Long Beach Grecian Festival by the Sea Cookbook

We are starting with making appetizers.  I will start by making two artichoke dips.   Baked Artichoke Dip with Kalamata Olives and Feta Cheese (ankinára me eliés kalamátas kei feta) and Baked Artichoke Dip with Spinach,  Mozzarella and Parmesan Cheese (ankinára me spanáki kai parmezána kai motsaréla) Plan to look for other artichoke dishes.  If you happen to have a Greek appetizer recipe you like that could be potentially used in the cookbook, please consider posting it on this site.  Will post comments about the artichoke dip recipes after I make them.    Even though artichokes are found all over Greece, they are commercially  cultivated from Crete and the Peloponnese.  (https://www.dianekochilas.com/ode-to-a-grecian-artichoke/).   99.99% of commercial artichokes in the U.S. are from CA, where the artichoke has the honor of being CA's official vegetable (http://artichokes.org/).  

Feta Greek cheese, a national treasure,  contains 489 proteins. This information was published in 2018  by the  Proteomics Research Unit, Center of Basic Research II, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece ( A.K. Anagnostopoulos, G.Th. Tsangaris / Data in Brief 19 (2018) 2037-2040).   Feta cheeses were tested in the following regions with P.D.O (protected origin of destination) status:  Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Sterea Ellada, Peloponnese, and the island of Lesvos.  P.D.O (protected origin of destination) requirement by the Greek dairy industry for feta is 70% sheep's milk and 30% goat's milk. Not cow's milk.  Hopefully, the method for identification of the proteins in Greek feta may be used someday to validate its authenticity and shut down any counterfeit products calling themselves Greek feta.  

Lunch was a fantastic with taste-testing of 5 different feta cheeses we purchased from the Phoenicia Market in Houston, Texas. I learned that  F eta cheese is predominately made from sheep and goat milk and is revered as the National Cheese of  Greece.  It was classified by the European Commission (EU) as a Protected Designation of Origin' (P.D.O.) product ensuring that no other EU country can produce the same cheese with the same name.  We tasted Dodoni Greek feta, French feta, Bulgarian feta, Creamy Greek feta and Domestic feta.  All were very good especially the Dodoni feta which has P.D.O status and hails from  Epirus in Northern Greece. The French feta was the most mild tasting. Tonight Penny and I are having fun trying pre-made moussaka, pastitsio and stuffed eggplant.  We spent the day organizing the cookbook which left time only for eating and enjoying a well-priced Zoe wine (90% agiorgitiko  and 10 % cabernet sauvignon). F

Last night we ate feta crumbles mashed with olive oil, capers, dill and onion which was excellent on a white, crusty, farmer's bread.  We tried Mezithra  (good with honey), Manouri and Kefalotiri which were fun to to try along with an excellent, well-priced read wine, Kouros Agiorgitiko from Nemea. Just learned Nemea is in the Peloponnese close to the Corinth canal. Today we are just sitting down to try five different fetas.  More to come.

 Hi Everybody, My cousin Penny and I are working on updating a community cookbook put together by Mom.  I am not sure when it was first published, but I am guessing early 1990's.  I can remember my Mom working very diligently to put the cookbook together to sell as a fundraiser for the church.  I remember the family room filled with index cards with hand-written recipes.   We hope you will join us in this community project to update the cookbook.  We would love for you to try recipes in the book and give us feedback.  Καλή όρεξη! Maria