Artichokes and Village Greens

Book excerpt: A handbook for Greek home-style cooking, Artichokes and Village Greens is a treasure trove of vegetarian recipes from home-cook Fofi Gourlas. Showcasing a variety of Greek dishes from spanakopita, horiatiki salata and soupa avgolemono, to traditional Greek biscuits, sweets, cakes and deserts, these recipes encourage readers to experiment with traditional cooking techniques. Family and community is the common thread that holds these 72-vegtable-focused recipes together. The importance of sharing food, of handing down recipes through generations of family and friends, is paramount to Gourlas, who learned to cook in her mother's home kitchen. She describes the book as her way of "honouring the wealth of tradition that has been passed down to me through cooking and sharing food and is a means of preserving my Greek heritage.