Saturday

At some point, I do intend to cook for myself again. Really. The extent of my cooking yesterday was a piece of toast. In my defense, it was only meant to tide me over until I could get to the Greek Fest. I didn't want to waste valuable real estate in my gut on an actual meal.

This Greek Fest was a little larger and had more food than the Greek Fest I'm accustomed to in my old neighborhood in Memphis, but apparently cannot compare to the Greek Festivals held in my two friends' hometown of Detroit. I've never felt the need to visit Detroit, but if by some grace of God, the Greek Festival and the Polish Festival were held at the same time, I'd have to go. Anyhoo, despite rain and it being around 4pm when we got there, it was fairly crowded. I even saw some Nashville-area blogger friends: Linda and her son, J.J., Jag and husband, Hutchmo and wife (sounds like a tv show, no?), and David, Malia and family. Where there's good, cheap food, you'll find bloggers.

I'd already seen on the website that their dolmades (stuffed grape leaves also known as dolmas, dolmadhes, dolmathes or even dolmeh, depending on which Mediterranean or Middle Eastern country you're from) were vegetarian. Depending on the ethnicity of the cook, dolmades are frequently stuffed with meat instead of just rice and a pine nuts (my favorite preparation; here's a dolmathes recipe that's close to what I prefer), so I was pleased to see that I'd be able to have some. I also got some tiropita (and some to go) as well as two (yes, two) orders of saganaki. Opa!

Notice the lack of photos accompanying the previous paragraph. I was so giddy with excitement to dig in (and eat my saganaki before it cooled off too much), that I didn't get any pictures. But! Fortunately, I was able to get some pictures of a few of the desserts we got. Obviously, I took the photos while we were digging in ("Wait! I need to take a picture!"). The desserts. Oh boy. There was an incredible selection of pastries and cookies available, so we got a couple of combo packs which included several variations on baklava. Here's what we got:

• Loukoumades (pictured above, right) - honey dipped pastry sprinkled with powdered sugar. Imagine a funnel cake's taste and texture concentrated in a small ball the size of a donut hole. And then drizzled in honey and powdered sugar. Delicious, but I could only eat one. It was rich.
• Baklava (pictured at left) and its friends saragli (pictured on the right side of the tray), kataiffi (pictured--looks like a large Shredded Wheat) and flogeres, which is baklava drizzled with chocolate and my new favorite dessert (and not pictured before it was experienced--experienced, not just enjoyed)
• Kourabiedes - shortbread cookie sprinkled with confectioner's sugar (pictured). A lot like a wedding cookie and very good.
• Koulourakia - butter cookies (pictured in a twist)
• Melamakarona - a "spice" cookie drenched in honey and walnuts. We decided that the spice was mostly allspice or nutmeg. Tasty.
• Diples (pictured at right) - Rolled and fried dough, dipped in honey and sprinkled with finely chopped walnuts. I bought a big ol' diples, but discovered that I didn't care for it. I probably would have liked it had my palate not been spoiled with sugary goodness as this dessert is nowhere near as sweet and rich as the baklava variations. Not to worry; I found it a loving home.

Today, I finished off the leftover baklava as well as a very generous helping of tiropita and then cheated and just had some pasta for dinner. Tomorrow, I need to start eating better...at home.