I visited turkey in the summer of 2019 and fell in love with their simple breakfast spread consisting of cheese, eggs, olives, fresh peaches, oranges and bagels.

I love cheese and especially a good cheese board. I wanted to highlight some different cheeses that I enjoy along with some food that I enjoy eating with these cheeses. I specifically wanted to include fondue as I have a very fond memory of my first time having it, years ago on a family vacation in France.

My favorite cheese recipe involves putting yummy cheese on a board with all sorts of yummy and beautiful things with it! Meats, crackers, breads, spreads, veggies, fruit - pretty much anything is fair game. We love this as a simple weeknight meal.

"L'apéro" in French is the aperitif. It's to have a drink but not only. We must have good things to eat, around 6PM, after a nice day at the beach. Otherwise it’s wrong. In Marseille, in the south of France, when the sun is still hot, we drink a glass of Pastis, Ricard, called "Jaune" (yellow) with olives, good crisp breads and .. good cheese cut with an Opinel (French knife). This is south of France!

created and printed with handcarved stamps

A beautiful presentation of delicious tastes: assorted cheeses along with crisp crackers and bread, crunchy nuts, sweet fruits, salty olives and pickles. Brie with figs and honey? YUM!

Picadillo
My favourite Jewish food
Onion 1
Garlic 3 cloves
Oil 1-2 tbl spoon
Minced beef 1 kg
Tomatoes ½ kg
Apples 2
Green pepper 1
Raisins ½ mug
Cinnamon ½ teaspoon
Chilli ½ teaspoon
Salt and pepper
Green olives ¾ mug

Chop the onion and garlic and roast on oil.
Add minced meat and roast till brown.
Add sliced peeled tomatoes, sliced apples and pepper, raisins, chilli, cinnamon, salt and pepper.
Stew on low heat for 30 minutes.
Add the olives and stew for a while.
Serve with rice or bread.

Bon appetite😊

Flat bread can be filled with all kinds of ingredients. From hummus, feta to the dishes of the day before. And it always tastes great!

Beans Around the World

Classical Italian dish

We visited Barcelona a while back and fell in love with everything, including the jamon. Eaten by itself, or along with spanish olives, manchego cheese, bread and olive oil, it's heavenly!

The secret to make a delicious Greek salad is in the ingredients: creamy feta cheese, crisp cucumber, juicy tomatoes, strong oregano, good olive oil and some tangy olives.
For the Global cuisine challenge.

This is the kind of recipe that uses what's left in the pantry at the end of the week to create a tasty dish. Most Italian kitchens have all these ingredients always at hand: olive oil, olives, garlic, capers, anchovies and tomatoes... There are many theories on the origins of the name of the dish, but as I remember, it's just a frugal way to make do with what is available! Global Cuisine

GLOBAL CUISINE: Memories of this dish were brought to mind after all the olive harvesting going on in our village last week I can’t quite get this recipe exactly right, but if make it & we eat it outside on a nice summer day, it can feel pretty darn close to being in Italy😋

“The secret is to cook the heck out of it!” This was how my my mum’s advice began when I asked her to share one of my favourite childhood recipes. At the time, I was hoping to find meals that were well-suited to batch cooking and cost effective as I was hugely pregnant and freezing mark ahead meals for when I had my baby. “And don’t use a pan you like too much....the burnt bits give it flavour,” she continued. My mum doesn’t love cooking, or food particularly, and I’m still not sure how I became so fascinated with all things gustatory. However, this recipe has stood the test of time from when I was first introduced to it in the (probably) 1980s. The recipe itself may seem a wee bit rudimentary, but there is a certain type of magic that takes place when the sweetness of the ketchup mingles with the bite of the onion and the briny, saltiness of the olives. And as per my mum’s advice: cook it as long as possible to almost caramelize the sugary aspects of the sauce, and to soften the meat or veggie balls and let them soak up the flavours. A perfect combo of sweet, salt and, for me, nostalgia. Delicious over rice :)

Special note: the cooking clips book in the lower left corner and the recipe card were drawn true to form from my mum’s recipe drawer. For me, the cookbooks and recipe cards/clippings are just as memory stirring as the meal!