all the recipes

Is a meat patty just a piece of ground meat ? Is a slice of blue cheese just cheese ? Is a condiment just a sauce ? Are dressings just extras ? Is a bun just bread ? Is a burger just a hot sandwich ? They all could be just that of course … unless you make a special effort for each separate element and assemble them creatively !  If...

Are they chocolate MI-CUIT (which means half-baked) cakes ? Chocolate LAVA or MOLTEN cakes (as we like to say in North America) ? Or GATEAUX AU COEUR COULANT (which means cakes with a runny & flowing center) ? Chocolate MOELLEUX  (which means soft & tender) cakes ? But they’re not really chocolate FONDANT (which means quite...

TICK-TOCK because I’m running late ! TICK-TOCK because the beauty of these strawberries (pretending to be roses) is fleeting and with a very short lifespan, before just re-melting and disappearing ! I love their “ephemeral” aspect, almost like real roses fading (but at super fast-forward) … but I hope your...

This is a BREAD & CHEESE BOMB so BOOOOM !!! What could be better than  a "reinterpretation" of a CHEESE FONDUE (hot and melty) with some great BREAD (warm too), during this super-cold weather and icy winds we’re having and when you’ve chosen to experiment with not eating any meat in the past...

This "L-A-S-A-G-N-A" may be ultimately DECADENT & SHAMELESS in its creation, and perhaps INDECENT & SHAMEFUL in its consumption … but for me, the 2-week holiday period begins on December 24th until January 1st and ends on January 7th (my birthday and the Orthodox Christmas). I end the...

The “NEW & IMPROVED” 2.0 VERSION … or just a better and more intense version of my rolled baklava fingers (renamed as “cigars” here) ! Why ? Because I realized that regular baklava that is usually prepared as a flat & multi-layered dish, and then sliced in squares and served was almost always more...

I’m exhausted. I had one week off and am now launching myself in 5 assignments during the next 5 weeks before my next one week off happens again. I obviously didn’t rest. I’m doing stuff around the house. Not regular everyday cleaning and tidying up but more electrical stuff. “LIGHTING” can be everything,...

A “USE EVERYTHING & WASTE NOTHING” hearty WINTER MEAL, resembling a lasagna (but there’s no pasta here), with winter vegetables and some chicken. All the ingredients are pre-roasted before assembling them, using only 1 mixing bowl, 1 roasting dish, 1 casserole and 1 baking sheet and nothing else (okay,...

Poor CELERY ROOT, always sitting in a cold corner of the fridge after only a fraction of you has been used as part of one dish or another (just like it often happens with more ordinary celery branches too). Please don’t take it badly, you’re just so BIG and usually weigh almost 1 kg and even if I use half of you, it’s still a lot...

I adore having close friends come over IN-BETWEEN-THE-HOLIDAYS. To be more precise, after the family Christmas festivities but before New Year’s Eve and sometimes between New Year’s Day and my birthday on January 7th, so ideally December 28th or January 4th. Those days tend to be the safest days for everyone, no more indigestion, nor...

SATURDAYS. I’ve always loved this day, even when we were kids and had to go to Greek School one weekend day per week, after five weekdays in “regular” French & English school in Montreal.  Before my parents got a car, we’d take the bus and subway with my father, back to our old neighborhood in Mount-Royal (which...

I had a craving for a greek dish called “SARMADES” or “LAHANODOLMADES” which is a northern greek version of cabbage leaf rolls, stuffed with a mixture of rice and minced meat, strongly-flavored with lemon and cumin, that are time-consuming in their assembly, each one roll and piled on top of one another,...

Here’s a MEDITERRANEAN-ASIAN 'garnish' (to commemorate the Chinese New Year) that you could grate or thinly slice, the way you would with hard cheeses, on top of a preparation. 'Bottarga' is the salt-cured & dried fish roe that you may be familiar with but here we're using chicken egg yolks . It’s an...

The holidays were GREAT, the eating was FANTASTIC and the drinking was AWESOME. The PARTY’s over. Time to pull yourself together and detoxify (yeah, again) ! I can’t decide if it’s fashionable, (or not), to detoxify your system (and admit to it). Even though it isn’t not cool nor sexy (in my world), your body (and mine) are...

This 50-ingredient holiday recipe is like singing that well-known and quite long “THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS” carolling song, once you begin, you simply have to go on until it’s all sung and you’ve reached the end … It’s never easy convincing anybody (and this includes friends & family) about preparing a...