Baklava archaeology

I love baklava, the layered, flaky, teeth-chatteringly sweet dessert filled with a strata of ground nuts. If I could get away with it, or if I had a lobotomy and did not care about girth, I would have a piece each day. But I cannot, so I do not.

However, it is a show-stopper, and so darn easy I wonder why so many of my friends do not make it. I looked into the history of baklava once, and was consulted as to its origins. There are no clear rules, but I can say that the use of the thin filo dough is a hallmark of desserts in the Eastern Mediterranean, whether in Greece, Turkey, Syria. Filo has even migrated with Ottoman chefs to Eastern Europe and is the foundation of strudle and other layered, flaky, delights.

But back to baklava. Right now I am dieting, preparations for a culinary trip where chefs will try to stuff us silly with delights. And, filo dough is definitely off my list. So I will be a dessert voyeur, writing about it.

I first had it as a child in Izmir, but my mother had to make it, not buy. At the time, we most definitely did not eat out, fearing hepatitis...and so food was home cooked in those days. We had large marble counters in the kitchen; marble was cheaper than linoleum. "Moderns" were ripping out the marble and putting in lino, but my Mom was thrilled to have a cold surface for many cooking adventures: taffy, bread making, and baklava. She would lay the sheets out and cover them with a tea towel, unveiling one at a time as the dessert was layered. Dance of the balkava veils.

Much later, in California, in Armenian descendent homes I had baklava, but it was not the same. Nuts were larger, and more lemon used. I moved to Oregon, and made my own, with varying success depending upon my use of ground nuts. I grew weary of baking and stopped making it.

Then I married a Greek grandson. He told me of his grandma who would make her own filo, pulling and stretching it so thin the wood grain would show under the dough as she made it on the walnut table. I learned from him to cut the baklava into diamonds, and put the lemon sugar syrup over the hot dessert halfway through cooking.

It is a favorite for my cooking classes. Kids will eat anything sweet, and I have figured out a way to have an assembly line. "keep it covered!" "faster, your turn next" "remember the corners"...they approach the dough, one on each side of a large pot of melted butter. Dip brush into butter, sweep across pan, lay the sheet of filo in, scatter the perfectly process-cut nuts and sugar, and get out of the way for the next kid. We can make two trays in 30 minutes with 30 kids. Then cooking, tantalizing aromas of honey, lemon, and pastry drift through the air ducts to the music room and drive kids nuts. Great dessert, everyone is happy and they beg for the sugar soaked and crunchy corners.

It is far, far, better than the soggy, honey dripping squares sold in the local market. It is fresher by far than the trays of mindless baklava and kaydiff desserts sold at the huge national markets. Few people have had really, really, good baklava.

I made bakalva this winter for Christmas. I make really, really, good baklava. I love making Christmas cookies with my daughter, but our cookies are really about the frosting and designs we make up on the cookies. Cookies require you to do something every 11 minutes whether you want to or not. Baklava once made, is a gentle companion, baking nicely in the oven while you have a cup of tea. I felt very settled layering filo, scattering nuts, basting butter, and repeating. I really get off on making precise diamond cuts, perfectly parallel lines and crisp points. As the knife cuts through the layers, I love the sharpness of my tool, the feel as it cuts through dough and nuts, reaching the glassy bottom of the pan.

The smell is fulfilling, the layers, like layers of my baklava memories, hint at treasures underneath the flaky ivory top. Bottom layer, Izmir. Middle layers, California and college. Upper layer, marriage, Greek dreams. Top layer, my life now, no topsoil laid down, but excavations possible. I am a composite of it all. And as I cut, and arranged diamond points of baklava patterns on plates I gave away, wrapped in rose saran, I re-discovered my love of this dessert.