No comments about The Centaur's Kitchen: A Book of French, Italian, Greek & Catalan Dishes for Ships' Cooks on the Blue Funnel Line.

5 comments about Meze: Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Table.

1. Cooking from this book was a great joy after having spent several days with books dealing with French haute cuisine. I heartily recommend this book to just about anyone as a source of tasty, easy, traditional dishes. The only reservations would be to people who may not have the time or inclination to search out some of the speciality ingredients.

   Almost all recipes in this book use fewer than 12 ingredients and the technique rarely takes more than four (4) steps, taking no more than a half page of text. This is not exactly quick cooking, although there are a fair number of quick recipes herein. Some recipes do require long marinades, but very few require long cooking. Most heat is from either a quick saute or a grill.

   The issues with ingredients, especially for those who like to stay authentic, is probably solved if you live in a large city and there is a Greek or middle eastern grocery available. It is also probably not a big issue if you live near a `megamart' which carries a generous supply of Greek and Turkish staples. Needless to say, even if you live in the sticks, there are internet sources for everything. The most important speciality ingredients are:

   Greek feta - There is barrel cured and tin cured. Some recipes recommend one type. Some the other.
   Other Greek Cheeses - Popular Italian cheeses like ricotta will substitute for most requirements.
   Greek Oregano - Dried
   Greek / Eastern Mediterranian yogurt - Fortunately, there is an easy way to make plain yogurt work.
   Dried Mint - Yes, dried. Fresh mint is also commonly used.
   Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil - `What is grown together goes together'. But Italian or Spanish will work.
   Phyllo - Supermarket Phyllo is fine.
   Octopus - The national seafood of Greece.
   Pastourma - Cured Beef

   Once you locate a source, I believe most ingredients such as the Greek olive oil will actually be less expensive than Italian substitutes. Almost all other ingredients such as eggplant, pita, and ouzo are very common everywhere in the country.

   Meze, short for mezethes, denotes small dishes served typically at small eateries like `mezethopoleion'; ouzeri, similar to the Italian wine shop; and the tsipouradiko, serving Greek eau-de-vie. The object of these establishments and their meze fare is to offers its patrons a place to eat, drink, and have conversation in the hours between large meals. The author points out that although there is a strong similarity in portion size and preparation similarity to Spanish tapas, the dishes were specifically developed to be eaten only as an accompanyment to drink in the middle of the day, not as a `before the meal' bite to get you started on the main meal of the day. It is much more comparable to bar nuts, pretzels, and pickled eggs on American bars.

   All portions are small and most are designed to be eaten with the fingers, bread, or skewer. Chapters in the book cover:

   Dips, Spreads, and Relishes; Savory Salads; Small Egg Dishes; Phyllo Pies; Fried Finger Foods; Vegetables and Beans; Seafood; and Meatballs and Kebabs

   The author is a recognized authority on Greek food and has a written a widely praised book on general Greek cuisine. The color pictures are decorative, but few. While I found all instructions very simple, the author did occasionally seem a bit opaque. I still don't totally understand her instructions for peeling a roasted eggplant. As Martha Stewart said in one of her book introductions, this book made me want to immediately try many of the dishes. This is a sure symptom that there is good food to be had here.




2. Lovely book, lovely photos...BUT I am disappointed in the recipes. Admittedly, I have only tried five of them, but was disappointed in all five. I am a good cook,lived in Greece for 2 years, and have been cooking Greek food for some 30 years with great success. Some of the MEZE recipes were O.K., but not REALLY good, and one was a disaster. Sorry.



3. Mezes are to share, enjoy, and live life to its fullest!
   
   Greek meze or mezes, (mezedakia) are the "tapas" of Greece. This book, "Meze", does not contradict the conventional tourist wisdom that Greek cuisine is monotonous, strange, and smothered with oil.
   
   Mezes are designed to complement a beverage, tease the taste buds and encourage diners to linger around a table for good conversation. As "Hors d'oeuvres" or appetizers, they should be appealing or stimulating to the appetite.
   
   A platter of Prunes with Bacon, Baked Sardines, Fried Squid with Honey, and fiddly to make Olives Stuffed with Fish Row are not what "tease the taste buds and encourage diners I know to linger around a table for good conversation."
   
   Nor are many of the recipes the type of foods I enjoy preparing. Many recipes are what I call "fiddly". They are full of laborious details that occupy the cook with toilsome busy-work that is not fun, for what I maintain is wearisome attention to produce unmemorable dividends.
   
   Example: Fried Olives Stuffed with Fish Eggs.
   
   First, one makes homemade taramosalata from blanched whole almonds, that are ground with fish eggs to make a paste. This inelegant combination is placed a pastry bag, from which the graceless paste is piped into each individual olive hole. Each olive is then individually rolled in flour, then rolled (one olive at a time) in egg, then the olive is rolled in a third coating; breadcrumbs. The breaded-fish-paste-stuffed olives are finally fried in oil. For my time, energy, explosive mess, and taste preferences, I can think of many dishes that are more rewarding than this sebaceous fare.
   
   An occasional fried crispy savory pastry is welcome; however, there are thirty pages of recipes utilizing phyllo. Some recipes require a stick of butter to tame the leaves of pastry that are subsequently fried. The book contains sundry recipes for fried cheese; fried feta with olive oil and butter, deep-fried cheese stuffed eggplant, fried cheese stuffed squid, batter fried cheese stuffed zucchini blossoms.
   
   The recipes in Meze, offer a dearth of palate cleansing combinations. One lighter attempt combines the unlikely pairing of watermelon with vinegar, feta cheese, and onions. The spoiler in the Beet and Feta Salad recipe was a large amount of brown sugar and nothing to balance the sugary dish.
   
   Meze's recipes do not compliment my taste preferences; many recipes are sebaceous, tortuously effortful and labored to make with no taste payoff for my time and efforts. Lastly, Meze does not make a positive contribution to my healthy diet or cookbook library needs.



4. Bought this book as a gift for a friend - now I'm going to get one for my own collection! Great photos, presentation and very authentic recipes...good for any level of cooking experience



5. This book has some nice twists on traditional Greek dishes. Some of the dishes are easy and some are time consuming, but they all came out great.
   
   I was a little disappointed that they don't have the Greek names of the items - this is clearly a book that is geared for an English-only audience.
   
   Our favorite is the Skewered Ground Lamb Kebabs, which contain cayenne and mint.

2 comments about A Vegan Taste of Greece (Vegan Cookbooks).

1. This is a poorly researched book. Greek cuisine has a wealth of vegan recipes based on vegetables and pulses and one would expect to find them replicated here. Most of them are not. Lenten baking recipes omit eggs and dairy products and not even these recipes are replicated here. It's true that the cost of this book is low: you get what you pay for.



2. I didn't know about many greek vegan dishes. Most of the greek restaurants I have been to may have a few vegetarian dishes, but not many. This book opened my eyes (and stomach!) to the delights of vegan greek cooking.

1 comments about Greek Cooking: A Mediterranean Feast over 165 Tantalizing Recipes from Spanakopita to Baklava.

1. Greece and its isles offer a tantalizing cuisine, beloved by its discoverers. The warmth, hopitality and spirit of the people, a zest for the good life and an innate love of fine, simple foods are all reflected at the Greek table. The Greek cuisiine is delicately seasoned, rich and diverse, and traditionally its best dishes are prepared in abundance for gala events. Here, in this definitive cookbook, Lou Seibert Pappas simplifies the delights of the Greek kitchen for the American cook with quick, clear and easy-to-follow recipes.
   
   The complete Greek meal is often closely-linked with occasions for merriment, such as Easter, Christmas and weddings. Lamb is the principal meat served. A holiday festivity usually calls for a ceremonial spit-roast outdoors, but for everyday meals, lamb and beef are braised in stews or casseroles with every conceivable vegetable; fish is marinated in vermouth or lemon and oil; chicken is stuffed with an unusual chestnut dressing and roasted. Mountain-grown herbs--garlic, oregano, mint, basil and dill--and freshely ground cinnamon sticks and nutmeg season these fragrant dishes served with toasted anise-scented bread and delectable lemon soup.
   
   Appetizers also play an important role to the Greek kitchen, reflecting the Greek enjoyment of a leisurely and friendly hour of socializing before the late dinner is served. Hors d'oeuvres include olives, cheeses, pickled vegetables, bite-sized meatballs, stuffed grape leaves, crispy fried octopus and shrimp, feta, and meat sauce or spinach mixtures wonderfully wrapped in fila. These and side dishes, such as braised green beans and rice pilaf with mushrooms, bring savory and unique flavors to a traditional Amreican meal.
   
   And you will also undoubtedly want to imitate the most celebrated speciality of the Greek kitchen--the remarkable pastry called fila or phyllo. The tissue-thin dough is as fine as onion-skin, but creates a tasty foundation for countless appetizers, vegetable dishes, entrees and innumerable pastries, of which the most famous is baklava- a multi-layered fila pastry ribboned with nuts and oozing with honey syrup.
   
   For family meals or for party spectaculars, Greek Cooking provides you with an endless variety of new ideas and fun-to-prepare, mouth-watering dishes.
   
   --Lou Pappas is the former home economist of Sunset Magazine and a nationally-known contributor to Gourmet and Home & Garden magazines. (at the time of publishing)

1 comments about A Kitchen in Corfu.

1. This is absolutely a wonderful book. It does an excellent job in depicting the life, culture, and history of rural Corfu. The food recipes are wonderful. However, I have to emphasize that this is not just another recipe book. It is more of an inside look into the life of rural Corfu.

2 comments about The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World.

1. Compiled and organized by Clarissa Hyman (the 2002 Glenfiddich Food Writer of the Year), The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes And Stories From Around The World is more than just another ethnic cookbook, The Jewish Kitchen emphasizes full-color photographs and extended stories showcasing globe spanning Jewish cuisine, tradition, and culture. From Classic Cheesecake; Moroccan Chicken with Dates; and Persian Jeweled Rice with Chicken; to Iraqi Beet Kubba; Rubens Family Potato Chermslach; and Old-Fashioned Sweet Carrot Kugel, The Jewish Kitchen offers a culinary wealth of traditional and succulent faire.



2. author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
   
   from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
   December 19, 2003
   
   An Auschwitz survivor, only one of four, returns to his Norwegian town to rebuild a Jewish community. A group of Spanish Jews, fleeing the Inquisition, cross the savage seas to Curacao and establish the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the New World. The tiny, but active, Jewish community of Salonika rebuilds itself on the ashen remains of what once was a 2,000-year-old thriving metropolis of Jewish culture.
   
   Clarissa Hyman's beautifully photographed new cookbook, The Jewish Kitchen, is alive with miracles - stories of remnants of Jewish life, war-torn Jewish communities, displaced and rebuilding, bringing with them their glorious history, rich culture, and a cuisine passed through the generations, itself a story of miraculous survival.
   
   This award-winning author crisscrossed the globe, visiting eight families in nine months, recording their stories, their recipes, even taking some of the location photographs herself. The rest she filled in through the miracle of email, which is how I interviewed her from her home in Manchester, England.
   
   "The stories were as important to me as the recipes, because I believe in context and background, and I wanted to give snapshots of the Jewish world today to show that there are so many different aspects to the Jewish experience. Sadly, time and budget put limits on my voyage around the Jewish world, which is why email is so wonderful. It's been an unexpected
   bonus, making friends around the world."
   
   Hyman's nine months' work on the book - "research, traveling, writing, testing, a miracle in itself!" she said - started at the beginning of the year and ended just after Simchas Torah. Rosh Hashanah she spent in Trondheim. "Here was this tiny community that by all rights should not exist at all and that has been almost completely brought back to life after the Holocaust by one Auschwitz survivor, Julius Paltiel, who invited me to share the holiday with his family."
   
   In Antwerp, Leila Rubens organized a lunch for 16 Jewish women from different countries. "Each arrived with a special family dish that none of her friends had ever sampled before," she recalled. "By the end of lunch everyone was swopping recipes, most of them included in the book. I didn't dare leave anyone out! It really brought the essence of the Jewish kitchen alive for me."
   
   By Hanukkah, a favorite festival rich with childhood memories, she was home in Manchester. "I was the only child, so I always got to light the candles with the shammas and would sing, badly, Ma-oz Tzur to my proud parents and would get the first latke out of the pan." In fact, Manchester is the ninth spot on the tour, where Hyman recounts the miracle of her own family. Her grandfather survived the sinking of the Titanic and returned to Manchester to open a kosher deli called Titanics, where Hyman grew up. "I was raised in a pickle barrel," her mother would sometimes joke.
   
   No Jewish cookbook would be complete without latkes, and Hyman's recipe is her own. But Hanukkah is about the oil, not the potato! Jews the world over also celebrate with doughnuts and fritters. Hyman tells of Moroccan and Turkish Jews who feast on special meals on the sixth and last nights of Hanukkah and of Russian Jews who used to celebrate a Flaming Tea Ceremony in which sugar cubes were dipped in brandy, placed on spoons and lit with candles.
   
   For a change from latkes, Tunisian briks, when fried, are perfectly appropriate for the holiday. They recall a community that shrank from 80,000 in 1948, Hyman observed, to about 2,000 today, as Tunisians emigrated mostly to Israel and France.
   
   From the Israeli food and wine writer Daniel Rogov come Pineapple Fritters, a classic for Hanukkah in Lyon, France, where owner Celestine Benditte-Strauss served them at her renowned Restaurant Cercle.
   
   Rugelach for Hanukkah? Hyman describes the lesser known Hanukkah tradition of eating cheese and dairy products in memory of Judith, a brave Jewish widow who beheaded the enemy general Holofernes after feeding him...what? Hyman says "fatal small cakes." Some say perhaps she got him thirsty on cheese so he would drink wine and fall asleep. Others insist it was rich, creamy food for the same reason. While stories differ, the message is clear.
   
   "One Jewish dish, twenty different versions. One Jewish story, twenty different tales. I doubt if there can ever be one single definitive explanation in Jewish lore. Regardless, Judith's bravery was said to have inspired Judas Maccabee. Who knows? I think it's more a case of parallel stories coming together. It's one of the wonderful things about Jewish food: We are as lavish with our symbolism and myths as we are with the sour cream. Any excuse for something delicious to eat!"
   
   TUNISIAN BRIK WITH TUNA AND POTATOES
   Serves 8
   1 small onion, finely chopped
   vegetable oil, for frying
   3 1/2 oz canned tuna in olive oil, drained and crumbled
   3 potatoes, peeled and boiled
   1 egg, beaten
   1 oz parsley, finely chopped
   1 tbsp capers
   1/2 tsp turmeric
   pinch of harissa (or more to taste)
   salt and pepper
   16 sheets phyllo pastry or 8 sheets brik pastry
   
   Lightly fry the onion in a little oil and let cool. Mash the tuna and potatoes with the rest of the ingredients except the pastry and oil and set aside. Cut the phyllo pastry into 6-inch squares. Brush a pastry square with oil; then place another phyllo square on top - you need 2 layers for each brik unless using special brik pastry.
   Place a large tablespoon of filling in the center, then either fold to make an oblong or triangular shape. Moisten the edges with water in order to seal the pastry. Deep-fry for a minute at 375 °F until golden brown, turning if not completely submerged in the oil, then drain on paper towel.
   
   PINEAPPLE FRITTERS À LA CÉLESTINE
   
   serves 6-8
   
   2 large pineapples, peeled, cored and thickly sliced
   superfine granulated sugar, for dredging
   1/4 cup Kirsch
   3 cups all-purpose flour
   1 cup warm water
   7/8 cup beer
   1 tbsp vegetable oil
   1 tbsp brandy
   pinch of salt
   2 egg whites, whisked
   apricot jam, for spreading
   vegetable oil, for deep-frying
   superfine granulated sugar, for sprinkling
   
   Dredge the pineapple with sugar, then sprinkle generously with the Kirsch. Let steep 30-40 minutes.
   Sift the flour and mix with the water, beer, oil, brandy and salt to make a batter. Dry the pineapple slices on paper towel, then coat them with a thin layer of apricot jam.
   While the oil is heating, fold the whisked egg whites into the batter. Take the fruit and batter to the stove. When the oil is not (350 ° F), dip the pineapple slices into the batter, then fry until golden brown on both sides. Serve hot, sprinkled with sugar, if desired.
   
   HAZELNUT RUGELACH
   
   Makes 32 small or 16 large
   
   13 tbsp butter, softened
   7 oz cream cheese
   2 tsp superfine granulated sugar
   2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted with a pinch of salt
   1/4 cup brown sugar
   4 tbsp cocoa powder
   2 tsp cinnamon
   7/8 cup finely chopped hazelnuts (or walnuts)
   2 tbsp butter, melted
   1 egg white beaten with a little water
   granulated sugar (optional)
   
   Cream the butter and cheese until well blended. Stir in the superfine sugar, then the flour and mix until the dough begins to hold together. Gather into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill overnight.
   Preheat the oven to 350°. Combine the brown sugar, cocoa, cinnamon and nuts and set aside. Cut the dough ball in half and return one half to the fridge while you work with the other. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry into a thin circle about 10 inches in diameter. The pastry may feel hard at first but it quickly softens. Use a cake pan or plate to help cut out a neat circle. Cut the dough circle into 16 or 8 equal pie-shaped wedges.
   Brush the surface of the wedges with melted butter, then sprinkle evenly with half the nut mixture. Cover with a piece of plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to press the filing lightly down into the dough.
   Remove the plastic wrap and roll up each wedge from the outside, wide end toward the point, so you end up with mini croissants. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and brush with the beaten egg white. Sprinkle with a little sugar, if desired. Repeat with the remaining dough and bake for 20-30 minutes until golden brown. Let cool slightly before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

1 comments about The Periyali Cookbook.

1. For those of you interested in "modern" Greek recipes (recipes adapted to and adjusted for modern and North American tastes) which still preserve the character and spirit of the Old Country this is a fantastic book. Lighter versions of old classics, vegetarian, simple and elegant fares, all adorn the pages of this well done cookbook. A good (albeit slightly outdated) list of sources for many harder to find foods and a list of standard ingredients (with some possible substitutes) allows both the seasoned Greek cook and the novice on this healthy and tasty cuisine the opportunity to make both everyday and special event meals (with complete Easter menus for example). The stories that accompany the book give a wonderfull insight into the culture and the people begind the recipes and the food.

   The recipes originated from the well-known New York restaurant Periyali with adaptations for home kitchens.

5 comments about Greek Salad: A Dionysian Travelogue.

1. In "Greek Salad," Miles Lambert provides some of the expert commentary enjoyed previously in his first book, "The Wines of Greece," but in this volume lets us join him, personally, in his quest for great Greek wines in the classical and modern traditions. His witty insights and delightful references to ancient and more recent writers, from the likes of Aristophanes and Homer, through travelers on "the Grand Tour," such as Lord Byron and others, will no doubt bring a sense of keen recognition and delight to most of his readers. Authored by a master of English with a considerable command of Greek language and culture, "Greek Salad" makes me want to jump on a plane, and then catch a boat, to seek out "tavernas" of my own and experience some of the Greek places, wines, and foods our "Odysseus of the Wine Jars" so deliciously and entertainingly describes.



2. A satisfying chunk of black volcanic rock never leaves my desk. I picked it up personally on the Greek island of Santorini, where steam still percolates from the ground some twenty-five hundred years after the island exploded, upending the Aegean world. You can believe my powerful paperweight is the match of even the most truculent culinary book. It has certainly helped me plumb the depths of Greek Salad, a "Dionysian Travelogue" by American wine writer Miles Lambert-Gócs. Lambert roams Greece-the Aegean islands, the mainland, the Ionian islands-in an attempt to transmit, even amplify, a taste of Greece into accessible English prose. The result-even if you can taste Greece only vicariously-is the stuff of persistent reverie.
   
   Taken individually, Lambert's 26 vignettes could only succeed in generating dramatic tension, unless, like me, you retain taste memory of a challenging retsina from Rhodes, or the best yogurt you have ever ingested. The whole of Greek Salad, though by rights it should be at least a coffee-table book (it is a tight small-format paperback), succeeds as it satisfies. I read just yesterday that recent surveys found Greeks, both male and female, to be on average even heavier than Americans. Evidently, Greeks do a lot of eating and drinking. The way Lambert tells it, the food, the wine, the soul of Greece do not spring fully-formed from a laminated restaurant menu; they are animated by earth, sea and sky. If you find yourself in Greece, you might as well eat, and wash it down with wine that originates just a stone's throw from your table. You can work it all off in the gym on your return.
   
   Lambert has the imagination and scope to extol both the obscure and the predictable. Nearly every American "Greek diner" I have ever turned to as refuge from the night has offered a credible mousaka, a hybrid dish Lambert examines lightheartedly in his chapter on Larissa, on the Greek mainland in Thessaly. "Mousaka," Lambert writes, "certainly cannot lay with the en croute delicacies; but on the other hand it does not sink with the fluid casseroles either. Sometimes it seems to slide in between the terrines and pâtés...However, the rarer low-built mousaka, with its slim strata, cuts nicely on the bias and, if highly flavored with sweet spices, can for all the world seem a soft, non-stick baklava." If detail is delicious, Lambert serves up a feast, even if we want to pardon the author's French.
   
   Or ferry-hop to the Aegean island of Syros, which Lambert visits for a second, longer look after having guiltily given the island short shrift in a previous incarnation. Here Lambert is hosted by shipping magnate John Vatis, who, after having acquired a taste for chardonnay in California, has fostered a wine-culture on the island. Vatis cultivates his vines "under Israeli conditions-no water and very bad land," using elaborate drip irrigation systems combined with the best technology money can buy. At the outset, a California enologist had informed Vatis that the "official" temperatures on the island were far too hot for chardonnay. But that was before the enologist visited the island and "found himself needing a jacket on the veranda in the evening-and before John discovered that the temperature readings were taken in the daytime in a stuffy nook downtown." At lunch, John's wife Helen prepares that other food I find on Greek diner menus: "pastitsio of a quality above what even an inveterately hopeful fan of Greek dishes might imagine that pastitsio has in it" (and a far cry from my own pale experience in American eateries).
   
   Greek Salad handily transcends the American notion of "Greek food and wine," and yet I find a strong Greco-American thread throughout the book. Lambert sweeps through Greece not only as a journalist but also as a representative of the United States Department of Agriculture, a role that forces him on occasion to visit food processing plants, consume their output, and say nice things about it. We Americans love foreign references to our homeland, and Lambert provides them, from the Greek sailors who wax fondly over their visits to US ports, to Lambert's own habitual pilgrimage from his home in Virginia to a Greek wine shop in Astoria, New York, where he crams his car trunk with viniferous products he simply cannot live without. Writers always have a choice of perspective, voice and personal character; Lambert's is one of honest immediacy. The writing is unapologetically personal, vivid, experiential; therein lies the problem, since the only meal we really get to eat is composed of words rather than olive oil and lamb. Those of us who can't quite swing a leisurely voyage to Greece had better hope PBS drafts Lambert to host a thirteen-part series soon.
   
   Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com



3. Miles Lambert-Gócs. If ever you longed to discover Greece with a guide who knew not only the history of Greece with all the Islands included but also manifested the same gusto for life that is part of the Greek heritage, then this very fine author is the one to take you there. GREEK SALAD: A DIONYSIAN TRAVELOGUE is so full of fascinating insights into Greek history, Greek personality, and of course Greek food that is truly Hemingway's 'moveable feast.'
   
   It is one thing to write a travelogue that points the particularly splendid aspects of a country in your direction, but it is an entirely different one that is so full of spirit and tales that it also serves as a novel. Reading this book, yes, encourages calling a travel agent post haste, but it also is such a well written piece of literature that it can be appreciated simply for the repast it provides. Lambert-Gocs is a wise, informed, ebullient connoisseur of wines and foods: he is also a sprite that opens the joys of Greece like few others. Highly recommended reading! Grady Harp, March 06



4. Okay, that's a Latin phrase, and this book is a paeon to Greece and particularly to the various wines and food one can find while traversing the hills or climbing down the cellars of an inviting taverna.
   
   Greek Salad consists of a series of travelogues about the Greek mainland and many of the islands, written over a period of years. We see Naxos and Milos, Crete and Santorini as they were before and during the time when the influx of tourists changed everything. The author is a wine expert so much of the book follows his search for authentic wines that go beyond retsina. But he also is a lover of both the ancient Greece of Homer and the recent one of Zorba the Greek. There are plenty of historical and literary allusions in the book. as well as plenty of anecdotes about taxi drivers, casual friendships, tavern owners who invite him in for a sip and all those foreign tourists one runs into on the ferry over to various islands. The author offers descriptions of the brush paths and hills, beaches and small towns clinging to the ports where the ships come in from the sparkling sea so that the reader is ready to book the next flight for the Aegean.
   
   
   One of the historical tidbits I learned is that is that the Venetian influence over Greece extended to religion. On one island, half the population is Roman Catholic while the other half is Greek Orthodox.
   As for food--moussaka is basically meatloaf (made of lamb, of course), with custard embellishments. There is also something called "false meatballs" --he gives the Greek name for it--that sounds like an early version of Hamburger Helper.
   
   Cruise ships have become an important presence in the islands and a source of income for the shops and merchants that circle the harbor. However, the passengers seem to be an annoyance to the long-term visitors who abandon certain restaurants and beaches on cruise days. And the growing popularity of certain Greek islands as a "girls gone wild" hangout
   may make the authentic pleasures that Miles Lambert-Gocs talks about a thing of the past.
   
   I've just seen the movie "Mama Mia!" and the gorgeous scenery of the sleepy island set within a sparkling sea should have many a movie-goer packing his bags. This book will make a pleasant read before you depart.



5. I purchased this book based on the reviews. The title is the best part of the book. It reads like j random blog returned by a google search on 'greek blog'. If you are trying to choose a Greek Island to visit allow me to suggest Freely's Cyclades or Eyewitness Greek Islands. If you want entertainment choose Kazantzakis or Homer. If you want a printed blog and feel the need to spend money while killing a tree, choose Greek Salad.

2 comments about The Wines of Greece (Classic Wine Library).

1. This is an excellent and up to date review of modern Greek wines including native grape varieties,geography/climate,regions and producers.A must for anyone wanting to get serious about understanding the new wave of Greek wines heading for shores in Europe and the new world.A few photos of producers and vineyards and if was a bit more "flashy" would have given it another star.



2. This is not just a cold listing of all regions, estates and wines like most wine guides. A significant section of the book is dedicated to explaining the history of Greek wine, the plethora of indigenous vine varieties, production methods, etc. It's really fantastic education, written in a very novel-like readable manner.
   
   The guide part is certainly complete too - listing all the regions and most producers with lots of information for each.
   
   However, there are two major things missing.
   
   1. Price information, or just value for money information. Even if it was just in two or three categories, like less than 5 Euro / Pounds, between 5 and 15, and more than 15. This is always a good indicator to see if your local importer is ripping you off, and is also a way to narrow one's scope a bit so that it lies within one's budget.
   
   2. Ratings. There are no ratings given at all. The author says he wants us to discover the wines for ourselves, etc. Now I agree with that to a large degree. To score wines on a scale from 50 to 100 just leads people to buy a 91 point wine and ignore an 89 point wine, and most of us, even if experienced wine drinkers, could not tell the difference between them anyway. However, I do not have the time, money, and local choices in selection to try 1000 wines and make up my own mind. I rely on the author to give me some guidance. Yes, in his reviews of each estate he does make comments such as "simple", or "excellent", or "surprising" etc, but I would have loved some overall indication of quality - even if just on a scale of one to three stars like the French Guide Hachette does.
   
   Overall, very good, but would have liked to see more pricing and quality information.

No comments about A Mediterranean Table (The Creative Cook).