Dining in Sacramento with Belly Dance!

After a belly dance show and after my belly dance class this week I feel I have to share some of my recent experiences dining at local restaurants which are associated with this wonderful dance.

Some great restaurants in Sacramento have regular belly dance performances while serving delicious food. One of the restaurants that come to mind right away is Marrakech on Fulton avenue. In my opinion they serve the best Moroccan food in town. I love the cozy and exotic ambience that’s created with all of the special cloth that covers the walls, drapes from the ceilings along with all the large cushions that are spread everywhere.

If you don’t mind family style meals where you share food from large plates while using just your fingers for utensils at least for the appetizers then this is a place you need to visit.

I love the ceremony of washing hands before and after a meal. I never experienced that in a restaurant where they bring you water and towels to wash your hands right at the table.

 I especially loved the chicken pie one of the many appetizers. It has an unusual savory taste. It has chicken and almond filling mixed with spices enclosed in a thin crust with lots of powdered sugar dusted on top; you literally lick your fingers :-) I just loved everything I ate there, from the lamb kebabs, to the baked chicken, vegetables with rice and the eggplant salad. Needless to say that the way the tea was served it was quite unique and the tea was simply delicious.

I loved watching the belly dance performance while having this delicious feast. The waiters were friendly and always posed with a smile for a photo – I guess they are used to it.

A couple of days ago I went back to Kasbah Lounge on J street for a belly dance performance. Kasbah is a smaller restaurant than Marrakech but with a comparable cozy ambience. The Middle Eastern food that’s served there is delicious. This time I had Kefta - ground spiced beef and lamb kabobs served with grilled eggplant & preserved lemon-cilantro yogurt. Being the yogurt lover I am, I loved the way they prepared the yogurt. I will definitely try preparing it that way.

Last Monday they had a belly dance show that lasted for two hours featuring many different dancers with different dancing styles. I wish I could dance like them! Belly dance looks easy but it’s so hard to dance some of the moves! I will continue practicing hoping that one day I will be able to do a simple belly dance!

Just listening to the music makes me move but not necessarily in the right direction but I move! :-)

If you are in the Sacramento area dining at these two local restaurants is a must!

Stay tuned for some of my baking next time!

Καληνυχτα - Good night.

Sharing, connecting, enjoying ..… while having dinner together

Here I am after a rejuvenating weekend where I spent time with friends, went on a couple of hikes, danced, baked a lot and simply connected with people I care about and did the activities I love the most.

While waiting for dinner ... with friends

Sharing, connecting, enjoying .....while having dinner together has been on mind a lot lately. The concept of cooking and having dinner together as a family is getting to be a rare commodity these days at least in the American society and it makes me really sad to see that.

There are signs though that it might be getting back into our lives here in America because of the bad economy. Everything in life has the positive and negative side and the poor economy has certainly some positive effects; bringing families closer. It’s getting quite expensive to eat out all the time so more and more people opt to home cooking and sharing meals as a family.

Over the years, I have made it a priority to cook and eat at home as a family for most of the days of the week. I can already “hear” your protests telling me that you are working long hours and you don’t have the luxury of cooking after a long day’s work. On top of that everyone in your family has a weird and busy schedule and it’s not easy to coordinate so that everyone can eat together. I have to disagree. It’s possible to eat together as a family at least a few days of the week. It does require planning and it does require making it a priority on everyone’s schedule but it pays off in the end. It brings people together and closer to one another when they prepare and share meals together.

It’ doesn’t have to be an elaborate meal as long as you prepare it at home. Set the table nicely – I am big on that – great atmosphere helps me get in a great mood and enjoy my meal even more. I am also a big advocate to use whatever I have; I use my nice plates and candles all the time. If I have something I use it. I don’t save things just for special occasions.

I have made it a priority in my family to have dinner together with a home cooked meal at least a few times per week now that my daughter is a teenager and she has her own schedule. When she was little a home cooked meal was a daily routine.

Cooking dinner together or simply eating together is a bonding experience that I greatly value and enjoy. It’s a time where I forget about everything else and I talk with my family about our day, what went well and what went wrong, laugh and simply enjoy each other’s company! During dinner I take the opportunity to talk with my family about things we normally don’t have time to discuss at other times because we are so busy. And don’t forget that eating a home cooked meal is healthier than an average restaurant – I am not referring to high end restaurants - and it can also be less expensive! It’s a win-win situation.

Worldwide leaders have talks and discussions about serious issues over a luncheon or dinner. Food is a universal language that brings people together so why can’t we use it more at our own homes?

Based on this article I have recently read more and more people in America are doing it as well. Hooray!

This is what was served for dinner in my house tonight.

It’s very easy to prepare!

Wild Pacific Cod with Olive Tapenade

1 ½ pounds wild Pacific cod

2 tablespoons ground pecans

2 ounces anchovy fillets in olive oil

½ cup finely chopped green olives

½ cup olive oil

3 large potatoes

½ cup chopped parsley

Slice the potatoes. Place at the bottom of a baking dish. Drizzle half of the olive oil over the potatoes.

Place in a pre-heated oven and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes uncovered.

Prepare the olive tapenade. Finely chop the olives, parsley, anchovies, mix with the ground pecans and the olive oil from the anchovies. Mix well together.

Take the potatoes out of the oven.

Place the cod fillets over the potatoes.

Drizzle the rest of the olive oil over the cod fillets.

Place a couple of teaspoons of the olive tapenade over each fillet and cover with foil.

The last 3-4 minutes before removing from the oven remove the foil.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Serve immediately with a nice green salad.

Serves 4

Enjoy while sharing with others!

Bon Appetit – καλη ορεξη!

Till next time ...stay well.

Lahmadjoun Bring Fond Childhood Memories

As I have mentioned before, every taste has a story and lahmadjoun brings more than one story/memory to my mind but the most vivid one comes from my childhood.

Lahmadjoun is an Armenian dish. Some call it an Armenian pizza but I can assure you that the taste is quite different.

Growing-up in Cyprus where we had a few ethnic minorities, and Armenian being one of them, I had the wonderful opportunity to taste and also learn how to make a lot of Armenian food. On several occasions I learned directly from  Armenian housewives who were regular customers at my father’s grocery store.

While making lahmadjoun I am always transported back to a happy and carefree time in my life where as a child I lived with my family in a small suburb of Nicosia. The name of the town was Neapolis which in Greek means, New Town. Till I was 12, I lived with my family in a very caring neighborhood where everyone truly supported and cared about each other. Neapolis was part of Nicosia and continues to be but unfortunately today, it’s in the Turkish occupied area and it’s also given a different name in Turkish.

The family that owned the communal oven (what it would be today the local bakery) lived two houses down from ours. They also made lahmadjoun for living. Every day I would see the wife sitting on her porch peeling several onions and tomatoes that she would later on use to make piles of delicious lahmadjoun. In early dawn her husband would take them to down town Nicosia and sell them to workers for breakfast.

Every Saturday morning my mom always gave me a few cents, the equivalent of a nickel, to go and buy my own lahmadjoun. She knew how much I loved them so she would give me this as a very special treat. I would run to the communal oven and knock on the door. Ms. Panayiota always greeted me with a big smile on her face. “Litsa you came to pick your lahmadjoun?” And I would always say “yes, I came to buy the best one you’s got”. She would uncover a huge pile of lahmadjoun and she would wait for me to pick one. Needless to say I never picked the one on top because I wanted to choose my very own! She always wrapped it in a piece of parchment paper before handing it over to me. I never walked, I always run back to my house so I could start eating it right away This special treat lasted for a few years! I miss terribly those years but I realize that I can recreate and bring back the feelings of  security and warmth I felt back as a child when I make these pastries and share them with others and especially with my own daughter!

I hope you do the same.

Lahmadjoun – Armenian Appetizer

3 pounds ground lamb 

1 ½ cups finely chopped yellow onion

1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

1 cup chopped tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic

2 cups chopped red bell pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

1-2 chili peppers (depending how hot you like the taste)

Salt

2 lemons cut in quarters

Dough

3 3/4 cups white unbleached flour

1 ½ cups warm water – 60 degrees F

1 tablespoon yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

Dissolve the yeast into the warm water and set aside for 15 minutes. In a large bowl mix the flour, salt, olive oil and gradually the water with the dissolved yeast. Knead into smooth soft dough that does not stick in to your hands. Cover the dough with a couple of thick towels and set aside to rise for an hour.

Prepare the meat mixture that will go on top of the lahmadjoun. In a frying pan pour the 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Saute the finely chopped onions and garlic until translucent. Add the ground lamb. Cook on medium heat until the meat looses its pink color. Add the chopped red bell pepper and tomatoes. Stir slowly a few times. Add the chili pepper and salt to taste. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook for approximately 20 more minutes. Once it is fully cooked, most liquid should be absorbed. Remove from the heat and set the mixture aside to cool off a little bit.

Divide the dough into a dozen small balls of 1-2 inches diameter. Roll out into tortilla size rounds (about 7 inches in diameter). Place on lightly greased baking sheets – spray canola oil. If you are making them for appetizers for parties you can make them smaller.

Spoon three tablespoons of the meat mixture on to the dough. Spread the mixture evenly to the edges of each lahmahdjoun.

Place the baking pans in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes. They are fully baked when the bottom of the dough has a light brown color. When you take them out of the oven, stack them in twos in a pyrex with the meat mixture facing each other. This will prevent them from drying out.

Cut the lemons in quarters.

Squeeze a lot of lemon over each lahmadjoun.

Usually it’s eaten as a roll.

Serve warm as an appetizer or as a main meal

Makes 12