Israel: Israeli salad

What drew me to Israel this week was one of the national dishes, an Israeli salad. I was tempted to hold off on Israel for another, less ambitious cooking weekend so I could make the other national dish - falafel. But in the end, for simplicity's sake, I went with the salad.

A traditional Israeli salad is basically cucumbers and tomatoes diced very finely. The dicing is what makes this combo distinct to the country. Apparently the ability to dice the vegetables so finely is the mark of a truly wonderful kibbutz cook.

The vegetables are dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, parlsey and green onions. I used this as a guide to come up with a very, very basic recipe.

Now, since I'm no master kibbutz cook, I relied on my veggie chopper to make this dish as authentic as possible. The veggie chopper was a birthday gift from my sister last year. She fell in love with it at a Williams-Sonoma cooking class on making salsa. The beauty of the veggie chopper is that you have total control over how finely your vegetables get chopped, moreso than with a food processor. It's manually operated with a cord that when you pull, turns the blades and chops the veggies. I love it for dicing onions. For this recipe I also used the veggie chopped to cut the parsley and scallions.

Ingredients:

1 hothouse cucumber

2 tomatoes

About 2 tbsps. fresh lemon juice

About 2 tbsps. olive oil

Salt

Pepper

3 tbsps. chopped flat-leaf parsley

3 tbsps. chopped scallions

What to do:

Dice the cucumbers and tomatoes using preferred method. Add lemon juice and olive oil and toss. Then add diced parsley and scallions. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Iran: Kabab

So the Wiki list of national dishes has two variations of kababs for Iran, chelow and nan-e.

A chelow kabab is a simple meal that basically consists of a meat kebab served with steamed rice. Don't be fooled into limiting your idea of a kabab to hunks of meat and vegetables on a stick. A traditional kebab can also be a log-shaped meat ball of sorts. The mixture used to mold the shape is usually made up of the meat and spices. You can stuff this kabab into a pita for a tasty sandwhich. The nan-e kabab is basically the same kind of thing, but served with flatbread instead of rice.

I decided to go with the meat log variety to go with my side dishes (and the leftover tzatziki from greek night).

I found this kabab recipe on some random Web site called Persian City. It calls for either lamb or ground beef. I went with lamb. The tumeric is where it's at on this one. I also made mind in the over and skipped the tomatoes.

I know they look kind of funny, but are quite tasty. Shove them in a pita with some tzatiki and the Israeli salad and you'll never know the difference.

Middle Eastern madness!

You didn't think I'd settle to close the weekend off with just one country, did you? Nope. And today I thought I'd try my luck dipping into the wine bag of fun for a surprise cooking adventure.

The lucky draw this time out was Iran, and a quick consultation with the Wiki list of national dishes revealed that one of this country's national dishes is the kebab. Easy enough.

I also figured that this would be a good opportunity to pick up some of my slack and whip up a couple of side dishes from other nearby countries.

So I came up with a pretty impressive Middle Eastern menu with the national dishes from four countries: Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

Recipes to follow with each individual country.

Like my affection for Greek food, I've also always been a big fan of cooking from middle eastern countries. It's light, seems to be healthy and now that I've made it I can say it's surprisingly simple. The key is using good ingredients.

And in case you're wondering about the picture, that's me in Israel. Somewhere hiking in the Negev Desert. I went on a trip with college newspaper editors. We swam in the Dead Sea, rode camels through the desert and even visited a kibbutz. Talk about a fun vacation location, if you can get past the terrorism. Our tour bus drove very quickly past the borders of Lebanon and Syria.

So three weeks into my little project that's 10 countries down, 193 to go...

Greece: Menu for a Grecian kitchen Odyssey

The first time I ever tried to make Greek food I was a college intern working at a newspaper in Jacksonville. It was a disaster. I followed recipes in a cookbook I bought when I was over there (I don't know why because at the time I anticipated a life of lackluster domestic skills).

Either way, the recipe for moussaka didn't say to drain the eggplant, so I didn't, and ended up with a soupy, watery mess. At this time in my life I also didn't understand the concept of Greek yogurt, so tried to make tzatziki with the regular kind. I was also halving the recipe, but forgot about that when I added the garlic. More soupy, smelly mess. Don't even get me started on the Greek potatoes.

But now I'm a little older, a little wiser and a little more savvy in the kitchen. At least savvy enough to look to what I consider the best recipe source on the Internet: FoodNetwork.com.

I love Greek food, and over time have found some awesome recipes there. Here's the menu I used for my Grecian kitchen Odyssey.

Greek salad: This Ina Garten recipe uses all the classic elements of Greek salads, but instead of serving it over lettuce you pour the dressing over chunks of vegetables. It's been a crowd pleaser every time I've made it. Everyone seems to like the crunchiness.

Tzatziki: This is another Ina recipe for the traditional Greek cucumber, dill and garlic yogurt dip.

Moussaka: Emeril gives us this recipe for the traditional Greek lasagna-like dish. It's layers of potatoes, eggplant, meat and of course the signature bechamel sauce. The recipe calls for lamb, but if you have guests who don't go there you can just substitute for more ground beef. I also add nutmeg to the meat mixture and the sauce, which is very traditional.

And the final recipe is actually one I've adapted from that otherwise useless cookbook I picked up somewhere in Greece. Just a nice little side dish. We paired the meal with quite the variety of wines and capped it off with some ouzo. More on beverage pairings later ...

Green beans with tomatoes

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 tbsps. minced garlic

2 tbsps. olive oil

1 pound of green beans

1 white potato, sliced thin

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 can whole plum tomatoes

What to do:

Start by heating the olive oil in a large saute pan. Then add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are tender.

Now for the potatoes, I usually fry some up from the moussaka recipe and save them for this side dish. If you're not making the mousakka, add the potatoes to the onion and garlic and let them fry a bit.

Add the green beans, crushed tomatoes and whole tomatoes with their juice and transfer to some sort of soup pot. Bring to a boil, and then let simmer until the green beans reach desired tenderness. This will probably take about 20 minutes, and the tomato sauce should thicken.

Opa! My kitchen Grecian Odyssey

So I guess if life is about balance, the perfect ying to the yang of an elaborate solo evening out is an equally elaborate dinner party at home with some of your closest friends.

I never picked a country from the wine bag of fun this week. For starters, I wasn't home to do it. Life got busy, or at least busy enough for me to handle. I was too tired for menu planning.

By the end of my week some of my friends were floating ideas of getting together Saturday. I thought it would be fun to have them over and cook for them and wanted to make something dinner party friendly (ie: tried, true and delicious).

At some point Saturday morning I realized my sister was on her way for her first time for Greece. I knew there would be no better way to wish her bon voyage than by with some moussaka.

Greece also has special meaning for me. It was the first country I ever visited overseas when I was a 16 year-old-soon to be senior at Sacred Heart Academy in Buffalo. I was lucky enough to be in the group of about a dozen teenage girls and half as many nuns who spent roughly two weeks touring the ancient ruins and gorgeous islands in the Mediterranean.

Thus began a period in my life when I was doing a lot of traveling.

My friend Sarah and I have occasionally mused about whether Greece was really as amazing as we remember it, or if we were just young, naive and impressionable.

I know a lot of people who say they didn't take travel opportunities when they were younger because they wanted to wait until they had more money to enjoy the experience. For me, I am I happy I did. There's nothing like being a teenager leaving the country for the first time marveling at the Parthenon or a college student wandering around the villages of Spain on her own looking for direction.

We did all of the must have sight seeing in Greece - the Parthenon and Plaka, the ruins at Delphi, the theatre in Epidaurus. I ran the original Olympic stadium with one other girl and the tour guide made me a wreath crown from a nearby laurel tree. I'm not sure if I violated the customs rules about bringing agricultural products back to the states, but I did. The dried wreath still hanging in a frame in my old bedroom at home in Buffalo.

One of my favorite stories is about the time they dropped us off in Rhodes and told us we could go wander. My friend Sarah and I got lost, and figured the best way to find our way back to the boat we arrived on would be to just head for the water. We underestimated the fact that Rhodes is an island, and ended up on an extremely long walking tour through the maze of streets and neighborhoods. Lucky for us, Rhodes is a pretty small island.

We tried milkshakes made from goats milk, Greek coffee and ouzo (Yes, the nuns let us drink ouzo ... or maybe they had too much themselves and didn't notice ...)

I remember eating some the best and freshest food of my life in the quaintest little cafes and restaurants with amazing views of ancient ruins or beautiful coastlines. There were many a lunch on our own when Sarah and I figured it was more prudent to save our money for things like souvenirs, and just split and salad of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and ate it with pita and tzatziki.

So as my sister made her way across the ocean to Athens, I thought I would go Grecian in her honor. And what better way to celebrate a country I have such great memories of, than with my closest friends.

My Grecian cooking Odyssey did get off to a fairly rough start. I cut my time to get everything ready pretty close, and then of course my trip to Publix was hampered by what appears to be the arrival of the snow birds blocking the aisles and stealing my basket (no joke... I had to chase this old guy down to get it back). And apparently the recession has Publix scaling back hours for cashiers. So that took much longer than expected.

By the time I got home I found myself frantically peeling eggplants, slicing potatoes and frying them while simultaneously simmering onions and ground beef for the moussaka. Then there was the battle with the bottle of Greek wine, whose cork just about disintegrated into a fine powder when I tried to remove it from the bottle. My solution was to try to pry it out with a long fondue fork, but ended up accidentally (and roughly) shoving it into the bottle, cork attached, splashing the red wine all over my face and my kitchen. Thank goodness for aprons!

My laptop froze up just as I needed to consult with a recipe, so I had to take the time to restart it. I was still finishing the Greek salad and hadn't even started the tzatziki when my first batch of guests arrived - two children in tow - pulled out the baby bag of fun and their toddler promptly started exploring my living room. I brought in my chairs from the patio for people to sit on, not noticing the renegade palmetto bug that rode in on it. (We did promptly identify and take care of that issue).

But there were moments of peace in all this chaos. Every so often when you're scrambling to prepare a big meal - probably taking on too much - to entertain guests there are moments when all you can do is wait for something to finish. There are those times when you've done just about everything you can and you just have to wait for the meat to brown or the eggplants to fry before you can move on to to make something with it.

And in the end, when everything's done, all you can do is sit down with your friends and a nice glass of wine and enjoy every bite of it.

The joy of solitude, especially when served with a scoop of creme fraiche ice cream

Some of the best meals of my life I've enjoyed sitting across the table from my family or dearest friends. From a homemade pizza or Emeril's banana cream pie to fondue or tapas, I'm a firm believer in the magical power food has to bring people together in one shared experience, made all the memorable by a generous helping of whipped topping and washed down with a tasty vino.

But most days, I eat alone. And while that may seem lame, I confess I actually really enjoy it.

When sharing a meal with friends, it is the people who captivate your attention (or should). The flavors and sensations of every bite can be easily lost in the distraction of a good dining companion and excited conversation.

So many nights I actually relish in the art of eating alone, when I can become fully present with my food, contemplating and savoring every bite in some sort of deep meditation.

Most evenings I perform this ritual in the privacy of my own home, dressed down in my comphies away from the judging stares of people who might wonder how a young woman ends up all by herself in a restaurant.

But tonight I dined alone in public.

I'm not sure exactly what prompted me do to this, except I guess it seemed like a good way to end an exhausting, frantic and all around crappy workweek. No need to go into the details, but we'll just say I got stuck late at the office three nights in a row, each night forfeiting better plans to pray at the altar of my editors.

I was all set to go to happy hour around 6 p.m., feeling cute in my hot pink shirt, skirt and heels and looking forward to a nice endcap to the workweek. But I never made it.

By the time I walked out of the building at 8 p.m., the happy hour specials had long run out and most of my friends were booked or retired for the evening.

I didn't feel like going home just yet, but didn't know what to do with myself. There was one thing I did have a handle on at this point: I was really hungry.

As I made my near weekly wine run at Whole Foods this crazy idea popped into my head: Why not go to Derek's?

For the uninitiated, Derek's is this cozy little gourmet restaurant in the Rosemary Court district of Sarasota. It's the kind of place where chicly painted canvases hang on the wall above wooden furniture covered in the most classic touch of restaurant style, white table clothes. The bottoms of the tables are even covered in soft, squishy foam so when one with particularly long legs goes to cross them during her meal she does not bruise them ...

But I digress.

It's the kind of place where the chef walks around the restaurant smiling at all his patrons and watching while his artwork dissolves in their mouths, covering their palates with his sensuous tango of flavors. Somewhere I read he trained with Emeril.

It's the kind of place I always want to go more often. But it's pricey - the entrees are all upward of $25 - and I usually can't get anyone to spring the cash to go with me.

I don't think the idea of going to Derek's by myself ever popped into my head, and if it did I probably brushed it aside right away to make room for something more practical. I always dreaded the thought of going to restaurants by myself to be pitied by all the happy families and bubbly couples. It always seemed better to save the money for a time I could go with friends and share the experience. And especially after a hard week at work, I'd always figure I was too tired to enjoy it.

But maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe more secure. Maybe I'm starting to realize that the days when I can go out and drop a decent wad of cash to treat myself - just me - to a phenomenal meal could be numbered. A friend of mine pointed out just a few weeks ago when we went out to eat "If we had kids think of how much this would cost us?"

How many people really have the luxury to go out and treat themselves to a three-course gourmet meal and be able to savor every morsel completely uninterrupted and free of the any guilt of not sharing it with spouse and/or children?

Perhaps this all dawned on me the last hour of my workweek, as I sat and pouted about missing happy hour and my co-worker fielded calls from his six-year-old daughter wondering when dad was coming home for dinner.

So when the idea to go to Derek's popped into my head, not only did I let it take hold I truly embraced it. (Besides, I was really good this week. I only went to Starbucks one morning and out for lunch twice.)

I went, I sat all by myself and I savored every morsel of food and every minute of the blissful solitude that came with it. And I laughed to myself - and somewhat pitied - the couple looking quite uncomfortable on some sort of awkward date, as well as the one taking pictures of each other across the table with their cel phones.

But none of that really matters. It was really about me and the food, all three courses.

I started with the soup of the day, a pureed celery root garnished with candied celery root and a blue crab salad. Chef Derek himself served it to me tableside, pouring the creamy broth over the elegant pile of crab meat. I immediately found comfort in the smooth, creamy broth, the savory flavor interrupted every so often by a sweet bite of candied celery or the tender blue crab. Every few bites I tasted something spicy, like dried chile.

I almost died when my main course of lamb shank dressed in cumin vinaigrette and some sort of date sauce arrived. The meat looked like it was just about ready to jump off the bone and into my side dishes of mashed chic peas and a cracked wheat salad. It met this fate as soon as my knife pierced the meat. I felt like I was eating the very best comfort meal anyone could ever find in the Mediterranean. At first my feelings were mixed about the cracked wheat. It had a very distinct texture like oatmeal and tasted, well, kind of wheaty. But as I worked through the rich meat and tangy chick peas I came to appreciate the contrast of the wheat salad, with bits of black olives, dates and onions in it.

By the time I shoved almost every bite on my plate into my mouth I was stuffed, but I had come way to far in this catharsis to leave it unfinished. The dessert menu arrived, and while I really craved the banana custard with ricotta doughnuts, something about the carrot cake called to me. Perhaps it was the idea of savoring one of my favorite childhood sweets, all gourmeted to the max and dolled up with creme fraiche ice cream that appealed to me.

I left the restaurant feeling full of good food and contentment.

Some people measure independence by one's ability to go through life not relying on other people for their own happiness. Maybe this was some weird step I needed to take, but never did in my years living by myself. To go out on my own and enjoy one of my favorite pleasures without having anyone to go with.

P.S. - This was actually the second time this week I ventured out to dine on my own, but my trip to Luna in Venice earlier this week didn't seem quite as ground-breaking. I just wanted lasagna. Maybe I'm on to something ...

Lambapalooza

So it's been brought to my attention that part of the solution to my lamb angst may have been in the check out aisle at Publix.

This month's Saveur had extensive coverage of cooking with Lamb, including recipes from all over the world and tips on how to de-bone it.

If you are interested, check out this super sweet hyperlink I just figured how to add to my blog.

And by the way, I'm on round two of the lamb stew. The re-up is always tastier than the first time around. And man this stew really has a kick to it. It didn't SEEM like that much cayenne pepper...