Greece

I decided I would get more adventurous with my cooking and start trying  new dishes.  I'm going to work my way around the world to all the destinations I hope to visit someday.  I can do a little armchair traveling and expand my recipe collection at the same time. 
I spent the week trying to decide where to start.  Do I go in order of where I hope to visit or just go randomly.  My list kept changing of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to cook.  I was going to start in France since I've been to Paris and I know I want to go back and see the rest of France.  But, I always feel like French food is a bit heavy and must be paired with Red Wine.  We are having a bit of a heat wave in Seattle, that means in the 80's, and I can't imagine eating heavy food now.  Somehow I landed on Greece.  I've always wanted to see Greece.  The beautiful coast line, water, house, history, food.  What's not to love about it.  This is where I will start.

To get in the mood for diving into Greece, I started with some basic recipes.   Spanakopita, Greek salad and Greek Lemon cake.  The Greek salad was easy- Tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted red peppers, lettuce and feta cheese.  Most salads would have olives included but I detest olives.  (I would probably not make a good Greek resident).  I made a little vinaigrette with red wine vinegar and olive oil and poured over it.  Delicious.  The Spanakopita was fun to make.  I found a good recipe on Cooks Illustrated.  I made the spinach/Feta mixture and laid out the phyllo dough.  Phyllo is  a pain to work with because it is so delicate.  Brushed each layer with butter and the top layers have a thin layer of cheese between each.  That is so they don't fall off after you bake it.  Turned out pretty good.  The only thing I would change is I would put less lemon juice in the spinach mix.  It was a bit too much.

The lemon cake was just okay.  To me it taste like your typical lemon pound cake.  The cake has 6 eggs in it.  You beat the egg white to stiff peaks and then fold them in.  I would have expected it to be lighter.  I'm wondering if I didn't beat them enough.   
Next time, I have a recipe for a chicken pie and honey cake!  Yum.