George Molho - Greek Coffee - GEORGEMOLHO.com

Coming Soon: The recipes for Spanakoriso, spinach-rice—Loukoumades, Greek donuts—and for the cold and flu season my mother’s recipe for Avgolemono: a simple Greek soup of chicken broth with orzo and chicken. This soup is made special by the last minute addition of lemon juice for sharpness and eggs, which enrich and thicken the broth. Homemade penicillin without the bad taste and all the warmth of a mother’s love.

A Cup Reading…. Seeing the Future

Directions for Preparing Coffee

Before Starbucks brewed its initial café latte the first coffee houses in the world opened their doors to gossip, beauty, intrigue, and psychics in 1475 in the ex-capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople.

The ancient art of reading the coffee grounds in order to see beyond the vale of reality and uncover the mysteries of fate has been performed a thousand times to tell the tale of a thousand lives. You will need:

A small, white, glazed 2-oz. demitasse coffee cup, preferably trimmed with a golden rim and adorned with reverent angels trumpeting jubilant praise.

One demitasse of fresh water per person.

One rounded teaspoon per person of refined powderized Hellenic coffee--a dark aromatic blend from the hilltops of green meadow glens. My personal favorite is the aluminum foil bag of Bravo like the one on my grandmother’s shelf next to the copper molding of a red snapper. (You can substitute Turkish coffee instead, but I would not mention that trivial fact to any self-respecting Greek.)

One teaspoon of Imperial cane sugar. It resides in a clay-molded bowl with a ruby red top and an inscription that reads, “Sugar, a Mother’s Love.” For those with a sweet tooth and a distaste for bitter buds in their life, I recommend two to two-and-a-half teaspoons per person.

One briki or open-face, narrow-necked stainless steel coffee pot.

Mix your ingredients together thoroughly. Stir and meditate over your heart’s desire. Place the pot on the stove and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat as coffee boils to the top and pour your potion into its temporary clay home.

While you look at the dark brew of thick-colored foam crème, visualize your intentions and allow yourself to be open to the answers that will follow.

Caution: Drink this molten liquid slowly. Imagine imbibing in your lover’s essence, savoring its radiant warmth. Downing this mythological leaded draft can inspire a maelstrom of emotions. Take heed: this sweet magical elixir will run roughshod through your waking dreams and furtive hopes. It will become the catalyst for your transformation, casting you as a brother to bedlam or a father of incriminating thoughts or a child of newborn dreams.

Olive Oil

“Olive Oil, amongst its other attributes, was also regarded as an aphrodisiac hence the old Greek adage. ‘Fage lathi kai ella vrathi.’ Roughly translated in a suggestive, seductive manner it means, “Eat olive oil and bring it on all night.”

Periodically, throughout the site, helpful hints are added to help in acclimatizing your senses to our Greek customs, dramatic hand gestures, superstitions, and explanations of our non-verbal signs (which communicate 99% of our intentions) and lastly, the rules of etiquette on to behave when one is sick. Isn't it time you discovered the Greek in You?

Whenever visiting a Greek family like mine, remember these simple rules:

Rules of the house. We are compulsively neat, obsessively clean; we Clorox and bleach everything—ourselves as well as our pets. Greeks are amiable, open, big hearted, and tight-knit and solve all problems whether they are headaches, ulcers, impotence, or apathy with hot plates of food.