Greeks Bearing Feta. And Fabric.

My mom, Barbara, aka World's Greatest Cook and honorary Greek, won a recipe contest!  We are so proud of her, but to those of us who have dined at her table, this is no big surprise. My mom can look into a near empty fridge and whip up something fabulous.  It was hardly fair for the other mere-mortals who competed. 

Having mastered many Italian and Greek Delights, Mom even took some Cordon Bleu classes back in the day.   While other kids were eating sloppy joes and mac n cheese and fish sticks - the Karounos kids were dining on homemade Chicken Kiev.  In the 70s ok?  You couldn't drive over to the warehouse club and get them frozen back then.  That is unless you were driving Michael J. Fox's Delorean and time traveled forward a couple decades to Costco. But then you would have had to have known about a movie that hadn't been made yet and it all gets very Mobius Strip-y and circular and self-reflexive and none of that has anything to do with Chicken Kiev.  Look.  The point is Mom was ahead of her time cuisine-wise and we ate really well, ok?

Anyway, (try to focus here, will you people?) there were over 100 entries -- the winner is pictured above and looking cute as a button in her red capri pants, wearing the glasses we gave her for Mother's Day. She was awarded a gift certificate AND..................wait for it.......her Athenian Pasta recipe added to the menu!

The chef added shrimp to Mom's recipe, but for those of you looking for a great vegetarian dish, especially during Lent, here's her original formula for Athenian Pasta.

1 lb. angel hair pasta (prepare in pot as directed on package)

Use a large frying pan to prepare the following ingredients:

1 Pkg (10 oz) ready to use (cut and clean) fresh spinach

1 lge can of petite diced tomatoes incl. liquid

1/2 cup crumbled Feta cheese

2 tbsp. grated Romano cheese

1/4 cup pitted Calamata olives (for that unique touch)

2 small cloves of crushed garlic

salt, pepper and basil, olive oil

Sauté garlic in olive oil, add pkg. of fresh spinach and cook until limp (drain some of the liquid from frying pan)

Add diced tomatoes to pan and stir to mix

Lightly salt to taste, pepper, sprinkle basil and grated cheese over mixture

Cook down (about 15 minutes), then add Feta cheese, Romano cheese & quartered (pitted) Calamata olives

Stir, leaving feta not completely melted

Add mixture to cooked pasta and blend

Serve with more feta and Romano sprinkled over pasta and spinach mixture

Ok, now that your tummies are full, how about a feast for the eyes?  Something to satisfy your creative hunger?  And this second course is still in keeping with the Greek theme - some hot mezes, if you will.  Heck, this is like saganaki hot, only without the cheese. Or the singed hair.

Vintage Cate, or YiaYia Katina (did I translate that correctly?), that nice Greek girl over at A Charmed Life (also Features Editor at Cloth Paper Scissors and author Mixed Media Self-Portraits and a whole bunch of other impressive stuff) is giving away some delicious fabrics. And you thought we only gave wooden horses. 

Just follow the link and comment.  It's a win-win: you get a chance at the yummy fabrics and I won't be in deep ca ca.  Make sure you tell her I sent you or it won't count and she'll think up some way to (ahem) repay me.  

Kali orexi!

 

Beezle Adoption Center Now Open!

Etsy shop has Beezles.  

You can click on the little Etsy badge in the right margin.

What?  Stop looking at me like that.  They'll go to a good home.

Dinos may be extinct, but they never go out of style

My mother-in-law, Carol, made a quilt for her dear friend Betty's grand-baby. All of her friends at My Quilt Shoppe in Hendersonville loved the carnivorous quilt.  In fact, they are going feature it on their website. But I scooped them and posted it here first.  (I am married to her only son and the mother of her grandchickens so technically I have that right.)  

The quilt, that I saw in various states of doneness, turned out fantastic. Grandma Carol sure is a whiz on that Bernina.  And look at the colors from the wonderful Moda Fabrics!

Here it is on the clothesline at her cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.

Hard to tell from the pictures, but the teeth really jump out at ya. (What is it with Praters and teeth?)

Carol has sewn so many wonderful things for the boys over the years, their first snowsuits that made them look like white quilted starfish, duvet covers for their nursery, she even made Christening gowns with little Scandinavian sailor hats for them from the train of my wedding dress.  But the most beloved of all handmade things would have to be the boys' dinosaur Halloween costumes when they were three years old.

The above photos are scanned from my scrapbook. I hand-tinted the photos using oils and Qtips.  Real high-tech. The tails were stuffed.  Connor, who was dino-obsessed, wore it for years, until he couldn't fit into it anymore.  Yes I still have the dino suits in a bin upstairs, no I won't ever get rid of them.

Here we are in front of our house in Homewood with Nana.

Reesie with our dear Winona in the background.

Jonah's Beezle

This blue Beezle is for Jonah, who is scheduled to be born into this world sometime in April. 

  

Tiffany Blue & Zombies Too

I wish I had taken a picture of Tiffany (above) next to Giselle for scale, but Tiffany is at her new home now so it's too late.  I'll just have to live with that regret and you will have to live with my whining about it.  

You would have seen, had I the foresight, patience, and photographic talent, that Tiffany is actually less than half the size of her Beezles ancestors.  She stands about 4.5" tall while the others are 11 to 15" each once mounted.

I thought, in my giddy Sculpey-stupor, that somehow smaller would be quicker and easier and more fun. Uh-doy. But did turn out really cute.

The other big diff is that instead of being mounted on a block she's standing on a mound of clay. Kinda like it.

Here's what I don't like: The new American Idol format.  Excruciating.  Why oh why did they have to mess with the formula?  Anyone?

And finally, here's something that I'm not sure if I'll love or hate, but it's one of two extremes seeing as it's the long awaited union of my two great loves: Austen and Sci Fi.

Darcy vs The Undead.  

Really.

Breeding Beezles

Vivian and Shelby

Vivian has a wool scarf.

Mary Janes were by request.

Happy Deb?

Shelby - a two piece ensemble.