I keep saying and will continue to say wherever I stand and wherever I find myself, that through blogging, I have met the most delicious people! Maybe I've been lucky, too. Come to think of it, in my life in general I attract interesting people and make worthwhile acquaintances! But through the internet, in particular, I have made worthwhile acquaintances that have evolved into friendships and/or partnerships!
I have already declared 2013 as my most delicious year, at least in the last 5 years! From the very first days, it keeps bringing people on my path with whom I spend beautiful moments and gain experiences that I will remember for many years to come! One of them is Lena, a smiling Salonikia (which Salonikian is not smiling you will tell me though!!!), a delicious girl with a dynamic personality that you want to have in your company all the time! Because she has something to tell you. She is educated, well-traveled, hard-working, enjoys the positives in life and supports with all her soul the family business she inherited from her father in Thessaloniki. A delicatessen production unit! For 30 years, the Tsilipakou family has been producing a wide range of ointments (that's how they call creamy salads in Thessaloniki, like tzatziki!)!
Lena's father, the founder of TSILIPAKOU S.A., gave his salads the name of his beloved daughter and she could not but continue to keep his vision alive until today, with the help of her mother, the support of the family and her brother, who is personally involved in the production and is responsible for the excellent quality! They all work very hard because they want to offer the best quality and taste to the world! And I don't just mean the people of Thessaloniki.
(can you imagine my joy when I received a delicious package full of Lena's?!!! Like a little kid!!!!)
Lena's salads travel all over the world and the export activity of the company is undertaken by her with her unique skills in Marketing & Public Relations! I was disappointed of course, when I heard that in Athens they haven't arrived yet but I smiled wickedly when I learned that Lenaki has already started procedures so that we too can go to our neighborhood deli whenever we want and have a bite of a Lena salad! And that's when all hell breaks loose, my friends! Because these salves win you over from the first bite!
Talking with Lena about her salads, I thought I would undertake a tasty project for the eating around to show the world how a single product can offer a different air to our table and help a very simple dish with 1-2 ingredients to turn into a gourmet meal !
(I started Monday with chicken tortilla and added the soft, fresh yogurt salad Lena!)
So, through my facebook page (which you all should join, because I serve many delicacies every day that I don't have time to post on the blog!!!), I presented the past week with simple dishes with a different Lena flavor every time! I didn't get too tired, I didn't spend too much, because I had good raw material that gave me crazy inspirations and didn't need a lot of work to come out! A Lena salad makes a game of its own!
(on Tuesday I thought that a flavor like Paprika Lena with cheese would be a great replacement for the classic pasta sauces! And indeed, it gave a different character to my lasagna and helped me to have a complete dish in 20 minutes!)
My goal was to show my friends that you don't have to have a lot of ingredients in your fridge to share a delicious dish with your friends or to cover your evening cravings! Plus, we need to learn to be content with a little and use what we have to create the best! And that's a great reason to love a product like Lena Salads! No housewife sits around making her own taramosalata or tzatziki or eggplant salad all the time. I wish we all had the time and stamina or, if you will, the talent to produce our own delicacies but it's not always possible.
