New York a la Cart by Alexandra Penfold and Shiobhan Wallace

... so, to cut a long story short, my friends told me that anything they eat back home is GMO, and it's actually really hard to find non-GMO food where they live, and even when they do find it, it costs a lot of money. (They recall eating a nice peach once, I was told, for US$2. A piece. They shared it.) So it's a misnomer to talk about the 'best' food back there, because most food is kind of not-so-good, in the sense that we talk about good food here in Crete (they said to me), where you eat a tomato that you can actually taste, or squeeze a lemon that you can smell, or cut open a watermelon that is as red as wine and not as pink as chewing gum, and the herbs used to flavour your meat come from the same locality where the meat was raised. (They haven't taken a bath since they've been here, so as not to lose the aromas of wild thyme, oregano and sea salt from their body.)

New York street food in my kitchen.

Good food over there is not the same as good food over here, they insisted, while their children were asking why there weren't any Doritos on the table, or why there was no cilantro available in the stores, and why they couldn't get a super duper triple-size glass of soda instead of all those little bottles that the waitress was bringing them every fifteen minutes. (Size matters over there.)

Confined work spaces are the norm in a street food cart - my kitchen does not feel much different at times.

But there is good food there too, they insisted, and the people who sell it on the street from their carts compete to make it the best. These same people who live quite far removed from the tomatoes that taste like tomatoes and the lemons that smell like lemons share the same passion for preparing good food as those who live near the tasty tomatoes and aromatic lemons, and that's why street food is revered there, not just for its superlative taste, but for the passionate souls who prepare it for the other hungry souls in the city.

And just like any good food makers, those people on the streets of New York all have a story to tell. My friends know how much I love a good food story, so they bought me one that combines travel with food in their own home town: New York a la Cart by Alexandra Penfold and Shiobhan Wallace. Food stories in new York are not difficult to find since most food cart vendors there have immigrant origins, as they "have found the promise of a better life in street vending, bringing a bit fo the old country to the New World... A city of old and new immigrants, New York offers unparalleled dining diversity... behind every cart and every truck were the hoped and dreams of a fellow New Yorker by birth of by choice."

The stories of the cart vendors reminded me of my own parents' dreams of a better life as immigrants to New Zealand - they too were involved in the food industry: they were part of a tradition that many immigrants anywhere still follow to this day: "using food vending as a means to make a living and a stepping stone to success." Greek immigrants of the past were some of the champs in this trade, and even New York knows this well: "New York and its palate saw another rapid change when the 1965 - the same period my parents emigrated - Immigration Act opened borders.. Greeks opened carts selling guros and souvlaki, grilled chicken and lamb pita sandwiches; with time, they came to own the majority of the working food carts. Their success allowed them to employ other immigrants to actually man the carts." This illustrates a very significant element of the Greek psyche - Greeks generally want to be their own boss. This partly explains why Greece has always had a disproportionately high rate of self-employment, and this will probably continue, despite the economic problems of the country.

If Crete doesn't stock it, then I have to make it - wonton wrappers.

I would love to be a street food vendor because it would bring my food directly in close contact to the people who would be eating it. But street vending is associated with a great many problems which are similar all over the world: competition for the best spot, over-regulation by the state, vendor crackdowns, parking problems, legal trappings, and the biggest problem of all: harassment of all kinds, especially old timers and thugs. Being a female street food vendor can't be easy either, as noted by one of the NY ice-cream vendors. If I could open a food cart in Hania, I would also face another problem: selling unusual food to not-so-enticed eaters. I wouldn't be selling Greek food: I'd be selling things I want to see being sold, like Asian spring rolls. Street food here is not an art form: apart from koulouri, chestnut and corn stands, we don't have much more. Recently I noticed a drinks seller - that's a direct effect of the economic crisis.

Rolling up the Taiwanese dumplings - they looked more like spring rolls to me: this is explained by the fact that the person making them in the NT cart also makes Japanese dumplings which are similar - and that is all explained by the influence of Japanese culture in Taiwan.

New York a la Cart is a must-read for those who love to hear the stories behind the food. It also contains so many enticing photos, and the recipes given are quick, easy and cheap to make, otherwise such wouldn't be a sell out on the street, no matter which place they were being sold. We had some pieces of leftover boiled lamb meat from a village feast; using some bits and pieces of our own vegetable harvests, I was able to make a really good version of Taiwanese dumplings. I used boiled lamb instead of pork mince, and grated zucchini instead of cabbage (cabbage in Hania in the summer is imported from the mainland - it's still too hot to grow it in Crete which explains why it has disappeared from the street market at the moment).

Food cart workers work in very confined spaces - my kitchen does not feel much bigger most of the time. But I still managed to find some space to roll out some wonton wrappers, as the recipe states. We don't have wonton wrappers ready to buy in Crete - we do have filo pastry squares, but since I never buy them (and I do often think of the expense in doing so), I always roll out my own pastry. The instructions in the recipe provided me with a good tip for future dumpling/spring roll making: don't seal the roll/dumpling too tightly. The given recipe also stated to place some water in the pan after frying the dumplings (well, they looked more like spring rolls to me) to let them steam in it for 5 minutes. But this is very not-Greek (boiling pastry after it has fried), so I just served them pan-fried. They were a complete hit; we have also become big fans of hot sauce with our international cuisine, after so many travel experiences.

It's a great feeling to know that I can copy any recipe from around the world in my own home. 

Thank you very much, Deby. 

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Paper knowledge (Χάρτινες γνώσεις)

I felt pangs of envy as I eyed my London hosts' bookshelves. They were full of books that I couldn't dream of touching, let alone afford: arty, hard-backed, specialist books that we often like to browse through. My friends don't own e-book readers. They still use the less sustainable form of the printed word. Even more eye-opening was the fact that throughout my train journeys in London, I did not encounter a single person using an e-book reader. Those that were not reading their text messages on their cellphones were reading tangible paper, mostly a free newspaper or a real book. In fact, the book looked like a status symbol: the harder the cover, the higher your status. My e-book reader makes me look poor (and indeed, this is why I bought it in the first place - to get cheap access to reading material in the English language).

Over time, I've convinced myself that I don't really need to buy many paper books now that I have an e-book reader; there's always the internet where we can read whatever we want, convert it to a PDF file and read that on our reader too. It's the same stuff that's in the expensive books that I can't really afford to buy. But the touch of a book does not have the same appeal as an e-book reader - real paper has a luxurious feel to it these days.

Among the many titles I found on my friends' bookshelves were also a host of cookery books. I spotted the hard-back copy of Plenty on their shelves, which I'd bought as an e-book for £2.49. "It's really good, isn't it?" they said, and I nodded half-heartedly, although I wondered where they found the time to cook anything from it since they spend very long hours away from home, working and chasing up hobbies, which means very little time to spare for cooking up a fresh Ottolenghi. I also suppose they didn't pick up on the bloopers: "Use Greek black olives of the dry wrinkled variety. Having matured longer on the tree, they are saltier and more robust in flavour." (Black wrinkled olives are saltier because they have had salt added to them to cure them...) The photographs in the book do not jump out of my e-book screen, but the recipes are just as clearly written.

As if their real books were not enough, they had a whole lot of other books lying around the house that were borrowed from the local public library, recent titles containing the latest word so to speak on various topics - and a good number of those books were also food-based. I felt like all my Christmasses had come at once: I had a week to gorge on two science books and four food books! Here are some speed reviews of these titles. The prices are all for the Kindle version of the books (except the first which is only available in paper form).

Home at 7, Dinner at 8. £9.59 Flipping through the book, I noticed a range of enticing meals that relied on a wide range of ingredients. Some of them could be considered exotic, but as the writer explains: "... cooking isn't about getting worried that you are missing a certain ingredient or you can't find what you need in the supermarket. Just go with what you have and take it easy..." But some of the ingredients used need to be have been prepared beforehand or bought in a processed form, eg boiled beetroot and canned beans, neither of which can be used in their natural form in a 'quick' meal. The recipes all stated the preparation time needed to prepare them, and the point of the book was to show how you could cook a meal with a gourmet look very quickly, much in the same way as Jamie Oliver's (in)famous 15- and 30-minute recipes.

My opinion: The time factor in a meal doesn't concern me so much these days, as I find it very easy to prepare a meal in little time. There are many ways of economising on time without scrimping on quality. The appealing photos in this book didn't always remind me of meals that would be enjoyed by the whole family: combinations such as beetroot and broad beans, or tuna with grapefruit and chili are probably a little too avant garde for young eaters. Admittedly, a home-by-7 schedule doesn't often connote a family life... Some recipes stated suspiciously short cooking times for meat dishes, something I've always avoided due to the health issues involved in this kind of cooking style (Jamie Oliver really has a gall to produce such books and then state in an interview that he is getting involved in slow food, and no, he says, he didn't consciously build an empire). In short, the paper book didn't give me any more inspiration to cook better meals than I am already cooking.

The Hairy Dieters. £6.65 This is a spin-off book from a TV series featuring The Hairy Bikers and their comfort food. They have produced a number of books all containing twists on favorite stodgy British recipes (all downed with alcohol of course), from curries to pies to baking. Their latest book - featuring photos of their slimmed-down selves - relies on calorie-counted recipes and tips for how not to over-indulge (including going alcohol-free), topped up by some quirky use of innuendos, like "Pack your lunch box with the ingredients a topless sandwich... That way, your topless sarnie doesn't get a soggie bottom" and 'smart' advice: "If you're hungry between meals, drink lots of water. It has no calories and will help you feel full."

My opinion: This book contains tempting photos of delicious comfort food that bears no resemblance to something you'd eat on a diet, except if you're eating minimal portions. Take the cheese leek and onion pasties for example - the only diet aspect of this recipe is that if you eat only one, you could possibly lose weight. (but you probably wouldn't stop at one alone). The diet advice offered throughout the book is the same kind of tired advice often given in other diet-related literature, so there is nothing new to learn here. Having said all that, the recipes were very family-friendly, the kind of things you can imagine cooking for a young family and everyone enjoying what they were eating and asking for seconds.

Cooking Without Recipes. £5.39 The title grabbed my attention because this is the way I often cook, without specific recipes. The book aims, among other things, to teach you "how to knock something together from the old remnants of your fridge" and to "encourage you to find new ways to shop for, cook and eat the kind of food you love." The book describes in detail the basics involved in setting up your kitchen and a how-to-use section for various kinds of food items (eg individual vegetables). There are no recipes per se, nor are there any photographs. It's probably a good book for the complete amateur who has experienced a life-changing event, and wants to begin cooking for themselves without ever having done it before.

My opinion: The first few pages of the book read a bit like a personal culinary memoir, I almost felt as though I was reading my own blog written by someone else, giving me a deja vu experience. I guess I'm too advanced a creative cook to find this book enthralling. It felt good to read about other like-minded cooks like myself.

What to Eat: Food that's good for your health, pocket and plate. £6.73 Trying to combine health and price in our food is a tricky subject these days. The book starts by dictating to the reader in Pollan-like style how they should eat: "Base your diet on real, unprocessed food; Don't buy food with ingredients you won;t find in a domestic larder; Don't dismiss traditional food knowledge; Practice vegetable-centric eating; Waste nothing - use up every last bit of food you buy; Stick with eat from free-range animals rather than sticking to factory-farmed, but consider reducing the quantity you eat; etc", in other words, the kinds of things I've adopted into my own cooking regime due to my lifestyle rather, ie out of need, rather than due to my belief in morally ethical eating habits. Later chapters discuss the health aspects and ethical considerations of eating various vegetable, meat and dairy products. There are no recipes or photos; some quirky stories surrounding food items are provided to maintain the interest of the reader, who is most likely someone who wants to start eating with a conscience.


My opinion: Books like this one forget the basic reason behind food - we need to eat (cheaply, wherever possible) to live, and in reality, few of us have the luxury or time and money to choose what we eat. Because of where we live and how we live, and the fact that land and cultivation have always been an important part of my husband's life, I take solace in the fact that my food chain is a short one and I can rely on very good quality cheap fresh food all year round, but I also know this is an exception in highly urbanised societies. Heat'n'eats are not popular where I live: we simply don't have the range of ready food at a supermarket that is available in other countries, partly because there is less need for it (hence people are less used to eating a ready meal like a heat and eat). I cook de facto with fresh ingredients, not because I make an effort to find them.
      We don't always have the time to stop and think about what we are eating, as this book demands of its readers. But this creates a kind of snobbery that shouldn't have any place in a highly developed advancing world: What bothers me is the elitism surrounding natural minimally processed food and the overemphasis of elite labelling (eg organic or fairtrade etc). Rural people who often have access to this kind of food, even though they may be resource-rich, are in fact often money-poor, while urban dwellers are often being duped into believing that their food chain is unethical. But even my more 'ethical' eating style does not reflect the way I grew up; we lived in a city, so nearly all of our food was bought; although we did have a vegetable garden, it produced a minimal amount of food (it never matched the degree to production that my current garden produces). So practically everything we ate was bought. I now live in a rural area (coincidentally close to where my parents used to live before they migrated to NZ), and I have the luxury of being closely involved in my food chain. It also helps that I actually liked cooking to begin with, so I've learnt to use the resources around me which are many and varied (I didn't have this possibility available to me in my birth country).
   

*** *** ***

As I devoured these books one-by-one, I was glad to have had the chance to hold them in my hands, and to see what these books could offer me. They're relatively expensive for the recipes/advice they contain, so I know I could not have the luxury of getting my hands on them (Greek libraries rarely stock such books). I am by no means a perfect cook, nor do I know everything there is to know about food and cooking. But I'm way past the basics, and my food chain is much more ethical than the average urban dweller's. Books like these look good on your book shelf, but they don't really add much to your culinary knowledge; in fact, they contained a lot of information that you could easily get on the web. Many recipes are simply rewrites of well-known recipes with a few quirks in them as a selling point. Dictating a common sense approach to eating will only work when you are preaching to the converted (and possibly those with a bigger wallet). At any rate, many of the ideals can't really be implemented in the urban environment they were intended for, where people work long hours a long distance away from their kitchens. I envisage weekend hobby cooks working their way through the recipes (and bedtime readers nodding off with the bedside lamp on as they wade through the advice sections). Having said that, gastrosexuals will take delight in such books.

More than anything else, these books made me aware of how easy it is to get a book published these days, but how hard it is to make that book have a long-lasting effect. If I ever write a book myself, it will have to contain something new, not just a regurgitation of my blog. I don't just want to copy myself into print.

The two non-food books that I also read while in London were 17 Equations that Changed the World (£7.59) and 50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know (£2.99). Both these quirky titles give you the creepy (and again elitist) feeling that you are missing out on learning something utterly essential if you don't read them. But don't despair: get onto Amazon, and click the 'Look Inside' feature for both titles. The contents of each book are listed in detail, and you can look up each equation/mathematical idea, one by one, on the internet. You may not get the particular author's point of view, but the knowledge contained in each book is not denied to you either. The cheaper title is part of a larger series of books compacting other sets of 50 'significant global events' (all books have a 'Look Inside' feature), while the more expensive one has been summarised in a 20-page .doc file, which you can print out and use with your children.

You don't really need paper books these days; they are simply nice to hold in your hands because they have a luxurious feel to them. But once you browse them, you may realise that you already knew their contents, as most avid readers will have been reading the same things over the last decade. Paper books are generally more expensive to buy than e-books; people are no longer blind to this fact. Paper books are still highly desirable among many circles, but there is a snob value related to it, which people will surpass as they view the problem in terms of sustainability. Eventually, you run out of storage space, and these days, there is simply too much to read...

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

15 minutes (15 λεπτά)

Jamie Oliver, a respected UK chef, supporter of real food, advisor to the state on nutrition issues, entrepreneur of businesses employing troubled teens, ordinary-looking bloke with extraordinary charm, has published yet another sure-to-sell (expensive) cookbook with a catchy title, Jamie's 15-Minute Meals. You can't browse through it on Amazon (presumably because Jamie is well known enough not to need to resort to such attention as self-advertising). Nor is the book available on environmentally-friendly e-book readers, which means that if you want to view/read the book, you need to have a paper copy in your hands; you need to buy it or lend it from a library, which is why I believe it won't be getting into my hands very soon, hence I can't provide a review of this book. 

To make a simple but tasty puttanesca sauce using fresh ingredients in a quarter of an hour, you could try boiling your pasta in with the watery sauce. Cleaning/chopping/grating the onion, garlic, peppers, caper leaves and tomatoes didn't take as long as it did to simmer the sauce; the former needed about 5 minutes, the latter needed about 25 minutes.

I work fast in my own kitchen, mainly because I know where things are kept, and I like to prep meals, so that I can concentrate on cooking times and flavourings. But there are very few meals that I can truly say I cook in 15 minutes. I can prepare a salad or serve leftovers in less than that time, but to actually cook a whole meal in 15 minutes? Impossible: it would undoubtedly mean skimping on cooking time.

Jamie defends his position for his previous book for 30-minute meals (critics were equally dubious about that one too...), saying:

“I could give you a lot of defensive s--- and say they didn’t do the recipes exactly from the book or didn’t use a food processor for chopping – which is an absolute must, unless you have knife skills like me. I look on Twitter and somebody says it took them 45 minutes and I think ‘God bless you, keep trying and you’ll speed up next time'."

So what does it take to be able to cook a meal from his book in 15 minutes? According to Stevie Parle, a professional chef who made Jamie's Seared Asian Beef, it only took him 10 minutes. But beef (in particular) cooked in less than a quarter of an hour could (and would) never be contemplated in a Greek kitchen, yet Stevie tells us he can cook that up for you whipper-snapper. In fact, no meat would be cooked in such little time in a Greek kitchen - and if you keep things neutral in terms of countries, just think of how long it takes to cook something in order to ensure that any bacteria that may unwittingly be carried in raw meat is killed off. By the time you place the meat into the cooking vessel and heat it up to start cooking, you've wasted a few minutes already, so your mea\t won't even be cooking for fifteen minutes

Vegetable pasta sauce using fresh ingredients - if you cooked the sauce for only 10 or so minutes, you'd get a soup instead of a sauce.

Including the phrase '15 minutes' in the title of a book makes it sound very appealing to the health conscious who spend too long at work making enough disposable income to buy this expensive book, but I wouldn't have thought that Jamie Oliver would need to resort to such cheap tricks. After all, he's known for his sensible approach to food. What I found particularly alarming was the number of recipes using raw meat, which were all to be cooked in up to 15 minutes. Even if the meal I'm preparing is a tomato sauce to top something like pasta, I'd still need more time than Jamie to cook it - if it contained raw meat, I'd be suspicious of something that took less than 15 minutes to cook.


Speaking of Greek food, Sarah Rainey tried to cook Jamie's Greek chicken, herby vegetable couscous and tzatziki (never mind the fact that it is highly unlikely you will find couscous in Greek cuisine, and the only thing that makes this dish sound Greek at all is perhaps the mention of tzatziki) in a quarter of an hour: "The recipe is written in his trademark chatty style: I’m told to “scrunch” the cucumber and “bash” the chicken before “popping” it all on a platter to serve." It still took her twice as long to make the dish, while forgetting to add a couple of ingredients, grating her thumb while she made the tzatziki and almost burning rather than chargrilling the chicken, in order to meet the time restriction.

To make a puttanesca sauce in fifteen minutes, your tomato sauce will need to pre-prepared.

Jamie's runaway success with his '15 minutes' book was based on the outcome of his previous success with Jamie's 30-Minute Meals, which was also criticised for the time factor, although I'd be more inclined to believe it to be feasible (especially if the meals were mainly vegetarian). I like his humanitarian actions, but they too obviously have marketing appeal, and it's quite clear that this very young millionaire's marketing skills dominate in his latest venture - it will clearly make money, even if it doesn't yield what it promises. As a potential reviewer on Amazon stated: "I was thinking of buying Jamie's 30 Minute Meals but then I saw Jamie's 15 Minute Meals... so now I might just wait for the 5 minute one." 

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Fashion Diva - and the giveaway continues!

STMMMS91901

More creative activities - scrapbooking my daughter's fashion projects. MyMemories.com digital scrapbooking software relieves you of the burden of having to design templates to place your photos. This set of photos was created using the Princess Diva template found in the basic software. Unlike my other scrapbooking projects where I created the templates (check out my recipe cards and the summer garden), this album uses a ready template.

MyMemories.com has given me a copy of MyMemories Suite 3 to give away to one lucky reader, with a special offer to all readers and followers of this blog - with the following code: STMMMS91901 you can get a $10 discount off the purchase price of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store, which gives you access to a wider range of templates and scrapbooking tools. That's a saving of $20 for each reader. 

To be in for the draw, visit www.MyMemories.com and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, then leave a comment on my blog (on this post) about which ones you chose. My recipe cards were made using the features included in the downloaded software, together with some additional free material, directly downloadable from the MyMemories site, whose software rates No 1 on Amazon. 

The winner will be announced on 31 July - enter as many times as you wish before then.  



STMMMS91901
 
©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Καρτο-συνταγές - και ένα δώρο! (Giveaway contiunues!)

STMMMS91901

For my Greek readers, who wish to take part in the giveaway contest.

Είμαι πολύ απασχολημένη αυτή την περίοδο προσπαθώντας να δημιουργήσω περισσότερες ιδέες με το καινούργιο μου παιχνίδι - το ψηφιακό μου λεύκωμα από το MyMemories.com. Το λογισμικό σας επιτρέπει να δημιουργήσετε μοναδικά σχέδια που μπορείτε να μετατρέψετε σε ένα άλμπουμ και να εκτυπώσετε ως δώρα στους φίλους σας. Έχω ακόμη βάλει και τα παιδιά μου να δημιουργούν αλμπουμ με τον ίιδο τρόπο - φτιάχνουν ψηφιακά φωτογραφικά άλμπουμ των διακοπών τους.

I'm busying myself intensely these days trying to create more ideas with my new toy - my digital scrapbook from MyMemories.com. The software allows you to create unique designs that you can convert into an album and print it out as gifts to your friends. I've even got my children started on it - they are creating digital albums of their holiday shots.

Εδώ  δείχνω μερικές από τις καλοκαιρινές μου λιχουδιές, που έχουν γινει κάρτο-συνταγές, χρησιμοποιώντας το ψηφιακό λογισμικό λευκώματος από το MyMemories.com. Μπορείτε να γράφετε και στα Ελληνικά (το πρόγραμμα δέχεται άλλες γλώσσες, όπως δείχνω και σε προηγούμενο ποστ).

Here I show some of my summer treats that have become recipe card, using the digital scrapbook software from MyMemories.com. The program accepts other languages, as shown in my previous post, where I also use Greek.

Το MyMemories.com μου έδωσε ένα αντίγραφο του MyMeμories Suite 3 για να δωρίσω σε έναν/μία τυχερή αναγνώστρια, με μια ειδική προσφορά σε όλους τους αναγνώστες της ιστοσελλιδας μου - με τον ακόλουθο κώδικα: STMMMS91901 μπορείτε να πάρετε $10 έκπτωση επί της τιμής αγοράς του λογισιμκού My Memories Suite Scrapbook software και ένα κουπόνι αξίας $10 για το κατάστημα του MyMemories.com, που σας δίνει πρόσβαση σε ένα ευρύτερο φάσμα προτύπων και εργαλείων για τις δημιουργίες σας. Δηλαδή μια εξοικονόμηση των $20 για κάθε αναγνώστη.

MyMemories.com has given me a copy of MyMeories Suite 3 to give away to one lucky reader, with a special offer to all readers and followers of this blog - with the following code: STMMMS91901 you can get a $10 discount off the purchase price of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store, which gives you access to a wider range of templates and scrapbooking tools. That's a saving of $20 for each reader. 

Για να μπείτε στον κλήρο, επισκεφθείτε το www.MyMemories.com και επιλέξτε το αγαπημένο σας πακέτο ψηφιακού χαρτιού, αφήστε ένα σχόλιο στην ιστοσελίδα μου (σε αυτό το ποστ) σχετικά με την επιλογή σας. Οι καρτο-συνταγές μου φτιάχτηκαν χρησιμοποιώντας τις δυνατότητες που περιλαμβάνονται στο λογισμικό αυτό, μαζί με κάποιο επιπλέον δωρεάν υλικό, άμεσα διαθέσιμο από τις ιστοσελίδες του MyMemories.com, τoυ οποίου το λογισμικό έχει αξιολογεί από το Amazon ως το καλύτερο λογισμικό ψηφιακού λευκώματος.
To be in for the draw, visit www.MyMemories.com and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, then leave a comment on my blog (on this post) about which ones you chose. My recipe cards were made using the features included in the downloaded software, together with some additional free material, directly downloadable from the MyMemories site, whose software rates No 1 on Amazon. 

Αν προτιμάτε να πάρετε στα χέρια σας το λογισμικό πριν τελειώσει ο διαγωνισμός, απλά χρησιμοποιήστε τον κωδικό: STMMMS91901 να πάρετε την έκπτωση σας τώρα και να ξεκινήστε να δημιουργήτε. Αν προτιμάτε να συμμετάσχετε στο διαγωνισμό για να κερδίσετε ένα δωρεάν αντίτυπο του λογισμικούαπό το Mymemories.com, αφήστε ένα σχόλιο σε αυτό το μήνυμα και περιμένετε μέχρι να ανακοινώσω τον νικητή (31 Ιουλίου). Μπορείτε να συνδεθείτε με το MyMemories.com μέσω του blog τους, στο Facebook ή το Twitter για περισσότερες ιδέες, όπου είσης θα βρείτε και επιπλέον συμμετοχές σε άλλους διαγωνισμούς.

If you are itching to get your hands on the software before the giveaway period ends, just use the code: STMMMS91901 to get your discount now and start scrapbooking. If you prefer to enter the competition to win a free copy of Mymemories.com, leave a comment on this post and wait until I announce the winner (31 July). You can link to MyMemories.com through their blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts for more scrapbook ideas, where you will also find extra entries to other contests.


STMMMS91901

 ©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Giveaway! (Δώρο!)

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I was recently given the chance to host a giveaway from MyMemories.com for their digital scrapbook software, which I found easy and fun to use. My Memories Suite is rated #1 by Amazon and Top Ten Reviews. Using this software, anyone can create digital scrapbooks, photobooks, cards, calendars and gifts.

Although I am quite good at finding frugal creative solutions for most of my needs, I do appreciate professional help. You get a feeling of satisfaction when you know that you have created something yourself, but sometimes we all need a bit of help in order to make our creations look more professional. Maybe a bit of advice is all that's needed, or a change in technique, but other times, it is more complicated than just that. Digital scrapbooking software takes away the burden of having to arrange everything (photos, text, decorations) yourself. 

Although I haven't scrapbooked in years, this software took me back to my years in primary school, when all girls had a scrapbook and autograph book. We were much more imaginative back then, but the digital world has also helped us to remain creative, as it is full o0f ideas that do not require so much time and pain-staking labour in order to achieve an even more professional look to our scrapbooks. 

MyMemories.com has given me a copy of MyMeories Suite 3 to give away to one lucky reader, with a special offer to all readers and followers of this blog: with the following code: STMMMS91901 you can get a $10 discount off the purchase price of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store, which gives you access to a wider range of templates and scrapbooking tools. That's a saving of $20 for each reader.
To be in for the draw, visit www.MyMemories.com and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, then leave a comment on my blog (on this post) about which ones you chose. I especially liked Growing Season and the Courtney Ann recipe book. The scrapbook I created used features already included in Mymemories.com, together with some additional free material, downloadable directly from their site.

If you are itching to get your hands on the software before the giveaway period ends, just use the code: STMMMS91901 to get your discount now and start scrapbooking. If you prefer to enter the competition to win a free copy of Mymemories.com, leave a comment on this post and wait until I announce the winner (31 July). You can link to MyMemories.com through their blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts for more scrapbook ideas, where you will also find extra entries to other contests.



Oops, there is a typo there - 'the garden gives you as much as you give it'. 

STMMMS91901

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.