Flores - First we eat: good food for simple gatherings from my Pacific Northwest kitchen

Editor: Laura Dozier
Designer: Danielle Young
Production Manager: Kathleen Gaffney

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017944947

ISBN: 978-1-4197-2896-9
eISBN: 978-1-68335-224-2

Text and images 2018 Eva Kosmas Flores
Cover 2018 Abrams

The material contained in this book is presented only for informational and artistic purposes. If you eat mushrooms or other plants that you may find, you are doing so at your own risk. The author has made every effort to provide well-researched, sufficient, and up-to-date information; however, we also urge caution in the use of this information. The publisher and author accept no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions, or misrepresentations, expressed or implied, contained herein, or for any accidents, harmful reactions, or any other specific reactions, injuries, loss, legal consequences, or incidental or consequential damages suffered or incurred by any reader of this book. Readers should seek health and safety advice from physicians and safety professionals.

Published in 2018 by Abrams, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
RUMI

For my parents, for Jeremy, and for the readers of Adventures in Cooking

You dont have to cook fancy or complicated masterpiecesjust good food from fresh ingredients.
JULIA CHILD

In this book, I am going to tell you a story. Its the story of one year in my kitchen, as well as all the years leading up to it. At its heart, this is a story about eating. I know you are here because you love to eat, but that love goes deeper than just the act of eating. You want to do more than eat; you want to cook, tootransforming ingredients from individual shapes and tastes into deeply flavorful, cohesive dishes. The metamorphosis of ingredients through cooking is the closest thing we have to real, live magic. But good food doesnt require page-long ingredient lists, complex cooking techniques, or fancy far-away componentsthe best food comes from the simplest recipes with the freshest ingredients. Im so excited to share my story with you and to show you how using seasonal, fresh ingredients can transform not just the way you cook and eat but also the way you live.

In this tale of food, I am also telling you the story of my familyone rich with baklava, kopanisti, perfectionism, and octopus tendrils wrapped around my yiayias tomato sauce. I was raised in a household where home-cooked food was the norm. This was, in part, because my parents owned and operated a Greek deli in Portland, Oregon, for more than thirty years. My father is from a small island called Aegina, where his father, my papou, started as a shoemaker and eventually became a landowner and pistachio farmer. My yiayia helped tend the farm and raised eight children in a two-room house with no running water. Grit, determination, and an overall sense of sassiness are important traits in Greek people, and thats very evident in my family. While my mother is not Greek, she completely embraced the Greek culture upon marrying my father. And, with her being one hell of a cook, the Greek culture embraced her back. My mother is the warmest person you will ever meet, and her cooking reflects that. She worked full-time at the deli while we were growing up but still made dinner from scratch every single day. Some of my earliest memories are of her pulling up a chair to let me stand in front of the stove so I could reach the pot. I loved helping her stir, and when she started to let me sprinkle in seasonings, I was over the moon. The way a pinch of something could completely transform the flavor of a dish seemed magical to me. I was hooked.

Both my parents are avid gardeners, and I was lucky to be able to eat fresh produce from our yard year-round. They used the tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden for the Greek salads at the deli, before farm to table was a blip on the trend radar. They also had a giant compost heap in the backyard that consisted of rotting old bits of vegetables and plants, which our neighbors didnt really understand. When my father wasnt working at the deli, he would usually be out in the garden, and Id teeter my tiny self out to spend time with him. The more time I spent with him out there, the more I learned about gardening, and the more fascinated I became. I was amazed that a little seed smaller than a ladybug could give you dozens of pounds of tomatoes in a matter of months, and all you had to do was place it in soil and give it water. This was the beginning of another addiction that would see me through ripping out the entire front lawn of my first home and filling it with tomato plants. Again, the neighbors didnt really understand.

Along with being in the kitchen with my mother and in the garden with my father, I also spent a lot of time with both of them at the deli. My parents didnt really trust day care, so I spent my time outside of school playing and lending a hand at the business. I started helping out with small things at the restaurant, like cleaning tables, and eventually began lending a hand with prep work.

My father was, and still is, a perfectionist with food. He borders on OCD when it comes to the correct way to cut a cucumber. He had to make the same dishes again and again for the restaurant, so being consistent and exact was very important. From him, I learned the art of precision. My mother, though, had a style that was much more relaxed, and she would make up our dinners based on what we had from the garden and what she felt like preparing. Her cooking style was much more adventurous, which inspired me to try preparing new foods as I grew older and started cooking on my own.

It stayed that way for a long time, with me helping at the deli on weekends and during school breaks, watching my mom whip up delicious meals in our kitchen at home, and lending a hand in the garden. And then, at the age of fifteen, I picked up my first film camera, and another addiction began. I loved to chronicle everything through my photos, and that led me to pursue filmmaking at university.

I graduated from college in 2009 at the height of the recession and had no idea if Id ever find a job. This was the period of my life I like to refer to as the unemployment tango. Going from working three jobs and being a full-time student to struggling to find gainful employment of any kind was a bit of a shock to my work-loving ethos. So, with a lot of extra time on my hands, I poured myself into what I loved mostcooking. I started cooking all the time, making whatever I could with the meager grocery budget I had. And thats when I started my blog. I didnt do it because I wanted to showcase my photography. (You can look at old photos as proof. I shot shrimp at nighttime using flash! It was terrible.) I didnt do it because I wanted to find a way to make money. (Sponsored posts werent a thing back then.) I did it because I loved food and wanted to share that love with as many people as possible. And I still do.