March Meats

 

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Thursday was *Tsiknopempti, the last big meat eating day before Lent. 

K was going to BBQ a pile of meat and I had a bottle of prosecco saved just for an occasion like this.... Good food and the company of a good friend.

Jan has been a member of our family for many many years. 

Her English wit, perception of Greek foibles and sharp rejoinders have brought me a lot of laughter over those years. 

But, that was the day we learnt of our friend's passing. K, our head Chef, was immediately away to arrange papers and help the family. 

K had done all the preparation the night before, marinating mutton chops, preparing the hamburger 'dough', making pork souvlaki and taking **kebabs from the freezer. 

It was easy for me to  ***shape ****burgers and put them in the oven with a few potatoes. We changed ovens recently and I'm still not quite up with it's times and temperatures. They ended up a bit overcooked but were fine with some quickly made gravy, tzatziki, Greek salad and the prosecco.

I cooked them 'foreign style'. No lemon juice and very little olive oil. 

The main course of the day was catching up on recent events in our lives. In the English language. 

It was better K was absent. We don't catch up very often and when we do it's endless chatter in English which K can't keep up with. It drives him mad. 

Thanks Jan for the beautiful flower. I don't know what it's called. Anyone got a name for it? 

She gave me the prosecco too, at Christmas. 

Cheers

*Tsiknopempti - literally smokey Thursday. The smoke is from the meat grilling on the BBQ 

**kebabs are long tubes of spicy minced meat

***To shape dough is to 'plath' - one of my favourite greek words. It means to shape dough, for biscuits, bread, burgers, with your hands

I Plath.. platho 

You Plath.. platheis

We all plath.. plathoume 

****Burgers in Greek are bifteki