Earl Grey was always the tea party tea of choice in my house growing up and it continues to be a favorite. That is part of the reason why I was so excited to discover fresh bergamot at the farmers market here in Xania (one of the bigger cities in Crete). Suddenly everything was about bergamot. I added slices to my plain black tea to make fresh earl grey tea. There is a recipe for chamomile lemon shortbread that I was obsessed with two christmases ago, so I adapted that and used bergamot zest instead of lemon (and skipped the chamomile).  Then I stewed some with sugar and took to adding that to plain black tea so it was sweet and flavor all at once.  The next day I adapted the shortbread to be more greek-winter friendly and used olive oil instead of butter. This evening we went to a friends house for dinner and I used that same olive oil shortbread for the crust of a lemon-ricotta tart and put some of the candied bergamot on top for decoration. It has a really nice taste, it is a bit bitter but the flavor is lovely. I really can't stop putting it into everything...

Related Recipes

Olive Oil Bergamot Shortbread

I know that I have already written about my love of Mediterranean breakfasts. Turkish breakfast in particular. It just makes sense to me. This past Sunday I found myself in my own personal state of breakfast euphoria. Somehow, I had coincidentally sourced a bunch of delicious things throughout the week, so that when I opened my fridge that morning, I had the makings of a glorious platter.

Med Breakfast

When I came back from Turkey in November, I had brought with me a jar of zeytin ezmesi, or olive paste. Olives, olive oil, and other olive-based products form a large part of the diet, and they take up large sections of Turkish supermarkets. I had been spreading zeytin ezmesi on my toast in the morning, but then I discovered it also made an amazing pasta sauce (which I will post soon). I quickly ran out of this amazing product, and decided to order a large jar from Tulumba.com. It arrived in less than 2 days and I was so happy to have this new staple back in my fridge. I will say more about olive paste when I share some recipes made with it, but I love how delicious, versatile, healthy, and inexpensive it is. The jar I bought in Turkey was less than $2.00! In my fridge were also 2 amazing preserves from the Mastiha Shop NY. The store mainly sells products that have mastiha in them, which is a therapeutic and aromatic resin from the island of Chios in Greece. I picked up one jar of bergamot and one of fig the last time I was there. I was pleasantly surprised to see bergamot, because it is not a common fruit. We are all consumers of it, because its essential oil is used in almost every perfume produced, and it is also supposedly one of the ingredients of a famous soda with a secret formula. However, most bergamot is grown in Calabria, Italy, and goes straight into these products. The figs were preserved in the same way, cooked whole in a sugar syrup.

On Friday afternoon I had gone to Gulluoglu, the new outpost of the famous baklava shop based in Istanbul, with my future brother-in-law. I had an almond pudding and grabbed a simit to go. That same morning I had bought a sheep's milk yogurt from the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company for a recipe that I was working on. Thus on Sunday morning I had my simit, zeytin ezmesi, bergamot and fig preserves, and sheep's milk yogurt. That and a cup of Yorkshire gold tea with a drop of honey was all I needed to get my day going on the right note.

For more info about the products mentioned, check out:

http://www.blacksheepcheese.com/products.html

http://www.tulumba.com

http://www.yelp.com/biz/gulluoglu-baklava-cafe-new-york

http://www.mastihashopny.com

Related Recipes

Whole Wheat Rigatoni with Olive Paste

Garlic

Growing up Garlic, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For me, and perhaps my brother and sister, garlic could be the first and oldest aroma in our olfactory memories. Our mother embraces garlic the way most people embrace water—for us, they are of equal importance to daily consumption and could by now possibly be of equal ratio in our bodies. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but without a doubt we were raised to identify the taste of garlic not by it’s presence, but how, when, and where it is absent.

There has developed an engrained confidence that garlic can do no harm. Does this confidence stem from the age-old belief in its medicinal benefit: healthy heart and clean blood? Or, is it simply a matter of taste? We may never know, as it is a belief passed down from my Greek mother’s grandparents’ grandparents—and with family, one does not ask why when there is no apparent alternative.

The only objection we hear in our house comes from my father who, even after 32 plus years of savouring my mother’s cooking, still insists he dislikes garlic as he always has. Right. On New Year’s Eve, my sister, mother and I approached a collaborative effort in preparing the elements of our meal. I made a small, side tomato sauce that had around 54 cherry tomatoes and one whole bulb of garlic—around 15-20 cloves. It took 2 hours to stew, and by the end the garlic had dissolved into it’s sugary, liquid alias undetectable by texture and camouflaged by the secret spices, olive oil, and organic tomatoes. My father used it, abused it, and devoured it—forgetting for that blissful meal that he hates garlic.

In this creation, I remembered and recognized one reason why garlic is such a wonderful type of onion (it does, in fact, come from the same family). Garlic is adaptable. Not only does garlic bring out flavour in a similar way as does salt, but it also takes on the flavour of the foods and spices around it. With a little bit of sugar, it sweetens (the secret applicable to duping my father that evening). With salt, it can emit its infamously pungent flavour some fear and others crave. Roasted, it softens into a delicately supple mound of delight. And when diced, it leaves its scent on the fingertips of the chef—Nature’s territorial marking that brands all who bare it with an aroma of sophisticated bravery in the kitchen.

Millions of tonnes of garlic are harvested every year—high volumes from China and South Asia, with cultivation spread as far as the United States and countries in South America, Europe, and Africa. And within all of those geographies, there are people who avoid it and those who devour it.

The Jain, a dharmic religious group in India, believe in non-violence in all forms. This leads to an exclusion of garlic—and other root vegetables like onions and potatoes—with purpose of preserving the plant’s life.

However, at the other end of the spectrum: who hasn’t eaten Italian food without recognizing the dependency Marinaras and Putanescas have on garlic? A trip through North and West Africa would likely be accompanied by meals of beef and lamb simmered in countless numbers of garlic cloves. And, in the end, one can even sit at a small restaurant in Peru and detect the slightly spicy taste of garlic in the addictive ceviche.

One could take a global adventure in pursuit of garlic, and find it just about everywhere, in different forms. In Greece or Turkey—or anywhere in the Levant for that matter—if you don’t taste it in a yoghurt or aubergine-based meze, it might instead be in the pockets of the superstitious to protect them from the “evil eye”. In Transylvania, you might find it above doors to keep out vampiviorous beings. And in America, you might find it preserved in bottles of unused olive oil sealed shut to signify the decorative intention. However, it is all around you. Pervasive, with certainty.

Do not allow yourself to fall victim to propaganda. There is, indeed, an underground movement that would like to invade the kitchens of loyal garlic users—but this would never succeed. I read a food blog just today by one such single-lady-vigilante spouting rhetoric in San Francisco. She is angry that she cannot meet decent men, yet stopped eating in restaurants because they “ALL” used ‘too much’ garlic. Now, seriously. I cannot address this concept in any way other than asking if this very abrasive jargon and rash decision-making might be the cause of her relationship status. Stop making excuses—especially if using garlic as your scapegoat—in any circumstance.

Growing up Garlic is not only important, it is magical. Embrace it. Realize and learn about the versatility in using it—adapt, like garlic does. Explore how a bond of friendship can be made not only with garlic, but also with co-patriots of its protection and consumption. Garlic not only helps your heart, it resembles a heart-shape when held upside down. That is no coincidence or mistake; nature doesn’t make mistakes. Garlic is the heart of the kitchen, and its pulse can nourish all corners of the palate, soul, and body. Only if, however, you let it—as you should. As we all should.