NikoloBarbara

The 'NikoloBarbara' are the three days from December 4th (St Barbara) to 6th December (St Nikolas).

This is the true start of winter.  Your wood supplies should be cut and stacked, your barns full of feed for the animals and the store rooms stockpiled with grains, the pig slaughtered and it's meat salted and packed in its fat in clay jars, dried figs, sultanas and tomatoes on the shelves, peppers and herbs hanging from the rafters, the wine barrels full and the first glasses drunk. Or so it used to be in the richer agricultural areas.

The first snow has fallen on the mountains further north and our fire is lit soon after dark to warm the house and brighten our evenings.

We have a big basket of oranges on the bench for our morning juice, a bowl of walnuts and chestnuts. The lettuces in our garden are trying to outgrow the three leaf clover. Greek tomato salads have given way to lettuce or cabbage salads, stuffed tomatoes and aubergines to stewed beans and lentils.

The tradition is that whatever the weather  between the 4th and the 6th is the weather we'll have on Christmas day.  These last few days have been cold with a little wind and mostly sunshine. Perfect weather for a family Christmas, cold enough for a fire in the afternoon but still warm enough for a short 'digestive' walk after lunch.

4 December  St Barbara
5 December  St Savvas
6 December  St Nikolas  name day of Nikos and Nikoletta. Patron Saint of the Navy
9 December  St Anna
12 December St Spyridon patron saint of the island of Corfu
13 December St Loukia  (Lucy)
15 December St Eleftherios

and these are only the most well known Saints and name days

Tomorrow we are having a visit from Turkish President Erdogan.  Athens is being shut down for 36 hours.  No trains will stop in the centre, buses and trams will take outer routes and everyone is being discouraged from entering the downtown area.  No strikes or demonstrations allowed of course.  2,800 policemen and women will be patrolling Athens streets and there will be snipers along his route from the airport to the centre.

Erdogan is bringing as well 200 of his personal guard.  He will travel in a convoy of armoured vehicles.  We haven't heard yet if he'll be accompanied by his wife, Emine, lover of antiques and French couture.   Her favourite coffee cups are reputed to be worth $1,000 each.

On Friday he goes to Thrace, an area of northern Greece with a Turkish minority.  It is the first visit of a Turkish president in 65 years.  Greece and Turkey are at loggerheads over so many issues it is hard to see any positive result from the visit.

A Day Away - photo parade

Last year's Christmas outing was to the Anglican christmas bazaar in Athens.  Too far, we decided this year.  Also if you're not there when the doors open and the foreign hordes rush in you'll miss out on the best second hand books, clothes and you won't find a seat to drink your tea and eat your scone

The smiling girls on the refreshment stall.  Spring rolls, mince pies, hotdogs, Irish coffee or a glass of wine. All homemade by the ex-pats of Athens

Beans, split peas. lentils and chickpeas, sold by the kilo

This year our outing was to the big outdoor market, turning left off the ferry boat, round the coast, up past the oil press and down into the fertile flat lands to Ermioni, about an hour away.  The market gardens and olive groves were full of  migrant workers, mainly from India and Pakistan.  There are no villages along the way, just little clusters of two or three houses.  All the same, with so many pickers and gardeners out in the fields it was not easy to find a secluded spot for a quick pee out of the wind and out of sight.  

Bottles of last years wine.  2 euros for 1 1/2 litres of the finest/cheapest.  Red, white or rose sold also in a 1 litre or a 5 litre plastic bottle

Clothes for everyone

And every purse.  This pile was 3 euros a garment, 5 euros for a jacket.  Dive in and dig around

Honey.  Sold by the half kilo.  The cheapest is simply labeled 'flowers' (7 euros for a half kilo), the most expensive labeled 'thyme' or 'pine' flavour  (10 or 12 euros a half kilo).  We are allowed to taste each one with a sample of honey on a toothpick, and always buy the 'thyme' flavoured honey.  The tastes differ according to where the hives are situated, in a pine forest or on a hillside covered in thyme.

Jars of pickled olives, capers, caper flowers, vine leaves and a herb called 'kritamo'.  We were going to buy a jar of caper leaves.  They push a greek salad into the gourmet sphere.  However at 7 euros a jar it was just too expensive

Poinsettias.  The Greek Christmas flower

Packing the boot.  And this was only the first stop

On to the b-i-g supermarket.  Acrobatics help pass the time when you're young and bored

The most expensive of the (artifical) Christmas trees.  

187.90 euros.  

You must be joking.  It wasn't particularly tall, or green.  It didn't have built in snow flakes.  I wonder if anyone will buy it.

Greek lettuce salad.  Lettuce, and spring onion, which we were burping for hours afterwards.  I added the oil and lemon juice.  Far too much oil but fortunately  most of it remained on the bottom of the plate.

On to Porto Heli at the seaside for something to eat.  Even here K found someone that recognised him and come up to chat.  The guy on the meat counter in the supermarket was another to recognise and greet him.   K was one of the upper echelon of officers at the Naval Training School for  many years.  So many sailors have passed through there and K seems to have known them all and have made a good impression as well.  Not all officers were so popular.

Good for us, we have insiders wherever we go.  This taverna on the sea was one of only two or three still open for the winter.  We chose the taverna because there were already three tables full of happy eaters.  All of us learnt a long time ago that when in an unknown area you go to eat where the tables are full.   If an eating place is empty there is a reason for it.

Thick greek yoghurt, local honey and apple slices to finish the meal.  On the house, of course.

Can't remember the name of the taverna but here it is if you're ever in the area.  Enclosed in plastic 'curtains' to keep out the chill.  Nice clean loos.  Fresh kalamari, big portions of keftethes (meatballs and chips) for hungry children.  Smiling service. Very reasonable prices.

Olives Forever

The olive harvest is in full swing.  From soon after dawn on these now lovely warm days I can hear neighbours bellowing at each other as they lay netting and move from tree to tree.  Plumes of smoke rise into the sky and occasionally across my washing as branches are cut down and burnt, usually with the help of a few gallons of petrol.  Fresh green branches do not burn well.

Thicker branches are cut into manageable pieces to be hauled away for next years fires in the wood burning stoves which are now the fashion here.

I could write a post a day for the next month and not exhaust the subject of the olive tree and its drupes (bean/grain/seed).  However, I won't.  I'll be writing more about the olive this time next year and the years after.

I don't particularly like to eat olives, though there are some exceptions.  Green olives, soaked for many, many days to get rid of the bitterness and then pickled in a vinegar solution are sometimes quite agreeable,  Green olives, from a jar on a supermarket shelf, stuffed with almonds, red peppers or anchovies are even more palatable, almost addictive.

On a balmy summer's night at a taverna often the greek salad and even the tzatziki will be adorned by an olive or two.  I often  eat the decor and find it pleasing.   I can imagine the olive in a glass of martini would please me as well.  No stone for a start.

What I don't like are black olives preserved in coarse salt.  They can be mouth puckering dry or bitter and parch the roof of the mouth in an unpleasant manner.    I also don't particularly like olives in cooking though there are as usual a few exceptions.  The olive flavour takes over and smothers any other tastes, especially spaghetti sauces with chopped olives.

Olive bread can be tasty.  Tapenade (olive paste) is nice in small quantities and on the right bread.  What I like most are kalamari with chopped olives. This is a recipe given to me by the greek mother of a friend of ours when we lived in Crete.  An authentic greek recipe from a traditional greek Mama, Kyria Niki.

You can use either fresh or frozen squid or even squid/kalamari from a tin.  Now and again we use a tin of kalamari for a quick ouzo-meze with a squeeze of lemon juice and some olive oil.

Kalamari/squid
lots of olive oil, maybe a wine glass
a handful of stoned olives (black or green), chopped
2 chopped onions
1 clove garlic, chopped
tomatoes, pureed, canned
1/2 cup of wine
chopped dill or maratho*, lots of it

Put the oil, chopped onions , garlic and kalamari, cut into rings, into a pot and fry gently till softened.    About 10 minutes.  Add the half cup of wine ( red or white), pureed tomatoes, olives and chopped dill.  Simmer till everything is soft and the sauce has come together in tasty velvetness.

*maratho is a type of dill.  After looking it up on the net it appears that it is the leafy, liquoricey, leaf of the finokio bulb.  In fact after opening half a dozen 'windows' I realised it is fennel.  Finokio is the greek name.  Down in Crete we found that the Cretans preferred fennel to dill.  There is only a slight difference in flavour.

Eat, drink and be merry

Olive leaves for life

The olive tree provides shade, olive oil for health and cooking, wood for our winter warmth, wood for carving, olives to be cured and eaten and oil to keep the lamps alight.

These  olive wood salad servers are excellent for lifting salad from bowl to plate and elegant too.  We have a pair which came from NZ, obviously not made from olive wood.  Possibly rimu, totara, kauri or kahikatea, just to roll off a few maori words.

The olive leaf has endless health benefits, though results are still being studied.

I was reminded of them recently while watching Ben Fogle's 'New Lives in the Wild'.  He was visiting a couple living in a mud brick house in Morocco, Dina and Moustafa.  Being Morocco their mud brick house was  surrounded by olive trees and little else but dust.   Dina's chooks were dying from some sort of virus.  She boiled olive leaves and gave the chickens the resulting herbal tea to drink.  The chickens perked up and became healthy egg layers again.

Olive leaves are  -

anti - bacterial

anti - hypertensive    

  anti - inflammatory

     increase energy

promote healthy blood pressure

                improve brain function            

      

A few years ago the olive leaf cure hit Greece and every programme on TV was plugging them as a miracle quick fix.  We were shown how to make an olive leaf milkshake, how to eat them, drink them and add years to our lives.  I even remember  seeing a packet of olive leaves on sale in the supermarket, like a bunch of rocket. Someone was incredibly fast to take advantage of gullible consumers.

One bold television presenter had the foolishness to sell them as a cancer cure.  She lost her job and the mania came to an abrupt end.

However, there is something to the claim that they benefit our overall health.  I remember seeing olive leaf extract on sale in NZ years again.  Extract or tablets are the easiest way to take in all the goodness but if you have olive trees around you then try an olive leaf tisane.  Boil the leaves in water and drink the liquid.

         

Christmas Time Coming Ready or Not

First decorations for Christmas 2017 have apeared on the island.  Some of the street lights have been turned on.  A few houses high above the harbour have their Christmas lights twinkling too, wrapped unevenly around balconies.  So annoying when you see dips and bulges in the line of fairy lights.  I just want to clamber up there and push them into a straight line.  Lights out of sync are not just mightily un-aesthetically pleasing but darn right irritating.

One of the family houses has been decorated with the Christmas tree up and glowing.  Lots of hand painted pine cones, Nana-knitted mini xmas stockings and a Santa hat instead of a star or angel at the top of the tree.  Yes, for innovative change.

The Xmas tree did have an aging gilded star.  It went into the fire and burnt like a Super Nova.  I plant  a poinsettia flower at the top of our tree, which shall not go up at least until it is December.

It is actually traditional to decorate a boat here in Greece.  Our Local Council will have a small boat in the main square covered in twinkling lights along with its usual decorated tree.

This is the boat in my daughter's house.  The lights weren't working but you can imagine what it looks like lit up at night.  The tree is in another corner.  On the left of the boat (schooner?) are the family icons, some of them rather old, vintage/antique and with a silver surround.

This year they start a new tradition, a snow man on the toilet seat.

Not a Christmas painting but a wonderful wall hanging, dolphins surrounded with a frame of driftwood, made by son-in-law.

Kala Christoyenna

Merry Christmas

Olives away

Olive picking has begun in earnest.   The family who own the land next to us were out in force all day yesterday.  




Their haul, 8 sacks of olives ready to go off to the oil press.  Each sack contains from 50-70 kilos of olives.

They left the sacks overnight under the trees and a small truck collected them the next morning.  Here on Poros, an island, this is still possible.   Across on the mainland Peloponese no-one would dare leave bags of olives standing unattended under a tree all night.  They would disappear like magic into someone else's little truck.   Times have changed.




The two sisters, with 'menfolk', arrived soon after seven and set to work straight away setting out a large net under the first tree.  One of the men climbed up a long ladder, cutting and throwing down higher branches which were laden with fruit.  The two girls combed the branches letting the olives fall onto the nets.

They didn't stop for a 'charming rustic picnic' at lunch time, in fact hardly stopped at all during the day.  Husbands and friends arrived to help and they finished the (about) 15 trees by late afternoon.

The olives under each tree were gathered up into one big heap and the women spent a long time on their knees removing sticks and leaves.  

Next day they moved on to another olive grove they own.  The sacks are taken to the press every few days. 

We have a dozen oil presses in the area, each one  working from dawn till 'whenever'.  Friends of ours waited 7 hours to get their olives turned into oil.  The queue of farm pick-ups is endless at this season.    

  These olives are on flat ground and are fairly easy to pick.  Trees on rough, rocky land or on the side of mountains are hard work but the olives get harvested whatever the terrain or the weather.

21 November

Armed Forces Day
'A celebration dedicated to the watchful guardians of the Greek borders, the guarantors of security, peace and prosperity of the Greek people'.

Also a religious holiday, of course. The Orthodox church celebrates the entry of the Blessed Virgin into the temple.

Name day for virgins named Mary and Maria.
Non virgins celebrate  on 15th August.

In Athens the day begins with raising of the Hellenic (Greek) flag on the rock of the Acropolis. There follows a service at the church of St Dionysios which is attended by all the bigwigs in politics and out, all the Forces Generals, Admirals and Air Marshalls in their dress uniforms with shining medals and sharply creased trousers.  Important people then lay wreathes on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square.   We see all of it on the news in great detail.  The church service is usually shown live on one of the national channels.

Who puts creases in their trousers nowadays? Our PM doesn't even wear a tie. Ever.

On Poros there is a service at the church of St Nicolas at the Navy Base this year followed by coffee, drinks and nibbles in the Base dining room

Poros Navy Base

Last year the church service  was followed by a free feast for all retired and serving officers, local officials and spouses at a taverna.  These 'lunches' can go on till dark and the remnants are then moved over to a nearby cafeteria till the last man drops.  There has been some strategic belt tightening this year


- 25th November       St Katherine
- 26th November       St Stelianos
Name day for Stelios and Stella
- 30th November       St Andreas (Andrew)
Patron saint of the city of Patras