Welcome to the premiere episode of our Sips & Dips Series featuring Dr. Susanna Hoffman. We will explore the origins and history of amazing recipes from the Mediterranean region with a focus on Greece. We will also pair these recipes with fantastic wines and have great Q & A sessions for the viewers. Please join us as we discover a Mint Pesto recipe with Retsina!
See more on the free GreekAF app: https://www.greekradio.app/
It’s been more than inspiring as you mentioned AR to bring that to light and along with that is as Susanna Enlighten us on these dishes we’re pairing it with the wines that we feel work together with these dishes to make it an added incentive to enjoy the experience so
Without talking too much because we got plenty of guests that want to listen to Suzanna let’s welcome Susanna Susanna thank you so much for doing this with us you’re very welcome um I’m actually not quite sure where to start um we well you know what Susanna can you can you a lot
Of our viewers know you and have probably seen you on previous segments but I would love if you could just give us just a little bit of your history maybe a summary like just anything interesting about you um that that people who don’t know who you are could
Just kind of get up speed there’s not enough time for that I know I I I’ve looked into her credentials yeah it’ll take a long time but that’s why I say A Brief History well I am from Denver Colorado of all strange places I am not an East
Coast person I’m a Westerner and it was a city that was um full of Greeks and Jews and Armenians um it was the merchandising Capital um Market you know the for the mining for all the mining that went on in the um um and all the
Travel West so it had all the kinds of people who open stores and our Merchants um like Birmingham like San Francisco like Salt Lake even um and so I grew up in a situation where there were so many people of so many ethnicities around that I often claim that I didn’t want to
Become a psychologist because they were too sophisticated they were dealing with who they were and I was back at what what um anyhow I went on from there to Berkeley um I got my doctorate in anthropology and I decided that I wanted to do most of the studies of a a certain
Kind of theoretical Branch who had been done in very isolated societies and I wanted to show that if they were true that they would be also true of a society that had had um literature and writing and philosophy um um and known religion from very very early on and um
I picked Indo-European and of those obviously the oldest that we really could follow would be um Greek and so I not only did so I chose Greece and then I chose to go to a place where there was the earliest Greek writing which was Santorini and um also it had 3,000
Churches um and so I thought they were into symbolism it turns out it’s just a Cadillac when you got enough you could do your own chapel and I it was before sanini became a big hit and so I lived in a cave for two and a half years in a little backward
Village you be F these two years in a cave over in North Shore there not to cut you off suzan but those caves that you’re talking about our big money today to stay there they’re all airbnbs now expensive they’re very expensive to stay there today those caves that you were at but
Anys go on now yeah the one I knew is pretty much gone but um I have vsta there I have a goddaughter and a god granddaughter and everybody in the village knows me and so I go back almost every year and so cool yeah um my Greek
Has gotten a little rusty because uh I haven’t been speaking it enough but it’s still fluent and uh pretty fluent at least for the kinds of things you talk about in a little village is perfect and um I’m probably the only person walking around who still knows the verbs for threshing wheat and
Winnowing wheat things like I when I say those to Greeks they’re they’re they don’t even know them so and I know all of the lullabies and things you say at a sing at a wedding or a new born child or Kiva so it was pretty intense um and I worked my
Way around the village uh from just they tried to isolate them me with the with just the young girls and I broke through that and I finally was with the married women and then one night I decided to burst into the place where all the men gathered in the Village Store and of
Course they were stunned that a woman would come in like that and they were all sitting in all the chairs and so I sat down and the only thing that that that seemed still available it looked like a bench and I sat there and chatted
Till they kind of got used to me and it was only months later that I realized I was sitting on a Sal Cod I often wonder who got the top layer anyway quickly other other than that um um my specialty in the last 20 years has been risk and disaster and I’m
I’m um a specialist in anthropology of disasters I have about four books or five books out on that I have four in process um but I don’t want to lose touch with um working with Greece and and on food in the meantime I wrote um um several cookbooks my um putting the
Kids through schools and the big fat one that I love the most is where is it the Olive in the Caper that’s our all-time favorite yeah a great great great book which is 600 pages and it’s almost more stories than it is recipes but it’s a modern take on
Many many Greek dishes and a lot of inventive ones and what we’re doing tonight uh we decided we talked it over did I want to do a classic dip um or did we want to take it U more modern and use Greek ingredients and go in a more
Modern Direction and so tonight we’re doing a mint parsley um pesto with a lot of with garlic and pine nuts typically P to keeri or parmesan depending what you can get a hold of and obviously olive oil and currants from um uh zakin fos and those currants have the I keep soaked in
Red Cena so they’re in my refrigerator all the time in um a little thing soaking away happily in red Cena so if I can I can interject real quick Susanna for those of our guests that are wondering what is Rina Rina is a white wine that’s when it’s fermenting it’s
Fermenting with a little bit of um cuting from or cubes of sap from a pine tree that goes into the fermentation process that produces a very herbal uh scented flavored white wine now the use of Pine and the pine scent is um pervasive in a lot of Greek dishes for instance Greece alone
Produces a pine honey um in which the the the bees gather from the from pine trees and pine needles and the Honey is amazingly flavored um with with pine and um in a sense you can think of grape leaves as having a pinish flavor um so
We use it a lot I can tell you all the kinds of things I use red Cena in I I um I soak salt cod in it believe that or not after that story um I wrote down so I wouldn’t forget all the things I put it in and it’s kind it
Changes constantly but I oh I do one of my favorite felo pies is a mushroom pie and I’ve soaked the mushrooms in red Cena and then combine them with leaks and put them in layers and layers of filo it’s a savory pie um I pickle my
Octopus in red Cena wow um I uh marinate my little fish fried fish the maras in um in a lemon red Cena sauce and I um mix the red Cena currents with rice and a lot of other ingredients to stuff chickens so actually I use um not very
Many people use um the kinds of Greek ingredients that I use all the time I use blood oranges I use pine nuts I use mppy I use um uh uh um all kinds of I cook with the spiced Brandy from Greece matxa I use the herbs
The sage and chamomile I poach pears in chamomile so there’s many many things that you can you can do is the red Cena is that something that you came up with Susanna as far as soaking in red Cena or is that a common practice where you saw
In some of the areas in Greece no I did not see it I I invented that for you like I invented this dish well I mean soaking so a lot of us will cook with wine but has anyone here soaked their ingredients with wine not me that’s I’ll tell you that
That’s taking it to a different that Dynamic itself just thinking about it was like wow why didn’t we ever think of that uh we we have a comment if I could just uh so Georgia balaa says that she has uh raisins and white wine for Rice interesting oh very cool well we’re
Coming over to George’s house for Rice so now quickly let me tell you about the about the pine flavor nowadays um in making it as PO said um wine cuting are um Pine cuting are put in the fermentation process but in ancient times the Greeks did not have French Oak
Like French wines and their barrels were Pine barrels because um there Gree was covered in pine trees and in fact it was quite available because Solon um who was the wise leader of Greece wanted the pine trees cut down so that they wouldn’t take the land and and olive
Trees could be put in now the problem with that the wonderful thing about that is that the wine was in these casks and had especially from ateka it’s famous from Attica at the wine flavor the problem is is that olive trees only have a single Tap Root instead of a root
System and so they um planting the whole country with olive trees depleted the soil terribly which is we know today which is losing its soil it’s very aid and there’s a big effort to get the pine trees planted again back in Solin time you could be um uh um uh executed for um
Cutting down an olive tree in and it’s still terribly important in Greece but um but there’s an effort to claim the soil back by planting things with root systems wow that’s that’s just that’s that’s amazing this this is what I come to these webinars for I I love the the
Recipes and the cooking but the the knowledge the knowledge is what I come for suanna for a long time for a long time uh unfortunately Greece’s wine industry was um held back or was this bad stigma about Greek wine being this awful resonated wine and I think it was
Because it was a misconception and not understanding what red Cena was uh yeah and there were several things happened one is during the Ottoman Empire the Greeks hid their wine and so um they didn’t allow very much of it out and then when they began to get
Colonized by people again like the like the the British um they they served them essentially what they considered plunk the British word for know lousy bar stuff instead of the better wines um and and they they kept their culture hidden and they kept their wine making hidden
And um and indeed you find a cuisine in Greek restaurants in many places the Tavera Cuisine which is the usual pastio and musak um and yet Greek cuisine is not like that at all it’s an incredible Cuisine um Mark a fresh seasonal B B Cuisine um and I I have to laugh that
Even people think Greek salad always has tomatoes in it no upright Greek would put a tomato in a salad until it was a good Ripe Tomato at the end of summer right now the same salad would be be done with radishes w wow um a month ago
It would have been done with cabbage the same olives and capers and feta um as be but but not the tomatoes and they’re right basically whatever is in season yeah everything is absolutely season based and I have to say that’s my best advice even as as a cookbook author and
And Advising on cooking just plan your Meals by season right now for example they’re not here on this table but I just bought blood oranges so that I can do um my chickens and my duck in a blood orange with matxa probably and sesame wow Suzanna have you ever thought about
Opening a restaurant ah as as I’ve thought about vericose veins I actually had two restaurants I had a very famous One in California called sheap panise I was one of the first owners and then the first cook um with me there Victoria wise who is helped me on all my cookbooks including
The olivan Caper U is the co-author with me not just to help she is my co-author brilliant cook um we had one together called the good in plenty um but I don’t think I would ever do it again I mean right now I’m um it would make me a
Worse disaster than writing about disasters does so then if if that’s the case then maybe we’ll just you can just host dinners and we’ll just just invite us that’s it you know I’m happy just fly me in and I’ll invent the uh the the menu and
We’ll have a big dinner all right FY you and I have to open a place and then have uh Susanna be the the the consultant I I got to say not to take away from the experience but real quickly I do want to make a comment based on what we just
Discussing many many years ago when I was a partner in a restaurant uh Concept in Boston called Mees we had the honor of having Suz Dr Susanna with us with a wine dinner where we picked recipes from her cookbook The Olive in the Caper and
We sold out this dinner with a 100 plus people wow to this day I still get folks that I bump into that will remind me of that experience that they’ve never had anywhere else before so yes so that’s amazing I love doing it I’d love to do
It again excellent but let me turn to what we have tonight and the red Cena that’s going with it why don’t you talk about this particular red CA and then I’ll go on yeah the MOs fer that you got SOA can you uh ask Ron to turn the
Camera on I think I turned it off by mistake when I was ad committing people ah while while FY talks a glass of as Susanna gets uh prepared um you know red Cena for me has been that category that has always cringed people that I’ve either discussed or
Recommended or explained it but there’s a special place for this type of wine in the Greek culture and I think also food culture for that matter but also I think uh red Cena has a place in many different cultures as far as food goes I
Don’t think you’re on yet but um let me ask him to I’ll I’ll ask him turn on sorry Foy give me one second he should see uh he should see something on his computer to turn on his camera I know we had it on before but I
I shut it off by mistake now you just ruined the whole webinar Ari go f as as I was saying rinaa um some of us that are on tonight have probably had it some of us have heard about it some of us maybe have felt that we’ had bad experiences with with it
Because for those of us that might have traveled to Greece and you know ordered the local wine and that was the choice you know a sip of a white wine that’s re you know just the flavors just resonated with pine isn’t always appealing at at
First but over the years um a lot of producers especially today uh today’s wine producers have really taken rtina to a different level where they’ve been able to master the balance of producing a very crisp light and herbaceous white wine you know when you think of those terms collectively it sounds intriguing
Where before when you use the word Pine and resin they’re not as inviting but the fact that you know the re the pine resin can produce a very elegant in my opinion so tonight we’re having a production from the winery in at called Lonas milonas Winery is a very reputable
Respectful Winery that is true to its roots in Attica and they plant a lot of a a local variety called savatiano so savatiano is the variety that makes most of the rtina in Greece it’s a a white grape that makes a lot of delicate crisp white wines but it’s also the base for
Making red Cena wine and red Cena wine is basically white wine production as I mentioned before with the inclusion of a dose of pine resin that goes into the early stages of fermentation and then then it’s removed um so that it gets that faint Essence and flavor other
Producers like to play around and get creative but if you haven’t had it before we definitely recommend exploring this white wine with food because mainly it’s been offered at the table with any type of dish that is pretty much allive oil lemon and Herb based dishes which is
Basically the Greek cuisine um we’ve U we this all this misconception there’s these myths and there’s these stories about what red Cena is I’ve heard stories about the fact that you know dur Susanna mentioned during the Ottoman Empire you know the Ottomans wanted to destroy Greece’s wine culture and they
Added Pine resin to the wine to destroy it you know there’s all these myths about it but at the end of the day I think there was this uh there’s and Susanna correct me if I’m wrong but there’s been recordings uh with ancient Merchants who loaded up their vessels
With food water and wine for their voyages that they would store their white wine in these clay vessels and at that time the only um ingredient or recipe they had to create a a seal uh for to cover their their Vats was this uh combination of pintar and resin uh
That created this uh adhesive that would seal the top of the of these um aoras so that no air can get into the wine but during their voyages where this was stored Below in the vessels it would get so hot that the this adhesive would melt
And it would drip into the wine which would actually taint the wine with this Pine resin flavor I’ve gotten that story and recollection from a lot of reputable sources that those are basically where it started from but maybe you can maybe Enlighten us and maybe if there’s more
To that I think that’s a little bit of Expos facto thinking of trying to create how it happened um we’re not sure um we do know that before they put it in empora uh that it was kept in um Pine cast because that was the wood that was
Available we also know that Pine and Pine resin acts as a preservative and so it might have been been added as that I had myself had not heard the seal story although that makes sense too now um you have to realize that even back in the ancient days they
Knew the vineyard that wine came from and the year it was um um processed and made into wine and the Anora were marked just like we do today and everybody’s always considered all that they just made any old wine they did they were extremely picky about what wine and what
Um I mean Aristotle I love this story on his deathbed he asked for the white wine of Samos in particular to die with he knew exactly what he wanted you also have to remember that in those days um they watered down the wine usually three parts water to one part wine um
Sometimes four and there was even a very special wine which one wine company now has taken the name of a special one called phaa uh and which was made was watered down with sea waterer salt water oh my gosh um and that’s where that name comes
From and that’s a very ancient word by the way it’s the only one of the few words in Greek that has a double s in it uh it comes from pre- indoan um as do some of the stories I’m going to tell tonight like The Goddess Samantha Who became um
Which is where we get the word mint she was turned into a mint plant because she did something fairly offensive uh she fell in love she was a niad which is the kinds of nymphs that hung out with water not ocean water but fountains and streams and lakes and she was the nymph
Of a lake that existed in Hades and she fell in love with the god Hades and she was madly in love with him and uh now you have to to question her judgment because he had 115 wives and 140 children so you wonder what did she
Think she was up to but at any rate already by then peran was his uh supposed wife of one of the wives she had been taken of course and kidnapped from her her mother goddess Deiter she was down with Hades and she got very shall we say um unhappy with Mena’s
Attraction to her husband and we don’t know because the stories are different but either peran herself or her mother Deiter in protection turn this nymph into a green plant and and they have now U the other thing of course that’s interesting is um you know Greece they gather about 125 some
People have said up to 300 Wild Greens so wild greens of all kinds have been in the cuisine from from the beginning and in fact even when I lived in sanini we would go out often in the mornings and gather dandelion and cresses and other kinds of things um um and certainly a
Lot of herbs oregano and Sage um but um mint likes to be around water so it makes sense it’s like a Crest and you’ll find it there oh my God I love those stories I I can relate to Hades you know with all the women like you know I have
That problem my wife just she hates so I can read it she need to turn you into [Laughter] mint I could think of some other things but [Laughter] um no don’t worry towards the end you could you can get back at me don’t you you just do your
Thing there’s two names for um and all of these these two belong to an the ellor family which is named because the leaves spread out like an umbrella um this is parsley and parsley in Greek has two names myano is the one that’s commonly used but it’s also called
Pelino which means Rock celery and it is related to celery um and but um and at the times in ancient times of course they weren’t as developed or hybrid as the kinds of stuff we’re getting now so you can imagine that it was a kind of wild celery like Leaf coming out of
Rocks and um that and so these are both used a great deal in Greek cuisine celery um parsley has a particular thing it is it is the myth of it is that there was an infant who uh di who was um un his babysitter left for a few minutes a
Serpent bit him he bled to death from the wound and his name was changed to um Arch morphos which is the the leading or the the preliminary to death and and parsley is used in funeral ceremonies um in throughout not only Greece but it became that throughout almost Indo-European culture so um it
Was considered in England that if you planted if a virgin planted parsley in her garden that she would be married to the devil or that if Parsley was not growing in your garden well it meant that somebody in your family was going to die so it has a very curious
Mythological history to it so are you saying not the plant partially in the garden I PL it every year so I’m still uh oh so I’m going to make this a pesto it’s very simple it’s very very fresh and I don’t know whether it can be seen
Maybe so um let me see uh so right now we’re seeing the Pea and the two wine bottles right okay there we go yep perfect so let me do a I’m going to I’m going to focus on your hands now so you can going this is um olive oil I’m going to
Use about a half a cup in this um que and art now I get my olive oil from Greece um I wouldn’t have it any other way the tede which I I happen to like a lot um now the olive oil from Greece is there are no big corporations it is all
Familyowned there some cooperatives but there’s no Corporation so the quality is amazing and I suggest that when you go buying your olive oil now Italy tends to buy a lot of GRE olive oil and then claim that it’s um it’s Italian and it’s not uh Spain has done the same thing
Spain buy buys a lot of North African olive oil and puts it under Spanish labels but you can’t get that with grease so um it’s my thought and I keep it as you should a lot of people keep it in glass that’s not good for olive oil
Um it tends to spoil a lot so my little decanter is um dark and you keep your can in the in a dark place okay okay the rule of thumb is don’t store it in glass don’t store it in glass unless it’s it’s um a dark
Glass oh okay but if it’s clear and don’t have it sitting on your counter in the sun you know especially that way and if you have a big can and decant like I do as I go along keep the can in a closet I have a I have a I have a dumb
Question yeah what happens if you put your olive oil in the refrigerator I never do oh gosh I’ve never done that okay um so I I can’t answer that like who who does that 4y yeah who does have I think the I think the rtina is [Laughter]
Speaking so dark put in huh dark so the key is dark place no glass or no clear glass no clear glass okay very good and then it should last and you know it also has a very low heating point so it’s not the best frying oil but if you’re a
Sauté cook like I am it’s terrific for sautéing and you know yes quick cooking and roasting but um if you’re it’s not a good frying oil okay okay um okay so I’m taking the mint I just talked about this is about um let
Me see what I oh it’s a half a cup of mint that I’m adding to this olive oil and this is 2/3 cup parsley it it even even if it’s a a associate with death this is too little um I’m putting in um five tables five to six
Tablespoons of um pine nuts now um I don’t know if you can see but these pine nuts are Greek or um Italian they’re long and thin as hold it up hold it up a little higher there you go yeah as opposed to the the Chinese ones which are more round and more fat
And there’s a difference in flavor um as an anthropologist I can tell you that there were Native Americans who lived on pine nuts the Shon mostly and it was very difficult because they only come in about every seven years and you never know which bunch is going to come in so
That kind of why they were Nomads but we called them tethered Nomads because they had a central place where they would all gather and then they would disperse to find out you know where the where a good Gathering was and then they would um come back yeah someone is saying on him
You can do olive oil in refrigerator as long as you bring it to room temp before you use it because it does solidify in a refrigerator a quick H comment uh we just received Susanna um Joanna Joanna said uh I store olive oil that will sit for long periods of
Time if I don’t consume them on a regular basis I’ll leave them in the fridge to preserve it and I just bring it to room temperature before I use it uh because it solidifies so I I just wanted to throw that out there that somebody commented yes whether that’s I
I I have never had any problem with um uh with it lasting a long time in in a three liter can um but maybe I just um especially with the pandemic I’m doing a lot of cooking cooking cooking cooking I’ve been through probably every vegetable known to humankind and uh and not and
Not one invite to F and I I don’t know um okay I’ve got five uh five to six tablespoons of um pine nuts and um five to six tablespoons of Keo tii or Keo graviera and if you can’t find them you can use parmesan or Romano
So typical of a most pesto so basically a sharp cheese it’s a sharp hard cheese um here is um trying to remember the amount oh three about three tablespoons of the currants now you don’t have to soak them in red CA um but
I do and I just keep them and I use them all the time I use my you know as I said a chicken like I did rinaa I use currant I use currants on my lamb shanks I use currant um on in uh a g of sauce for chicken um
Poultry I even put them obviously I put them with yogurt on caetus zucchini ones or cauliflower ones especially um that that and a little cilantro or parsley on sprinkled on top and some pine nuts and then on a bed of yogurt so Susan does is do currents grow
Uh all over grease is it a common Berry well what we are calling currents aren’t really currents oh the real currents are on a bush and they’re northern European the currents that you have have available and we use now we are now all think of currents pretty much are
Actually tiny tiny grapes and they grow in zakinthos and then they’re dried now in the old days in gree of course anywhere you went you saw um grapes drying in the sun on rooftops and um which is even how vinsanto is made the real vinsanto is
From grapes that have been dried on the roofs of Santorini wow um um but um I I don’t know where else those little tiny grapes are grown um but that’s what they are you can get real currents from the current Berry from England or northern France at times
In a grocery store and you can get red current Jam that is made from the actual real currents how are these little raisins got the name current um I actually don’t know but that’s we gotta find we got to find out all right I mean
I I said before I I think it’s it’s pronounced kurant is that [Laughter] aant I I just want to throw that out there now um I’m going to put in um two to three or whatever you like um cloves of garlic and I wanted to show you all a
Trick um since this is going to be these are going to be smashed up anyway it doesn’t matter if you smash them so instead of sitting there being crazy peeling them take a taking let’s see this is on my coffee table so it’s wa so
So so let uh so if you could do it a little bit to the there you go yeah perfect thank you just take the flat blade of your chef’s knife now this is an 8 inch Chef um I like globals because they stay very very sharp and I keep my
Eyes very sharp um for my hand and I’m not a you know I’m not a tiny woman I’m slender but I’m 5’8 um but an 8 inch is enough for me my son who’s a great cook uses a 10 inch ouch anyway so you just take the flat of
The blade of your knife and squish on top of the garlic and a peel comes right off perfect there you go um and as I said since it doesn’t matter you’re going to C sometimes you really smash them so I’m throwing in one I’m going to throw in oh
So so you’re throwing them whole whole clo just all goes in a queas and art and it’s done so I’ve already added uh cheese currants mint parsley um oil a pinch of salt now again if you’re cook a lot like I do or you want to you
Know you don’t use a salt shaker you use a salt Celler and you measure by pinching so it’s always available I mean I can just reach over and always get my pinch of salt and not have to deal with something like a a Shaker I am now putting in the other garlics Gosh I wish I could smell that garlic right now I’ll tell you I I have the dish right next to me and it’s oh my God you kind of if you stop to think about what is a country’s sound not how it looks um maybe not even how it
Necessarily smells but how it sounds to me grease sounds like plunk plunk plunk of women peeling garlic and dropping them into to a bowl I mean it’s amazing everywhere you go there is plink plink plink and the minute I hear it I recognize it now that you mention
It so I think I’ve got it all there um I need the top wherever it went Ah and here we Go I just hit puree I’m not going to scrape it out for in front of the camera because it’s too messy um um obviously the other instrument you need is a spatula to get it out and scrape it up and here we here we go with a
Finished hold it hold it to uh Ron’s camera there you go nice and it’s I got to tell you I can’t keep it more than a few hours if I put it out on a table it’s gone I mean the currents just uh bring it up amazingly
Fod was saying F’s eating it steadily f um let me uh let me ask you hold on let me uh let me put let me put the spotlight on you fy show us your version FY so I and just give us give us a quick uh explanation how how easy difficult uh
Straightforward on a scale of 1 to 10 one being hard 10 being easy this was a 10 um it took me less than 10 minutes based on the ingredients that uh Susanna just mentioned right into the quiz and art and immediately the second I release the cover Aroma is just smacked me in
The face with that uh pronounced garlic um and then all that herbaceousness from the mint and the parsley but from a textural standpoint oh man um it’s all about texture I think in my opinion when it comes to your taste buds I think we feel first before we
Taste right and that’s deep FY that’s deep well I mean what it’s all about we’re getting deep here but I mean I’ve had we’ve all had our fair share of pesto right I mean um pesto too now is trending in a lot of different Cuisines um and I find that this particular
Recipe with the addition of the the currents um just takes it to a different level the dynamic of the currents in this pesto is out of this world and I’m so happy that I got to experience this with you Al together but um what also puts this into perspective is when you
Listen to Zanna talk about it and then taste it i’ I’ve tasted this before the segment and I’m tasting it while we’re doing the segment now that I’m having it it tastes psychologically Beyond this world before I had it uh during the segment if that makes any sense I think that there’s an
Appreciation that resonates with us when you understand certain aspects history the background around and then when you taste something you start to understand and appreciate what’s going on so this is in my book uh or in my opinion um two thumbs up or two glasses up two currents up two currents
Up Clues while I’m at it um you might think oh but I have to take pluck Leaf by Leaf by Leaf of these herbs to get um two3 cup of parsley 1/2 cup of mint leaves you don’t the trick we use for quick leaves you hold a stalk now
They’re kind of stringy now because it’s winter near the top you can’t do it all the way up up but near the top and you just run your hand down the stem and the leaves come off oh beautiful so there’s the stock and I’ve already taking the leaves off
Except the very top ones and then you can just pluck those so instead of spending you know 15 20 minutes plucking all of those that was uh that one was parsley I’m doing the same thing right now on mint you just go like that and there’s the
Leaves well Susanna I’m a little upset with you at giving me a healthy fear of ever planting parsley so I don’t know if I’m gonna get over that well I don’t know I use a lot and I I I suggest you try it and if you don’t die you’re fine
Okay we’ll do would it be wrong of me to plant parsley in AR’s Garden oh whoa whoa no planting in my garden here but um so this is great by the way on lamb obviously because um we tend to think of lamb and mint Greeks don’t think of that
Necessarily but um if you’ve got an American streak in you and you like mint on lamb this pesto is great it’s great out sandwiches with turkey or something this is Greek pea I hope you know the difference Greek pea does not open in pocket stays flat and you put your Euro or
Something in it and you roll it around oh okay ones that puff into pockets are Lebanese or Arabic or Turkish but ours don’t Oh I like I like the fact that you actually pointed that out because that’s important I like the fact that like I think I know everything but comes in and just like shoots me down left right Susanna be before we get questions from our audience I need to make two point I
Wanted to reference two points one is correction I did not make the pestl tonight my wife Sophia made it I was just tasting it did she yell at you yes so second is that only Greek that was of you and then second is that you mentioned that in your cookbook um the
Pesto is also used to soak figs oh can you can you just include that real quickly because that fascinates me about soaking your figs and in Rina or pesto and you know what else I do with them I open them up and they come out in three
Leaves and I fill them with um or I Pat on toasted sesame and I slap two figs together and I have a sesame fig sandwich I love that wow you’re taking it to a different level but um again I mean let me like you’re H you open the rinaa
You’re having yes I’m eating my pesto for me right now Ari um and for our audience having the having the pesto having the wine with it takes it to a different level so um again uh wait let me let me put the camera on uh oh yeah MUSC fer up
That’s what I was just gonna ask I was just GNA ask to to tell us once again which uh wine you’re you’re pairing right now so we have a couple of wines Ari and in general for there are folks that are listening that don’t have
Either or I mean this dish um calls for light crisp acidic White wines that that have a lot of structure so the rtina definitely because of the the satino grape the pine resin that’s in it uh Susanna just uh just put up to the camera a white wine the peloponese parts
Of Greece made from a grape called mosco filo mosco filo is um for those of you that have never had it before I would like to maybe not that it does justice but to give you an idea is is probably along the lines of a svan Blanc right in
That in that wheelhouse of flavor and structure it’s very aromatic right and there’s a lot of um Aromas coming from moso moso I’ve been told translates to a floral Muscat a lot of Aromas of flowers come to to to mind followed by a very crisp body of structure that’s uh Citrus
Um lime lemon always comes to mind when you’re having mcoo it finishes with that limey flavor and not to not to kind of put this into perspective but sometimes Ari has had this experience of having a lot of tequila shots with the LI lemon and salt I don’t know if that’s true but
You know that uh that limey aftertaste is what how mosco feel little finished to me it has that great Citrus Essence on the finish so those components in the wine work tremendously in my opinion with dishes like this pesto that have olive oil garlic um just a little bit of that
Fattiness from the olive oil as well works with mosco filo but this is what we try to bring to light we try to bring the balance of the flavors and structure of food paired with the structure and flavors of wine that are from that region in that area right it’s it’s all
About you know sometimes you think about I get folks that ask me like you know they drink or taste wines from a specific area by itself and it doesn’t connect with them but then when they have it with food from that area it makes sense right so there’s a there’s a
Reason for everything yeah so you mentioned the aroma it is very perfumey yeah but I have to remind you what the word Aroma means it comes from H which is Greek for dirt and it originally meant this smell of newly turned soil soil when you were plowing from the
Early days that’s a good point you mentioned uh Susanna because for those of us that are into wine we love wine we want to learn about wine Aromas are released from when you pour your your wine into a glass but all that’s driven the Aromas are driven by the components
Of the grape in the soils that they’re planted in soil smelling the soils does that that’s wild but that’s the reality of what’s Happening that’s why we talk about some wines as being um lomy or earthy or even bark or even tobacco because again as you pointed out
It depends on the the same Earth around that is um um the the perfect bed for those different um kind of products that would grow near there you know right it’s it’s fascinating that you just mentioned that a lot of Vineyards around the world and in Greece a lot of Vineyards plant
They have other plantings in their Vineyards aside from their vines or their grape Vines and sometimes I think what they’ve mentioned to me before is that the vines as they grow they kind of intertwine with other plantings that are there and there’s some romance going on with grape Vines and other plantings
That are there as well I mean that’s that’s a topic for that’s a that’s a disc topic must being one of the the favorites um but also it’s efficient Farm it’s a way to have another crop and especially if you do herbs now we’re not we did the two herbs tonight and I’m
Sure in our other sips and dips we’re going to get to other ones but uh you know for example the well for one thing there’s many kinds of of mint um we only tend to know two or three kinds U pepper mint and spearm mint um in Greece again
I said you would gather all kinds of things um but one of my favorites that also affects the wines of areas is sage and especially mountain sage which is and such sunlight is incredible in Greece I mean it’s amazing one the name in Greek is fomo fomo and as you mentioned sunlight I’ve
Been told that there are certain parts of Greece where the sun shines almost 300 days a year oh yeah well the clles which are having problems because they’re never getting any rain that the sun 365 days um practically and of course um what things grow on in the
CES or in Santorini um is the de it’s morning dew that’s almost the nutrition that a lot of these plants get is that morning duw because irrigation is not possible rainfall is a minimal so it’s basically the overnight or that morning dew that really um provides that nutrition
For a lot of not nutrition but you know the adequate water supply for these plants yeah which is why they’re so hearty and so aromatic from Greece I mean they’re intense because of the sun and the very light moisture just enough moisture to make it and uh and you’ll
Notice for instance the tomatoes of Santorini or many of the cly are tiny tiny tomatoes they don’t have the moisture to get um fat but when you process them or when you use them in cooking they’re so intense they’re black they pack a lot of flavor for
Tomatoes these little I love it oh God they’re amazing wow um Ari I mean we can definitely open this moment right now to let any of our guests ask anything they want to Susanna uh provided that you know this is eye opening the history the background the roots of what we just
Discussed we uh yeah well I mean there’s no questions right now but let me just say like I say it every time suzanna’s one of our guests I’m GNA say it again like I can’t get in I am I’m a I’m a history buff I’m fascinated by anthropology um I’m not fascinated by
The disaster part I know the disaster part is what uh introduced you to FY because f is a disaster himself but I’m fascinated by the the history the anthropology I these segments with you Susanna are such a treat for somebody like me because I I I love I love learning about this stuff
And every single segment we’ve had you on what five six segments more I don’t even remember and every single time I’m like well she’s basically said what she said she basically taught me what I what what I’m going to be taught there can’t be anything new and every seg M you you
Bring it and I love it and thank you so much for being with us for this segment and how cool do you feel are the segment on on um on on Jim Jin because I hate it uh we have Cody through this book um actually I met fod because there was a
Wine dinner at Paul Dio’s restaurant when he had one outside on the suburb of Boston yeah yeah I you know I was actually G to ask you that earlier if you guys met at that uh uh wine dinner when you brought her to the wine dinner
Yes yes all right I have a I have a question let me uh okay so Pamela says uh this is great thank you one of my questions is around olive oil how do you feel about flavored olive oil such as garlic I’m in California so we can get locally
Harvested Olive uh from local Farm Farmers through our local food Hub oh I mean I wouldn’t mind it if you flavor it yourself um if you put the garlic in the bottle and you you cultivate your own flavored olive oil I would be a scance and wondering what
Somebody else did with it and and how how good the ingredients were um whether they’re organic um do they put do does their version of a hot olive oil with peppers in it too hot for me um is um are the combination of of herbs Sage or what I mean there’s absolutely
No reason with the number of containers like this or even a dark glass bottle that you can’t flavor your own and um very good point certainly use it on a panini or just on a piece of felo um or you know a sandwich or however you feel like you want to or if
You’re sautéing I mean there’s no reason that you would use a flavored oil to my mind in your sautéing um because you’re going to throw in the herbs um that you want in it anyway I mean typically in Greece you would have used a lot of
Oregano a margarum and uh thyme uh and thba which is Savory um those that you could pick in Sage perhaps um although you have to be careful with sage it can be very medicinal the one I have to admit I use an herb that Greeks don’t use a lot um
And that is uh I use Teragon I have to ad licoricey flavor you know so well uh the the Pamela who asked the question also said great points thank you um another comment came in I love the Olive and Caper cook book thank you for that comment Joanna and then another John
Said not a question question but a comment all of in the Caper is a top drawer cookbook it is Perfect Blend of food culture and history I have scores of Greek cookbooks and hers meaning you Susanna yeah ranks with any of them so thank you John for that comment I gotta
Say AR The Olive and the Caper I mean from a cookbook format I mean it’s so easy to follow and it just makes you want to keep the book open all the time yeah I I I really I really love that cookbook I don’t cook at all so like the
Recipes don’t mean much to me but I read the Olive in the Caper because there’s so much history in it there so much like what you’re saying is you read the stories to to your wife as she’s cooking the the rest yeah I I have somebody with
Actual talent to cook but I love to read the story The the background the history and again I said this before um Susanna you always bring such fascinating information such fascinating facts and history and it just it’s it’s it’s you can’t imitate this you can’t duplicate it it’s
It’s fascinating to me and and we are so thankful that you are on these with us on these webinars I gotta I got to mention real quickly that the way people used to live is reintroducing how we should be living in caves uh yeah you know what what’s wrong with that but
Susanna brings a lot of great points I mean we are designed to live based on our surroundings and and our our environment you know you know eating during this you know eating according to the seasons that we’re in and unfortunately today we can have anything
We want at any given time but does that that does that sound natural to you so you know taking that approach to living according to the time times that we’re in the seasons that we’re in I think goes a long way not just from from a mental perspective but also from a
Physical perspective that you know we’re designed in a way that we should be consuming based on our environment and uh I think there is something more to say about that as we continue these sip clips and dip Clips with Susanna how fascinating it is to live according to this structure of Life
Yes create um in anini was fava with yellow yellow lentils that was our main stay and the way we made them different was topping we’ put an olive oil on or we’d put a different herb on or if it was U during Lent we might put a small
Fish on um or uh that was that was a main stay and I love also the way Greeks eat which is um there’ll be five or six things on the table one chicken even for eight people and then some fries and or then a macaroni maybe
And then always a salad of some sort and then some vegetables and some H do greens and then everybody eats out of everything yeah instead of and somebody getting a plate that’s just theirs you know um AR that’s called sharing AI doesn’t share food no I think there’s something
About part of like I it’s it’s definitely a practice that we’ve forgotten about you know sitting at the table and sharing plates but I’ve noticed in the last handful of years a lot of restaurants are introducing that Shar plate concept uh I have a around if you’re Greek they’re all in
The center at the table and you stab yes yes exactly uh quick comment from Susan uh manful this has been great I can’t wait to make the pesto which book is that recipe in which is is it the Olive in the Caper yes it is oh no actually bold
Bold yes yes correct me it’s bold tell them about bold it’s in bold and also I typed out for you guys a whole type version that you were supposed to be able to show yes so we have that on the actual event page and I’ll also put that
Recipe on uh the video and the podcast page after the fact so you will have access to it um okay so we have another comment is that stuffed pig on the shelf behind Dr Susanna just kidding this is Susan’s daugh daughter yeah this is su’s daughter Gabby and I can tell Pig comes
From Ron grew up on a pig farm and that is a Remnant well well she says she says this is suzanna’s daughter Gabby and I can tell you that my mom cooked amazing and inventive Greek food for me my whole life good job Mom and I
Can’t wait for some Greek food or to go to Greece with you soon which that’s a great sentiment Gabby because I think Susanna probably really wants to go to Greece soon and she probably will be able to go to Greece soon hopefully and you know what FY I hope we could go to
Gree soon and I hope we could meet up with suzan some of these get some of this have to happen in Greece we need to we need to be recording live on location I think we need to do that yes yeah and we need to have some of Susanna’s
Friends from Santorini that you met over the years be oh God can they cook they can cook awesome I’m in I’m in so you know you can’t get me out of the house very easily as FY knows but I’m in I’m in awesome I I finally taking an airplane
Um the end of the month of um what I call my new skills Day meaning I had to do something I’ve never done before some people call it a birthday I call it a new skills day that is April Fool’s Day which is perfect and I get to see Gabby
I’m Gonna Fly and see Gabby and and the couple of grand children it’s going to be great and and where where could I ask is Gabby she’s in balt Colorado which is just outside Aspen okay oh beautiful beautiful and Ari can I just mention we
Just want to give a shout out to another uh de friend of ours who’s in Utah uh elenie salus who was with us last week who’s a big fan of Susanna is with us as well tonight so we want to say thank you to her for joining us this evening all
The way from Salt Lake City uh um but Ari I hope you learned something today I always learn something when Susanna’s involved right always I’m telling you right now from from a heartfelt comment here I love these segments Susanna I really look forward to them it’s not
Just you know you know uh word play here I really do enjoy these segments I love learning um you know I’m so smart there’s not that much I could learn but you always seem to give me some more knowledge like it’s amazing well that’s the point we want to drive we want to
Make sure that our audience and our guests get the same experience that Ari gets because that’s what it’s all about and we’re super excited that we’re going to be launching this series with Susanna the dips and sip segments where we get to learn about not just about the
Recipes but the stories behind the recipes and it’s and it’s just fascinating so we want to thank everyone for joining us tonight we want to thank Susanna as always during her busy schedule because you just listen to what she’s got on her plate and it’s not just food it’s it’s
More than just that and we’re so excited that we’re going to have her with us we want everyone to stay tuned and follow us to make to see the upcoming dates of when Susanna will be hosting with us her upcoming Sip and dip Clips absolutely
Um we want we want we want everybody I think we’ll do f is go is do um will go extensively into grape leaves perfect I love it because I grew up as a kid uh in my early teens driving during the summertimes with my parents pulling over on the highway because they
Saw grape leaves that they wanted to pick for dolmades so yes for me that hits at home but there’s a science behind I think dolmades that I think you know you will bring it to light for us in our upcoming segments but for sure uh
This is for for us more than just a treat it actually connects with us but also it allows us to feature uh the cuisine in a way that most folks even us as Greeks and Greek Americans never knew about that’s what I think is the most fascinating part about this whole
Scenario absolutely that’s what it is like Susanna always brings so much more to just a standard cooking session and you know in the me in the meantime I don’t want to cut you off AR but I don’t want to forget even though we have these fascinating books from Suzanna um I know
Susanna that we are able to uh on Amazon um there are you can find the Alvin the Caper on Amazon or you can download it as an ebook uh I haven’t been able to work that out yet we just cancelled it as an ebook fairly recently because they had
Cut the dessert section out which was crazy because the sauces I do on my b laa is mppi and coffee and things like that so I mean I changed stuff up a lot and um it’s all within the Greek realm but it’s mixing it up I just I
Just but is without of print it’s true so you do have to go hunt for a copy of it and um and I promise you on graple we won’t do geladas there’s other things you can do awesome I just want to make a real quick
Point like if you could get a hard copy in your hand a tangible holdable copy of this uh cookbook did you say holdable please yes holdable holdable okay yeah you you know that word because I I reference you and holdable all the time because you’re anyway get that copy uh get a
Tangible physical copy of Olive in the Caper if you can because it’s an amazing book yeah well we’re gonna work on seeing how we can bring that book back yeah we’re working on it we’re working on it all right so let’s let’s wrap this up everybody Susanna thank you so much
Again amazing amazing information amazing recipes you are you know you’re you’re one of my favorites uh you know because like I said there’s not many people who could teach me things so when you teach me something I am just excited about and po as always thank you man pairing
Everything bringing us the knowledge of the wine thanks everybody for watching thanks everybody for listening Susanna we will see you back soon soon yes very soon and uh and and everybody out there please stay tuned follow us do everything download the apps blah blah blah we are here and we are going to
Bring you some great great great content thank you everybody thank you Susanna we will see you next time we even do some Classics yes yes thank you bye bye good night cheers