[Cooking with Olive Oil] [Tasting Olive Oil] [Treating Fresh Olives]

I would like to share with you some special recipes enjoyed by members of my family and passed on to me through the years. In our recipes you will find that we recommend several products by manufacturer or producer. We do not accept any kind of remuneration from these companies. These are products that we have used for many years and we feel confident in recommending them to you. We wish that we had received unbiased advice when we embarked upon our journey of culinary discoveries because it could have saved us a lot of money and frustration. New recipes will be added periodically, so please visit our site often.

In some of our recipes we recommend that you use "Feta" cheese. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this product of Greek origin, we include the following description: Feta is the most famous traditional Greek cheese, dating back to the Homeric ages. It is a soft white cheese, ripened and kept in brine for at least two months. It has been and still remains a significant part of Greek diet and its name is often connected with the Greek history and tradition. The average per capita annual consumption of Feta in Greece is more than 25 pounds, out of a total annual per capita cheese consumption of 50 pounds, which is the highest in the world. 

Feta is a cheese with Controlled Denomination of Origin (DOC) manufactured from pure ewe's milk or a mixture with up to 30% of goat's milk in the regions of Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, Thessalia, Sterea Hellas, Peloponissos and Mitilini island. It has a salty, slightly acid taste, natural white color and pleasant organoleptic characteristics. Feta is manufactured mainly in mountainous and semi-mountainous regions of Greece where the use of any harmful substances (fertilizers, pesticides etc.) is very scarce. It is distributed to the market in barrels, in tin boxes or in the form of plastic-wrapped pieces and is consumed as table cheese, in salads, in cheese-pastries and quite often as saganaki (shallow-fried cheese). The average composition of Feta is: moisture 52.9%, fat 26.2%, proteins 16.7%, and salt 2.9%, and it has a pH of 4.4. In the United States market, we have found in our experience that the brand "Dodoni" comes closest to the authentic taste of this fine product of Greek origin.

We have been using the Kenwood Model KM 800 electric kitchen mixer. This is the workhorse in our kitchen and we have used one successfully for the past ten years without ever having a single problem with it.

Cooking is a labor of love and that alone makes it beautiful, but when it comes to serving our meals, we have always used dinnerware from "Biordi Imports". Since 1946 Biordi Art Imports in San Francisco, California, has been the source for hand painted classic Italian dinnerware designs and home decorative accessories. My wife and I love the Biordi dinnerware pieces that we purchased when we got married. We have been adding to our Biordi collection ever since with their timeless pieces of warm and colorful designs. They compliment our meal presentations and create a happy ambience.