Sometimes a food memory inspires me to make something. Like a faint recollection of having an authentic Greek salad in a hillside outdoor cafe in Santorini. It was perfect paired with a crisp white wine from Greece, and while I don’t recall much else from the day – we were with good friends, we lingered an watched the scenery, and perhaps shopped a bit – that food memory has stuck with me. Just like the first pizza I had in Siena, or the asado in the mountains in Argentina, or the truffle dinner at Daniel in New York for a special company recognition dinner I earned a million years ago. If you are truly a foodie, these become classic food memories that carry us back in time and across space. And so, I couldn’t have been more enthusiastic when one of the kids in my Cooking Matters class asked that we make a Greek salad for our week featuring vegetables. I was too busy teaching to photograph much, but let me just say that I and everyone else in the class loved this. Hope you do too!
Greek Salad
Serves 81/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 lemon, juiced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1/2 small red onion, sliced thin
1 cucumber, seeded and diced
8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup sliced Kalamata olives (I left these out because I’m not a fan, but they’d certainly be in a classic Greek recipe)
salt and pepper, to tasteMix oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic and oregano together in a small covered container and shake well to combine. Toss all of the vegetables together with the feta cheese and dressing in a large bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper.