Greek Caper Leaves

We did our best in Greece to ask locals for restaurant recommendations. A taxi driver recommended “The Dolphins,” a restaurant on – literally right on – the Akrotiri Beach. That’s where we had our first salad of pickled caper leaves. The salty flavor and smooth surface was delicious on that hot day overlooking the beach. It tasted almost exactly like caper berries, except the texture was different. With some bread on the side, it was perfect.

I had never heard of eating caper leaves and imagined they’d be hard to find Stateside. We bought one jar of caper leaves on Santorini and are now afraid to open it. In typical Chloe’ fashion, I’ll probably hoard it until it goes bad. I should have learned the Mediterranean lesson to enjoy life in the moment!

I think they might be even harder to find than I thought. An internet search didn’t find them for sale at particular gourmet markets (Whole Foods, Zingerman’s, Morgan and York, Foodzie, Balducci’s, etc.) or through more general searches.

So, aside from growing capers ourselves and pickling their leaves, does anywhere know where I can find them?

Food in Greece and Italy

I’m scratching my head as I try to figure out how to summarize the amazing dishes we ate in Greece and Italy during our honeymoon. Should I start with the creamy lemon sauce on stuffed grape leaves we tried in Athens? Or the crawfish cooked in a garlic and ouzo sauce on Santorini? What about the osso bucco in Milan?

I can only think of broad, sweeping adjectives to describe the dishes. Delicious! Great! Amazing! And what do they offer you? Nothing, really. As I organize my notes and photographs, I will share them with you along with addresses and helpful travel information.

For now, I will start with the bilingual cookbook that I picked up in Mykonos. The book, “Mykonos – Tastes and Traditions” published by Eikon offers wonderful explanations of the traditions followed by recipes paired with photographs. We haven’t been home long enough for me to cook many dishes, but I did try the Zucchini Pie and it was delicious: grated zucchini baked with bread crumbs, feta cheese, eggs, mint and other herbs.

In Greece we ate stuffed grape leaves, moussaka and other traditional Greek-American restaurant favorites, but we also tried many new dishes, too. From this island cookbook, I look forward to trying the sausages cooked in cognac, wild chicory salad and coconut rolls.

More in the upcoming weeks…

I'll Be Right Back...

This blog will take a brief break and return on July 15th while I celebrate my great aunt’s 102nd birthday, honeymoon with my handsome groom and prepare to move to Washington, D.C. I look forward to returning with many new food-finds from Greece and elsewhere.

I write many poems related to food, from the preparation to the eating of many dishes. If you're interested in hearing some, I’ll be reading a selection of these poems with poet Hila Ratzabi at Made with Love Organic Bakery in Jersey City, NJ on Monday, June 7th.

For those of you who like writing about food – and other subjects – consider taking my one-week, online Beginning Poetry Writing Workshop in July. This class runs from Thursday, July 22 – Sunday, July 25th. From Monday, August 1 - Friday, August 13, you may be interested in Memoir Writing Workshop II. Think of these classes as “staycations” for writing.

To register, email me (chloemiller(at)gmail(dot)com); I’ll save you a virtual seat and send you billing details. I’ll be checking my email periodically while I’m away.

See you soon!