in the season. By late September, a lot of Greek islanders tend to pack up their things and head for Athens to ride out the boredom of Winter.

Near the top of a little hill above the harbor, we found a pleasant, brightly lit taverna, half-filled with what was left of the tourist trade and what was left of the locals. Perfect, we thought, and enough room to pull together a table for nine. As we looked over the menu posted in front of the entrance, my friend Gary noticed something in the distance.

He pointed to a bit of curling smoke that was coming from behind the scrubby, parched bushes several yards up the hill. I was intrigued, too. In my hunger-fueled imagination, those curls of smoke reached out to us with long, wispy cartoon fingers and pulled three of us by the nostrils further up the hill.

What we found was another taverna-- dimly lit and much less crowded, unless one counts the two dozen or so cats roaming about, aggressively begging for food. We were greeted both by the smell of a whole lamb roasting-- unmanned-- over an open fire, and the shrill yell of a very tan, very blonde Greek woman. Her ire was cast in the direction of a very tan, very not-blond Greek boy. She pointed to the lamb as she yelled. He withered, made his way over to the rotisserie, and started to slowly turn the crank; sulking and looking at the lamb as though he felt it had fully deserved its death, but angered by the fact that he was the one chosen to carry out the disposal of its remains.

"Oh, God. We have to eat here," was what one of us said. It doesn't matter which of us, because it's what we were all thinking.

Slow-roasted lamb and drama. It had all the delicious possibility of a dinner theatre specializing in Greek tragedy. We headed back to the other taverna to share our discovery. The rest of our crew were already seated and drinking, therefore unmoveable. They saw no reason on earth that they should pull themselves away from their beers and their sunset view, even if the sun might have been setting over the other side of the island. Their loss, I thought, as Gary, Bill, and I walked back to the cat-infested place.

Apart from having to throw the occasional cat off the table, our dinner was marvelous. We dined off of the slow, grudgingly-roasted fruits of Greek child labor served over roasted potatoes with lemon and lamb drippings, grilled local octopus, and platter of little fried fish called athirina, which nearly infested the harbor's waters.

It was the fried fish that caught my attention. Where I work, we do the same thing with smelt-- dredging them in chickpea flour and frying them until crisp. Tossed with fresh lemon juice, salt, and parsley, we place a big pile of them on a blue plate (shaped like a fish, appropriately enough) and serve them with a big dollop of skordalia through which one might drag their little fried heads. When the blonde, big-lunged proprietress brought the fish to our table, they were accompanied solely by two wedges of lemon. leading to a profound sense of disappointment on my end. I had just assumed that they would come with that sharply garlicky dip.

"No skordalia?" I asked. I wanted to sound disappointed-- as though I had traveled 7,000 miles to come to this particular island, to sit among these particular semi-feral cats, to eat of this particular woman's famous garlic dip.

"No, no skordalia," she said. "The people," she gesticulated with a sweep of her bronzed arms as though to suggest the other diners, both real and imagined, "they do not like so much the garlic." I wondered if she was specifically referring to the older German couple we had earlier mistaken for an ancient sea captain and his long-suffering wife. I inwardly cast them as garlic-haters.

"Well, I do. I love skordalia," I said.

"You do?" Her eyes widened, she hunched over a bit in my direction, and with a big smile on her face said, "Okay, I make you some!" She punched an index finger upwards as she said it, which added a nice visual exclamation mark to the end of that particular sentence.

From our table, she dashed off into the kitchen, yelling something again to her child as she went. A couple minutes later, we could hear the whirring of a blender. We occupied ourselves in the meantime by elbowing cats from the table and off our laps. Shortly thereafter, the woman reappeared at our table with a bowl of fresh skordalia. "Kalisas orexi!" she said rather formally, wishing us good eating. And on that note, she turned on her heel and headed back inside with a noticeably lighter step and an audibly more gentle calling out to her child/slave. Or so it seemed to me.

We were left with enough skordalia to drag a whole harbor's worth of fried fish through. I was worried that, if we didn't finish the whole thing, we might offend our hostess. No matter, really. I was delighted, she was delighted and, most of all, I think, those cats were delighted when we coated what was left of that pile of fish in gobs of skordalia and threw bits into the shrubbery for them to fight over when no one was looking. Everybody was happy.

And now, I make you some.

Skordalia with Roasted Beets

Serves 2 to 4 people, 20 to 40 cats.

Since I was too lazy to trawl San Francisco Bay for small, edible fish, I did the next best thing, which was trawl the Tuesday farmer's market for small, edible beets, which are conveniently in season and-- even more conveniently-- traditionally served with skordalia.

For the skordalia:

About 1 pound of Russet potatoes, well scrubbed

1 tablespoon kosher or sea salt, plus a scant handful for the potato water

8 to 10 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup blanched almonds, whole or slivers

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil. Use Greek to keep in theme. Other nations' oils will do just fine, too, but the Greeks, you know, invented olive oil, just like they invented everything.

1/2 cup water (I use the water from the potato boiling pot.)

The juice of one lemon

4 to 5 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

For the beets:

1 pound of beets, scrubbed clean and the ends trimmed. I have used chioggia and golden beets in this particular case, because they are delightful-- namely for their reluctance to stain my hands red.

About 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil.

A good pinch of kosher salt

A slightly less-good pinch of cinnamon

Preparation:

1. On a foil-lined baking sheet, toss beets in oil, salt, and cinnamon, making sure they are all well-coated. Place beets on the middle rack of an oven that has been pre-heated to 350 F. Roast until tender, which will depend upon the size of your beets. These took about 35 minutes.

2. While beets are roasting, place potatoes is a large pot of generously salted water and bring to a boil. Cook until tender (when a knife blade slips easily into the center of one).

3. While the beets are roasting and the potatoes boiling, combine garlic and almonds in a food processor, slowly adding 1/2 cup of olive oil as you go. Since one is not making an emulsion, one need not worry about pouring to quickly or too slowly. Just blend until a smooth consistency is achieved. Set aside.

4. Reserving 1/2 cup of the potato water, drain the potatoes. Let cool for a few moments, then rubs them free of their jackets in a clean towel. Roughly chop the potatoes and press them through a potato ricer or mash them manually. Do not, however, try to blend them in your food processor or they will get all gummy. Rice them into a large, clean bowl.

5. Add the garlic/almond mixture to the potatoes while the potatoes are still warm and combine; adding the lemon juice, potato water, salt, and vinegar as you go. Add pepper and more salt, if necessary, to taste.

Congratulations-- you now have your very own skordalia.

7. Remove beets from the oven when tender. Let stand a few minutes to cool slightly, then peel and cut to whatever size you desire them to be. Return the beets to the olive oil/salt/cinnamon-dirtied sheet pan and coat them once again in that particular goop. Add a touch more salt and cinnamon, if desired.

8. To serve, spoon a heaping tablespoon or so of skordalia onto a small plate or other serving dish, using to back of the spoon to then "frost" the plate with a layer of the stuff. Place beets (best if slightly warm, but just swell in a cooler state) over the top. Garnish if you wish, yell at a small child if one is in the vicinity, and serve.

I don't care what you say, this is not hummus. It is called favosalata. If you insist on calling it hummus, I will persist in telling you that you are wrong, however politely.

Where I work, we are very good at pretending the customer is always right, even when he isn't. I hear our guests make ordering blunders on a nightly basis, which isn't surprising, considering the fact that our dinner menu is in Anglicized Greek. It's downright confusing to the uninitiated. And, of course, un-Greek.

As a server, I am more than happy to offer my descriptive and pronunciation skills to daunted diners. Sometimes, people simply ask me to say the word "kolokithokefthedes" because they find it fascinating that anyone could pronounce it at all, other times they might giggle over the "soutzoukakia." And then there are those guests who are left speechless when I tell them the right way to say "fakes" which, if interpreted as English, sounds more like an emphatic affirmation with an unprintable expletive than any other food I've encountered.

But I draw the line with people who order hummus. We don't serve it. We never have served it. Yet people insist that we do. In fact, some people positively rave about our hummus.

On Yelp and on personal food blogs, I have found people talking about our incredible hummus platter. On more than one occasion, I have read people blogging the praises of our favosalata, but mistakenly refer to it as a feta dip. That would be tirosalata. It's the green one, the one with the cheese in it.

Some of the time, I just let it slide. If you want to call our eggplant dip by its Arabic name "baba ganoush," that's fine. We might be speaking different languages, but we're still talking about essentially the same thing. And I see no need to unnecessarily show up a guest with my (necessarily) superior knowledge of ingredients. But when I see one person at a table point to the pink spread and tell another, vegetarian person, "Oh, that's the hummus, it's my favorite dip!," I have no choice but to step in and sort things out because that pink "hummus" is made with cod roe. And it's called taramasalata.

So many salatas to choose from: tirosalata, melitzanosalata, taramasalata, favosalata, and the ever-present tag-along, tzatziki. No wonder we are required to give a little tour of the dip platters whenever we deliver them to our guests. Sometimes, I have to describe them three times to the same two people. I don't mind really, it's simply a part of what I do. And please notice that nowhere in this paragraph (except here) have I mentioned our delectable hummus. Why? BECAUSE WE DO NOT SERVE HUMMUS, that's why.

I can understand the confusion. Both favosalata and hummus are made from legumes cooked with water and garlic. Both have olive oil and lemon juice. They are near neighbors on the yellowish end of the color spectrum. They do not, however, taste anything alike. Really. And, though hummus can be found in many a Greek restaurant, we choose not to serve it. I sometimes like to tell non-Greek people that hummus is a politically sensitive dish; that it makes some Greek people feel oppressed, since it is a recipe that has Ottoman Empire written all over it. Then again, the Greeks love their baklava and coffee, which were also introduced by the Turks, so there you have it.

Favosalata is itself confusing. The name of the dish would rightly lead one to think that this is a dish made from fresh or dried fava beans. In some cases, a favosalata can be exactly that-- a beautiful, vibrant green purée of fresh favas, with olive oil, a hint of feta, and fresh mint. This particular dish, however, is made from yellow split peas. Ideally, yellow split peas from the island of Thira (aka Santorini), where it is somewhat of a specialty.

I cannot be absolutely sure, but I am fairly certain that there are different recipes using different beans for this dish, and that someone out there in the blogoshpere, more than likely Greek, is going to tell me that this isn't the way they learned to make this dish. Well, gia sou, baby, bring it on. I'd love to hear about it. Seriously.

In the mean time, this is the hummus favosalata recipe I'm sticking to. Enjoy.

Favosalata

I sometimes call this my Friday-with-a-martini dip. Served slightly warm and liberally sprinkled with caper, onion, fresh lemon, and olive oil, it plays nicely with cold, cold gin. Scoop it up with pita, crackers, crusty bread, a spoon, your fingers, whatever.

Like a lot of things in cooking, this is a pretty elastic recipe. The measurement of ingredients is merely suggestive, not final. Want a your dip tangier? Add more lemon and vinegar. Saltier? Go for it. The key is the consistency of the peas. If you undercook them, the result will be unpleasant, if you overcook them, you've got mush. If forced to choose between the two, I would err towards the mush-end of the spectrum.

Makes about 4 cups, which serves about one in my house.

Ingredients:

1 pound yellow split peas (about three cups)

6 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole

6 cups cold water

1 cup white wine (Optional. If using, subtract one cup of water.)

The juice of three lemons

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons finely grated red onion

About 3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil,

A liberal amount of salt, kosher or sea salt

Thinly sliced red onion, for garnish

Capers, also for garnish

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized sauce pan or dutch oven (my preference), add split peas, water (and wine, if using), and a good dose of salt. Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce to a simmer until the peas are tender. I repeat: undercooking them will lead to an unappetizing texture; overcooking them will take you all the way to split pea soup, which certainly does not spell the end of the world, simply the end of this recipe. Cooking time: about 35 to 40 minutes.

2. When peas are done, remove from heat and strain into a cheesecloth-lined colander and gently strain, removing as much of the liquid as possible. Place the peas (along with the garlic they were cooked with) into a food processor or blender while still warm. Add the grated onion, lemon juice, and vinegar. Blend while drizzling in the olive oil. Note: you are not emulsifying the oil with anything, it is merely adding texture and flavor. Stop when the desired texture is reached, which is somewhere in the vicinity of smooth mashed potatoes.

3. Place desired serving amount in desired serving vessel, sprinkle with capers and sliced red onion, drizzle with olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and serve warm to those whom you desire to serve.

Where I work, there are a small handful of men who occasionally begin their sentences with the phrase "In my village..."

"In my village, we have a festival." "In my village, we would never treat an octopus in such a way."

These men can get away with saying such things as easily as they can get away with calling women "baby" because they are Greek. They have the accent, they have an old world charm about them that clings like the smell of clove and stale cigarette smoke.

And I have always been a little bit jealous. If I were to ever pepper my sentences with the words "In my village..." People would most likely assume it was Greenwich Village. And I can just forget about using the word "baby." Ever.

Well, I can get away with things they can't, too, like speaking only in Sondheim lyrics. And giving Greeks a hard time about, well, being so damned Greek. But it's only because I love them, I really do.

We clearly have our differences, but that is something I cherish. For example, in my childhood village of Anaheim, summer outings often included salads made from fresh Jell-o and organic, vine-ripened mini-marshmallows from my neighbors' gardens.

In the villages of my Greek co-workers, however, one will find strange, unnatural combinations. Things like tomatoes and cucumbers or, ripe watermelon and feta cheese.

They are crazy people, these Greeks.

Crazy good, I mean.

If you haven't tried this flavor combination, then you have not tasted summer. I know, that sounds like bad advertising copy, which is why I remain poor, but it's true, nevertheless.

Give it a go this weekend. I mean it. You'll thank me for it later, baby.

Karpouzi me Feta (Watermelon Salad)

Serves whoever, wherever and as many as you need.

I've brought this dish to a few picnics in my day. The initial reaction to it is usually one of strange curiosity. Watermelon and, what? Feta? How interesting. I would never have thought to pair watermelon with cheese.

Well, I'm glad somebody did.

This is such a pleasantly simple dish to make. And it takes about five minutes to create a big bowl or platterful. The watermelon, which smacks of summertime, offers a bit of sweet refreshment and hydration, while the cheese lends a bit of salty protein. And the olive oil, of course, gives you a shiny, healthy-looking coat. It is the perfect antidote to drinking alcohol in the hot sun and, therefore, the perfect Fourth of July picnic salad-- all Red, White, and Green, just like the American flag is to the marginally colorblind.

Ingredients:

One of the best things about this recipe is that there really is no recipe, just a list of ingredients. You want a lot of cheese? Go for it. Lots of olive oil? Absolutely. And let it dribble down your chest a little and rub it in for a deep, dark, Bain de Soleil-like golden tan. Delicious.

1 small, ripe seedless (or not) watermelon, rind removed and cut into reasonably-sized cubes

Feta cheese. Good feta. Greek Feta. From Epiros, if possible. Cubed or crumbled.

Good olive oil. Extra virgin. No, it does not have to be Greek.

Fresh basil, torn into small pieces. Or even oregano.

Toasted pine nuts or pumpkin seeds. I thought pumpkin seeds were an inspired choice given the pumpkin's shape and vine-grown status. That, and the fact that the pine nut bin at the store had been ravaged by the time I got there.

Preparation:

1. On a picnic platter or other, preferred serving dish, place cubed watermelon.

2. Crumble the feta over the watermelon, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle the mass with herb-of-choice and nut/seed-of-choice.

3. Serve immediately.

4. Watch the he-men crow and sweat over their grills while you kick back, have a drink, and accept compliments about your brilliant salad.

This year, the East (Greek and Russian Orthodox) and the West (Roman Catholic and its breakaway Protestant faiths) have booked the same banquet room, as it were, for Easter. The last time this happened was 2004. It will happen again in 2010. That date sounds marvelously futuristic. 2010.

As a child, I loved Easter-- it meant candy, cannoli, watching Judy Garland and Ann Miller and, quite possibly, money. My family's Easter rituals were nearly interchangeable with our Thanksgiving ones. We just traded in the turkey for a ham and wore brighter colors. Of course, there was one notable, Easter-specific activity...

The Easter Egg Hunt.

There was a certain lack of enthusiasm for the hunt at my house. My brother and sister were much older than I and, therefore, largely bored by it. While Betty Ford was busying herself on the South Lawn showing children how to roll Easter Eggs, the only things rolling at my house were the jaded eyes of my siblings. At least they were kind enough to humor me.

Saturday night was spent breaking out the Paas egg dyeing kit, creating two-toned eggs and trying to somehow work the accompanying decals onto the eggs without tearing them. My brother sometimes attempted to create narrative tension on the surface of his eggs, which is a challenge when pastel colors and bunnies are involved. I believe one year my sister dyed one egg blue and painted the original movie poster from Jaws onto it. If anyone could make an Easter egg look menacing, it would have to be my sister. Once finished, we would admire our handiwork until the nausea induced by the acrid smell of the Heinz white wine vinegar wafting up from the egg dyeing cups finally drove us away. And then, at some point during my sleeping hours, the eggs would go into hiding.

I never really understood why the eggs felt the need to hide themselves-- it's not as though anyone in my family really enjoyed eating hard boiled eggs. They were in no real danger. I would have preferred to decorate my bookshelf with them or plant one in the back yard and pray that something interesting grew from it. Perhaps they were afraid of being buried alive.

So they hid. Usually in the same places every year. One always found its way into the piano bench, another in the chandelier which I could never quite reach. We always made an even dozen. When ten or so were found, the already low level of enthusiasm would wane. My mother always stepped into the Judas role, betraying the hiding place of one of the eggs. Eventually, one hiding under the living room sofa or concealed in a recycled Country Crock margarine container would betray itself by its own putrefaction. Usually sometime in May. Or June.

This year, thanks to my new-found interest in things Greek (or, at least, my interest in one particular Canadian of Greek descent), I am embracing the Greek Easter egg. I made a dozen of them yesterday. Why I keep making an even dozen, I'll never know. I suppose it would be more correct to make thirteen, since there were thirteen people present at the Last Supper and that, it would seem, is what got this whole Easter ball --or egg--rolling. Remind me to do that next year.

The traditions involving the Greek Easter egg are much different from our own, and much more no-nonsense than, say, the Russians'. The Russian Easter egg is far too expensive to be produced yearly, but they are a good investment if you have the money. The Greeks don't bother to hide their eggs. Why hide food you know you're going to eat later? Unless, of course, one is re-enacting an historical event and therefore hiding it from the Turks or the Germans. No, they just dye them blood red and put them in the middle of their dinner table. There's more to it than that, of course. There's a power game involved.

What to do when confronted with a Greek Easter egg.

1. Show no fear. This egg will most likely be presented to you by a Greek person. They can smell fear almost as well as they can smell lamb or a bargain. Just keep calm, smile and say "Kalo Pascha."
2. This egg now in your possession will be given to you after a dinner of spit-roasted lamb and many glasses of wine or ouzo. Take it and partake in a symbolic and faintly violent game of egg smashing.
3. One person will turn to another participant seated next to him and say something in Greek. The other person will respond, also in Greek, and they will smash the pointed ends of their respective eggs together. The participant whose egg emerges uncracked moves on to his next victim.
4. If that next victim is you, he will say to you "Christos Anesti!" (Christ is risen!) to which you must respond, "Alithos Anesti!" (He is truly risen!") and smash your egg into his.
5. If you are victorious, repeat this process until all eggs except one are cracked. If that egg is yours, it means that Jesus likes you better than anyone else in the room and that you will have good luck throughout the year.

What it all means.

The red coloring of the eggs represents the Blood of Christ to the Greeks. I just happen to think they are highly attractive.

The cracking of the egg symbolizes Christ breaking out of his tomb as he rises from the dead. If this is true, then I don't really understand why the person with the uncracked egg is favored. If there is a crack anywhere, in my opinion, it is in the logic of this game. Perhaps the others are simply masking their grief for the damned soul of someone who is now certain never rise to heaven.

If you decide to play the game but are somewhat uncomfortable with so much Jesus talk, you might try substituting your own ritual call-and-response during the game. Something non-religious, yet still meaningful. One person shouting out a love for corduroy while his challenger announces his preference for suede is one such suggestion. I find the Greek tradition of being in such strong verbal agreement with each other while engaging in such aggressive behavior unconvincing and lacking in any real dramatic tension. I suppose if the first person shouted out the usual "Christ is risen!" and the second person responded "Actually, I think he's still napping" or "Christ was a Turk", there might be some tension. It is undoubtedly to my own advantage that I don't know how to say those things in Greek. But it might be exciting to witness, nevertheless.

How to make Greek Easter eggs if no one else is willing to make them for you:

First off, I must implore you not to follow my example. I read the badly translated instructions off the back of a Greek Easter egg dye package, which called for a cold dyeing. I was unwilling to go out and buy more eggs and dye them properly. I already have more hard boiled eggs than I know what to do with. As a result, my eggs look more like the pocked surface of Mars than the pure life force of a Savior whose blood is said to have come directly from King David on his Mother's side and, well, whatever flows through His Father's side of the family.

Here is a better recipe:

Ingredients:

12 uncooked eggs
Water
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 package of Greek Easter egg dye
Olive oil

Preparation:

1. Carefully wash and dry each egg (I missed this part, so it must be important).
2. Set a large pot of water to boil. Add egg dye and vinegar to the water and bring to a boil to dissolve dye.
3. Set water aside and let cool. Refrigerate for all I care. It seems that every recipe I've read calls for putting uncooked eggs into boiling or near-boiling water. This sound plain crazy to me. Perhaps it is some odd, Greek act of faith. Perhaps it is precisely because I lack that faith that my eggs came out spotty.
4. Set now-cooled water over stove and carefully add the eggs. Bring water to a boil and turn off heat.
5. Let eggs sit for 10 minutes, remove them carefully and allow to cool and dry.
6. Wipe eggs with olive oil-soaked paper towels.
7. Wipe now with a clean, dry soft cloth to remove excess oil and to polish.
8. Place them on your Easter table and let the fun begin.