Tt: Saturday afternoon in the kitchen

Dolmades (stuffed grape leaves).

I'd been wanting to make these for a long time despite the fact that the few
times I'd tried them over the years they were always o.k., but not
particularly exciting. And then, two weeks ago, I went to a Greek
restaurant, "Opa!", after the Chicago fly fishing show, with Joel and
Margaret. We decided on a variety of appetizers rather than each ordering
an entree. It had been a couple years since I had dolmades so I figured,
what the hell, it was time to give them another try. They were GOOD!.

FF to last Saturday. Becky was in SoCal doing the Snowbird tourist thingy
and me and Cullen were wondering what to do with the day. He voted for
peeing on the shrubbery, chasing pikas, licking hi.......um.....well, never
mind about that. Sez I, do what you please, I'm cooking. But, what?
Hm......

Casting my mind back to near about the limits of my memory, I stumbled
upon......yeah, you got it.

So, off I go to the local Greek market. Spent a wonderful hour chatting up
the proprietors.....well, actually, the FORMER proprietors......father and
mother of the current proprietor, a pleasant young chap who loves to cook
and whom I'd spoken with in the past when purchasing that unpronounceable
cheese used for making saganaki (the flaming is bull****, quoth he,.....all
show.....no real point to it). He wasn't there.....they were. Anyway, I
inform the lovely couple (in fits and starts between various conversational
digressions) that I want to make dolmades. We consult her memory (in fits
and starts and broken English) and a couple of cookbooks. Cutting to the
quick, I left the store with a new cookbook, a big jar of grape leaves and
sundry other goodies that looked lonely sitting on the shelves, and a
warning to be careful of the ice in the parking lot.....they'd told the
landlord (the owner of the strip mall) that it was dangerous but he hadn't
done anything about it yet. O.k., sez I, and walks out the door and
promptly fall on my ass. Ouch. ALWAYS listen to old people......how do you
think they GOT that way?

The cookbook and a rapidly fading memory of the recent conversation
conspired to make my head spin. I went online......and found this!
(first hit on Google):

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/e...vgolomeno.html

I am constitutionally incapable of leaving a recipe alone.....a recipe
molester, if you will. I used fresh mint. I left out the butter (but
coated the bottom of the pan with about a tablespoon.....maybe....of olive
oil.....I mean, NOBODY actually measures that sort of thing......right?. I
added a quarter cup of finely chopped toasted pine nuts. I did not measure
the lemon juice either for the dolmades or the sauce......I simply used all
the juice of a medium lemon for each. I rolled the mixture into a cylinder
about the diameter of a standard hot dog weenie and about an inch and a half
long ....on average. Grape leaves vary in size.....the size of your mini
sausages should vary to suit. Be gentle. The mixture should be very moist
and loose.....you can't treat it like plain ground meat.....I used ground
chuck, by the way.......um......the beef kind.....not the librarian. I used
a 14 ounce can of Swanson's chicken broth (fresh out of home made, drat the
luck!) and maybe a cup or so of water for the cooking.....just enough to
cover. Two tablespoons of corn starch for the sauce.

This recipe makes about 40 dolmades.....just four or five too many to fit in
a single layer in my 10 inch sauté pan. The extras went on top, in a second
layer. Made no difference.

Indescribably tasty! I ate as many as I could....maybe ten or so....with
bread and cheese. I went to Jay's house to play woodshop the next day and
took a dozen or so. He says they're the best he's ever had. Me and Becky
ate the remainder for supper when she got home on Monday.

The next batch should be ready in......hm.....let's see.....oh, about 23
minutes!

Bon Apetit!

Wolfgang