Katerina's Kouzina - Authentic Greek Recipes and more

5 Years of Katerina’s Kouzina!

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This month 5 years ago I started my Greek food blog “Katerina’s Kouzina”. I can’t believe we have been ‘cooking together’ and sharing stories about Greece for 5 years already! I have enjoyed every minute of Katerina’s Kouzina and sharing with you what I love so dearly: Greece and Greek cooking. I hope you have enjoyed our recipes and stories throughout the years and hope you will continue to follow the blog. Right now, please join me on a little tour behind the scenes! After that, it’s time for an anniversary present. Answer my question written at the end of this blog and you get a chance to win an Odyssey apron!

Creating the food blog

The idea of Katerina’s Kouzina was born on a cold December day in my house in the Netherlands. Annette Spaan was visiting me that day after we met the previous summer, when she came to Poros as a journalist, to write an article for Griekenland Magazine about Odyssey’s Greek cooking lessons and Poros. Her visit to Poros that Summer was the start of her extensive travels in Greece. Annette loved my cooking and encouraged me to share it with an audience beyond my guests at Odyssey. The idea of Katerina’s Kouzina was born.

Annette

Food styling

The following Spring Annette stayed with us on Poros for a few weeks to create the blog, do the food styling and photograph the first recipes. Of course we needed beautiful plates, cups, cutlery and so on to make the dishes look irresistible. I remember our first search in the house of my parents… When we arrived, my mother had just finished making her spanakopita and welcomed us with it. And you know, she makes a really good spanakopita!

Old family picture!

You should have seen the 3 of us going through her house; opening closets, taking things off tables and walls, discovering things that had not been used for years. Weeks later my mother was very proud to see her items back on the blog. Good-looking backgrounds and surfaces we found all over Poros, like an abandoned wooden table, old pieces of wood, crates, floors and forgotten table cloths.

Intruders

Photographing the recipes was always such good fun...

...Especially when cats found out about our photoshoots…We can’t stop laughing when we recall the look on Annette’s face the last time a cat ‘attacked’ a dish that was on a shiny plate, looking really handsome, just out of the oven and ready to be photographed. Looking super focused through her camera, Annette did not see the cat coming. Fish recipes were of course always the most dangerous, but once a cat even went after our Greek yoghurt!

And sometimes, I could not help but eat the food!

Christmas recipes

The fondest memories I have are those of photographing our Christmas recipes. It’s a special gathering every year when Annette comes over with bags of Christmas decorations, and we have a Christmas dinner weeks before the actual holidays. Everything we photograph that day, we eat at night. We love getting into the Christmas mood so early, drink hot teas and get inspired by all the festive decorations. It’s always a moment to reflect on the previous year, to talk about how to go forward with the blog and come up with new ideas. We are very pleased to see that our Christmas blogs are some of the most popular blogs throughout the year!

Of course, during all these photoshoots our stuff broke sometimes...

...And when you photograph a dish, you only really have a few minutes to do so, sometimes even less. Otherwise the food does not look fresh and good anymore. Like in this case, the ouzo granita melted in front of our eyes!

I was always happy to jump on my moped at the last minute to get more ingredients.

Even cleaning our set could be great fun.

Sometimes I could not help but jump in front of the camera when Annette was super busy!

But being silly was always part of our photoshoots!

Win an Odyssey apron!

After 5 years of Katerina’s Kouzina we are very curious to hear what has been your favourite blog so far.

If you share your favourite blog on your social media (it does not matter which social media) and write the name of your favourite blog under our special post about it on Facebook (that we post today), you have a chance to win an Odyssey apron!! You have until November 5 to let us know.

I want to thank all the people who have worked with me on Katerina’s Kouzina over the past years. From photographing to editing to writing guest blogs. And of course, a warm and big thank you to all our followers!! The ones that have been with us from the start and the ones that joined us later. We hope to keep ‘cooking with you’ and share what we all love: Greek stuff!!

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