gnat greeks out

this year's greekstravaganza 2.0 (the greekquel) was bigger, badder, and greeker than last year's.

for one thing, this time there were decorations:

what's that you say? did i go from chicago all the way to the parthenon to throw a greek dinner party? no, that's my living room, but i can see how you might be confused.

there were celebrity guests:

of course, tons and tons and tons of food:

and TOGAS!

this time we went big on the cheese on fire - in case you need a recap of how last year's cheese on fire went down, here it is:

"a lovely little greek lady at fresh farms market told us to use sherry, but after several failed attempts to light the cheese we resorted to vodka. even so, the cheese was not as on fire as i had hoped it would be.

next time we'll use bacardi 151."

well we didn't find 151, but eileen brought me something polish called spirytus (a rectified spirit!) which definitely did the trick:

we even had ancient greek olympics,

with ancient greek olympic gold medal winners:

alright, they were silver medalists (technically they were cardboard and aluminum medalists but in this arena the cardboard and aluminum medal is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an olympian).

it was all very exciting and very greek, and so far the best greekstravaganza yet. we'll see if i can top it for next year's greekstravaganza episode III: live greek or die hard.

(this was the first of many throwback posts, written from nor cal about my many backlogged chicago adventures. on a more current note, the first thing my mom said to me yesterday was that there were record high temperatures in chicago. the reason this is funny is that for two years she did this every morning over gchat, telling me from nor cal that it was raining in chicago as i looked out my window at clear sunny skies. well... this time i finally had to take her word for it.)

gnat expounds on a terrifying weather phenomenon

when i was three years old, my family picked up and left sunny southern california and moved to this house in springfield, illinois for my dad's work. my parents had only ever lived in egypt and los angeles, so it's no surprise that it only took one winter for them to decide that snow and ice were not for them. as we prepared to make the move back to california, the people of springfield expressed their alarm at the idea. weren't we afraid of earthquakes?

i ask this of the midwest - how in the name of all natural disasters are earthquakes scarier than tornadoes!?

this is actually a debate i've been having with andrew (who grew up in iowa, where tornadoes are a thing) since shortly after i moved here. i firmly believe that tornadoes are way scarier and more destructive than earthquakes. the typical earthquake causes you to wake up wondering why your picture frames are slightly askew on the wall, whereas the typical tornado picks you and your picture frames up off the ground and carries you to a different state. yesterday i expressed my disappointment at having lived in the midwest for almost a year and a half and not having seen a tornado. it was my belief that they happened all the time and that surely by now i would have experienced one. in fact, the day i moved here my connecting flight out of las vegas was grounded for several hours because of a tornado watch in chicago. do i possess some kind of tornado repellant quality? andrew's response shocked me - in 26 years, he has never once actually laid eyes on a tornado. at that moment i considered the argument automatically won. in case any doubt still existed, i consulted wikipedia for some data.

in the year 2011, there have been no earthquake related casualties in the united states. there have been approximately 550 tornado related casualties, 159 of which occurred during the may 22 joplin, missouri tornado. granted, this is atypical - there have been more tornado related deaths this year than in the last ten combined. in fact, 2011 has been the deadliest tornado year since 1936. the deadliest earthquake in california history (the 1906 san francisco earthquake, 7.9) was devastating not because of the quake itself but the fires that followed it. the two deadliest in my lifetime, the 1989 loma prieta (7.1) and the 1994 northridge (6.7), killed 63 and 33 people respectively. following the northridge earthquake, massive changes were made to building codes and existing structures were retrofitted to reduce the destruction caused by future quakes.

(please note: this discussion is limited to california earthquakes. earthquakes everywhere else in the world, yeah, fine, they're totally terrifying. take for example the 9.0 that hit japan in march. way scarier than a tornado.)

in the process of compiling all of this hideously depressing data, i also discovered that there is a natural phenomenon called a fire whirl, which looks like something out of a harry potter movie. it is literally a vortex of flame. they are very rarely captured on film, in fact a google image search for "fire whirl" turned up no results that weren't disappointing. i did, however, find a video.

what are your thoughts, internets? are tornadoes scarier than earthquakes?

gnat's quarter century: complete with flaming cheese

so, i should start by telling you that ever since greekstravaganza and my failed attempt to recreate saganaki (flaming cheese) in my kitchen with cooking sherry, i have been itching to use the "things on fire" tag again. unfortunately there has been a total lack of things on fire in my life since february... i suppose this is not a thing that people normally complain about, but for months i have been impatiently awaiting the day when i would triumphantly tag another post "things on fire."

anyway - the day started like most others, with a pot of coffee and several quality hours on my word processor. thus is the glamorous life of a graduate student. then, because it's tradition (fine, i've only done it once) i walked to the chicago city farm stand on clybourn and division for birthday tomatoes:

cara came home with treats of a delicious though slightly less healthy variety, in the form of blue cheese walnut praline, cookies and cream, vanilla, and key lime cupcakes from more:

we were joined at the apartment by aleck, eileen, lisa, and cara's visiting friend austen, and trekked over to greektown for dinner. believe it or not, i hadn't been since my first visit to chicago almost two years ago. there are several greek restaurants in the area (and a walgreen's whose sign is written in greek letters), we settled on greek islands.

i was not prepared for how much food i was about to consume. really, in deciding on greek birthday dinner i hadn't thought much further than the very first course - wait for it...

CHEESE ON FIRE!

this fellow is less enthused by the fact that the cheese is on fire than any of us were (or maybe just me, whatever) but we'll chalk that up to the fact that he gets to do this several times on any given night. i also made him hold off on putting it out with the lemon until i could get a decent picture, which may be why he's so cranky.

after the flaming cheese there were gyros with tsatziki and skordalia (garlic potato spread),

followed by a greek salad, of course,

and then several family style plates of greek favorites. clockwise from the bottom, greek rice pilaf, spanakopita, pastitsio, potatoes, keftedes, and moussaka.

i don't know what these people were thinking when they designed this menu. it is way too much food to eat even a fraction of comfortably.

then (why!?) they gave us dessert. baklava, galactoboureko, and some spice cake that i didn't recognize and concluded that it must not really be greek.

like i said, this is way too much food to eat even a fraction of comfortably. we took something like four boxes of food home with us and somehow i STILL wound up so full that i immediately fell asleep upon arriving back at the apartment. how's that for a wild birthday celebration?

excellent variety and sheer volume aside, the food at greek islands is good but not spectacular and i'll probably try a different restaurant next time i'm in greektown. still, they fulfilled my only prerequisite for an amazing birthday dinner celebration - things on fire. (lies. other prerequisite: awesome people to share it with - check!) i'll save you all my expounding on how old i feel (except to let you know that as it is now officially fall and the temperature has started to dip, you can look forward to my whining about aching joints in addition to all of my typical complaints... you're welcome.) and wrap up instead with a big thank you for everyone who helped celebrate my 25th (gah) birthday, last weekend in california and this week in chicago. you're wonderful!

gnat says OPA!

chicago is a huge center of greek diaspora. (according to wikipedia so are new hampshire and florida, who knew?) i'm 1/4 greek, so it's a little bit unacceptable that i've lived here for eight months and haven't been over to greektown to visit my people.

instead, because the end of the quarter was looming and i had papers due left and right, (and because you can only cook tacos so many tuesdays in a row before it gets really boring) i decided to throw a GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! on monday.

before you can throw a greek dinner party you need greek ingredients, some of which are basically impossible to find in your average run-of-the-mill grocery store. aleck (a fellow greek and chicago native) was kind enough to poll his relatives about their preferred food shopping location, and the overwhelming consensus was:

fresh farms market! way out in the northwest suburbs of chicago. lucky for me, taylor was as excited about the prospect of a grocery-related field trip as i was, so on saturday we embarked on a mini road trip to niles, IL to get all of the goodies on my list.

so, fresh farms market is my new favorite place. i'll spare you a detailed description of our time there, because odds are we will be going back and it will get its own post. despite my giddiness throughout the shopping experience somehow i managed to exhibit a tremendous amount of restraint and only left with things on my list.

...it was a long list.

my menu was pretty ambitious, so i began to prep little by little on saturday and sunday.

by the time guests began to arrive on monday, i was greeksuited up and in the last stages of cooking.

there was a veritable smorgasbord of all my favorite foods to cook and eat: dolmas, moussaka, tsatziki, greek salad, lemon chicken, spanakopita, shaareya and tabbouleh, the last two of which are actually egyptian but shhhhh.

side note: smorgasbord is a swedish word for a buffet type food situation. unfortunately, extensive google searching (and mother phone calling) has failed to turn up a greek equivalent.

the most exciting food item by far was the saganaki. saganaki is a hunk of kefalotyri cheese that's been floured, egg washed, floured again, pan fried, soaked in booze, then lit on fire. that's right - cheese on fire. saganaki isn't actually traditonally greek, but originated in a restaurant right here in chicago's greektown.

a lovely little greek lady at fresh farms market told us to use sherry, but after several failed attempts to light the cheese we resorted to vodka. even so, the cheese was not as on fire as i had hoped it would be.

next time we'll use bacardi 151.

also notable, although probably to nobody but me, my first truly successful baklava making attempt. it turns out the secret is to use a loooooot of butter. i won't tell you how much.

we wore laurels and togas, we listened to greek music, we wined and dined. we GREEKSTRAVAGANZA!d, that truly is the only word for it.

once the guests had gone i promptly passed out on the couch.

throwing a GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! is hard work.

the next day, because it was tuesday and there was a downright disgusting amount of leftover food, (and because i was in the midst of far less fun than GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! excessive procrastination induced paperwritingstravaganza) i had greek tacos for dinner.

don't be fooled, they may look cool but there is a reason that greek tacos are not a real thing.

one of these days i will make it to actual greektown. in the meantime, i am up to my ears in enough leftover dolmas and tsatziki to keep me fed through the remainder of paperwritingstravaganza.

OPA!