Sofi's Aegean Kitchen: A Light Approach to Traditional Greek Home Cooking
Owner of Sofi, the Los Angeles restaurant, Konstantinides is a Greek-born former chemist for whom "food--choosing it, cooking it, and most of all savoring it--seems inextricably wound up in my life." Her book introduces a healthier version of the sometimes all-too-seductive fare of Greek habit. After explaining what ingredients should be kept on hand for the cooking (e.g., pre-made fyllo and puff pastry dough), Konstantinides extends a welcoming hand to the novice and the veteran in successive chapters surveying appetizers (taramosalata, dolmathes), soup, seafood, meats, vegetables and desserts. An additional chapter is devoted to pies using fyllo, from those including artichoke hearts and cheeses or shrimp to the traditional galatopita, or milk pie, which is sweetish. Recipes try to keep oil and butter down without butting out what is most Greek. Mostly, they succeed. A small complaint: italic type, hard to read, visits the pages in the author's reminiscences and recipe introductions.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.