The first feast

The first Iranian things I tried making were from the dinner selection. The menu went as follows: bread herb salad pickles kashk-e badenjan chelow khoresht – sour tofu and herbs I read in Saraban that Iranian meals usually begin with flat bread and a basket of herbs and cheese. These are then followed by pickles,…

Stew and Pilaf and Salad

The first Armenian meal was a stew called Bozbash. I originally decided to make Bozbash after coming across praise for it in a book about Eastern European cuisine. This book, and several websites, identified Bozbash as an Armenian dish. I found several recipes for so-called Armenian Bozbash also. I also came across this article, containing…

Meals from Spain

I’m reaching back into my memory here, because most of the Spanish food I made was made a few months ago now, but I do remember how tasty they were. I focused mostly on Tapas, because I love tiny food, but I also included paella (kinda), mashed potato, stew, stuffed eggplant and polenta in my…

Mezze Hooray!

No recipes today because I followed all the directions exactly. Feel free to click the links if you like what you see 🙂   The Imam Fainted Eggplant stuffed with onion, garlic and tomato. There is a lot of hype about this dish, and the story goes that one Imam loved the dish so much…

Turkish Feast in Tbilisi

The first meal of Turkish origin I tired was actually a week or so ago, when a friend came around for dinner. I decided to put on a bit of a feast (I have a lot of time at the moment), and served up a spread including chickpeas in tomato sauce, eggplant mezze, stuffed cabbage,…

More beans, more eggplant, more potatoes and more walnuts (of course)

I’m convinced that at some point in the distant past, some wrote a book (in Georgian – one of the oldest living written languages) about the wonders of walnuts, and how to make sure you eat them at every single meal. It must have been a best-seller, because really and truly, walnuts are in everything…

One disaster, a few thngs that didn’t quite work, and salad

When we first arrived in Tbilisi we were cold, tired and hungry as a result of a long flight and very little sleep the night before. We stayed with a couple we met through couch surfing, and Natalia, our host, made us a really tasty dish, which she said would probably be called something like…

Vegan things you can buy in Georgia

While it is true that no Georgian I have met so far has managed to hide the confusion and shock they feel when I say I don’t eat meat OR cheese, there is actually quite a lot of vegan fare available in Tbilisi without any substitutions or changes required. In fact, a lot of the…

Eggplant and mushrooms and walnuts, of course

Kamarjoba! (Yup, that’s the only word, other than bread, that I can say in Georgian). Last night’s dinner was intended to be all Georgian, all the way, however, of course, it didn’t quite turn out that way. I had intended to make my own version of the fabulous eggplant and cinnamon dish that I get…

Gintaang Talong and Adobong Gulay

Gintaang Talong is Eggplant in Coconut milk. Similar to the squash in coconut milk, but much simpler. Basically, you just get some eggplant, and simmer it in coconut milk. Easy. I used the recipe from http://www.asiarecipe.com which has an excellent section on vegetarian Filipino foods. It turned out like this: So, sort of grey, and…

Mezze 1

Babaganoyj (eggplant) Tomato salad chickpea dip with “beef” potato kibbeh The list above is what I had intended to make for our first mezze night. It didn’t work out exactly as I had hoped though. First to make the babaganoyj (spelling taken from the book I used, but there seem to be a few ways)….

Nonya Feast

Nonya refers to a culture that has evolved out of the marriages of Malay women to Chinese trading men, prior to the major immigrations of Chinese people into Malaysia. Nonya food developed as a mash-up of Chinese and Malay foods, as these women cooked the food they knew and adapted them to the tastes of…