Grilled Octopus Salad and Grilled Oregano Shrimp

On Saturday family and friends gathered in our yard, I prepped dishes in the kitchen and my husband lit the charcoals to help carry out my Grilling Greek event for May’s installment of Foodbuzz 24×24. This was only after my husband and I had been bickering for the greater part of Friday evening, he insisting it was going to rain the next day and we should postpone the barbecue and I insisting (yelling and demanding are good synonyms) that the barbecue needed to take place on the 29th along with the other 23 meals planned, hence the name Foodbuzz 24×24.

Foodbuzz 24×24: Grilling Greek

Memorial Day: the last Monday in May, a day of remembrance for those who died in our nation’s service, the official opening of our beaches and the unofficial start of summer. And nothing says summer like an All-American barbecue. So for this month’s Foodbuzz 24×24 event, we decided to “unofficially” usher in the new season by Grilling Greek to honor our Greek-American roots. Friends and family gathered in the yard yesterday where we enjoyed the warm weather by grilling some Greek-inspired dishes.

Spicy Orange Salad — Πικάντικη Σαλάτα με Πορτοκάλια και Ελιές

Reading The New York Times Magazine this past Sunday, I came across a recipe for Moroccan-style Spicy Orange Salad republished from a 1980 article in The Times. I’ve added orange sections and olives to lettuce salads before, but never put together a salad of just orange and olives accented with fresh herbs and a spicy “dressing.” The writer presenting the Recipe Redux in the Sunday magazine was adamant the Spicy Orange Salad should be a more widely appreciated dish and so I had to see what all the fuss was about. All I can say is, “Ditto!”