Tuesday 28 February 2023

Carnival is Over

 Carnival is over for this year.

Clean Monday, celebrating the beginning of Lent is over.

No more celebrations till 25th March. Yooo hoo 



On a small Greek island dressing up and drinking is definitely part of life, 
at home or downtown.
Here are my two girls


And two more of the family
That green reveller is a granddaughter dressed up as a beer bottle, with her father.
The beer bottle has been around for decades. It used to be worn by her grandfather.
In the good old days.

Poros had all sorts of music and dancing for younger revellers, along the waterfront, before the nightlife began.

Monday, Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera), is a public holiday. 
Poros was full. There were hundreds of big, latest model cars,  belonging to rich Atehians, parked along the roadsides and narrowing our usually empty, at this time of the year, streets.





Meantime, back at the homestead we prepared for an informal family get-together.
First of all the octopus hanging out to dry.


 Boiled shrimp.

Today we eat seafood.
But no fish.
Just shellfish, spiny sea urchins, cuttlefish, octopus, shrimp (or are they prawns) and kalamari.
Flatbread called lagana and taramasalata (salted fish row pureed with bread, lemon and olive oil). Both the lagana and taramasalata we make ourselves.

Sweet was halvas, made with oil, semolina and a sugar syrup.  My sister in law made it and it disappeared in an instant.
'Foreigners' (ie heathens) and children also had icecream, and coffee with milk.



Octopus.
This was just boiled slowly with olive oil. Very tender and tasty.
We also had bbq-ed octopus and octopus with vinegar and oil .
And lots of ouzo.
We were given three bottles of ouzo, speciality of the island of Mytileni. Our traditional Greek has plenty to drink with the octopus leftovers. A traditional combination. 

It was a quieter day than usual. Quieter music and not as much alcohol consumed. But after a night on the town some of the family weren't quite ready for a second round. My good friend and I opened a bottle of bubbly leftover from New Year.

 And we had a surprise visit
from an Athenian based granddaughter. After a previous day on the ski fields, a night out in Athens and a 2 1/2 hour early morning boat trip to get here it really was a huge surprise. Amazing what you can do when you're 20.


Instead of flying kites this year Poppi and her sister pruned the roses, grapevine and jasmine and then cleared out the huge weeds from the driveway below.



19 comments:

  1. I'm always fascinated by seeing your photos of octopus drying. Is it a way to cure it? At any rate, I could eat my weight in kalamari :-)

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    1. I really don't know why they dry it before bbqing. It turns out as tough as old boots and they love it that way. I've never got to the bottom of this enigma

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  2. I can't get over all the traditions and celebrations etc you have. It all looks wonderful though.

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  3. I saw lots of pictures from our island, of people dressed up and having a wonderful time.
    It would be nice if the Greek descendants here in Melbourne would start up a Carnaval tradition. But it’s not a public holiday here. So I guess it would be too hard.

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    1. I saw there were some Greeks celebrating in Australia . Can't remember whether it was Sydney or Melbourne. It was probably on Sunday though

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  4. Carnival is an aspect of Greece that we entirely missed out on. Darned shame it seems.

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    1. This year there were huge celebrations from north to south. 250.000 people crowded into Patras. The first big after-covid carnival . Too many crowds!

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  5. You certainly know how to party on Poros. There should be a world fancy dress day. It would certainly help if we let our hair down like you all do LA.

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    1. There's a world-everything-else day. Why not fancy dress.

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  6. The food sounds wonderful. Ah to have the energy of a 20 year old again!!

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    1. Amazing what you can get up to when you're young. I suppose we did the same. Hard to remember lol

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  7. That is a mighty fine octopus! You certainly have a lot of celebrations. What a brilliant way to look at life.

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    1. Everyday a party day, even in mid Winter. And a wake is a party too. Ask the Irish !

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  8. Could you, one day, give your blow by blow preparation of Octopus. They are usually sold in my French supermarket, and I would love to buy some. I just don't trust myself to make it delicious.

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    1. Ok, I'll do that. They're easier to prepare if they've been frozen, otherwise they need beating to soften them.

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  9. You will be glad of the short breather before the next round of celebrations.
    On another subject, I hope your family has not been impacted by the terrible train crash we are seeing on our news.
    Mxx

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    1. A rest is just what I need.
      The train crash was terrible. No one in the family anywhere near it. It's endlessly on every TV channel and I'm trying not to see the images. Reading about it is bad enough

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  10. It looks and sounds like alot of fun epsecially the beer bottle costume.

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