Not Wooster Square....But

beautiful Tel Aviv sitting on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Tel Aviv is a young city that was founded in 1909 during the Ottoman Empire. It was in 1948, the founding of the State of Israel, when it really took off and established itself. Tel Aviv is known for it's beautiful sandy beaches and resort town feel with hotels, cafes and lots of water sport activity. There's a lot of Bauhaus architectural influence and is a very secular city.Over all the weather on our trip ranged from sunny days, to rainy days, and a morning of hail. Yeah, pretty miserable most of the time but we kept on.

These tracks remind me of hermit crabs but I didn't see any around. Can you take a guess? I thought they were interesting, they were the only two on the beach.

Kids getting ready to take out a boat. Check back soon, every day I will post three or more photos of the ten day trip.

Not Wooster Square

In the coming weeks or so I'll be posting "Not Wooster Square" which will be photos of my recent journey to the Holy Land. I hope that you enjoy them, when I'm finished then I'll resume photos of Wooster Square and New Haven. This bird perched right next to our group at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Israel is the crossroads for migratory birds.

Baby....it's cold outside!

Weekend Reflection

After a two week trip to Israel I'm back to blogging about Wooster Square in New Haven once again....just in time for the Weekend Reflection meme. Click here to find other reflections from a great group of photobloggers.

If Looks Could Kill

I'd be a goner by now. I got my suitcase out and Milo at first hid behind the pillows acting as if he was completely unaffected by the soon-to-be two week change in his life. And then he looked at me letting his real feeling show. He is not happy or filled with joy.

All this to say I'll be away for two weeks from Wooster Square Daily Photo. But I'll be back, please check in again.

What's the Next Best Thing to Heaven?

Glazed fruits in Phyllo dough. That's what! I wrote off these little things, glazed fruit that is, years ago because I was never fond of Christmas fruit cake with it's 15 year shelf life. But Greek style these little gems are gooooood. I have come to believe that ANYTHING is good wrapped in phyllo dough. This recipe is from Patras where, according to the ladies, it is known for it's tough men. Worth a trip perhaps.Maria is whipping up the egg whites while Virginia is getting ready to make the fruit mixture.
Virginia is making the fruit mixture and, as you can see, she encountered some rambuncious powdered sugar. No problem. The cooking must go on.

I think that it's an unusual mixture but it sure is good when baked. Sugar, egg yolks, almonds, zwieback, glazed fruit are mixed first and then the egg whites are folded in.

Now. Clarified butter. Whenever I've baked in the past I never clarified butter because quite frankly, I didn't know how and was to lazy to look it up. Now I do however, in fact there were two differing ways which we were told how to clarify butter. Seems pretty essential to phyllo dough baking. I'll have to get busy.

After the fruit mixture is done you need to brush clarified butter between each individual sheet of phyllo dough. That's why this stuff is so incredibly great. You then spread the mixture on top of the phyllo dough sheets - four of them NOT three - according to Virginia. Then you roll everything into a little tube.

You score the top before you bake it.....

....and walah!! Glazed fruit in phyllo dough.

After it's baked you make a syrup to glaze the top. You also make little holes into the top of the roll so that the glaze permeates the entire roll. Honestly, the secrets in the syrup, that's what makes the flavors of everything else in this little slice of heaven so sweet. This is my last class out of the series of four. I'll be back for more tips, treasures and tantalizing food.

Efxaristo ladies, see you in March.

Tuesday Night at St. Barbara's

Another Tuesday night at St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church and that means another night of Greek cooking. Oh yeah, this is becoming a habit. Tonight's delights were Pastitsio and Glazed Fruits in Phyllo Roll. We'll start with Pastitsio.Oly, short for Olympia, says "Pastitsio is the ultimate Greek comfort food." So it is and every region of Greece makes it but each with its own little twist. Greeks from the south add ground cinnamon to the meat sauce while the northerners leave it out. People from Cypress make it at Easter time using pork rather than beef with parsley and mint. However you make it, I'm sure it brings anyone a little comfort and a little taste of home. Here Oly is separating eggs which seem to be a staple in the recipes.

While Oly was sauteing the onion we got into a debate about making your own ground beef or buying it at the store already ground. Maria is trying her hardest to convince us that grinding your own top round and shoulder is much better. That's what she does at her restuarant, Yorkside Pizza. That's what Oly does and all of the other woman from the Philoptochos Society do. I guess that's why the food is so good...among other reasons. I have to admit the ground beef that Oly brought in looked great. I'll have to think about this for a while!

By now the air was getting thick with onions cooking and you KNOW how delicious that is.

The ground beef is added and eventually so is a little wine and tomatoes.

Whisking up flour and butter to make the Bechamel sauce along with milk.

Egg yolk is added to make the creamy sauce that gets poured on top of the macaroni and meat.

Nothing is ever wasted in Greek cooking. The egg whites leftover from the Bechamel sauce are added along with some cheese to the pasta.

Let the layering begin. Macaroni, meat sauce, macaroni, Bechamel sauce.

Pastitsio baked to perfection.

Oly is cutting the Pastitsio for us to eat. She's from Thessaloniki in Northern Greece (so no cinnamon in our meat sauce!) According to one traveler to Greece Thessaloniki is the 'hippest' Greek city. Of course, me being a Bible geek, not to be confused with a Bible Greek, could only think of the apostle Paul and his Epistle or Letter to the Church at Thessalonia. 1 Thessalonians happens to be the oldest book in the New Testament, but don't get me started on this. Back to Pastitsio. It was remarkably delicious and so, so comforting on a cold night in January.

OPA!