What I Bought at the West Side Market: Branching out to Athens Pastries

I love Athens Pastries. You can get basic stuff like a big bag of brown rice, or exotic stuff like galactobouriko. You can get wine from Moldova, Armenia, and Romania, or giant screw-top bottles of Greek retsina.

This afternoon, Jim and I had the pleasure of walking Jackie and her fiance Frank (of Coming Back to Cleveland fame) around Ohio City, including a foray over to Athens and Hansa Import Haus. So this week, I decided to get my two mystery items at Athens, which is a mere block from the WSM at 2545 Lorain Ave.

But first, the highlights from last week:

I. Red-wine shallot butter...mmm.

It's nice to have items like this on hand to dress up really boring dinners that you make when you're tired and get home from work late. This week, we used this sweet little delight from Ohio City Pasta to enliven some Quorn patties on whole wheat buns.

II. Dried kiwi...hmmm.

I must admit, I've never liked kiwi fruit. So when Jim bought this last week, I was pretty skeptical. Although it did have a suspicious fishy smell, the fishiness rinsed off under hot water, so I chopped up a generous handful and used it in this lemon-kiwi cake, a really simple recipe that's good for late night tipsy munchies.

Up next week:
Syrian spices, $2.31 for about 8 0z., Athens Pastries
Fufu (plantain) flour, $2.99 for a 16-oz box, Athens Pastries