Greek cooking lesson

The best kept secret at the Rodos Palladium Hotel is the weekly Monday cooking lesson by the tall, handsome and talented Athanasios Kotsis, known as Thanasis.  He is Executive Chef here and he is generous enough with his time that he gives a weekly cooking lesson, which is badly advertised, and I only got to hear of it as I had asked Thanasis during the week is I could possibly have the recipe for the wonderful and tasty melitzanosalata/ eggplant salad.  At 11:00 am about 8 from the bridge group, plus an Isareli lady attended the class and we all had a wonderful time.

Chef Thanasis.  He was born in Melbourne but his parents returned to Greece when he was six years old.  He has travelled world-wide as a chef and his knowledge of food preparation is vast.  It was a real pleasure to attend one of his classes.

All the eager cooks.

The lesson in progress.  We learned the recipe for Greek eggplant salad, tsatsiki and dakos.  But  the lesson contained much more than that.  Thanasis told us about the Greek diet, we learned that tomatoes can be grated as well as chopped and we were all in awe of his fine chopping technique.

Aubergines cooked two different ways.  In the oven as well as char-grilled on the barbecue for that lovely smoky flavour.  I also did not know that the eggplant should be pricked all over before cooking.

The end product.  It tasted as good as it looks.

ur numbers had reduced to five by the time we sat down to eat Thanasis' lunch as the other unfortunate ladies had to leave to attend an over eight lunch.  That is an exclusive lunch for those that have attended more than eight of Mike and Carol's Diamond bridge holidays.  Eight is a lifetime away for someone from Australia.





We all enjoyed the cooking lesson and our grateful thanks to our chef.  He obviously enjoys cooking, teaching and talking about his country's habits and cooking and eating practices.  We learned a great deal about what Greeks eat at home, their likes and dislikes.  And it all tasted very good too.