Wishing You a Good 40 Days

Clean Monday - March 2  2020

Kali Sarakosti is the greeting today. 
May you have a good Forty-Days of Lent.

We had a big family celebration

The situation on the Turkish greek border is very tense and the Turkish leader is bombarding his people with fake news saying the Greeks are shooting refugees and letting mothers and children die. Meanwhile he sends thousands more, where there is no hope, to the closed greek border and threatens us that Greeks too will end up like the Syrians and have to run like dogs.

The Corona virus is spreading very slowly. There are nine cases now. No one here is in a panic. There is worse to face.

Here is our celebration of the beginning of Lent, Clean Monday

The wood oven was fired up. We cooked flat bread, octopus and dried beans

The king in his castle, as my s-in-law says

Fish roe dip - taramasalata

Made from bread, salted fish eggs, lemon juice and lots of olive oil

Grilled octopus

Being cut up for a snack with ouzo

The youngest learns to knead bread

She did a magnificent job. It rose and rose and rose

Two laganas

Flat bread that we eat today

Sea eggs

Kina in NZ 

We scoop out the orange 'stuff' with the bread and lots of lemon juice

Can't stand them myself

A lot of them were empty. The moon is not in the right phase for sea urchins full of food

Argentinian shrimp

Grilled on the BBQ 

Peeled and eaten as-is

The highlight of the Lenten table, 'risotto' with mussels, shrimps and kalamari.

The 'rice' is that fat rice-like macaroni, called orzo I think. It is boiled in the water that the shrimps were steamed in. 

Simple and delicious.

We didn't eat too much. It's not that sort of meal. But as usual some drank too much ouzo. There was dancing and we had a fall but fortunately there were no broken bones, just broken glasses.

The men partied on as usual. 

Mothers  and children went up onto the road and flew a kite. That's another tradition on this day.  

Mothers, Nana and tall grandchild then had a friendly gossip on the front balcony. Time to relax, have a smoke, a beer and catch up on family life.

Younger grandchildren had a 'picnic' in the old water reservoir under the balcony. Dirty, smelly, probably full of spiders and apparently lots of fun. They then 'migrated' to the bedrooms, closed all the shutters, turned out the lights, hid in the dark under dusty beds and desks, flashing torches at each other. I imagine that's what they do anyway. 'Dark room' is a favourite game. 

As usual it all ended with women in the kitchen washing dishes, clearing tables, clearing balconies, re-arranging chairs  and tables and finally sweeping and mopping and removing many bags of rubbish.

A good time was had in parts by some.