Horiatiki Salata

This salad is the real Greek salad. The "greek salads" you get in America are not real greek salads. They are just garden salads with some crumbled salty feta, a couple olives, and fattening creamy dressing. If you go to Greece and order a greek salad it will look and taste much different. Horiatiki means "villagers salad". It's a salad with whatever is freshest. The main difference is that there is no lettuce. The important thing about this salad is to get the freshest and highest quality ingredients possible. The tomatoes, olive oil, and feta are the three ingredients you should try to get the highest quality of. Don't use the domestic feta, go to a specialty store and buy either Dodonis or Barrel feta. These are much less salty, and way creamier than the domestic feta. You won't want to eat that salty crumbled domestic feta after you try these. This salad is very colorful and very healthy. I eat this salad every day, usually twice a day. One day in Greece I ate 4 of them in one day. I only use olive oil as the dressing because I'm fortunate enough to have Cretan olive oil from my Theo and Thea. If you have store bought olive oil, you can put some vinegar on the salad too. When you are done the salad, there should be a pool of olive oil and tomato juice with feta swimming in it. This is the best part in my opinion because you can soak it all up with a nice piece of crusty bread. This traditional greek salad is going to change the way you see Greek salads. Try it!

Recipe (serves 2)

3 tomatoes
2 cucumbers
1/2 pepper (any pepper works here)
1/3 onion (red or white)
5-10 kalamata olives
2 pepperoncinis
A huge slice of high quality Feta cheese
Oregano
Extra Virgin olive oil

Cut the tomatoes into large pieces. Peel and slice the cucumbers. Slice the pepper into thin rings then cut in half. Slice the onion in thing long pieces. All of the vegetables do not need to be cut perfectly or uniform in size. This salad is rustic. Put these ingredients into a bowl and mix. Then add the olives and pepperoncini. Slice a large piece of feta and cover with oregano. Now load the salad with olive oil. I mean a lot of olive oil. There should be a pool in the bottom of the bowl. Enjoy!

Gyros, the street food of Greece

Gyros, pronounced (yee-ros) are the fast food of Greece. Wherever you go you can see the cylinders of meat vertically roasting away. Gyros are the best late night drunk food I've ever come across. After a long night of partying in Greece, you stumble down the streets back to your hotel. You probably haven't eaten for hours and have only consumed alcohol along with lots of dancing to tire you out. You need something greasy, salty, and filling to soak up all the alcohol. There's most likely a gyro place open into the very early hours of the morning. For around 2 to 3 euros, your going to be full and veryyy satisfied. Thin chicken or pork is marinated and layered onto a skewer to form a cylinder of meat. This slowly turns and is crisped away on one side by a vertical burner. As the meat cooks, the fat slowly drips down basting the rest of the meat. The meat is shaved off skillfully with a large knife. The meat is put into a grilled pita with garlicky tzatziki sauce, tomatoes, onions, and one other key ingredient to a gyro. In Greece, and sadly not common in America, is to stuff your gyro with French fries that have been deep fried in olive oil. I can't eat gyros any other way after this. Its the perfect salty and fattening finish to a gyro. The last bites of the gyro are the best, because the juices of the meat, tomatoes, and tzatziki, have all mixed together and been soaked up by the French fries and the pita bread. This is the street food of Greece and can be found almost anywhere. It's really cheap to fill yourself up on gyros, if you eat one, you're full. If you eat two, your stuffed and don't want to eat again for hours. These may not be very good for you, but who cares? They're delicious

My homemade version of a gyro