Before cooking from The Food and Wine of Greece by Diane Kochilas, I had no idea how diverse the savory pitta options are in Greek cooking—pitta is the Greek word for “pie.” Like many Americans, I’ve eaten and enjoyed Spanakopitta, the popular Greek pie made with spinach (spanaki) and cheese and layers of super thin phyllo dough. But there are many more savory pies: lamb, zucchini and cornmeal, ground beef with a rich béchamel sauce, leeks, wild greens, artichokes, rabbit. During the several weeks the club has been cooking from The Food and Wine of Greece, I made Hirinopitta (Ground Pork Pie) (see photo), Kotopitta me Feta (Chicken and Feta Pie), and, for lunch with Lynne, Kolokithopitta (Savory Squash Pie), shown above. (A slightly different version of the recipe for the squash filling and pie dough can be found on Diane Kochilas’s website.)

Phyllo means “leaf” in Greek, describing the very thin sheets the dough is sometimes (more…)

My friend Lynne is a librarian. She loves books; in fact, she used to sell them. That’s one reason her book displays at the library are so good. She enjoys participating in book clubs, and gave me some tips about running book club meetings when the Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club was still just an idea. I would love to have Lynne in DCCC, but the thing is, Lynne likes to eat better than she likes to cook. So I’ve decided that a lunch with Lynne, featuring the food of the current DCCC cookbook, is a great way for Lynne to participate, Lynne style.

Luckily Lynne has an open palate and welcomes food made with fiery chili peppers—just so it’s not too hot. A few weeks ago, I had Lynne over for a lunch from the cookbook Entice with Spice: Indian Scrambled Eggs (Anda Bhurji) and Flaky Wheat Bread (Sada Paratha). Actually I had an ulterior motive when deciding to attempt homemade paratha for our lunch.

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