Perfectionist cook

About Me

I live in a small town called Koufalia which is around 40km from Thessaloniki. I am Greek-Australian and moved to Greece permanently when I was 22 years old. I am an English Teacher and am married with two boys.

I have always loved cooking and I really like trying different flavours and cuisines. I am a devoted chocoholic, cheesecake and cupcake fanatic although I enjoy making savoury dishes as well.

I love reading and love Jane Austen and science fiction of all types.

My biggest peeve is that here on Recipezaar, a great number of recipes use canned, processed or packaged foods. While I appreciate the need for short cuts as much as any working mother, I am always disappointed when a promising recipe turns out to be a clever mix of tinned and pre-packaged products. Apart from the fact these are not available in most of Southern Europe, they are extremely unhealthy and contain all manner of preservatives and sugars. So I would encourage all novice chefs to cook from scratch as the flavours are unparalleled.

I would also like to note that I never leave a rating lower than 3 stars. If something doesn't work, I prefer to leave comments especially if I have had to make substitutions. So for me:

3 stars is a good recipe which may be easy to prepare or a variation made with some shortcuts. Enjoyable to eat but probably wouldn't make again unless tweaked.

4 stars for me is a really great recipe without any major changes. A solid recipe which I would remake happily.

5 stars is a fabulous recipe which I consider outstanding in its category. No changes needed, perfect as it is.

Anything I have rated 6 stars or more (in my comments) means something I will tell everybody about, definitely make at my next dinner party and force everyone to try no matter how conservative in their food tastes.