My friend is a writer, and like most writers who channel their thoughts about food onto a computer screen, the memories and emotions that swirl around cooking, favorite childhood dishes, and handed-down recipes are filed in the forefront of the mind. And so it is with my friend, whose recollections of spending time in the kitchen with her mom are crystal-clear, as though it was just yesterday they cleaned up the dirty bowls and measuring cups and mixers produced during a baking marathon.

Many of my friends love to cook and are very good at it: they turn out pans of fragrant cinnamon rolls for holiday breakfasts, serve authentic Indian food for dinner parties, and grill like competitive barbecue masters. I don’t cook for a living anymore—I was a caterer for 12 years—but I roll up my sleeves and get into the kitchen for sustenance and most importantly, for therapy from stress-induced deadlines. Although it’s not always the memory of an aproned mother standing at the stove offering me and my pals tender guidance on the finer points of preparing a weeknight dinner for the family, undoubtedly there is the essence of women from generations past whose influences are gently folded somewhere into our culinary genes.

When I was a little girl and spent time in the kitchen with my mom, watching her make a roux for scalloped potatoes or scraping the batter for her famous buttermilk chocolate cake into a well-used sheet pan, there was the ghostly presence of reinforcements: her mother Mary and grandmother Florence. It was the latter cook, my great-grandma, who set the family’s standards for food. Her kitchen remains a perfect snapshot in the recesses of my mind as an efficient and well-equipped room always prepared for action. I remember great-grandma’s ample figure bent over some surface of her small kitchen, kneading dough for a loaf of whole wheat bread, rolling out a piecrust destined to cradle a rhubarb filling, and lifting a heavy roaster splattered with the juices of golden-brown roasted chicken, potatoes, carrots and onions from the oven.

Mother’s Day will be bittersweet for my New Jersey friend as she marks the first without her mom while celebrating with her own children. She will be comforted by the magical memories of those marvelous pink cupcakes but won’t have the woman who was her faithful companion during delightful hours of kitchen time. I’m sure of one thing, though. If my friend chooses to go into the kitchen on that Sunday, it will be crowded with the spirits of her mom and the women before her whose culinary inspiration taught her well.

Raise your glass on May 13 to the women who have taught you well—in sustenance, and in life.

-Kimberly Winter Stern

This Mother’s Day, cancel the brunch reservations and venture back to your roots: prepare a meal that requires a bit of effort in the kitchen, maybe fueled by the memories of the generations of cooks who impacted you. Mom is sure to appreciate these herb drop biscuits and the springtime freshness of the chilled asparagus soup; to round out the meal, add a simple salad and for dessert, purchase gelato from your favorite hometown creamery and serve with fresh berries.

Recipes shared by Dean & DeLuca/Leawood, Kansas, Executive Chef Kevin Johnson

PETITE HERB DROP BISCUITS WITH COUNTRY HAM & CHEDDAR
Serves 10 – 12

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons cold shortening
1 cup whole milk
12 ounces rosemary ham, sliced thin
12 ounces cheddar cheese, sliced thin (white or yellow)

METHOD
Preheat oven to 450°.

Sift all dry ingredients together into a bowl, and then cut in the shortening. Add the milk to make moist, soft dough. Using a spoon and your finger, drop biscuits onto a greased baking tray, and bake in a hot 450° degree oven for 12 minutes. Serve hot with a small piece of rosemary country ham and sliced cheddar.

ASPARAGUS SOUP WITH LEMON CRÈME FRAICHE
Serves 4 – 6

INGREDIENTS
2 pounds medium asparagus (2 bunches), cut in half crosswise
as needed kosher salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Spanish onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
7 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
1 bay leaf
½ cup heavy cream
¼ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

LEMON CRÈME FRAICHE
½ cup crème fraiche
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon lemon zest
¼ teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
Kosher salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste

METHOD
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Fill a medium bowl with salted ice water. Working in two batches, add the asparagus to the boiling water and cook until just tender, about 4 minutes per batch. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the asparagus to the bowl of ice water. Drain. Reserve 8 cups of the cooking liquid.

Thinly slice 18 of the asparagus tips on the diagonal and reserve for a garnishing the soup. Chop the remaining asparagus spears into small pieces.

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 12 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 2 minutes more.

Pour in the reserved asparagus cooking liquid and bring to a boil while whisking constantly. Add the thyme, and bay leaf and add to the soup. Lower the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the chopped asparagus and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Working in batches, transfer the asparagus mixture to a blender and puree until smooth. Using a sieve over a large bowl, strain the asparagus soup. Return the puree to the pot and reheat over medium heat.

Whisk the heavy cream, white wine, and salt into the soup and season with pepper. Allow soup to cool before serving. Divide among chilled soup bowls, top each soup with the reserved asparagus tips, and a dollop of lemon crème fraiche and serve immediately.

Overland Park, Kan.-based freelance writer Kimberly Winter Stern writes travel, food, lifestyle and design. Also known as the gregarious and cuisine-informed Kim Dishes, listeners tune in weekly for her on-the-road segments on “LIVE! From Jasper’s Kitchen,” a popular Kansas City radio food show. Prolific in eating, writing and discovering, this foodie satisfies an innate desire to sample the world’s gastronomic rainbow by meeting food artisans and trendsetters, gaining insight into the culinary points-of-view of everyone from cheese makers, chocolatiers and chefs who set their city’s locavore pace to farmers who are passionate producers. Stern is a sought-after writer, with work appearing in Better Homes and Gardens, Unity, KANSAS! Magazine, 435 South magazine, KC Homes & Gardens, Generation Boom, Shawnee Magazine, KC Magazine, KC Home Design, KC Business and Midwest CEO. Stern is a national blogger for the Dean & DeLuca Gourmet Food Blog where she cooks, styles, shoots and writes about life and cooking … and loves to lick the bowl clean. This writer may have been given product and/or other compensation from Dean & DeLuca for this post.

Photo by Kimberly Winter Stern

Mother’s Day in 2008 was exciting and yet it was a blur. My daughter was only a month old that May and while she was the most wonderful gift I could have received, another gift I craved was sleep. Now that she’s four I’m (sort of) well-rested. Yet still, gifts that contain caffeine are always welcome, which is why I’ve included some gifts for “the coffee loving mom.” But even if the mom in your life doesn’t crave coffee, I’m sure she’ll fit into one of the following categories. —Tracey Ceurvels

For the coffee loving mom
For some moms, caffeine is a must in the morning. This Barista Gift package comes with three sampler bags: Espresso, Breakfast Blend and French Roast, plus a Chemex coffee maker, filters and mugs—everything she needs to perk up. The Coffee Connoisseur is another option for the mom who has her own coffee maker: this set comes with a range of three certified organic coffees.

For the afternoon tea loving mom
Does mom love tea? The Wellness Teas by Kusmi were created with well-being in mind, and there are five blends: Boost, Be Cool, Detox, Algotea and Sweet Love. Whichever she chooses, she’ll feel better after a cup or two. “Les Moments” Tea Collection, also by Kusmi, is another option. Pair these sets of teas with a Sweet Treat Gift Box—mom will love the chewy cookies, iced cupcakes and rich brownies.

For the wine loving mom
Ah, a movie and glass of wine…a great gift for any mom. The Movie & Wine Gift comes with both sweet and salty snacks, plus a bottle of sparkling wine and a Napa Valley Cabernet. If she loves cheese along with her glass of wine, send her a cheese plate…perhaps the Ricotta & Honey Gift will do the trick, or the French Cheese Plate.

For the ice cream loving mom
Mom hasn’t tasted luxurious ice cream until she’s dipped her spoon into a pint of Luxury Ice Cream by High Road. Crafted in small batches for exquisite flavor, this gift arrives in a set of 4 flavors made with high end ingredients: Strawberry, Almond, Vanilla and Chocolate.

For the cookie loving mom
Cookies are always a sure bet. And if you don’t have the time to bake your own choose these pretty—and buttery rich—handmade Mother’s Day Cookies by Emily’s Homemade that are whimsically decorated with hearts, flowers and the Queen of Hearts. Or, these artisanal Mother’s Day Bouquet Cookies that consist of six daisies, six tulips and one read heart are pleasing to the eye, palate and heart.

For the Franco-phile mom
French sophistication meets Japanese flavors in this tantalizing collection of sweets. The Mother’s Day Gift Box arrives with miso chocolate brownies, yuzu-vanilla blueberry poundcake and matcha green tea almond financiers. Classic Macarons, ubiquitous in Paris, make a great gift for the mom who loves French sweets. Cremes Parisiennes, pretty pastel fondant creams, are another delightful option from Charbonnel et Walker.

For the chocolate loving mom
For the chocolate-loving mom, the Aurora Box that’s filled with handmade confections from Marie-Belle Chocolates, (with flavors such as cinnamon Frangelico, cardamom, Kona bean and dulce de leche) is a stunning choice as is the Anthology Collection from Chocolat Moderne. This collection contains beautifully hand-painted chocolates in unique flavors like Baklava spiced walnut praline, persimmon white peach and passion fruit cardamom. If mom loves Paris, she may enjoy these praline domes topped with sea salt that arrive in a fanciful Eiffel Tower. If mom loves roses, surprise her with this unique box from Roni-Sue Chocolates containing truffles made of ganache with a variety of flavors, including rose petal jam and rose liqueur, white chocolate rose ganache, and lavender and Earl Grey tea.

Need help with planning dinner? Tracey Ceurvels offers a weekly dinner plan for time-crunched food lovers that includes recipes + shopping lists, which make dinner time stress-free. Tracey Ceurvels has written about food + travel for such publications as The Boston Globe, PAPER magazine, Haute Living among other publications as well as on her blog, The Busy Hedonist. Interested in travel writing? Join Tracey for Fly Away Travel Writing Class, launching May 7th.

Amy Thomas has a self-proclaimed sweet tooth. In fact, when she spent two years living in Paris, she hunted down truffles, cakes and one of her her favorite sweets of all: macarons. Her research resulted in a recently-launched book: Paris, My Sweet: A Year of Living in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate).

Here I speak with Amy Thomas about her time in Paris, her penchant for sweets and her favorite macarons, in Paris and New York City.

Tracey Ceurvels: Tell me about living in Paris. What prompted you to move there?
Amy Thomas: Although I’d always had the fantasy of moving to Paris, I really had nothing to do with the opportunity that came my way. It was 2008 and I was working at an international ad agency in New York (Ogilvy & Mather), and the in-house recruiter approached me one day to ask if I wanted to go to the Paris office to write ad copy for the Louis Vuitton account. What kind of Louboutin-loving, Coco-worshipping, macaron addict wouldn’t? You couldn’t dream up a better scenario if you tried! (I said “yes.”)

Tracey: What do you miss most about living there?
Amy: I miss the constant beauty and inspiration. While I was there, I knew it wasn’t forever, so I really took advantage of everything. I traveled, I took cooking classes, I went to museums―I just opened up and absorbed everything possible. It was such a special time. And since I blogging about it all, I was hyperaware of my own observations and emotions. It was almost an out-of-body experience, but in the most magical and delicious way.

Tracey: Tell me about your love for sweets?
Amy: Some people like salty snacks; I love sweets. Growing up, I was always helpless around candy, cookies, sugary cereals, pastries―you name it, I devoured it. As an adult, the only thing that’s changed is the quality of the sweets I eat. Although I’ll still indulge in the occasional Dairy Queen blizzard or bag of Twizzlers, I prefer things like champagne truffles, salted caramel cupcakes and almond croissants.

Tracey: What are some of your favorite macarons?
Amy: In Paris, there are two kinds of people: those who think Pierre Hermé makes the best macarons, and those who think Ladurée’s macarons are best. Me, I like them both. Pierre Hermé’s macarons are still made by hand and come in really inventive flavors like raspberry and wasabi, white truffle and hazelnut, and olive oil and vanilla―all of which I love. But Ladurée’s macarons are pretty exquisite, too. If you like floral flavors, their rose macaron is pretty special.

Tracey: Do you have any favorite macarons here in the U.S.?
Amy: I recently discovered a tea parlor in the West Village called Bosie, and the pastry chef (Damien Herggott) is French and actually worked for Pierre Hermé for three years. His macarons are excellent. He does classics like chocolate and raspberry, but to have fun with American palates, he also offers fun flavors like maple bacon, peanut butter and jelly, and chai.

Tracey: Do you like to make macarons at home?
Amy: I’ve never tried to make them on my own. I took a macaron-making class in Paris, and learned firsthand just how persnickety they are. You have to whip egg whites into a perfect meringue, grind almonds and sugar into a fine pulp, mix the meringue and dry ingredients ever so gently so you don’t get spiky or flat cookies, pipe them into perfectly uniform circles, and then bake them at a very precise temperature for exactly the right amount of time, and then also create well-balanced, flavorful ganache to hold them together… Well, that’s a lot of work for one girl in the kitchen.

Tracey: What’s next on the horizon?
Amy: I’m having fun promoting my book, Paris, My Sweet. I’ve been doing readings and signings, and I’m returning to Paris in mid-April to celebrate the launch there. After these activities subside a little, I want to really sit down and figure out what’s next. I’d love to write another book, but have to figure out exactly what that would be. I also want to do some more traveling, so maybe something along the way will inspire me.

Tracey Ceurvels has written about food + travel for such publications as The Boston Globe, PAPER, Haute Living among other publications as well as on her blog, The Busy Hedonist. Interested in travel writing? Join Tracey for Fly Away Travel Writing Class, launching May 7th.

It’s a brilliant Saturday morning in Madison, Wisconsin, and I’m feasting on a glorious breakfast—a pint of freshly picked Door County cherries. I pop the plump, blood-red orbs into my mouth, savoring the tart burst of each, slowly walking with the snaking throng through the country’s largest producer-only farmers’ market. Ringing the perimeter of the state capitol building, the Dane County Farmers’ Market is a spectacle to behold. Approximately 300 vendors participate in the year-round market, with 150 vendors in attendance on Saturdays, selling meats, cheeses, vegetables and fruits, pies, breads and pastries, flowers and every conceivable type of jam, jelly, pesto and relish. Even during the long, cold, dormant Wisconsin winters, the Dane County Farmers’ Market relocates from the capitol’s grounds and thrives in community centers scattered throughout Madison.

As I balance my basket of juicy fruit in Madison, around the country millions of people are meandering through their local farmers’ markets—Portland, Santa Monica, Des Moines, Ann Arbor, New York City, Miami, Austin—clutching eco-friendly tote bags, tipping locally roasted coffee to their lips, noshing on artisan foods while the smell of dirt and earth perfumes the air and just-plucked-from-the earth veggies beckon and seduce. Although each market has a signature vibe—the location, live music, protestors peacefully disbursing pamphlets, more strollers being pushed than people on foot—there’s a comforting common thread of contented unity. It’s the type of scene that makes you want to shuck your day job and become a farmer—convivial and bonding, with people sharing creative riffs on tomato and eggplant and peach recipes and planning meals around the season’s rhythms.

The siren song of seasonal and local produce and products impacts anyone who makes weekly, and sometimes semiweekly, excursions to a farmers’ market a regular part of their food-gathering routine. Markets have morphed into community events, bipartisan conventions of like-minded students of the earth’s wares, opportunities to interact with the people who not only grow the food that sustains us, but also fuel our collective culinary imagination.

Locavore is no longer a trend, but a way of life in cities, villages, suburbs and small towns. The pearly gates of our country’s culinary revolution are wide open, and all are welcome to get back to their roots. Hallelujah!



-Kimberly Winter Stern
(photos by Kimberly, as well)

Vegetable Love

Lugging home a bag from a farmers’ market brimming with fragrant vegetables that have stubborn clumps of dirt dangling from their roots is a satisfying way to begin a weekend in the kitchen. Favorite market finds include beets, onions, tomatoes, eggplants and fresh basil and some of my go-to recipes for vegetable preparation are in the Dean & DeLuca Cookbook. Whether you’re entertaining friends or making Wednesday night dinner for the family with your farmers’ market haul, these simple but flavor-packed dishes are dazzlers.
________________________________________________________
CHARCOAL-ROASTED BEETS AND RED ONIONS
Serves 4 to 6
Serve these warm as a side dish; they’re rather high in natural sweetness and make a good accompaniment to duck, goose or pork.

INGREDIENTS
6 small fresh beets, trimmed of all but 1 inch of greens (about 1 1/4 pounds trimmed weight) and unpeeled
2 medium red onions, unpeeled
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Prepare a moderately hot charcoal fire in a grill unit that has a cover (like a Weber). Place the beets and red onions in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet and drizzle with the olive oil. Place the skillet over the fire, cover the grill unit, and roast the vegetables at least 1 to 1 ½ hours, depending on the size of the vegetables. You may have to leave the beets in a little longer than the onions. The onions should be soft to the touch, and a fork should pierce the beets easily. Alternatively, you can roast the beets in the skillet in a 400°F oven.

Remove the vegetables from the skillet with tongs. Add the stock, balsamic vinegar, and 1 teaspoon thyme to the skillet, place over high heat, and boil the liquid, scraping the bottom of the skillet, for about 4 minutes, or until it’s dark, glossy brown and syrupy. Season with salt and pepper.

Peel the beets and onions when they’re cool enough to handle. Slice the beets into julienne strips and the onions into thin rings. Spoon the liquid over the onions and beets, add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon thyme, and stir well to combine. Heat briefly and serve.
________________________________________________________
OVEN-DRIED TOMATO AND EGGPLANT TIMABLES WITH PESTO
Serves 4
If you like, you can make the timbales a little richer by layering in a little goat cheese as well.

INGREDIENTS
1 small eggplant (about 6 ounces)
Extra-virgin olive oil for smearing the ramekins
8 oven-dried tomato halves
3 tablespoons freshly made pesto (or store bought)
Salt to taste

DIRECTIONS
Puncture the eggplant all over with a fork. Place it in a preheated 400°F oven, and cook until it’s quite soft, about 30 minutes. Remove and cool.

Prepare the timbales: Choose 4 small ramekins that hold about 2 1/2 ounces liquid each. Smear each one with a little extra-virgin olive oil. Place an oven-dried tomato half, skin side down, in each ramekin (the tomato should just fit the ramekin). Top with a teaspoon of pesto. Top with a 1/2-inch slice of roasted eggplant. Salt the eggplant. Top with another teaspoon of pesto, and then another tomato half, cut side down. You can serve immediately, or let sit at room temperature for several hours to allow flavors to mingle.

When ready to serve, run a small, sharp knife around and under the vegetables to prepare for unmolding. Then, turn each ramekin upside down onto small serving plates. The vegetables should come out of the ramekins in stacked, perfectly round cylinders. Serve immediately, drizzled with a little oil from the pesto.
_______________________________________________________
OVEN-DRIED TOMATOES
Makes 8 oven-dried tomato halves
Use the tomatoes immediately in tomato salads, in sauces, in stews. Or, mix them with herbs and garlic, cover them with good olive oil, and hold them for a few days in a container at room temperature.

INGREDIENTS
4 ripe tomatoes (about 1/4 pound each)
Olive oil for brushing tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 150°F.

Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise, and place on a baking sheet, cut sides up. Brush tomatoes with a little olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place in oven for 20 hours or so. When finished, the tomatoes should be about half of their original size and still moist. (If you overcook them, they will shrink even further and dry out.)
___________________________________________________
PESTO
Makes about 2/3 cup
This can be a delicious condiment as well. Simply spread a little bit on tomatoes, grilled vegetables, grilled bread, grilled fish, or grilled meat. To make the best pesto, use the freshest, most vivid basil you can find —without a trace of bitterness.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup very firmly packed fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons pine nuts
2 teaspoons minced garlic
6 tablespoons Ligurian or Provençal olive oil
2 teaspoons firmly packed Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 teaspoons firmly packed pecorino Romano
Salt to taste

DIRECTIONS
Wash and dry the basil well. Place in the work bowl of a food processor with the pine nuts and garlic. Process quickly to make a coarse, grainy paste. With the motor running, add the olive oil over the course of 5 seconds. Remove pesto from work bowl (it should still be fairly grainy).

Place pesto in a bowl, and add the cheeses. Mix well. (If the pesto is too thick, add additional olive oil to achieve the desired consistency. There should be some oil glistening around the edges.) Season to taste with salt.

Overland Park, Kan.-based freelance writer Kimberly Winter Stern writes travel, food, lifestyle and design. Also known as the gregarious and cuisine-informed Kim Dishes, listeners tune in weekly for her on-the-road segments on “LIVE! From Jasper’s Kitchen,” a popular Kansas City radio food show. Prolific in eating, writing and discovering, this foodie satisfies an innate desire to sample the world’s gastronomic rainbow by meeting food artisans and trendsetters, gaining insight into the culinary points-of-view of everyone from cheese makers, chocolatiers and chefs who set their city’s locavore pace to farmers who are passionate producers. Stern is a sought-after writer, with work appearing in Better Homes and Gardens, Unity, KANSAS! Magazine, 435 South magazine, KC Homes & Gardens, Generation Boom, Shawnee Magazine, KC Magazine, KC Home Design, KC Business and Midwest CEO. Stern is a national blogger for the Dean & DeLuca Gourmet Food Blog where she cooks, styles, shoots and writes about life and cooking … and loves to lick the bowl clean. This writer may have been given product and/or other compensation from Dean & DeLuca for this post.

Kathy failed to tell me one thing when she invited me to her home. It’s not just dinner, it’s a party. And I don’t mean just a dinner party with eight people gathered around a table, candles flickering and empty bottles of wine collecting as fast as spent edamame pods during a sushi frenzy. Kathy’s dinner party is a big fat Greek celebration of food, friends and life.

Gracious entertaining is in Kathy’s Greek blood. And so is a fierce love of cooking authentic savory and sweet dishes brought by her parents from the Peloponnese region of Greek’s sun-dappled islands. Kathy hails from a long line of passionate Greek cooks whose recipe for sustenance is sublimely simple: food is life and life is food.

Kathy’s mother, Georgia, immigrated to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1946 and a decade later met her father, John, who traveled the world working as an engineer for shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. They were matched after John grabbed a haircut at a barbershop owned by Kathy’s grandfather, who took a shine to the gregarious and handsome young man. The love story that ensued following that fortuitous grooming session is the Hollywood stuff of Bogart and Bergman or Hepburn and Tracy. John attended services at Georgia’s Greek Orthodox church the next day, shared a Coca-Cola with her on Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza on Monday, and on Friday, married the beauty.

The 43-year union produced two daughters and countless pans of moussaka and pastitsio and platters of spanakopita , tiropita, and honey-drenched baklava. A young Kathy—or Katina—spent hours perched on a stool in the fragrant kitchen of her childhood, attentively watching Georgia spin culinary magic for family, friends and gatherings at the church and holidays. No holiday was more significant for the Skinos family than the Greek Orthodox Easter, where the sheer number of dishes prepared was legendary and the consumption of handcrafted food lasted well into evening’s romantic dusk.

Georgia opened the popular Georgia’s Greek Restaurant in Kansas City in 1981. For 12 years she served handed-down recipes from a tiny kitchen to adoring customers who clamored for her chicken, lamb and fish dishes, finishing off meals with her pastries and cookies. When Georgia closed the restaurant in 1993 due to poor health, Kathy resolved to resurrect her mother’s cooking.

Katina’s Greek Café was born, and today Kathy‘s spanakopita and tiropita are sold in Dean & DeLuca’s catalog. The appetizers, which caught the attention of The New York Times and Oprah’s Web site, are re-creations of heirloom dishes that transport the imagination to the enchanting olive-oil rich Greek culture of Corinth, where Kathy’s parents grew up.

Despite prolific production, Katina’s Greek Café isn’t an assembly line of workers churning out appetizers. It’s a one-woman show—Kathy Skinos Smith—making artful triangles of spanakopita and tiropita the old-fashioned way. That’s 50,000 pieces a year, one at a time.

Next week when Kathy celebrates the Greek Orthodox Easter with her family, you can bet the meal will be one of celebration…of food and life, life and food.

That’s a big fat Greek tradition.

-Kimberly Winter Stern

From Greece, With Love

Kathy Skinos Smith has volumes of recipes from her mother—and her mother’s mother, and so on down the generational Greek lines. A trademark of Greek cuisine is simplicity, with flavors bursting freshness and depth. Here is a much-loved Skinos dish of chicken and potatoes perfect for a weekday meal or a dinner party. Kathy suggests taking care when choosing the chicken—for broiling or frying, buy fryers weighing 1 ½ to 4 pounds. For roasting, buy a plump young chicken weighing 3 pounds more. And beware—don’t be surprised if, following dessert and a few glasses of wine, you don’t find yourself in front of the computer, booking the next flight to Greece.

KOTA KE PATATES
(Chicken & Potatoes)
Serves 4 to 6

INGREDIENTS
3 pounds chicken pieces
1/3 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon paprika, sprinkled throughout the chicken and potatoes
Salt and pepper
2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)

METHOD
Place chicken pieces in a large baking pan. Mix together remaining ingredients, except potatoes. Pour over chicken, cover with aluminum foil and marinate overnight in the refrigerator. Bake uncovered at 425° until lightly browned. Turn chicken pieces and baste. Add the potatoes, cover with aluminum foil and bake at 325° for 1 to 1 ½ hours.

Overland Park, Kan.-based freelance writer Kimberly Winter Stern writes travel, food, lifestyle and design. Also known as the gregarious and cuisine-informed Kim Dishes, listeners tune in weekly for her on-the-road segments on “LIVE! From Jasper’s Kitchen,” a popular Kansas City radio food show. Prolific in eating, writing and discovering, this foodie satisfies an innate desire to sample the world’s gastronomic rainbow by meeting food artisans and trendsetters, gaining insight into the culinary points-of-view of everyone from cheese makers, chocolatiers and chefs who set their city’s locavore pace to farmers who are passionate producers. Stern is a sought-after writer, with work appearing in Better Homes and Gardens, Unity, KANSAS! Magazine, 435 South magazine, KC Homes & Gardens, Generation Boom, Shawnee Magazine, KC Magazine, KC Home Design, KC Business and Midwest CEO. Stern is a national blogger for the Dean & DeLuca Gourmet Food Blog where she cooks, styles, shoots and writes about life and cooking … and loves to lick the bowl clean. This writer may have been given product and/or other compensation from Dean & DeLuca for this post.

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