Mediterranean | The Rambling Epicure

Simple Sustenance: Flavors of the Mediterranean — Parsley, Dill, and Bean Dip with Feta

Published by Renu-Chhabra + Wednesday, March 13, 2013 Permalink 0

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by Renu Chhabra

“Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea.” –– Pythagoras

Pass the salt please.

We hear this often while eating meals. I sometimes think what life in the kitchen would be without salt. Nature’s pure offering and staple of any pantry! It’s one ingredient that can put life in any recipe. Just a pinch of it does wonders. But it’s the right amount of it, according to one’s taste buds that makes a recipe sing….. not too much or too little. Hence the term, “salt to taste.”

Some overly salty feta cheese was the center to make this dip. It was too salty for our taste buds. Really salty. And wasting it seemed unnecessary. To give it a new life, I combined it with a few ingredients on hand. A can of unsalted garbanzo beans worked well to mellow the saltiness of the feta. Parsley added color and freshness, and dill enhanced it with its delicate flavor. Lemon juice and garlic brought all the flavors together. I finished it with olive oil and a sprinkle of sumac.

David Downie: Portofino, the Italian Riviera’s Most Glamorous Time Warp

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, October 28, 2011 Permalink 0

by Wandering Liguria

Nobody knows Liguria better than David Downie. In fact he knows it so well, he’s just launched a new site about it, Wandering Liguria, to add to his exquisite Food Wine Burgundy and Food Wine Rome guidebooks for the thinking man who wants to avoid places frequented by busloads of tourists.

A picture-postcard faux fishing port, Portofino is the Riviera’s most glamorous time warp: the villas of the super-rich perch on pine-studded promontories jutting into the Mediterranean. Billionaires like Silvio Berlusconi spend precious leisure hours here. “Precious” is the operative word.

Five hundred years ago one irreverent overnight traveler noted that in Portofino “you were charged not only for the room but the very air you breathed.”

Click here to read more of David’s Gadling article on Portofino.

Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, July 21, 2011

Published by sdeswaan + Thursday, July 21, 2011 Permalink 0

by Simon de Swaan

The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers -all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.–Lawrence Durell

Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990), who wrote the modern classic Prospero’s Cell (1945) about time spent in Corfu, was born in India but spent most of his life abroad. Though educated in Britain, he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan. He was a novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer.