Greek cheesecake (Τζιζκέικ)

Cheesecake in the sense that it is understood in modern culinary terms - a crumbed base, topped by a cream-cheese filling and decorated with fruit or jam - is not very Greek, even though one of the first cheesecakes was probably the 'plakounta' (placenta) made by ancient Greeks. Something similar to the plakounta is the simple melopita (honey pie), made on the island of Sifnos, a self-crusting egg-and-fresh-cheese mixture sweetened with honey. Traditional Greek cooking also includes a lot of sweet cheese-based desserts: in Crete, we have mizithropita (also known as Sfakiani pita) and other similar filo-wrapped pies.

Modern New York style cheesecake is now widely available in Greek patisseries, and is quite popular, possibly due to the heavy advertising of Philadelphia cream cheese, with a whole TV cooking show dedicated to its use. It's not an ingredient I keep in the house because of our preference for locally produced fresh cheeses. I decided to make a cheesecake with my leftover Greek Christmas cookies, melomakarona, which we got a bit tired of eating. For the cream cake, an idea would be to use a recipe for melopita which uses fresh cheese (mizithra). But local mizithra varieties have a distinctly savoury taste, which is why it isn't the best cheese to use when making a no-cook cheesecake. For this reason, I decided to use Philadelphia cream cheese, which gives a smooth texture, mixed with some other Greek dairy products.



For the base:
Break some leftover melomakarona (including crushed walnuts - I think I used about 10 melomakarona) for your base and mix them with about 50g butter. Press this mixture into a baking tin (I don't have a springform tin).

For the cream filling:
Place a small pottle of cream cheese (200g) with equal amounts of thick Greek yoghurt (known in Greece as γιαούρτι στραγγιστό - 'milk cream') and cream (known in Greece as κρέμα γάλακτος - 'milk cream'), 50g runny honey and grated orange zest. Once the mixture thickens (but does not set), pour it over the biscuit base and allow to set in the fridge.

For the topping:
Any kind of jam would do here. I decided to cook up a fresh runny jam, by heating about 100g of frozen red berries with 50g sugar for 5 minutes on high heat. I poured this hot mixture over the cold cream to get a slightly marbled effect. (Alternatively, let the jam cool down for a firmer top layer.) 

Another Greek idea for topping would be to pour some honey over the cream, sprinkled with orange zest and ground cinnamon, something I decided against at the last minute, because I was fast running out of honey after all my Christmas baking. honey also has a very sharp taste, whereas sugar is more neutral (it sweetens something without adding flavour to it, like honey does).

It's now St John's feastday, and there are still some more melomakarona (as well as kourambiedes) left over. An idea for a trifle, perhaps?  

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Melomakarona (Μελομακάρονα)

What kind of Greek food blog is one that does not include a recipe for the traditional Greek Christmas shortbread known as melomakarona? An incomplete one for sure. As my sister is the melomakarona maker in this family, here is her recipe, which I made this year.

This recipe makes a lot of melomakarona - I halved it, and got this plate, as well as another half plate. It is a simple recipe, and an easy one to make in one afternoon. For modern eaters, this recipe is vegan (and can be made gluten-free by adding gluten free all purpose flour).

The olive oil, orange juice, honey and walnuts are all local products, all produced just 10-30 kilometres away from my home. Without being biased, these melomakarona are truly delicious: they taste like a whiff of Crete in every bite.

1 litre olive oil
1 ¾ kilos all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed (not from a packet/carton - the final product won't taste right)
some ground cinnamon  and cloves
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons semolina
Mix everything together, leaving the flour till last.

Bake at 180C till golden brown, about 30-40 minutes. When cool, dip lightly in syrup (recipe below):
1 cup honey
2 cups sugar
3 cups water
Boil everything together, till the syrup sets slightly (about 20 minutes on a rolling boil).

Either the biscuits must be hot and the syrup cold, or the biscuits must be cold and the syrup hot (I do the latter - it's easier to warm up the syrup after making the biscuits).

Dip the biscuits in the syrup and allow them to soak in the syrup for up to a minute, turning them over once. As you pull them out of the syrup, coat them in ground walnuts.

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Steak and kidney-less pie

One of our more memorable meals in London was taken on New Year's Eve at the Battersea Pie Station in Covent Garden. We had ended up there after attempting a walk along the Thames, starting from Cannon St. At Blackfriars, we were stopped by the crowd and safety control units who were policing the area and keeping people away from the riverside, due to the fireworks event that was schedule to take place later in the evening. Our detour away from the riverside took us through some very London sites of great historical interest. It almost felt Dickensian.

Poultry obviously takes its name from its former association with the chicken trade.

We were intrigued by what looked like a private function with a focus on seafood...

... and highly unamused by this vile-sounding Christmas food special! (It has been described as: "An overwhelmingly negative reaction, ranging from 'aggressively disgusting' to 'one of the worst things I’ve ever put in my mouth'. It gets points for effort, attempting to combine virtually every festive ingredient, but it tastes like someone has pushed their Christmas leftovers into a blender and served them with rice.")

New Year's Eve is a very quiet day for London business people, but even when London is supposedly sleeping...

... it keeps changing looks, as it prepares for various events, and this time, the portaloos made it look like it would be welcoming the New Year with a heavy bout of drinking.

We eventually needed to use a bathroom ourselves, so I popped into a Pret-a-Manger and bought some Christmas mince pies which I'd really wanted to try while in London.

When I asked for the bathroom facilities, believe it or not, this place did NOT have toilets! So we held off, in the hope that we would eventually find a place to take a leak legally.

At The Strand, the former Aldwych tube station, often used as a film location, looked ghostly silent. This street was cut off to strollers due to the fireworks event.

Somerset House was looking very festive with its ice rink (where we found some free bathroom facilities).

I had a quick browse through the ridiculously overpriced Fortnum and Masons shop (it was sponsoring the ice rink) - 50 pounds for a set of 6 Christmas crackers, did I read that right?!

A short stroll away, we found ourselves at Covent Garden. Cold weather makes you feel hungry all the time. I chose the Battersea Pie Station, in the hope that I would find some steak and kidney pie (and Cornish pasty - another of my favorite pies in New Zealand). We weren't disappointed. My family lets me do the ordering most places when in London, because they know I know the food well enough. My early life in colonial New Zealand stopped abruptly just when New Zealand's food tastes became more international, so I still have fond memories of New Zealand old-fashioned comfort food, which were invariably British-based.

Chicken and mushroom pie, steak and kidney pie, and Cornish pasty - ~20 pounds, with a bottle of beer and a cup of tea.

Back home, when I decided to make a steak kidney pie myself, I found it near impossible to find kidneys! In Greece, the sale of beef and chicken kidneys has been banned since the mad cow furore - which started in the UK; yet, they aren't banned there! Although lamb's kidneys are still available for purchase here, when I tried to track some down, I found that they are never severed from the actual animal, so you have to buy the part of the animal that they are connected to. This is done for transparency reasons: in this way, the butcher is showing you that the animal was healthy - if the kidney is missing, the buyer may wonder whether the animal was sick. 

I used this very easy-to-follow recipe as the basis of my beef stew and pastry. The beef stew was cooked last night, the pastry was made this morning, and we had the pie for lunch with some leek and potato soup. 

To replace the umami taste of the kidneys, I bought a packet containing two slices of kavurma, adding some mushrooms and soya sauce (I was out of Worcestershire sauce) to my beef stew. I think the taste was successful, and the whole family enjoyed the pie, which will be made again eventually, because I froze half the stew. Slow-cooked food takes a long time to cook, so why not make a double batch and save your time later?

Bonus photo: A chat with the butcher where I bought the beef also revealed another mysterious EU meat regulation, which forbids lamb's spleen from being sold - but cow's spleen is permissible!

At any rate, if you have close relations with someone who raises their own meat, you can procure everything. I had lamb's spleen in sheep's intestine last week at an inner-city cafe bar, where the landlord-owner-cook prepares everything freshly and to order.

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Food for the brain

Belated Happy New Year to everyone.

We still haven't cut the vasilopita in our house, so we ourselves are slightly delayed in our own celebration of the change in the year. We were rather busy (over-)enjoying ourselves during the festive period.

A very educational meal at a Pret-a-manger outlet near Hyde Park: The choices were made by myself, so that the family could experience 'alternative' food. Crisps need not be potatoes; I also introduced them to the idea of 'corporate responsibility' towards a society (stuff I know about, 'cos I proofread Master's students' theses about them). Total cost for 4 hot drinks, 4 wraps/sandwiches and two packs of crisps: 24.50 pounds.

On reflection, my decision to the take the family to London during this time was the best decision I ever made in my life. It was based on a number of factors, mainly that of creating one's own happiness, which I feel need to be written down for the record, so that those who read this in the future (hopefully, my son and daughter) will remember how and why their mother made the (extravagant-sounding) decision to take the family on a (second) holiday abroad.

My favorite fresh market is the Lewisham street market - it is very cheap (most stuff is sold in bowls, all for just 1 pound), and this Christmas, I got to try brussel sprouts, kale, parsnips, swedes and turnips, some of which I added to a roast with a chicken (3.50 pounds).

The most important reason for my rather last-minute New Year's plans was to show my children (primarily) that life is dull, boring, sad, etc only if you allow it to be. As I said in my last post for 2014, Life doesn't always go as planned... You may or may not be the perpetrator of all your own misery, but you can usually be the creator of all your own happiness. But nothing will happen if you don't plan it to take place, which may mean that you have to act in an original way, perhaps appearing unpredictable among your friends and family. In most cases, you can envisage the consequences of most of your actions: if they seem dull, boring, sad, etc, then try to change your actions and behaviour before the consequences become history.

Battersea Pie company in Covent Garden, New Year's Eve - I grew up in New Zealand savouring the taste of steak and kidney pie and Cornish pasty. Total cost: 20 pounds (with a cup of tea). 

Despite the pervading belief in the west that Christmas is now far removed from its religious context, it is still one of the biggest events of the year. (In Greece, Easter is far more important than Christmas.) But Christmas is actually a very quiet time in Crete. Some small events take place for Christmas, but they do not penetrate society in the same way that Christmas events do in western countries. Hence, Christmas/New Year's time is not really very exciting in Hania.

The best souvlaki we have ever tasted is found in Camden market. Souvlaki Superstars import all their meat and pita from Greece. They have been there for two years, but they are unsure of their future now that the Camden markets have been sold to developers - this part of the market will be the first to go. It's a difficult time for them, as they moved on from their own country only to be moved on in their new one. 3.50 per large souvlaki, much larger than the ones we normally eat in Hania.

Staying in Hania for the New Year almost ripped my heart out this year. I can't fool my kids anymore during these festive periods. Gone are the times when I'd take them into the town and say "Look! The Christmas tree! And the boat! And here's Santa!" They don't fall for that any longer. The town is gaudily tinsel-clad, the events that take place in the town are usually geared towards young children, our friends are very predictable in their habits, the food always consists of standard Cretan menu items (unless I am the host for the day, but I knew I couldn't have this happen this year for various reasons: one friend has developed a fear of driving, while the other always prefers the ancestral village home in the mountains), and in short, a certain misery pervades, often caused by cold weather and a belief that life is bad. Among people who own their own home, don't have debts, have a job, eat high quality food and can afford to educate their kids, I'd say that these folks really have no understanding of true misery. This year, I had to get out of here, even if it meant on my own.

The cheapest time to enjoy Christmas pudding is ... after Christmas, when it's discounted by 50% at the supermarket! Sticky toffee apple pudding, with clotted cream and last season's foraged blackberries. Total cost: 7 pounds.

Giving my children a wider experience of the world has always been a priority. This is how they will become well educated. Greek schools do not give many opportunities for mental stimulation.  My children are not born geniuses, but their school grades are very good. This has something to do with the Greek education system. It's ... predictable (it is all based on set textbooks). I use my knowledge of this predictability, and steer my children's learning around being prepared not just for the lessons they are learning, but the lessons that will come. Hence their good grades. They do not have preparatory classes, extra lessons, outside help, gadgets, or whatever else it takes to give them the upper edge - they just have better planning skills, and a wider experience of the world. It is difficult to find suitable rewards for this: good planning skills are rarely rewarded in Greece, primarily because they are not found in a text book. There is so much junk that we can buy for kids, most of which will be used once or twice, before it takes refuge in a dark corner, and will not come back into use for a while. A stimulating holiday with many new experiences will forever remain etched in their minds.

Best meal out ever: fish and chips in Brighton. My kids learnt a lot of things about British food during this wonderful experience. Total cost of meal: 37.50 pounds. 

Above all, we have gracious hosts in London. They like our independence when we stay with them. so that they can do their own thing while we come and go, doing our own thing and meeting back at their place for a meal. This year we prepared communal meals nearly every day with them. (Eating out in London can be ridiculously expensive.) The nicest thing that they said to me this time was: "It's really good that you can always find something new to do while you are here and you are never bored." I take it that this means that we can come back again, with our gifts of freshly pressed olive oil and home cooking. Without this free accommodation, I probably would not have the opportunity to visit a very different world to my own - but I'm sure I would still be finding ways to make my own and my family's life happier.

Bonus photos: As a teacher, I couldn't help posing brain teasers to my son who wanted to visit the public library in Lewisham. So I asked him questions like 'What might Gay and Lesbian contain?', 'Why might the book Gay Life and Culture be located in the Politics section instead of Gay and Lesbian?', 'What about Sex Life? Why is that in the 'Psychology' section?'

I think I'm a good teacher for teaching people about alternative views, perhaps because I'm a little alternative myself, despite my conservative background. You can't get this sort of social education in Hania, 'cos there's no reference starting point for it to begin with. Ignorance causes the biggest problems in society, which is the basis of western-style humour, as we have seen throughout this year's holiday period.

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Last posting

Happy Nameday if your name is Ahmed (Ahmad/Ahmet). It's St Ahmed's today in teh Greek orthodox church calendar.

What has happened to my time as of late? It flies, perhaps too quickly for my liking. I don't use it up so leisurely any longer. I was hoping to get a quick post in before Christmas, but I also know that whatever I would have written two days ago would have become obsolete by now.

I was woken up not by carol singers today, like we usually are on Christmas Eve, but by the mourning toll of the church bells. Since last night, I knew that Christmas had been cancelled in my neighbourhood, after the area was swarmed by cars parked on every available spot in an area that does not even have a footpath. How easily we change our traditions after a tragedy. "Να τα πούμε;" (Shall we say them?), as the saying goes concerning the question traditionally asked by carol singers before they begin singing, was banished here this year. If anyone asked any question, it would have been along the lines of "Δεν τα είπαμε;" (Didn't we say them already?). The event could have been predicted, sooner or later. Or perhaps the question was "Δεν σου τό 'πα;" (Hadn't I told you so?), since it could also have been avoided. We all knew it was bound to happen. Even his parents had predicted the event when they got rid of the motorbike. They gave him a car instead.

Prepping Christmas lunch: A friend was asking me yesterday if she can find lamb shanks in Hania - as long as you know how to tell the butcher how to cut the meat, yes, you can find lamb shanks. Generally speaking, butchers hack it to pieces here, and the locals use it in this way. Forget about what you see in the Greek haute cuisine magazines: they show mainly urban cuisine, and what we aspire to, rather than what we really are. My contribution for Christmas Day lunch is: guacomole, roasted peppers and lettuce with kid avgolemono.

Now we can also make predictions for the summer. For instance, we can be quite sure that we will no longer be woken up at the same time in the middle of the siesta, and later on, in the middle of the night, by the garish sounds coming from the same car as it sped up and down the road, windows rolled down, car stereo full blast. The car is now scrap metal, and its driver buried under the earth, joining his young cousin who died under similar circumstances a few years ago. His young mother will wear black for the rest of her life, as will the mothers of the other two teens who died with him. The fourth one - who had just finished his teens a year earlier - is still fighting for his life. I predict he will make it, but he won't be the same person that he was.

Since the event, I have had to reorganise Christmas Day lunch. The mother's wails can still be heard. Tomorrow's lunch will now be pot luck, at a friend's house. Making as little effort as possible in order not to be seen or heard, we shall pack our pots and pans, and head out of the area. We'll be wearing our seatbelts, and only one of us will drink, to ensure that we can make it back home.

Life doesn't always go as planned, but that is no reason to get angry. Rearranging keeps you on your toes. You can't have everything you want all the time, but you can probably have everything you need. You may or may not be the perpetrator of all your own misery, but you can usually be the creator of all your own happiness.

Merry Christmas to all. I hope to be back in time for the New Year. Till then, more work to get through...

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Cinammon orange biscuits with chocolate glaze (Χριστουγεννιάτικα μπισκοττάκια)

A colleague recently bought some biscuits into work which her children had made. The combination of orange, cinammon and chocolate created a very tasty flavour. I asked her for the recipe, which comes from an advertisement by a Greek flour and confectionery company (ΓΙΩΤΗΣ), published in one of the latest issues of Gastronomos, a Greek gourmet magazine.

I'm loking forward to making these biscuits at the weekend. In the meantime, here's the reicpe (it makes approximately 50 biscuits).

Crafted by children - in Greece, Christmas time is generally all about them and ultimately for them.

You need:
200g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter (my friend used a mixture of butter and olive oil)
1 1/2 cups blanched ground almonds
1 large egg
80g icing sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of cinammon
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 shot of cognac (most Greek cooks keep a bottle of Metaxas in the house)
125g cooking chocolate
1/2 cup cream
1 tablespoon cinammon flavoured liqueur (my friend didn't use this)

Beat the butter and sugar till well combined. Add almonds and egg and beat till well blended. Add cinammon, zest and cognac and beat well. Sift flour and baking powder, and fold it into the mixture, beating just as much as needed.  Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 2 hours.

Heat oven to 160C and grease two baking trays. Divide dough into four pieces. Roll out each piece on a floured surface to just under 1cm. Use cutters to make Christmas shapes, place on baking tray 2cm apart from each other, and cook each tray 10-15 minutes till golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool 10 minuted before removing them from the tray onto a cooling grill.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, and gradually add the cream and liqueur. Allow to blend without boiling. Dip the biscuits into the chocolate, allow excess chocolate to drip off, then place biscuits on greaseproof paper. Allow the chocolate to set before placing biscuits on a serving plate.

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After hours (Εκτός ωραρίου)

I had a slightly surreal experience late on Saturday afternoon in Hania. I had taken my daughter into the town centre to see the Christmas decorations that have been placed on the main squares, and with this opportunity, we also did some window shopping.

Most of the town's decorations have been put up, but the lighting will be launched next weekend. The street lamps are generally well lit with decorations too, so the atmosphere is not so bleak.

We didn't intend to go into any store to buy anything, and it was rather late in the afternoon for the stores to be open, but there were a number of Christmas baubles shops still open. Apart from Christmas decorations, they also usually sell some eye-catching bric-a-brac: bracelets, beads, make-up, souvenirs, inter alia. Most other businesses were either closed or in the process of closing up for the weekend (as you know, it's still never never on a Sunday for most regional stores around Greece).

There were many pretty store windows capturing the commercialised aspect of Christmas, but I chose this one out of the many photos we took on that day, because it characterised Christmas as we are living it today in Hania - most people are these days using wood-fired heaters instead of liquid fuel. Four years ago, the wood-fired heater was a rare sight in the town - now there are a number of stores in the town selling all sorts of models, and plenty of places where you can buy wood. How quickly we learn to adapt.

My daughter wanted to enter it, and I felt like a little shopping therapy myself. It was one of the €1-2 shops that entice people in with their very low prices. My daughter found a set of plastic coloured strings that can be used to make bracelets (€1), and I found a made-in-China souvenir of Crete that I thought looked quite stylish (€1.50): a tea-light candle holder with a raised image of the lighthouse and Firkas castle, with the snow-capped Lefka Ori in the background.

Last week, I complained about the lack of souvenirs on sale honouring the 100-year celebrations of the Union of Crete with Greece. Imagine if the Municipality of Chania had bothered to plan for this in advance, selling souvenirs like this during the summer to our zillions of tourists with a simple addition of the phrase '100 years' tacked onto the 'Chania' part. Planning ahead is a skill that needs to be developed in teh Greek state.

I let the child browse a little longer, then we went to pay at the cashier. 'That's €2.50', said the lady at the till. I took out my purse and found some change. She placed the items in a bag, and then whispered to me, as she lowered her head towards my face: "I have just closed the till, and I'm supposed to be closing the store now, which is why I closed the door. I can't issue you with a receipt, so as you go out, I'd appreciate it if you put your shpping in your handbag, and if someone asks you if you bought anything, just say you didn't."

She was worried about the random checks made by tax officers - you don't always know when/where they will strike, and if you are a woman working alone in a shop, you will probably just admit that you were a tax evader. How quickly we learn, when both our feet are placed in the one shoe. And how dangerous our once-easy jobs have become.

The tax that she evaded paying in my case was minimal, and of course, there was always the option of denying a sale to a customer, although it isn't a particularly Greek way of conducting business. It is difficult to envisage a time when we may in fact do this, without finding an alternative method to achieve our goals. It goes against our creative spirit.

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Christmas at Easter (Χριστούγεννα το Πάσχα)

The weather is an important topic of conversation in many countries, often in the form of a complaint. In Greece, we often complain about the sun because it gets too hot. Even in the middle of winter, when the sun comes out, it sits on your back and soaks through your clothing into your skin, giving you a damp humid feeling. In rural Crete, we make the sign of the cross when we see rain because of its relative absence and its great importance for our agriculture. Our prolonged dry spells are another cause of chagrin: dust accumulation. Even when it rains after a long dry spell with southern winds, the rain will fall together with the dust, causing what is known in Greece as the 'red rain' phenomenon.

I often read about how much the Brits moan about their rainy cold weather. Now that I spent a week in London during one of the coldest ever Marches, I can understand why they moan so much. In the seven days we were there, I can actually recall the moments I saw the sun. The first time lasted for about half an hour. We saw it from the train window during the trip from Stansted Airport to central London, at about sunset. As we passed through picturesque countryside, where we saw hundreds of carefree-looking bunny rabbits enjoying the sunshine (and to think, I was carrying rabbit meat in my suitcase - how easy it must be to cook up a stifado in this country!), a few scurrying squirrels, some ducks wading through streams and a quick glimpse of an allotment that was enjoying the sun's rays, that little bit of sun made the bare flat English fields look quite enticing.

By the time we arrived at my friend's house in southeast London, the sun had disappeared, giving way to the evening darkness, which looked very Dickensian as we walked past the pretty red-brick terraced houses of Brockley. They had a Christmas look about them: a faint light could be seen from the opaque window pane of the main entrance, and one room would also be lit up with the curtain drawn, so you could see the interior, where someone was often working at a desk on a computer. One house even had red fairy lights around one of the windows. That was the only yellow light we would see for the next seven days, except for one brief moment when the sun suddenly appeared from the sky like a lightning bolt, lasting all of three minutes - in between the light snow and the gritty hail - in Hendon. We felt its warmth through the windows from inside a shop where we were buying my son's fencing equipment. And that was basically it. We never saw the sun in its round yellow form while in London, and we didn't get any other glimpse of the until we returned to Crete.

Instead of spring this year, Britain is going through a prolonged winter, which seems rather unfair, given that summer hardly appeared last year. I can still see snow from the windows of our Cretan home - but it's sitting on the top of the mountain, out of harm's way, not under my feet. Our weekend in London was spent watching the snow flakes falling onto the ground, and amassing into ice on our hosts' potted herbs and flowers, the black soil in the miniscule garden, and the wooden fencework. All the surfaces seemed to be gradually getting covered in the white stuff, all except for the footpaths and the roads; our hosts told us that this was a good sign because it meant that you won't be wading through snow and the public transport will continue to run, although the cold will turn to frost and everything will freeze as the snow turns to ice - if that is any consolation!

The snow fell in tiny ice drops, like confetti. As we walked from the house to the shops (according to my self-styled itinerary, it was Primark shopping morning), we did not feel cold. The slight wind kept the snow moving, which stopped it from settling, melting it and generating a slight sense of heat from the humidity. Luckily we got back home early enough to watch the snow turn into a blizzard at about 2pm; suddenly, the snowflakes were moving around as fast as a swarm of buzzing bees in a hive that had just been upset. Visibility dropped, the atmosphere fogged up, and it carried on like this for about an hour. That put the remaining day's itinerary out of whack - we would have to miss the concert we had booked to attend at the Hellenic Centre in Paddington St. The snow did not have to stop us from going - but it might have stopped us from coming back home.

Still, I only have good memories of my time spent in snowy London. It was an interesting experience. We took no risks, therefore we didn't fear it. The cold was bitter, but we kept ourselves wrapped up warm. Travelling further out of the concreted part of London and into the snowy countryside in the northwesternmost part of greater London, we experienced the eerie beauty of the snow-capped landscape. The snowy surroundings reminded me of a Dickensian Christmas, even though we were fast approaching Easter, albeit calendar, not Greek! Any part of our body that was not covered in clothing (lips, nose, fingertips) simply froze. The children's biggest disappointment was when our hosts told us that the snow we were seeing wasn't the type you could play in or make snowballs with - and if you stepped off the concrete and onto the snowy fields, your shoes would be trashed because they would become muddy (you needed gumboots).

The weather plays a significant role in our life. I'm a homebody; this weather would suit me to a tee. Not so my husband - it would drive him crazy to be stuck indoors most of the time. Cold snowy weather - it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, something I rarely drink in Crete, I ended up drinking gallons of the stuff in London. The cold weather makes it go down more easily. And you want to eat a lot. We did not have any difficulties scoffing down roast meat and floury potatoes, with crackling, Yorkshire pudding and thick gravy, followed by stodgy pudding and scones for tea.

This was the best meal I had during my stay in London. The cook must have been a good one to make it so tasty, but I think it was the love factor that she added when preparing this special meal, specially for us. Not only did the wine pair well with this feast - so did the weather.

(And if you want the recipes, here they are:)


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