Yama’s Greek Eats | The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

Another week and another Hodgepodge. Thank you, Joyce!

1. When someone finds out what you do or where you’re from, what’s a question they always ask?

When I say Colville (pronounced Call-ville) people get a puzzled look on their face.

It seems most always I need to add…”It’s a small town in the Northeast corner of Washington State about 70 miles north of Spokane and about 35 miles from the Canadian border.

2. Did you participate in ‘Greek Life’ when you were in college, or have children who did? If so what was your experience like? Taking another tack…have you ever been to Greece? If not, is that a destination on your bucket list?

My answer is no to all the above. Growing up with immigrant parents who escaped communism made my parents and us in turn skeptical of many organizations and we saw them as unnecessary in our lives.

Greece would be a very interesting place to visit, especially for the Biblical history there, but it is not on my bucket list.

3. Do you like Greek food? If so what’s your favorite dish?

Photo above from a great Greek restaurant in Walla Walla that our family enjoyed a while back.

Yes, I do enjoy Greek food. We just enjoyed home made Gyros at Dan and Jamie’s to celebrate Josh and Laura’s 24th Anniversary. Home made gyro meat, home made pita bread, home made tzatziki. It was all delicious.

4. What incredibly common thing have you never done?

I don’t believe that I’ve ever fished or if I have I’ve totally forgotten it.

I’ve been to ‘Fishing’ parties and played fishing games.

5. What is a telltale sign that you’re upset?

My hands will start shaking more than usual or my voice will be shaky.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Here’s another great Summer salad.

Greek Salad
Ingredients:

1 cup cucumber chopped
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup canned chickpeas (garbanzo), drained, rinsed.
1/4 cup Kalamata olives, pitted, sliced
1/4 cup scallions, sliced (you can substitute red onion here)
1/4 cup coarsely chopped parsley
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic minced
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
2-3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons fresh mint, chopped

Method:

Combine the cucumbers, tomatoes, chickpeas, olives, scallions, and parsley in a large bowl.
Whisk together lemon juice, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper for the vinaigrette in a bowl.
Drizzle olive oil into lemon juice mixture in a steady stream while whisking, after it emulsifies stir in mint and adjust seasonings to taste.
Pour over the combined ingredients and mix well.

Double the recipe if you are serving this as a main dish. This recipe would serve 2 as a main dish.
As a side it serves 4-6 people.
I used the whole English Cucumber for the salad pictured above which was probably 2 cups or more of the cucumber.

We made plans months ago for an early celebration with our family of ten in Walla Walla for Greg and my 50th wedding anniversary. Our actual anniversary is on December 6th but getting the ten of us together that time of year can be difficult. We decided on Walla Walla which was a place none of us had been to before. Laura researched the areas Airbnb options and we looked at a couple possibilities and decided on the Italian Villa. We locked in our dates that were good for each family unit and started making plans. On Saturday the 29th of June our four vehicles had driven equal distances from the northeast of Washington and the Western Puget Sound area of Washington to arrive here.

When Greg and I arrived at four we were in for a special surprise from our kids.

Who are those young kids!?

Dan’s macarons arranged in the numerals to celebrate our 50 years!

Laura retrieved photos from each of our kids’ weddings to add to ours for this special memorial photo collage. This is the message included in the photo collage…

They also had t-shirts made for us. All these things were a fun surprise and great beginning for our time together.

Thank you to all our kids for how you love and honor us!!

We all had our own bedrooms and each couple had their own bathroom. Not too shabby. Plenty of room for all of us to spread out.

We got settled and then got ready for dinner out at Yama’s Greek Eats in downtown Walla Walla. This would end up being our family favorite out of three restaurants we ate at. If you find yourself in Walla Walla eat here!