Cooking & cars run in my family

Yanoulis Restaurant

I just converted this photograph to a digital file. It was taken in the early 1950’s, of my maternal grandfather, Emanuel Yanoulis, and his family, at his restaurant on the east side of Detroit near the Chalmers Motors/Chrysler Jefferson Assembly plant in Detroit. So you see cooking & cars run in my family!

Starting from the top left is my Aunt Bess, who is my mom’s twin, my dad, Fred Dallas, my brothers, Ted and George and my Mom, Matina. In the middle is my cousin Nick, just under my Aunt Bess, then my Papou. Starting from the bottom left are my cousins, Victoria, and Evelyn, and my brother Mike.

Many Chrysler auto workers ate breakfast, lunch and/or dinner at my grandfather’s restaurant. Here’s a photo of a Chrysler Town & Country, which was a model they made at that time. Also, my father worked for Ford Motor in Dearborn for over 30 years. More evidence of cooking & cars.Chrysler Town & Country Newport CoupeLots of Greek and Detroit history in that family photo. And don’t you just luv this car?!!

Recipe of the week: Beet salad

Today I made a big salad for dinner based totally on an intuitive craving. It tasted great. Here’s what you’ll need to make it:
1 can of garbanzo beans – rinsed & drained
1 can of sliced beets – rinsed & drained
1 red onion – sliced
1/4 lb of feta cheese – crumbled
I used Mt Vikos sheep and goats milk blend.
1 head of boston leaf lettuce – rinsed & spun, then torn by hand
I used Mirabel hydroponic lettuce.
My Greek salad dressing
Mix, toss…
Delicious!
Enjoy!

Beet Salad
Beet Salad

2010 in review via WordPress

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 13 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 32 posts. There were 14 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was May 24th with 76 views. The most popular post that day was Gleek Retreat was truly a retreat….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were WordPress Dashboard, facebook.com, hootsuite.com, ht.ly, and stumbleupon.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for greek food, greek village, greece food, greek food photos, and greek pasta.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Gleek Retreat was truly a retreat… May 2010
6 comments

2

About me August 2009


3

Tourlou Tava – Baked Veggies September 2009


4

Koulourakia (Butter cookies) August 2009


5

Greek Recipe Books August 2009

Have you ever been to a Twitter Party?

I participated in my very first Twitter party on Tuesday, May 25th. It was intense. I had been to many #Tweetea events. So, I thought I would be a natural. OMG was I ever wrong. First of all it was totally virtual. And there were tough questions that were asked about hot topics on blogging. Also, there were several giveaways that participates could win by tweeting a specific #hashtag.

I signed up first on the Savvy Blogging website. Then they followed me back on Twitter.  At the time of the event I followed along via Tweet Grid / Tweet Chat. I couldn’t decide which one I preferred. 200 Bloggers participated. 30 or more tweets would be posted in response to a question or give-away simultaneously at any time. Try following a conversation of that volume and tweeting at the same time! Yikes! I thought my laptop was going to explode!

But I started to have fun when some friends I had met at GleekRetreat, who were also participating, noticed me via the #SavvyBlogger hashtag and started having side tweets with me. Then the giggle fest started. I relaxed and it all became easier.

If you have the chance to participate in a Twitter party, do it. It’s an experience you won’t forget.