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“My Little Plates”, by Roddy Damalis. Full colour hard-back published by Pestle & Mortar Co. Ltd., Limassol, at €37.50. Available at leading bookshops and Ta Piatakia restaurant.
Since I first reviewed Roddy Damalis’s Ta Piatakia restaurant in 2003, I have mentioned it at least 33 times in various newspaper and magazine columns. He was my restaurant personality of the year in 2006 and is the possessor of a Cyprus Gourmet “TWO CHEF” Award (one of only four). From his start in his 50 seater restaurant in Limassol he has branched out into cookery courses and TV shows. It was perfectly logical that he would succumb next, like so many of us, to producing a cook book.
From the cover of “My Little Plates” Roddy looks directly at us, of quite serious mien. The ebullience, the camp, the incredible enthusiasm and energy that are his stock in trade won’t be evident to anyone who doesn’t know him. For those who do, this picture and the 30 or so others of him between the covers, might conjure up the thought “Oh God, he’s doing a Jamie Oliver”. But he isn’t really – inside, the food is the thing. As a restaurant is an ego trip for the personality chef, so a cook book is even more so. So, should you buy in to Roddy’s ego trip?
Most certainly. At €0.37½ a recipe it’s good value. Roddy’s food is excellent. So, let’s tick some boxes
(√) The recipes. They are all most eatable.
(√) The presentation. Beautifully printed by Lithostar of Limassol, each recipe encompasses two pages. The left hand page features one of Roddy’s many plates which adorn his restaurant, on which the finished dish is presented. I have to say that many of the dishes wouldn’t look very good on white plates, but the effect nevertheless is pretty and appetising. Full marks for originality.
(√) Ease of use. The recipes are accessible. And above all the instructions are concise, simple and easy to follow (in Greek and English). Again, full marks.
(√) Cooking Roddy’s Recipes at home. Actually, you don’t need the shining shaved pate, the huge smile and the graphic descriptions of what he’s got for you tonight. This is seriously good food, with an immense amount of thought in it. Truly original use of ingredients available here – especially when he puts in Commandaria or Carob Syrup, for which there are no alternatives, thus making the dishes uniquely Cypriot. Whereas when four or more of you go to Ta Piatakia you may share up to ten little plates, here you can if you wish make a mezze-like selection, or make up a three-course lunch or dinner – there are plenty of fish, seafood, poultry and meat recipes which will make up a main course.
(X) Roddy the Romantic Cypriot. My only thumbs down. I read his eulogy of lovely Limassol and super Cyprus in the Cyprus Weekly (basically the book’s intro) a day or two after a morning in Limassol when it piddled with rain and I got (a) a fine for being not quite correctly parked in an over-stuffed car park by the market, (b) soaked to the skin, and (c) late for lunch because of the traffic I encountered trying to get from calls in east, central and west Limassol.
Of an age when discos, clubs, bars and night life aren’t my thing, I drove home with the word “Lim-asshole” in my mind. In my world, there are too many plastic bags littering the landscape along with old refrigerators, gas stoves, cans galore and abandoned cars; too many dogs thrown away in the hills by hunters whose only gift to our beautiful countryside is the excrement they leave behind them when they go back to town, too much talk of tradition when so much needs to be done to make the place fit for discriminating visitors.
I would also have to take issue on one line in his article in the Weekly, when he says there are “…elegant understated restaurants which easily equal their international counterparts”. Golly! Where, Roddy, where? Lead me to them! I have Awards to give!
But you can skip the book’s intro, and not pay too much time looking at the rather ordinary photographs of beloved Limassol (including one of a particularly worn part of St. Andrews Street complete with prominent refuse bin). Go to the food.
In summary, this is the best book about food in Cyprus yet. Buy it!
Patrick Skinner – www.cyprus-gourmet.com
