Tis Better to Have Tried and Failed

In my ongoing efforts to promote and preserve the Greek culture within my family I am increasingly preparing traditional dishes. For example, yesterday on a frigid Utah winter night, the boys requested avgolemono soupa - egg lemon soup.

 They're also big fans of my spanakopita - spinach pie.

Over the holidays I was quite ambitious. So I whipped up baklava, tyropitakia (cheese triangles), and koulourakia (braided cookies.)

Part of the fun of making these specialties is passing on the know-how to my kids. Niko is especially interested in helping me cook and learning how the various dishes are made. Last night, for example, he squeezed the lemons, and poured the egg / lemon mixture into the soup - even making the sucking sounds to make sure it doesn't curdle, just like my Theia Sophie taught me.

Making koulourakia took me back to my childhood. I had the boys feel, smell and taste a bit of the dough just as Yia yia had had me do so I knew it was "right." Like me, their favorite part was the raw cookie dough.

But sometimes, my ambition is greater than my talent. This year I tried to make loukoumades from scratch. These honey-drenched Greek "doughnut holes" are traditionally eaten as the clock strikes midnight on New Years. Tradition holds that this sweet as your first taste of the New Year brings sweetness the whole year long.

Now, usually I grab a box from one of the local Mediterranean delis, add water, drop some batter from a spoon into the oil, and deep fry. But for some reason I just never picked a box up. The recipe I had from my yia yia seemed way too complicated. So I asked my cousin Yvonne for a recipe and set to work.

Sometimes I forget: Greek cooking is not successfully executed simply by following a recipe. The cuisine is riddled with nuances.  So when my dough didn't "seem" right, I texted my cousin Joanne. She taught home ec; she'd know what was wrong. Just from the description she diagnosed the batter as being too thin, it needed to be more gooey.

Yes, I realize that being told "it needs to be more gooey" via text would probably not cut it on Top Chef but it made perfect sense to me: I added more flour.

Yeah, that's what they're supposed to look like, but something wasn't right about mine.

Mine looked less like festive holiday balls and more like protozoa.

That didn't stop the boys from enjoying them. And I remembered a valuable culinary lesson. My koulourakia are "perfect" because I started making them at my yia yia's side when I was 6. I've been making baklava, tyropita, and spanakopita for 30-some years. That skill didn't come over night; it took years of practice - honing my abilities and enduring some spectacular flops. Even that lemon soup the boys like so much is the result of trial and error.

The whole experience reminded me of something my mom always says, "You can't rush Greek food." But hey, at least I tried.