Whole fish “La Rosetta”

This dish is my attempt to reverse engineer a recipe from the La Rosetta restaurant in Rome. Saal and I went there for the first time in 2008 on a recommendation from my friend Luben Dimcheff, and it was one of those meals you remember. We went back with Luben and my parents in September…

Banitza – a Bulgarian classic

Banitza (also known as bоrek in Turkish, and tiropita in Greek) is a phyllo dough pastry with eggs,  feta cheese and lots of butter.  It is one of the few dishes that small kids and adults delight in equally.

Duck breast with lavender and honey

This recipe is something I recently reverse engineered from an old memory. In the distant summer of 2000 I visited my dear childhood friend Gergana in Narbonne – in the south of France, and she took me to a seasonal restaurant in middle of a vineyard called Le Souquet’s. I had magret de canard au…

Coq au vin

Slowly braised stews are my favorite kind of dish, and fall / winter is the season for them. Coq au vin is a French bistro classic. It is both homey and comforting, and at the same time sophisticated. Stews are best a day old. If serving at a dinner party – you can cook it…