being greek

The best Greek recipe has no documented ingredients.  It has no standard measurements.  There is no written record anywhere of anything.  Forget the cookbooks, as they can only approximate.

And this is a pain in the ass.

Because if you, like me, cook a deliciously complicated meal of mousaka or pastichio for non-Greeks, you will almost always get the dreaded request, “Oh, I’d love to get the recipe.”

The recipe!  There is no recipe.  You then have to go to the cookbook you didn’t use to help you reproduce the idea of a dish.  Watch out for this.  I’m only telling you so you can avoid this situation.

Because the best Greek recipe is in your refrigerator and your pantry, but you don’t know it yet.  It’s growing in your garden.   It’s in the phone call you make to your mom, who recites it from memory and you forget to write it down.  It’s in bones of her garlic-stained hands, when she woke you up early on a Saturday morning to help her chop fourteen onions.

It has oregano, feta and lots of lemon.  Rotate in some lamb, or chicken, or peppers, or zucchini.  Don’t you dare pull out measuring cups.  Turn on the oven and cook it until it’s done.  I hope you have a big hunk of bread, a tomato-cucumber salad, and some rice on the side.

That’s all you need to know.