For Octopus Lovers

For octopus cooks and eaters in the family, and interested blog readers

But Mostly for dear Rainy, who always watches K cooking and ensures her own Greek cooking back home in NZ is authentic and delicious.

Sons in law Yiannis and Kyriakos are excellent cooks.  Yiannis speciality is octopus and Kyriakos steamed mussels. K cooks shrimps with tomatoes and feta (saganaki)

Brothers-in-law

Yiannis and  Kyriakos

Thanks boys for many, many wonderful seafood feasts

Here is how Yiannis cooks such tender and tasty octopus

Freeze fresh octopus for a week or so. Freezing helps to tenderise

  Then it needs preparation before you can cook it or it will be tough as leather

The octopus is whirled around in its own juices.  This prep is essential.  Yiannis assures me this is a vital part of tenderising the octopus and he describes it this way. 

If you're doing the swirling  at home with a supermarket octopus you need a bucket  with a little water in the bottom. 

  How to carry out this important step, called 'paragoulima' .......... 

- Grab the octopus by a tentacle and move it about in the juices and water for a few minutes. Swirl it lovingly , this way and that. 

- Change the water, grab another tentacle and do the same, swirling it around at the bottom of the bucket . 

- Continue doing this, grabbing the next tentacle, swirling, smooshing it around for a few minutes and changing the water till you've done all 8 tentacles and the hood

You'll see fishermen here doing this after catching an octopus, bashing it and then swirling, raising and rolling it in the juices on the rocks or wharf.

K says you should always do this after it has been in the freezer for a while in case it was not prepped properly beforehand. When it's ready the tentacles should start to curl.

Now to cook it.

Yianni's recipe

Put in a pot over a very low heat, don't add any water. Cover the pot and stew slowly .  All the juices in the octopus come out and there should be enough liquid.  I don't know how long it will take, half and hour, an hour.   Poke it with a fork now and again.  When it feels soft then it's ready.

Next make a dressing............ 

Mix olive oil, lemon juice and some thyme in a shaker, a little pepper and crushed garlic to taste.  Taste as you go to see how much lemon juice you need. Don't add salt. 

Put the octopus on a plate, cut into slices and pour over the oil and lemon sauce.

Yianni says, don't let it overcook and get too soft and mushy.

and

In the sauce you make

If you're drinking wine with the meal use lemon juice in the sauce.

If you're drinking ouzo then use vinegar instead

Octopus has no blood so it can eaten all through Orthodox religious fasts.  Along with shellfish, prawns, squid and cuttlefish

On our menu today cuttlefish (cousin to squid) and spinach stewed in tomato, with ouzo and dill

Before BBQing an octopus it has to be hung out in the sun to dry 

On my clothes line

The octopus must be dried before bbqing otherwise when put over the coals it will steam in its juices and become a hard rubbery mass

Snakes of Kefalonia

 This tradition fascinates me, the miracle snakes of the Virgin Mary, which appear around the 15th of August every summer on the island of Kefalonia.  

Kefalonia is one of the Ionion Islands near Corfu and Ithaki, home of Odysseus. 

These snakes have velvety skin they say, not hard and scaly and have a cross on their heads.  They are harmless and unafraid of humans, even friendly.

Photo from the internet 

If they don't appear some catastrophe or tragedy will befall the island and its people.  It has happened twice, they say.  August 1940 just before WW11 and occupation by Italian troops.  Think 'Captain Correlis Mandolin'.  As a side note, one of the most horrific massacres took place on the island in 1943 when Italy broke from Germany and the Axis powers.  The German Wehrmacht invaded, and in a bloody slaughter executed over 5,000 of the Italian troops on the island.

The 2nd time the snakes did not appear was August 1953.  Kefalonia suffered a devastating earthquake on August 12th of that year. 

The snakes appear every August near 2 chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  The snakes crawl around the church and visitors can move among them, touch them, pick them up without harm.

This year on August 8th 3 snakes appeared at one chapel and a few more at the other.  Church bells pealed merrily to announce the arrival.  More will have turned up since then.  They disappear mysteriously after August 15th.

The Orthodox Church does not acknowledge the 'miracle'.  However it's a local tradition which brings thousands to the island, pilgrims and intrigued tourists.

It has all been commercialised of course and has turned into a massive fiesta, they say.  I visited Kefalonia, back in the summer of 1974 on my first trip to Greece, but not during this celebration.

How much is true and how much of the story has been embellished I don't know but it has turned into a colourful cultural tradition.  

**A comment from friend Judy reminded me that although we didn't see the snakes we did visit a Monastery to gawp at the mummified body of St Gerasimos.  Back then I knew nothing about the Orthodox religion and how to behave.  I was staying on Kefalonia with 2 friends and we read about the mummified body of the saint. We took a taxi to the monastery and it was just us and 2 nuns, and the taxi driver, in a huge church with the Saint lying in a glass coffin.  I don't know what we expected but it was creepy, a dried up corpse and a silent church. Most embarrassing.  We had no idea what to do. I don't think we even lit a candle. 

Greek Orthodox visitors would have been crossing themselves, kissing the glass over the dessicated body and saying a prayer  with great reverence.  We just stood there with the nuns looking on.  Heaven knows what they were thinking, watching 3 heathen tourists. 

I hope we were at least decently dressed

A Summers Morning

15th August is the biggest Greek holiday.  Businesses close down, offices suspend work for a couple of weeks, Athens empties.  36,000 passengers left for the islands in the Saronic Gulf yesterday.  That's Poros and another 4 islands.  Thousands of cars are leaving the Capitol  every day swallowed up into the Greek mainland.  There are lines kilometres long at the toll gates to get onto the motorway. Airports, bus and train stations are bustling. Extra boats and buses are added to the schedule.

Anyone that can is leaving either to return to the family home in the  village of their fathers or to one of the hundreds of islands.

Poros is drowning in traffic and this extra crush of humanity.  The island is popular because an Athens city dweller can load up the car and in 2  hours be on the island relaxing beside the sea.

Saturday morning we left the house at 7.30am to go down to the harbour and do some grocery shopping.  We filled the boot with bags of rubbish, the usual kitchen waste which starts smelling badly very fast, stinky toilet waste,  and a bag full of crushed water bottles for recycling.  K drinks about 3 litres a day in the summer heat.  2 big plastic bottles. 

Our rubbish bins are 2 kilometres away .

Early morning.  Quiet.  The supermarket doesn't open till 8 but there was a huge delivery truck out front offloading pallets of fruit and vegetables to be replaced by another lorry, refrigerated, offloading more pallets piled high with food stuffs.  We found a parking place nearby, outside a cafeteria with tables across the road.  They don't like you parking right outside the cafe doors because waiters trail across the road to the actual tables holding up trays filled with coffees and snacks and want free access.  K moved the car about 2 metres back and the owner came out and put up advertising boards in the street so no-one else could park.

We waited 10 minutes till the supermarket opened and then went in to do the weeks shopping.  We hope it will be a week before we have to join the shopping crowd again.

The girls were still flatout filling shelves and fridges.  Few customers but still difficult moving round the busy staff.

Big trays of bread still hot from the bakers oven were being brought in from a van outside.  K picked up 2 half kilo loaves then quickly walked around to the meat and cheese counters before a queue formed there.  He gets testy when he has to wait.  No queue yet.  We bought a chicken chopped in half with the meat cleaver, throat and wing tips chopped off too.  100 grams of a very pungent feta cheese spread he loves, some black wrinkled olives and a 1/4 kilo of yellow cheese ie not feta. From Denmark , half the price of Greek cheeses. Not so tasty but economical . We already have feta, from a small grocer. 

Meanwhile I shot from aisle to aisle (there are only 3) grabbing bags of greek coffee, sugar, tea bags, tins of milk and eggs.

Because we had the car close by we also hauled 4 6-packs of water.

I had a cooler bag ready in the boot with icepacks where we stored the eggs and cheese and anything that might melt in the early morning heat.

Then coffee across the road at the 'blue chair' café.  Not to be confused with the 'green chairs' next to it which are no longer in favour with the head of the family.  

The Mayor is at the Café having a coffee and informal meeting with some of his councillors.  K sits down at the table next to them. They talk about the traffic problem, the parking confusion.  K joins in with a suggestion they bring back the little train which used to chug around the island years ago.  Taxi drivers didn't like the train.  It not only chugged too slowly and blocked the road but took away some of their business.  We have a free bus, electric, which does a circle round the main shopping area but they want another, bigger bus, to service the further out beaches and the Monastery. 

 Parking is the biggest problem.  Not many ideas on that, not much free land available in the town. A modern problem which *exacerbates every year .

I take a few photos to put on Instagram and read a couple of blogs, those that have appeared in my reading list.  Blogger has been hiding blogs for weeks now and if I don't  search them out I miss the connection with  my corner of the blogging world. 

An exNavy friend sits down with us and they discuss the Navy Hospital in Athens which no longer prioritises retirees. There are long waits for an appointment, or an operation.  K is waiting now more than 6 months for the operation to join the severed tendons in his right shoulder.  He's often in a lot of pain and will have to try another hospital, one on the National health insurance scheme, in early October if there's no notification from the Navy. He is exasperated with the Naval Hospital and ready for an argument. 

Eventually we notice that it's almost 10am, the temperature has risen and the road is busy.  He's lucky the car is facing in the direction of home but still it's an obstacle course dodging pedestrians, very quiet electric scooters, motorbikes which weave in and out of traffic and are barely visible in the side mirrors, taxis who don't give way to anyone, a bicyclist riding leisurely along,  wobbling alarmingly and an endless line of cars coming off the car ferry.  He steers up the road past the Navy Base, pedestrians walking along the edge of the road instead of the footpath, past the petrol station and finally out of the holiday hordes.  There's light traffic going up the mountain road to our house, and a corner where cats sprawl dangerously all over the road, but we breath a little easier.  There's a road block at the top stopping cars from going into the forest area.  Only permanent residents are allowed in.  K stops for gossip and repartee while they note our licence plate and jot down our names and then let us through the barrier.

Home.  The road outside our gate is littered with goat droppings which we carefully step around and slowly bring in the bags and bottles of water, put the sunshield over the front window and cover the steering wheel.  Otherwise we burn our hands if we need to go out again during the day.  Heaven forbid we need to leave again today.  

I sweep those goat droppings down the road away from our entrance.  Good fertiliser but I haven't got the energy to scoop it up.

The skyline is a hazy blue from the wild fires round Athens.  There are fire planes and helicopters flying frequently overhead.  At the moment we are safe.  No fires have endangered the island this year.  We took out fire insurance again this summer.  The sight of those homes that were in the fires, burnt out, gutted, is heartbreaking.

Inside we close up and turn on the aircon.  I just can't take the midday heat anymore.  Lunch is leftovers from the fridge,or a sandwich and beer for K.  I'm happy with boiled eggs and cheese.

 At 5pm we open up and venture out onto  the terrace hoping for a breeze.

A ruffle on the water at sunset

Thanks for the photo Elli

A new word for Poppi

And G and Jamie, Nels and Luli

*exacerbate. Worsen

Summer Sensations

 

Summer Herbs

Three different types of basil

I only use the last one pictured, the smaller leaf basil when cooking

They all have a slightly different taste

I use basil in most summer dishes along with

Mint  and 

Parsley

Those are the taste of summer.  A refreshing taste combo for

Stuffed tomatoes

Anything with zuchhini and aubergines

Just about anything with tomatoes

Stewed green beans

Okra

And in meatballs and bifteki.  Bifteki is the greek hamburger on every taverna menu along with fried potatoes.  They are a favourite of mine along with most of the family.

Ks meatballs are more popular though.  He puts lots of mint and parsley.  No basil

20 years ago basil was not used in cooking.  It became popular when Greek cuisine branched out and Italian sauces started being used with pasta.

My very traditional Greek m-in-law would never have used basil to cook so neither does her very traditional Greek son.

She always had a pot or two in her yard.  Basil was supposed to, still is thought to, repel mosquitoes and flies.  I disagree.  Neither does lavender.  Nice to smell, they all let out a delightful aroma when given a shake, but mosquitoes just hold their noses and fly straight through to the target.  Someone's bare flesh.  Not often mine.  Ks neck or arms are more likely to be their destination.  Zoom in, probiscis sharpened and in stabbing mode.

Oregano and thyme are used a lot but more for heavier dishes, meat and fish.

Basil does NOT go into a greek salad, not a traditional one.  And neither does lettuce

Karpouzi

Watermelon time

We buy the minis, about the size of a basketball

They haven't been very flavourful but delightfully refreshing when cold

I cut them up into chunks ready for eating

The rind is cut into small pieces. I don't have a compost bin at the moment but put them round the trunk of the grapevine. So far they've been devoured by some nocturnal animal. A weasel or stoat maybe. Or a rat

1,500 and Counting

This is blog post number 1,500 on this particular blog.  

I don't remember how I found out about blogging but back in 2007 I started a blog called 'On the Edge of Life'.  Heaven knows why I named it that.  But anyway, I started blogging as a way to keep family and friends updated on my life without having to write a whole lot of individual emails.  The first posts were long and rambling, interesting only to family who presumably ploughed through all the text.  A few other people started reading it and one complained because there were no photos.  Then a friend asked me how I could put such personal stuff out there for everyone to read.  That was way back before everyone put their entire lives on Facebook and the like.  I was a bit annoyed and deleted the blog, but not before printing out all the posts.  It hadn't lasted long, a year or so.

After that I decided to start another blog, not tell that friend.  She didn't need to read anymore about my life I decided.  I called it 'local-kiwi-alien' because that's what my girls called me after the song 'I'm in Love with an Alien'.   

My first post seems to be in 2010, once again for family and friends and anyone else that found me on the internet.  

The first post was about a family celebration.   Little has changed over the years.    I could change the date and repost half the blog with little alteration.

That 1st post had a long list of food, no photos.  It was just before the economic depression.  Our feasts are no longer so extravagent.  

 It took me a while to work out how to post photos. Now I take photos of every little thing and make a blog post out of them.  I start off everytime meaning to just add a few words and always get carried away.  I'm not a great talker but I can sure blab on my blog. 

2008 - excerpts from several old blog posts 

- TV. It's all Greek except for 'Days of our Lives', 'The Young and the Restless', 'Friends' and 'Gilmore Girls' in English with subtitles. 

No NZ news unless some maniac wipes out his whanau, family.  Or a sealion attacks parked cars in a seaside town. Anything sensational. 

2026 ..... much the same now.  The soaps are different except for 'Friends'

2008 .......I wrote ....

 Cars,  don't bother with seat belts, or stopping at redlights. Forget pedestrian crossings. 

If you double or triple park at least leave the keys in your car so the poor devil you've blocked can move the car and get out.

Give way to all taxis, buses and datsun farm trucks. Forget the right hand rule, there isn't one. Beware old ladies dressed in black riding donkeys. 

2026..... it'll be rare now to see anyone riding a donkey.  We are more law abiding and wear seat belts and helmets and double parking often means a ticket.  Fines are expensive.  Pedestrian crossings are still ignored.

 2008 ................

K went fishing and had a good catch.  Enough for family friends and neighbours.  He had given most of it away before he reached home.

2026 ............

K hasn't been out on the boat for a few years and recently sold it.  He had many marvellous memories.  Fishing with the girls and the grandchildren.  Diving for cockles, clams and mussels, spearing octopus with a long handled trident, pulling up squid at night by the light of a lamp and catching kilos of fish, different catches according to the seasons.

2008 .......

Our nearest neighbour, a wily old fox, has a problem with her oven.  A mouse ate through the wiring.  A hazard of living in the wop-wops.  K comes to the rescue again.  He's up there repairing the damage.   He returned home with a bottle of wine she makes herself from grapes grown on her small vineyard, a bottle of homemade vinegar and fresh eggs from her chooks.

2008 was the year of the Beijing Olympics.

Greece won 2 silver medals and a bronze and 2 athletes were expelled on doping charges.  The silver medals were won by 2 young 'boys' in a double skiff.  One of them was from Poros and he had gone to school with Elli and Danae.

Poros came to a halt while the race was on.  The whole island cheered them on .  A road has been named after the Poros lad, Dimitris Mougios Parade.

2008 - wine season

I wrote.......

K will be putting up 300 kilos of wine this year.  He has been scrubbing 2 big wine barrels. He is buying 100 kilos from our neighbour and after lengthy discussions the other 200 kilos will be from another vineyard on the mainland.

Our neighbour and her family pick and press the grapes themselves.  Some of the wine is pressed by foot and some in a wine press.  One year the grandchildren went up and trod the grapes with them.

2026............

K hasn't made his own wine for many years.  Nowadays he buys it in 20 litre cardboard cartons from a village not far away on the mainland.  The closer the vineyard the better the wine he says.  It does not travel well.

Over the years I started following other people's blogs, seeking out those from NZ.  I got a few more followers and feel I'm part of a small corner of the blogging community.    I'll keep on writing although it often seems to be on a repeat.

I've grown older, the grandchildren have grown up, there are more tourists around but Poros has remained much the same.

Summer..... Not in the City

 Congratulations and Jubilations

Granddaughter Luli found out this morning which University she'll be attending this year. It's the prestigious Athens School of Economics, the best in the country. She has been swatting hard for the last 2 years and finally all the stress is over. She achieved her dream!! 

Luli

Working the summer at a waterfront café ' 

'meanwhile back at the ranch' 

Poppi popped in to help the old folks do a few chores

This is the second time she has been called for urgent repairs

The first time was when our bedroom window fell off it's hinges.  It's very heavy, double glazing.  It came down without breaking when K was doing something to the fly screen.  We needed Poppi with strong arm muscles to lift it up again and into place

Done

Then she had to lift out the flyscreen from our living room window.  The screen was ripped  years ago by cats climbing up them with their sharp claws and a recent high wind destroyed it completely. 

She came up the second time, attached the new screen to the frame and slotted it back into the window

Done

We have loads of cherry tomatoes and are giving away bags of them.  I've pureed some and will make some sweet n sour sauce. 

Apricots I buy at the farmers market every week and simmer and then puree those too.  The freezer is full and I've made apricot chutney and apricot jam.  Both of them are delicious 

Both K and I have containers of tomatoes in the garden.  I Google how to grow tomatoes, follow all the instructions, stake them, prune them, make my own fertiliser from compost and get a handful of tomatoes.  K gets someone else to plant his, just let's them grow any old way and waters them when he remembers.  We've got kilos and kilos of tomatoes from those neglected plants. 

What's going on there? 

We've just survived our first heatwave. Temperatures of up to 42o in the centre of the country. About 36 here but felt much worse. Three days of hell fire.  

Now it's over and we had a thunderstorm.  Thunder claps right overhead and very heavy rain. It's just what we needed. The lemon trees soaked it all up. And K won't need to water his tomatoes for quite a while.

Good for us, but not for Elli who had to deal with leaky windows and doors at the office and at home 

It's beautifully cool now. I feel human again and sleep will be sweet tonight, not sweaty. 

 The little church of St Anne

25th July is her Fiesta 

Greek Guide

 What's right and what's wrong

Open palm. Don't flash your open hand at anyone, it's a serious insult.                                            If you're annoyed with someone then flash your palm behind their back.   They can't take offence if they don't see it but it'll make you feel better. A sort of 'same to you with knobs on'. 

You'll see lots of blue and white especially in the shape of an eye or a fish. Or someone's front door.  They're protective symbols.  Blue is the colour to repel the evil eye, illness and bad luck. The blue eye sends negative energy back to its source.

Dress respectfully in churches. Women will get away with trousers these days but no shorts for men or women. Stricter in Monasteries, no 'womans in mans dress'. Cover shoulders and knees. 

Cars don't stop at pedestrian crossings

Toilet paper in the bin. The used paper I mean. Don't flush it down the loo

Beware the summer sun

Never touch or remove anything from Archeological sites. You could end up in jail. Take photos unless there's a sign saying otherwise

Don't book a ferry on the same day as your flight home. Ferries are easily delayed.  Get into Athens a day early and stay overnight.  Holiday Inn has a shuttle service, and probably a few other hotels too

Go to a pharmacy for basic first aid and advice. Easier than finding a doctor

Keep to the right when driving. Pass on the left 

Seatbelts in the front seat mandatory. Don't know about the back seat

Don't use your phone while driving, though you're sure to see other drivers doing just that, and without seat belts.

Road rage is a thing here now. Beware. 

Helmets are essential for motorbikes, quad bikes and E-scooters .  You can hire a quad bike with a driver's licence. EU if you're from an EU country, otherwise international

Road signs are in Greek and English

If you pay cash, not by card, you'll probably get a discount. Cards can be used everywhere. At the kiosk for a bottle of water or a loaf of bread at the bakers

ATMs are everywhere. Preferably used one attached to an actual bank

Greeks don't eat dessert after dinner. Now and again you may be offered fruit

Water from the tap is drinkable however many people, like K, drink bottled water. Bottle caps are attached to the bottle, can't be removed and carelessly thrown away

Don't tip unless you really liked the meal or friendly staff. A few euros will do

Beware of slippery marble steps and paths. If there's water on them and you're wearing flip-flops you'll go head over heels

No public loos. Go to a cafe, buy a soft drink and use their loos

89% of Greeks believe their culture is superior to others 

I speak Greek. What's your Superpower