So, as reported on the Home Page, together with the Schubert Club, we hosted the reception at the Memorial held by our friend Jorja Flizanis for her late husband, Michael, at the Ted Mann Concert Hall this past Sunday. Because no one can guestimate the attendance for such an event, I was told to plan for 600. Six hundred for an hour reception at 8:30 on a Sunday night. In the best case scenario, I planned 5 pieces of food for 600 people...that's 3,000 pieces of food to be passed in one hour. Troops! Bring in the troops. So I recruited, friends and their mothers, friends and daughters...

Who would have known? I had to have clarity in my cuisine offerings, so I called my Master Gardener,

Irini, who also appears in the book, Growing Home, Stories of Ethnic Gardening, by Susan Davis Price, and left a message. Several hours, innuendos and guffaws later, I had my answer. In fact there are two, TWO dishes that are made from the blossoms of squash plants: Kolokithoanthoi AND Kolokithokorfades! As any botanists or amateur linguist can tell you, "anthos" comes from the Greek word for "flower/blossom," so the "Kolokithoanthoi" refers to the flower which is in fact the...

To go back a bit, the Gardens catered the Walker Art Museum's Appreciation Dinner for their volunteer tour guides last Saturday, July 18. While the weather threatened havoc, good luck, charms or karma,

moved the clouds away at the very last minute (thankfully, because no tent was stretched against the sky) and over 90 people devoured the fresh whole lamb sent from Hill and Vale Farms together with two banquet tables full of dips, Boughatsas, Greek salad, Dolmades, Veggie Mousakas followed by huge pans of Milopita (Prairie Spy Apples baked in fillo), Lemon Cream Boughatsa and...