Spain and Greece

Good reading... 

Chris Stewart.. 

Once the drummer for the band Genesis

Fired from the band in the 70's (for poor technique says Google) he moved to a farm in Spain and began writing books and farming sheep.

'Driving Over Lemons' was published in 1999, describing his life on the small Andalusian farm.

It's a really good read and became a best seller.

It seems he's still on the farm in Spain and has written a lot more books, including the one above.

My niece Katy read the yachting book, Three Ways to Capsize a Boat,  and recommended it to me. 

Haven't read it yet. 

But I will

 

I wish I still had Driving Over Lemons to re-read.  Years ago I devoured books like this, starting with Peter Mayle and 'A Year in Provence'.  I bought books written by expats buying and doing up old houses in Italy, Spain and France.  Second hand books were cheap to buy 

 online back then and I could choose what I wanted to read.

I have a shelf of books written by expats living in Greece.  Some are excruciatingly patronising, badly written. So many think, after a year here, they know  the culture and traditions of the country and get it terribly wrong. However there are others that are a delight to read, especially when they have a little history and interaction with Greeks and not just other beer quaffing expats.

If you ever come across Chris Stewart, give him a read.  

The Greek classics are by Patrick Lee Fermor, Eric Newby, Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, Collin Thubron, Peter Levi, Eleni Gage.

Welsh broadcaster John Humphreys wrote a book about building a house on the mainland, not far from us.  His son was married to a Greek.  Still he got a lot of things wrong and over dramatised it all.  I read it a long time ago and then gave the book away.  

 

 

Time to Read

 Last summer's reading..... 

I sat on the beach and tried to block out my surroundings by immersing myself in a few good books. Our holidays at the navy resort are at the end of summer. 

Families are home, parents at work, kids at school. We share the resort with pensioners, like us. 

 Although the elderly don't let out high pitched screams like small children, boy can they talk the backside off a horse...or is it the hind leg off a donkey. I had to look that up! 

The men tell tall tales about their days in the navy, the women gossip and all of them spend hours discussing ailments and medication. 

Thank goodness my sis in law, Karen, left me this book.  Ann Cleeves writes a great who-dunnit. You're not likely to guess the culprit

Thanks Karen mou. I've found a couple more of her books down at the book Exchange. 

Now I've found her books on YouTube.  They're audio books, narrated very clearly, not AI. 

I'm on the 3rd one now

Books I'll be reading at the Navy Resort this summer. One month to go!!! 

These 3 are true life stories

Memoirs 

Who-dunnitz

And this little gem with puzzles from the NZ Herald...... No! they are in the Listener. A magazine all kiwis will know, if it's still in publication. Thanks Chris for mentioning that 

I do the crosswords in pencil, leave them for a year or so, erase the answers and do them again

You're given one letter and solve the rest by yourself

This is printed in 2006, the last time I was in NZ. It's almost archaic

15 th August

Summer shutdown time for the big cities. 15th August is the day of the most important religious festival of the year.  A day for solemn worship and a tradition of celebration going back centuries

 This day is the commemoration of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, when she 'went to sleep' and ascended to heaven.  Every village, hamlet, islet, outcrop of rocks has a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, tiny blue and white, huge sprawling cathedral or Monastery.  There are half a dozen on Poros or close on the mainland.

There will be church services on the eve and the morning of the 15th.  Services, which are well attended by locals and visitors.  Then the celebrating begins. Many fiestas will include dancing, food, sometimes cauldrons cooked over a fire and handed out to all those present, abundant wine and traditional music which can go on for days.    Dancing is central to all celebrations and everyone joins in, very old, very young, foreigners, black scarfed women and gnarled old peasants.  This is the high point of the year.  There is much laughter and joy in this yearly socialising, embracing family members who may live and work far away, uniting with friends, connecting with the wider world.  

K has not eaten meat since August 1st.  This is a 15 day fast  which some have kept strictly, eating no dairy, fish, meat or eggs. 

It is also a name day for many people.  Maria, Mary and all the alternate names for the Virgin Mary, Despina, Panayiota and for the men Panayiotis.

Here on Poros the day begins with a church service at the main cathedral, the handing out of sweet cakes, spiced bread and Holy bread. Then morning coffee with friends and family who are celebrating name days.  

It's too hot for midday feasting. Gatherings at homes and tavernas take place in the evening, continuing on till later in the cool of the night

There's no big fiesta here, just private celebrations. Still a lot of food, drink and noise though

K and I usually attend a family name day celebration across on Galatas but it's not taking place this year because of a death in the family.

He has ordered a half kilo of pork and potatoes and some lamb from a taverna. I'm making an authentic greek salad and tzatziki. We've got plenty of wine, white and red.

We will be quite happy to sit quietly midday on the terrace away from the craziness unfolding on the rest of the island.

The meltemi is blowing from the north, causing cancellations for those travelling by ship but bringing us slightly cooler days. 

It also brings road blocks preventing all and sundry from entering the forest area.  These high winds bring an extreme  fire alert.  We've been through the block 3 times. It's OK when K is driving. He knows all the volunteers. Not so easy when I was alone today.  They wrote down the number plate and then asked for my name so they could record it.  I know who they are, they know who I am but they have no idea what my name is. I'm just the foreign wife of K.  This afternoon it was obvious just how much of a foreigner I am even after 50 years. I had to say Linda, pronounced the Greek way, Leeda, about 3 times. Then came the surname. I suppose they were expecting a foreign name, not Ks family name.  They asked me 3 times.  I suppose it's my kiwi accent as well. I almost had to spell it out letter by letter, in greek, before the light bulb switched on. 

Kali Panagia 

Happy 15th August 

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