What is the difference in flavor between Middle Eastern Green wheat (frika/farik) and the German roasted type (gruenkern). I have tasted farik and it is very smoky, is this similar to gruenkern?

Baking soda is also used when the water source is very hard.In cases like this beans do not soften even after hours of cooking. Solution- a bit of baking powder or use filtered water in the soaking or cooking liquid.

What a wonderful and intersting article. I would love to start a neighborhood organization like the kind you mentioned. I hate to say but when my fruit trees ripen, I always have more than I can use and much of it goes to waste. Wouldn’t it be nice to trade it in for something else. I love to identify plants but don’t usually forage because many of the wild edible plants here are scarce and now protected.

it took me 10 days to remove the bitterness, so it is time consuming. The solution was a 10% brine solution with 1/8 vinegar which took about 1-2 months to cure (manzanillo variety). I keep them at room temperature covered with olive oil. Next year I would like to cure black olives, which I couldn’t obtain because it was a very bad season for olives here

thanks for introducing me to an interesting and pretty foodblog from a place I know very little about

I cure my own olives but use only the brine method, leaching out bitter oleuropein by soaking in water first. I prefer this method to using lye as it preserves the flavor profile of the olive.I add lemons, garlic, pepper, hot pepper and grape leaves for added flavor and cover the brine with olive oil so it doesn’t get contaminated.

I think that whatever you bake together has got to be perfect, science or not. A few days ago I baked simple cookies with my 4 year old who was so proud to showoff his work to his older siblings.

besides Paula Wolfert’s Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, I highly recommend Nawal Nasrallah’s Delights from the Garden of Eden, a wonderful and informative Iraqi cookbook containing many whole grain recipes such as bulgur, cracked wheat and many vegetarian dishes.

the first time I made sorrel soup I was so surprised that it came out grey, so unappetizing. Next time I will try your trick of combining it with potatoes or leaks.

This is a hard question but the best cookbook I was recently given was Culinaria Greece edited by Marianthi Milona (H.F.Ullmann publishers) which is part of a series of international foods. It has incredible pictures and detailed history of the food culture throughout Greece. Another book which I bought for myself is Paula Wolfert’s Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean which is has unique recipes of a little known region.

Best way of making them is to salt the lemons so the juice is extracted without adding water or lemon juice. The juice so extracted can be used to preserve the next batch of lemons. I used brine last year and the flavor was lacking.

Great kitchen experiment. I will take your advice and soak the saffron in a bit of alcohol and water. I assume you can’t taste such a small amount of alcohol in the final dish? This would not be a method for some people because of religious reasons.

My aunt who owns a chicken coop says that chickens who lay eggs for the first time sometimes lay twin yolks. When she came to visit last time she brought 60 eggs all with 2 yolks,I thought it was very strange but not to her

I am new to this site, the blogging contest sounds like fun. I have a blog and was wondering if I can submit the address or do I have to do a cut and paste to the blog site here?