I met Maria Speck, the Grain Gourmet on Twitter where her recipe tweets piqued my curiosity. She grew up in both Germany and Greece and shares her recipes and mostly Mediterranean techniques for cooking with whole grains in ways you might not expect. In her beautiful new cookbook, Ancient Grains for Modern Meals , you'll find cakes from quinoa and smoked trout, an easy crust from cooked polenta, a hearty frittata with wild rice and wheat berry "fool" with figs. Her recipes will surely broaden your horizons as much as they tempt your tastebuds. It all started with a small bag of wheat berries someone handed me at a cemetery in Greece during a ceremony to mark the recent death of my grandfather. I was six years old and hungry. While I scooped up the mixture of cinnamon and cumin-scented grains, chewing on their succulent starchy centers, interspersed with chunks of roasted walnuts and sugarcoated almonds-I became completely oblivious to the crushing sadness all around ...
