I am writing this post from Greece, where I have been since Friday, visiting my better half. I have only been to Greece once before, in September of last year, when I came here to take part in the wedding of my Greek friends. I have to say that I fell in love with this country and its people at first sight. Sometimes you come to a place and instantly feel like you belong there, or at the very least, you feel good there and you know that this is your kind of place. Greece is one such place for me. My first trip here was quite magical. It was September, the weather was perfect, the islands were beautiful and the omnipresent vines of bougainvillea put me in the most poetic of moods. But most of all, I was charmed by the Greek people. They are very real, they love to eat and drink and dance, but above all, they love to talk, to laugh and to philosophize. And then, of course, they are obsessed with feeding you, in fact, they will attempt to feed you, till you burst. But it’s all good, you see, because the food is very good. One of my favorite Greek dishes (and the one which has made it around the world) is the Greek salad. It’s very simple yet very tasty. My Greek friend, Connie, tells me that the secret to a good Greek salad is to use very high quality, fresh, juicy and tasty vegetables… Well, that may be just the secret to making anything taste good… That may be just the secret to leading a meaningful life. In any case, here’s my tasty, Greek salad, with authentic Cretan olive oil and some Greek oregano.
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Tomato and Mozzarella Salad, also known to the initiated as Insalata Caprese, and to the even more initiated as the Tricolore (its three colors: red, white and green are the exact colors of the Italian flag), is one of the simplest and most delicious salads I know. In fact, this was my appetizer of choice in restaurants, before I became interested in food and determined to try out all sorts of different dishes. Trying out new dishes is definitely interesting, especially when I consider my proclivity for choosing the weird and the experimental. Fortunately, I manage to pawn off the food I don’t like on Tim, who, by the way, picks the best thing on the menu 99% of the time. He, consistently, outpicks me, even when I don’t follow the particularly adventurous route, and I, consistently, make him eat my food while stealing his. What can I say… he knows how to pick his food and I knew how to pick my man. Once in a while, I will still order Insalata Caprese, which while not adventurous or weird, is unusual in its simplicity and flavor.
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I am going to make a bold statement: Cod is my most favorite fish in the whole world. Halibut is a close second, followed by albacore tuna (but only sashimi style) and salmon (but only sashimi style or smoked, and if smoked, then only in a particular way, from one particular place in Poland)… and on a related topic: I hate herring, always have and probably always will. All this to say, that for the moment being, you will not see any herring recipes on this blog but you will see plenty of cool fish, like cod, tuna and salmon. Also, I do realize that I’m weird and I will make a serious attempt at branching out fishwise or, at the very least, I will provide you with as many delicious and varied cod/halibut/tuna/salmon recipes as humanly possible. Although after eating this particular roasted cod with tomatoes, onions, red peppers and orange zest, I must say that my branching out incentives are pretty slim.
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I am always on the lookout for my next perfect recipe. To me, a perfect recipe fulfills the following five criteria: quick, uncomplicated, healthy, tasty and pretty to look at. So when I saw this simple shrimp salad recipe, in what I affectionately refer to as my German food porn (otherwise known as the beautifully illustrated and slobber-inducing Lust auf Genuss magazine), it was love at first sight. I have made this dish a number of times and it always stuns me how effortless and yet immensely satisfying it is.
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