Greek Baklava Is My February Recipe

The recipe in my International Dessert Calendar for February is Baklava. I first tasted Baklava in Greektown in Detroit in 1968 at New Hellas Restaurant, one of my favorite restaurants. I went there with my dear, sweet friend, Georgia Fontrolakalas, a Canadian born Greek woman who married Steve Fontrolakalas, an American born Greek and then moved to the U.S.

She advised me to have the mousaka, which was awesome. My husband, Bill has recently perfected a mousaka in our crockpot which I defy anyone to beat. Anyway, back to Detroit. Georgia took a few of us from the office where we worked on Washington Boulevard to Greektown. We took a taxi, and it was such a wonderful experience. It was my first foray into Greektown, but far, far from the last. Bill and I have eaten there so many times since. Georgia advised us to have Saganaki – the famous flaming cheese all Greek restaurants in Detroit are famous for, followed by Greek salad with Greek bread, Mousaka, and then the wonderful baklava. We didn’t have any wine because we were on our lunch hour, but Georgia advised me to have Mavrodaphne – Mother’s Milk next time, which I did, and it is a fabulous wine – a sweet,red much like marsala. So we ate all that great food, and then we waddled back to work. A perfect meal!

Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of phyllo dough filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey. It is characteristic of the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and much of central and southwest Asia. It is a Greek favorite that makes everyone think you are a master chef and is so easy to make. We are so fortunate in our day and age because the phyllo dough for this recipe is found in the freezer section of most grocery stores. The original makers of the dish had to spend hours making the parchment thin pastry, but we just need to buy it and use it. The origins of Baklava are like the origins of most recipes that came from Old Countries to enrich our dinner tables in the United States. It is hard to trace it’s exact origin because every ethnic group whose ancestry goes back to the Middle East has a claim of their own on this scrumptious dessert.

At around the 8th century BC widely believed, that the Assyrians were the first people who put together a few layers of thin bread dough, with chopped nuts in between those layers, added some honey and baked it in their primitive wood burning ovens. This earliest known version of baklava was baked only on special occasions. Baklava was considered a food for the rich until mid-19th century. Even to this day in Turkey, one can hear a common expression often used by the poor, or even by the middle class, saying: "I am not rich enough to eat baklava every day".

Before the recipe reached Greece, Greek seamen and merchants traveling east to Mesopotamia discovered the delights of Baklava. They were so impressed, they brought the recipe to Athens. The Greeks' developed this pastry further by creating a dough technique that made it possible to roll it very thin, compared to the rough, bread-like texture of the Assyrian dough. In fact, the name "Phyllo" was coined by Greeks, which means "leaf" in the Greek language. The father in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” must be laughing at that fact.
In a relatively short time, in every kitchen of wealthy households in the region, trays of baklava were being baked for all kinds of special occasions from the 3rd Century B.C. onwards. The Armenians, as their Kingdom was located on ancient Spice and Silk Routes, integrated for the first time the cinnamon and cloves into the texture of baklava. The Arabs introduced rose-water and cardamom. The taste changed in subtle nuances as the recipe started crossing borders.
I know you will love it, and it is also very healthy, with no refined sugar in it at all. Be sure to order my International Dessert Birthday Calendar. It has 12 great recipes, and it useable year after year. Not only can you try some great desserts, but you can also keep track of important dates for your family and friends.
Check it out at http://www.annejantz.com

Australian Pavlova - January International Dessert Recipe

I've lived in Australia twice, the Lucky Land, as it's called by the Aussies. I consider myself extremely lucky to have lived there, for sure. Their signature dessert is called Pavlova, and trust me, I sampled it whenever and wherever it turned up. It is fabulous. The Aussies shorten many words in their Strine language, and Pavlova is no exception. It is affectionately called Pav.

We had a party going on one night in our apartment in Belmont, Victoria, Australia and there came a knock at the door connecting us to the landlord's apartment. I braced myself for a scolding because of of the noise we were making with our music and partying, but instead our landlady, a lovely older woman was standing on the other side of the door with a huge Pavlova. "I thought you might like a Pav for your party", she said with a huge smile. That's what I call loving your neighbor!

The legend goes that Pavlova was first created in 1925 by Chef Herbert Sachse of the Hotel Esplanade in Perth, Western Australia, to celebrate the visit of the great Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. The Pavlova is essentially a large meringue with a light, delicate, crisp crust and soft, sweet center. The variation on America meringue is the additon of white vinegar and cornflour which gives the insides a marshmallowy texture.

Pavlova is served with a crown of freshly whipped cream topped with a wide choice of toppings. The most traditional topping is passionfruit, but it is totally up to you what you want to use. Mangoes, strawberries, kiwifruit, bananas, papaya, you decide. Fresh fruit is the best,and canned or frozen also works well, but I also had it with chopped up chocolate mints, and that was also yummy. Even rhubarb can be used. All delicious. You can get the recipe on the Internet, or you can buy my International Dessert Recipe Calendar - Pavlova is just one of 12 decadent dessert in my calendar.
You can order your own copy on my website: http://www.annejantz.com.

Learning Languages

I just want to talk briefly about learning other languages. I tried to learn French when I was in Junior High. That was an unmitigated disaster. Our teacher had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and was a very able instructor, but I had a lot of trouble wrapping my voice around the language, and never got very far. I managed to transfer out to Spanish, and I did better then.

Later I took some German in college, and it was pretty good for me. Bill and I tried to join the Peace Corps right after I graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit. We went to Hemet, California for training in an agricultural project bound for India. I learned some Hindi at that time. Very interesting.

Language learning for me really started though when I went to live in Germany. That was the way to really learn a language, to be totally immersed in it. Next I moved to Sweden and began Swedish lessons. I actually got pretty good in Swedish, and could carry on a conversation after studying it for a year. I also took lessons in Dutch while we lived in The Netherlands.

I studied Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) for a month in London, England, and got a certificate. I later taught English to a darling Greek woman in Australia.

I am living in Arizona now, only 2 hours from Mexico, so I want to learn to speak Spanish. I have heard great things about the Rosetta Stone Method of learning, so that is what I intend to use.

I would like to offer some advice to anyone trying to learn to speak a language. Have you ever seen those posters that were all the rage for a while that were actually a picture, but all scrambled up, and you had to stare slightly past them and relax your eyes, and suddenly the image would materialize? Well, for me speaking another language is just like that. When another person is speaking to you, you need to relax and let the whole sentence roll past you. Don’t hang on each word for meaning, because it is possible to get the idea of what someone is saying without actually knowing every word they are saying in their language. Their body language is also very helpful. Speaking on the phone in another language is really difficult, because you don't get the benefits of body language from the person you are speaking with.

You just need to mix it up, make some errors, butcher the other language, make
a fool of yourself for a little while in order to get to fluency. It’s alright. Most people are totally thrilled that you are taking the trouble to learn their language. The only way you will get fluent is to speak, speak, speak and listen, listen, listen. I find that laughing at myself as I speak the language eases the situation - people often want to help you to correct you grammar and pronunciation, so if you are laughing and enjoying the experience, they are more likely to help out.

Speaking another language is a window into that culture. I wish I had the time to learn a lot of languages. I work for a German company, M&W Group, and I am surrounded by Germans at my job in Phoenix.I revel in it!

I encourage you to get out there and try!!!