Harmonisation (Aρμονισμός)

It's easy for me to say that I don't need to go away on a summer holiday because I live on a summer holiday island. I can sleep at the cheapest hotel (my home), eat at a good restaurant (my kitchen) and swim at the best beaches (we live close to them) without paying much. I guess one could say that we have discovered the key to a balanced life. But as a very precious friend recently pointed out to me, balancing is all about teeter-tottering; there is the constant risk that the scales will not stay in the same position, and without even expecting it, you might fall over - because you lost your balance.

This very pretty beach is close to my home. I can go whenever I like, even in the winter. But do I do this often? No, because there are other priorities to attend to after work. 

The truth is that the scales never do stay in the same position, except when nothing changes on either side. In the real world, this is not possible - everything changes by the minute, especially in the rapidly changing Greece of our times. So the scales are teeter-tottering all the time. Life can become very unbalanced by just one minor incident, something as mundane as checking the mailbox or hearing the tyres of a car screech outside your house.

September is when the grapes start tasting like wine if you don't harvest them quickly enough.

So our balanced life is not really quite as balanced as we like to believe: by staying at home for the summer holidays, even when we go to the seaside in the afternoon, or even a short day trip away from our home base, in essence, we do not stop working or thinking about work. We continue to work at our paid day jobs, we keep in mind our unpaid jobs (the garden, the fields, food processing/preservation), and we still have to do the dishes after each meal. What's more, we continue to see the same view from our windows, which is not an ugly one at all, but it's only natural to stop appreciating it at some time due to the boredom factor - we want to see something new.

The sea of olive trees that forms our view from our balconies is interspersed with various low buildings, mainly houses; it remains the same throughout the year, as olive trees are evergreens. The greatest change that may take place here is that I will see some snow on the mountaintops. 

What most people do to get away from the stress of the daily routine is to completely disconnect, leaving auto-messages in their email and letting their inbox fill with messages. My friend told me that she returned to the office to find 1400 emails waiting to be answered; so her disconnection could have created new stress on her return. But she has foreseen this situation too: what you really need to do, as my friend explained, is not to balance your life, but to harmonise it, to make it agree with the continuous barrage of new situations that we find ourselves confronted with on a daily basis. Life never moves backwards; it carries on in a forward direction, and to maintain a balance, we need to harmonise our present with our perpetually changing future.

Tsigariasto (slow-cooked lamb in the pot, stewed in olive oil and wine) - it is often served with fried potatoes. This is pretty much what it looks like when served at a restaurant. This formed our Sunday meal, cooked the previous evening, to allow us to spend the morning at the beach. 

So tonight, we're going to start packing our suitcases, gathering together some picnic supplies and filling up our beach bags, in an attempt to leave behind our regular schedule, just before the new school term begins. That way, when we return home and when people ask us where we went for our holidays, we can say that we left our home for 3-4 days to take a break from routine. Even if our holiday destination does not take us beyond the borders of our island, some time away from home feels like a proper holiday; the feeling of sleeping in a different bed and eating something I didn't prepare or cook myself (and not clearing the table and doing the dishes) give us all a sense of being on holiday even if the destination was close to home. At any rate, there is wi-fi everywhere these days, so I don't suppose I'll stay disconnected for long.

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Still on staycation

With my August visitors all wanting to use the internet on their own devices, I've lost bandwidth, making blogging impossible. Here's a selection of photos showing what I've been up to in terms of cooking and travelling. All the photo captions come from my facebook page readers.

First up, we checked out my husband's handiwork: grafting wild olive trees to turn them into domesticated spieces: 

And when I was a kid thought this was like magic. I was sure about my father having secret powers that affected nature in many ways and all this equipment was part of a rural 007 that was taking up cases that before the eyes of the clueless seemed like senseless.

While at the village, we harvested the first round of figs from our trees:

 It's difficult to resist when you have a bucket of fresh figs

I'd always wanted to make carob drink, called haroubia (χαρουμπία) in Crete. My haroubia was a little astringent because I harvested the carobs rather early, but I know what to do and where to find some good carobs when they are at their best:

One of my favorite spoon sweets is that of sour cherry - I made a jar of this when I found sour cherries being sold at the market (they don;t commonly make thier way to Hania, as they are not grown here):

Quote by YIANNIS MARKOPOULOS: "Greeks want a computer by their side for their daily needs, but at the same time, they want to be able to plough their land."

One day, when I had some leftover cooked vegetables, I heated them in a small pan and stuck an egg in the middle - I recently found out that this is called φαγητό της ακαμάτρας (meaning you cook what you've got in the house and stick an egg in the middle):

I remember my mother cooking similar rustic meals when we were younger when the influences of her Greek village upbringing was still fresh.

While my sister was staying at my house, she helped me to roll up some dolmadakia - something she has never ever done before, which may surprise many of you...

Right after we cooked our dolmadakia, we went to Stavros beach, where Zorba originally danced the first sirtaki:

Just half a dozen kilometres away from Zorba's beach is the bay of Kalathas, where the swimming (and the surfing) was better - there is a tiny green island close to the shore that many keen swimmers swim out to: 

On the way back home, we stopped off at one of Hania's most famous landmarks and a good lookout point over the city - the Venizelos tombs, which have a view out to the Venetian harbour:

The next day, we visited a friend from NZ who repatriated to Greece like ourselves - he lives in a tiny neighbourhood in a small village near the south coast of Hania:

Then we hit the south coast - without a doubt, Elafonisi has to be one of the best beaches in the whole of Europe. Don't be deceived by the photo - half of Europe seemed to be holidaying with us on that day...:

We stopped off at the picturesque village of Elos, where 5 people ate a meal as big as this for 45 euro in total: 

I often remind myself that Greece is made up of a collection of images that play out as quickly, one by one, one after the other, as mere glimpses - if you blink, you may miss them. But when I pinch myself, I can feel the bite.

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Κρήτη μου, όμορφο νησί (Crete, my beautiful island)

Every year, my children's primary school organises a school trip for the whole school just before schools break up for the end of the term, and the long Greek school summer holidays begin (12 weeks in total). Crete is isolated from the country, so it isn't possible to leave the island for a day trip, but parents are always welcome to accompany their children on this trip, and most of the time, I join mine because the coach ride takes us to some of the lesser visited areas of Crete, and at a cheaper price than taking a private vehicle, with the added bonus of having someone else do the driving.

Despite the relatively small size of the island - the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea - Crete's fame and tourist value is mainly due to her wide variety of landscape, archaeological significance, historical importance and areas of natural beauty for relaxation and leisure. Visits to the beach, which invariably involve more responsibility on the part of the teachers, aren't preferred, but most Cretan children spend most of their summer by the beach (and needless to say, we have some of the best beaches in Europe). We generally stick to the west of Crete because it takes at least two hours to get to Iraklio (the northern mid-point of the island) from Hania, and another two hours to get back, so that's a long driving time. There are endless possibilities for interesting places to visit, and there is no shortage of ideas for stops en route. In fact, every few kilometres on the highway, you will come across a sign showing a notable point of interest on the next exit.

The beautiful ladies of Knossos were recreated form the few remains that were still left on the frescoes.

Crete is world-famous as the island where the first civilisation of Europe, Knossos, was based, since it is the origin of Cretan, Greek and European culture. This was actually my children's first day-long school trip. It is located in Iraklio at the mid-point of the northern coastline, so all children from all parts of Crete probably visit it at some point in their primary school years. There are also areas of great significance in Cretan history, which allow Cretan children to gain knowledge of their island's historical developments by direct experience. Two years ago, we visited Arkadi, which played an active role in the Cretan resistance of Ottoman rule during the Cretan revolt: the death of nearly 1000 Cretans in the Arkadi monastery in 1866 bought attention to Greece and her fight for independence. 

Arkadi monastery, in the prefecture of Rethmino

Apart from historical sites of interest, we now have our modern wonders being built in Crete as she modernises, like the dam (Fragma Potamon) in the Amari valley of Rethimno, with a capacity of 22.5 million cubic metres of water; when it is full, its depth reaches 44 metres. Water is precious on an island that doesn't get much rainfall during the hot dry summer months.

The Rivers Dam, in the prefecture of Rethmino

The areas of natural beauty are often used as stopovers to admire the Cretan scenery from many different angles. Sometimes there seems to be nothing to do in these areas with thos ebreathtaking views, apart from just sitting in the shade and gazing out at the landscape. For this reason, it could be said that the locals don't often visit these places themselves, because they are out of the way and the costs of getting there don't warrant the excursion. The annual school trip provides me with an opportunity to travel to such places and remind me of my majestic surroundings.    

This year, the trip was more relaxing and less rigidly structured, due to the economic crisis. Other years, we paid for the coach and a pre-ordered meal (which in my honest opinion wasn't always very good and invariably involved too much meaty food that never all got eaten and was simply thrown away). This year, we only paid for the coach (€6.50 per person) and we could bring or buy whatever we wanted to eat along the way without planned dining stops. The bus tour involved both long and short stopovers, depending on the area, where parents and children (including those unaccompanied by their parents, who had their teachers as guardians for the day) were free to spend it in any way they wanted, as long as they got back to the bus by the set time.

Our first stop was at the seaside resort of Georgioupoli, a quiet sleepy village off the highway. Twenty years ago, there were about half a dozen cafes or tavernas in the area. Now there are - well, too many, which looks rather silly in the middle of a crisis. I first visited Georgioupoli with my mother, who had heard of the church built in the sea, which I visited with her. This year, I took my children there too; I have started to go full circle.

While we were walking over the rocky causeway to get to the church, I was amused to see other children following me. None of the other parents bothered to come - most stopped off for coffee at one of those seaside resorts.

Our next stop was at the 3,500 year old cave of Melidoni, which has been used by the local residents since its formation. It was dedicated to Gaia (the goddess of the earth) and Hermes (the gods' messenger). In modern times, it is now a cave of great environmental value, as well as being a site of historical interest due to the deaths of civilians in the cave in their attempt to avoid the Turks during Ottoman rule.

The kiosk before the entrance to the Melidoni cave afford splendid views of Mt Psiloritis (2450m). The old village houses in the surrounding area are built in the style of the Venetians, early conquerors of Crete.

After a brief guided tour in the cave, we got a quick glimpse from the coach of the beautiful Venetian village of Melidoni where the cave is situated. The village was recorded as early as the 14th century, and many of the older buildings there are built in a style reminiscent of those times: arched gates, tall heavy doors and stonework.

After the cave visit, we had another short stopover at the village of Margarites, situated close to Melidoni, also originating during the time of the Venetian occupation. Margarites is well known all over Greece for its pottery, due to the numerous deposits of clay in the area, which explains to some extent the long pre-occupation of the inhabitants with the art of pottery. Permanent kilns were set up in the area since the beginning of the last century. The decline of the pottery industry began in the 1960s, once plastic became more practical and cheaper to produce, but the potter's skill is noticeably still alive in Margarites, and there are local people who have been involved all their life in this trade. 

The old traditional pottery style of Greece, the making of urns and other such functional vessels, is still going strong in the village of Margarites, and they sit side-by-side with the newer art forms of clay work, such as wall hangings and ornaments. 

For lunch, we stopped off at Rethimno, a venetian town smaller than but similar to Hania, where I took the kids for a souvlaki, an economical and enjoyable Greek kiddies' treat. Because we had a lot of time to spare, with the promise of an ice-cream dessert, I lured them into visiting the Fortezza of Rethimno with me, a very well-maintained historical site.

 Rethimo is a small town, so most sites worth visiting are tightly clustered together, but to admire them, you still need mroe than a day. (Needless to say, no one followed us up here, after all that retsina and souvlaki...) The pirate ship in Rethimno harbour made quite an impression on my son, who also saw it asail from the coach!

On the way back home, we also got another stopover by the picturesque Lake Kourna, the only  natural freshwater lake in Crete. There really isn't much to do here, except chill out!

 Potato fields, vineyards, olive trees - the residents are well set up to be self-sufficient in a remote area. Many of them also tend sheep and goats, rabbits and chickens, so they are never out of meat and cheese for their daily use.

The natural beauty of the Cretan landscape, the ease with which the earth yields enough food to feed her people, and her relative proximity to the mainland without being too close to it have all helped to make Crete a permanent home to many of our tourists who have sold up in their homelands and come to live here. It really is quite a good place to raise a family, without being too small to make us feel disconnected with the rest of the world.

The coach trip refreshed my early holiday memories of my homeland. It's difficult to experience Crete in this way on a regular basis due to the economic situation and the daily routine., even though we live relatively close to such beautiful surroundings. Most of the time, most of us take a lot of what our homeland has to offer us for granted. But most of the time, such scenery also needs a good παρέα and κέφι to be enjoyed fully. A busload of jolly parents and their children, especially after a few retsinas, raises everyone's spirits.


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Another world ('Αλλος κόσμος)

I thought I wouldn't blog during the interim period between Christmas and New Year's, but something caught my attention on Christmas Eve, when we spent our time with a well-to-do family who have never travelled abroad. Their teenage children have only visited the parts of Greece where their parents have family. 

I woke up early on Christmas Eve. Despite it being a Saturday, I did not have the luxury of sleeping in. I had been waking up at 7pm for 2 weeks in a row, weekends included, to work at the external English examinations and take the kids to their pre-Christmas sports events. The Christmas carol singers could be coming at any time, and they usually start early. I prefer that they do not still find me in my pyjamas. I gave in to the children's demands - they got their Christmas presents a day early. I could not put up any longer with their whingeing and whining.

For a simple vegetarian pre-Christmas meal, I decided to pick a cauliflower head from the garden. I nearly died when I saw only one cauliflower in the whole garden, which was filled with brocoli heads, something I hadn't noticed before. This winter has been colder and damper than other winters, so we hardly went into it. The man at the garden centre had obviously made a mistake. Half the private gardens of Hania must be overloaded with brocoli this winter. Nevertheless, we are not complaining. They grew of their own accord, with practically no help from us. They will make beautiful and very welcome presents for our friends, they can go into the deep freeze and I will find ways to use them all.

The cauliflower was cooked with xinohondros, a good start to using up that two kilos worth of traditional Cretan sour milk pasta I bought for my mother-in-law, which she didn't like. In all fairness, she did like the last lot I bought in - after I had bought it twice before, in different packaging, at 8-10 euro a kilo. If she couldn't see the maker's fingerprints kneaded into the dough, she thought it wasn't genuine. I remember that last lot - it's the same stuff I bought her last year, and she said that she didn't like it. I'm just waiting for her to tell me the same thing now, soon, one of these days. Xinohondros is not something my kids will remember lovingly. I doubt they will actively seek it out when their turn comes to prepare meals.

Dimitri picked up the wood fire heater today. He left it on the truck until he found a friend to help carry it into the house. He is now breaking a hole in the wall to pass the funnels through. Today of all days, the living room is filled with concrete dust. I shouldn't be worried - I haven't done any dusting anyway. If I stopped him from doing it today, he would have got up on Christmas Day and done it then. He insisted on drilling through the wall with the electricity mains still on, because only that way (he claimed) would he know if there was a danger of passing through any kind of cables. "If I get electrocuted, make sure you can quickly switch off the mains so I don't sizzle," he said to me. If that's the way he wants to play it, I told him that I was leaving the room and while he's drilling, he should make sure he's smiling (για να τον δούνε όλοι χαμογελαστό). I don't know how he actually managed not to get himself electrocuted - the hole showed up 5 cables passing through that part of the wall. He'd chewed through their plastic coverings with the electric drill.

Despite it being a non-working day for all of us, we all ate lunch at different times of the day. Everyone was in and out of the house all day. The kids were playing with their games and popping in and out of their grandmother's house. Dimitri was pottering around in the garden while I was doing the same in the house. The table was set and cleared for each eater before the next one came along. But we were not disconnected - each one's actions depended on the other and we would all bump into each other on a regular basis, trying not to get into each other's way too much. There weren't many carollers this year after all (only 3 sets of 2). At least there's plenty of change left over for the New Year's round.

After lunch, I made some chestnut truffles to take to S and Y. I kept a dozen for us. They turned out very well. S is still not able to walk after his operation and has been off work for nearly three months. Y is working day and night like a dog. He blames the government for everything, while Y's just seen her salary drop to just over half the amount she used to receive and is simply trying to get early retirement as a state employee. Their house was freezing - they're not using the heating. I wonder how they keep it so clean - it looks totally unnatural, something like out of Home and Garden. The curtains are really flouncy and perfectly set. For such bulky curtains, they seem unruffled. She used to bring in a cleaning lady once a week, but I can't believe she's still doing that with their massive drop in salary. She cooked up some kalitsounia for us. Apparently she made them herself instead of buying them this year. She's even making her own bread. But she still managed to buy her goddaughter a Zara outfit (must have cost at least 100 euro).

Y wanted to hear about out last holiday abroad (2 years ago), and was stunned to hear that we were planning another one next year. (I don't shop at Zara.) But she's totally Greek on this one. For a start, she can't understand why I'm not worried if the kids will miss out on school for a week. It's hard to explain to someone that children will learn more in one day at a London museum than if they were at school for the whole week at Greek school, if they have never actually been to Lodnon or have anyone living and working there to tell them about this. Then, she couldn't understand why we were booking the trip 8 months early. "How do you know you are actually going to be able to go on holiday then?" How do you go about explaining this one to people who have never been beyond the borders of their own country?

I started off by telling her that tickets are very cheap then, so even if I don't end up going on my holiday, it will not seem like a big loss. Athens-London costs about 50-55 euro a person if we book a ticket in July for April. But if I booked the same flight now, it would cost 125 euro at least. It took her a while to realise that we felt contented by the thought of losing what seems like a low amount of money if we couldn't take the pre-booked holiday after all, instead of spending three times more by booking closer to the day. "And even then, you might not be able to go," I reminded here, "so you'd be losing that large amount due to a last-minute cancellation at the eleventh hour." She sounded hopeful of taking a holiday to Paris or London sometime soon, and asked me to help her book a it when she had decided on the dates. She doesn't have an updated Greek identity card, let alone a passport. I know she won't be going anytime in the near future.

S then asked us how we got around in Paris and London. He found the whole idea of rushing around on trains and buses tiring. "Of course it's tiring," I tried to explain to him, "that's why the holiday is so much fun!" He thought it would be easier to rent a car and drive instead of walk. It's not their fault that they don't understand why you don't hire a car in Paris or London. They never will until they decide to go there one day themselves. And I doubt that they will ever go. S has never been on holiday abroad (which is why I know that Y will never go on holiday either) because, as he claims, he can see everything that we saw on Google Earth.

Y inquired about the cost of accommodation. I recalled that we had paid 100 euro a night in Paris. It sounded quite reasonable to her - but she was taken aback when I told her that we slept in bunk beds, one on top of another, in a hostel and not a hotel, where you had to make your own bed (sheets provided) and you only got a towel if you paid 1 euro for it. "That's not a holiday!" she exclaimed, horrified, "that's just plain torture!" Most Greeks see holidays in this way: find a nice hotel, get up late every morning, have a leisurely frappe before going out to the car which will take you straight to the door of the attraction that you are visiting. My family has never been on that kind of holiday. Well before 10am, we will have had breakfast and vacated our room. It won't see it us again until well after 8pm. She said she wanted more luxury than that while on holiday. I reminded her that she can have any luxury she wants as long as she is willing to pay for it.

"Do you have breakfast at the hotel?" Y asked curiously. I explained how breakfast varied between Paris and London, but it was essentially the same kind of thing: something filling and highly recognisable in global terms, which warmed you up and gave you enough energy to tackle a very packed morning, walking, standing and admiring the new sights. As I spoke to her, my mind was already wandering, thinking about the magical places we had visited on our previous holidays. The images I was conjuring up in my mind could not be explained in a few hundred words spoken in a couple of minutes. I would need a memory stick holding all our photos, a laptop, a television with cables linking it to the laptop, and a whole afternoon stretching into the evening to show them what we saw, what we learnt and how we felt during those precious moments of outside our own borders.

Y showed some interest in the food costs, which she regarded as the only other expense while on holiday, after travel and accommodation have been arranged. I've gained valuable insight into the cost of feeding a family cheaply while on holiday through the internet and by asking other travellers, or locals if I know any. My sources have led me to the cheap eateries in the town, as well as some basic knowledge of the cheap local street food. But as I explained to Y, we always carried a well-sealed bottle of our own olive oil in at least one suitcase, some rusks and a bag of our orchard's oranges. Before I could tell Y that these items staved off hunger during a peckish moment, until the next time we ate a sit-down meal, she thought we were mad. "That's not a holiday!" she repeated, "that's plain drudgery!"

Despite what they were thinking, it didn't take long for S and Y to put two and two together: they realised that our holidays were affordable and fun, and they were now even starting to understand the way we planned things out. "So I could budget for 3,000 euro for the four of us for an 8-day trip to London?" Y asked me. She wasn't far out; over the years, this is how much our EU holidays generally cost us for 8-10 days for the whole family. There is not much inflation involved, and we've been travelling for 5 years in this way. In times of crisis, there are always bargains available as the travel world is affected in the same way as people's own pockets. As long as you budget carefully, you can still afford to maintain the lifestyle you were used to living. 

S and Y have a much higher combined income than our own,and they are not in debt. But their holiday mentality is that of a typical case of a middle-class Greek family. Greek people generally do not travel cheaply. Walking around with a backpack and children in tow is not everyone's cup of tea. Greeks like to take holidays within their own borders, venturing further afield nearly always only in groups on package tours. Holidays are usually associated with the peak summer period which involves a lot of chilling out and little movement in a coastal region or island, or during peak festive periods like Christmas or Easter, when Greeks are more likely to visit family or take seasonally-associated vacations, eg a ski resort in the winter or well-known tourist resorts in the spring. None of these kinds of holidays are, in my mind, particularly educational. Nor are they cheap; such a holiday can cost the same amount of money as what we spend when we go abroad. Although Greeks are now embracing the internet in many ways, making their own travel arrangements is still not on the top of the list, possibly due to the language barrier, which I notice is constantly being broken down, now that most of the global sites that Greek people use are being translated into Greek (although I always stick to the English-language pages).

The kids had a great time at our friends' house (apart form the sniffly noses and wheezing coughs they developed while they were there). Their own children have their own rooms, each with their own TV, their own computer, bedroom furniture and all sorts of other knick-knacks and gadgets, so it was a hi-tech experience for my children, who lack these western-style creature comforts. They are still quite young, but already, they have developed the travel bug, and a desire to see something new. But I can't help thinking that my children's minds are more open to new ideas, and that less things will shock them because they have already seen a much bigger world than their own. 

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki. 

Pikilia (Ποικιλία)

One of the most popular taverna dishes all over Greece is the ποικιλία (pikilia), a variety mix of grilled or fried mezedakia (appetisers). You usually choose between fish or meat, or a mixture of both fish and meat cuts on the same platter. A meat-based pikilia will include: ribs, small lamb or pork chops, souvlaki skewers, sausages, breaded chicken, and meatballs; a fish pikilia contains: kalamari rings, shrimps, octopus chunks, freshly cooked anchovies and sardines, and fish croquettes. A pikilia is always accompanied by fried potatoes, vegetable fritters such as kolokithokeftedes, freshly cut salad vegetables like tomato and cucumber, and the well-known Greek piquant dips, tzatziki (for meat pikilia) or taramosalata (for fish).

Meat-based pikilia - the patties don't look hand-made, while small frankfurters are the cheapest sausage on the market

Pikilia is probably sounding unhealthy to you already, a bit like the Greek version of the triple burger and fries, but it really depends on how and where you eat it. Some tavernas use ready-to-cook mass-produced food to serve in a pikilia, while others cook everything from scratch; always remember that you get what you pay for. Pikilia is usually eaten in the evening among a παρέα, so everyone in the group is probably having a titbit here or there rather than wolfing down a whole pikilia to themselves. In fact, the menu card will state 'pikilia for 2 (or 4)'. Pikilia is usually the meal of choice for serving with ouzo (or tsikoudia, as we do in Crete), and there's always something for everyone in a pikilia, making it a good taverna choice for children.

This pikilia was as cheap as it looks - apart from the meat cuts on the top of the dish, everything else looked mass-produced; chicken nuggets and tomato sauce give it away.

The last time I enjoyed a pikilia at a taverna with my family was last year. Due to the annus horribilis that most people around the world are facing at the moment, I didn't get the chance to do this this summer.  I thought it would be fun to cook up a pikilia at home for a Sunday lunch when we had guests coming. Keeping yourself busy makes you forget about the economic crisis, not to mention saving money.

This pikilia was slightly better - most of the items resembled freshly cooked home-made food.

Compiling a pikilia involves cooking a large number of dishes, which isn't really feasible for the home cook. Most of these dishes have to be served as they are cooked, so again, it's not a meal you'll want to cook regularly because you won't be able to enjoy it with everyone eating at the same time. It takes a certain amount of organisation to be able to do this successfully, so that you can have your cake and eat it, too.

My pikilia contains some old favorites together with some more novel ideas:

• chicken and pork souvlaki (old favorite)
• spicy buffalo chicken wings (novel idea)
• zucchini patties (old favorite) and tomato fritters (novel idea - they are a specialty of Santorini, and aren't usually served in tavernas in Hania)
• aubergine dip and beetroot dip (novel idea, instead of tzatziki; melitzanosalata is often found in taverna menus, but batsarosalata has still not made into mainstream taverna food)
• courgette and aubergine chips (old favorite - because I made a lot of them, I didn't do any french fries, which are always served with pikilia)
• Greek salad (you usually find a few slices of cucumber and tomato in a pikilia)
• any other condiments on hand: roasted peppers, feta cheese, olives, and of course, bread!

 

 Because I was serving this at home, I decided not to pile all the different bits and pieces onto one platter, as pikilia is traditionally served.

Here's the time plan so that you can enjoy this fiddly meal at the same time as your guests:

1. The night before: skewer your souvlakia (I bought ready-prepared ones this time) and marinate them; prepare the chicken wings and cover them in the spice-and-flour mixture, allowing them to marinate till the next day (this way, the flour mixture will stick to the meat and create less mess when you fry them); have the sauce ready to finish off the chicken wings; make the beetroot and/or aubergine dips (and put them in the fridge in the same bowl that you'll be serving them in); prepare the mixtures for the tomato and/or zucchini patties (they need to be drained of excess liquids, which is why it's better to start them overnight). Now is a good time to put the drinks in the fridge - you will be too busy to remember to do this the next day: lukewarm beer tastes like piss.
2. In the morning, slice your bread and place all the slices in a plastic bag (you won't be serving pre-sliced bread with this meal, will you?), slice some zucchini and/or aubergine (for the chips: calculate 1 zucchini/aubergine per guest) very thinly (I used a vegetable slicer). Salt them well, then place all the slices in a colander, and cover them with a plate. Now place a heavy object on the plate (I used a small melon that I'd left on the kitchen worktop to ripen) and allow their excess fluids to drain away.
3. Fry the zuchhini and/or tomato patties. Don't worry that they will go cold; they can even be made the night before and placed in the fridge when cool (and reheated later) if you are pressed for time. This is what I did; the patties I served were our main meal from the day before, and they tasted just as good the next day when I heated them up and served them with the pikilia.
4. An hour before serving time, turn on the grill and cook the souvlakia (I used the grill in my oven). While they are cooking, fry the chicken wings, heat up the sauce while the chicken is draining on absorbent paper, place the wings on the serving dish and pour the sauce over them. To keep them warm, I placed the chicken wings under the baking tray where the souvlaki were being grilled. At this point, put the zucchini and/or tomato patties on another baking tray (preferably in the serving dish) and place them underneath the chicken wings so that everything will cook/warm up at the same time. Most ovens allow up to three trays to be loaded.
5. Drain the oil that was used to cook the chicken. Heat it up in the same pan that you used to cook the chicken (you don't need to clean it, just wipe away any crumbs). Place a few tablespoons of flour in a plastic bag and put the vegetable slices in it. Shake the bag so that all the slices get coated in flour. Then take them out of the bag and fry them in the hot oil (don't add too many slices, otherwise the oil will cool down and the chips will come out soggy - I cooked three batches to make sure that they remained crisp). 
6. While you're doing all this, don't forget to check on the souvlakia in the oven - they will need turning to cook evenly on all sides!
7. Drain the fried vegetable slices on absorbent paper. As each batch cooks, pile it on top of the previous batch (on the serving dish) to keep everything warm.
8. Wash and chop the salad ingredients. Prepare the salad in its serving dish. Place any extra condiments on an appropriate serving plate/bowl. The souvlakia should now be ready, too.
9. Shout "SOUVLAKI!" loud enough so your kids (or spouse or partner - I like to call mine 'husband') can hear, and tell them to lay the table if they want to eat any. If you don't have any kids/spouse/partner, you'll have to lay the table yourself.
10. Sit down and enjoy the meal you just served - if anyone asks for cold drinks, remind them that they are in the fridge, and they can help themselves.

My guests loved this meal. They practically licked the plates clean, and there were few leftovers. They did complain that there were no fried potatoes (as every taverna pikilia includes them), but I reminded them that I only have two hands, and not enough frying pans.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Fish taverna (Ψαροταβέρνα)

From: Angela
To: George
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 8:00 AM

Dear George,
I can't get though to your cellphone.
Please get back to me urgently.
Yours, Angela
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From: Angela
To: George
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 8:30 AM

George,
When you get my message, please get back to me asap.
Angela
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From: Angela
To: George
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 9:00 AM

George, are you there???
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From: George
To: Angela
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 4:00 PM

Dear Angela,
I just got your message. My apologies for answering back so late, but it is Sunday after all, and most people do sleep in on this day in our country, after a tiring working week. I don't know if the weather has something to do with it: today, it was overly warm for spring, with a dull cloud hanging over the sky, so the climate was a little damp and muggy, one of those days when you don't know what clothes to wear, if you get my gist. I even contemplated taking an umbrella when we left the house.

We didn't have a Sunday roast today. My wife asked me if I didn't mind going out for lunch, because she had had a busy week at work and home. She had been cooking fresh meals for all of us every day on top of that, and even though I had offered to cook the meal myself today, she still insisted that we go out. "Just for a change," she said.

"And where shall we go today?" I asked her, and she replied that it isn't mother's day yet, so I could choose the location myself.

"No," I replied, as I have been down that track before - you know what women are like! - and told her to choose herself, which she duly did, so we packed the kids into the car and went to Kalives.

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I've been to Kalives on business many times, but I've never stopped in at the eateries there, so I thought I'd phone up my friend Dimitri who's from the area; insider information always gets you the best deals. Have I mentioned Dimitris to you before? I can't remember. Anyway, he's a millionaire, but he lives a very simple life out in the country in his πατρικό*. He's still a working man (don't ask me what he does; clearly he's doing it well), but never on a Sunday, and on a more relaxed pace. And because he lives by the sea, he always goes for a swim every day - yes, even in the winter - and has a midday snooze before going back to work in the afternoon.

Well, enough about Dimitris. Thankfully, he answered the phone - unlike naughty me, Angela! - and told me of a few places where we could have a nice lunch. So off we went to Koumandros, a fish taverna by the beach at Kalives. As we drove out there, the sun became brighter, and the day warmer; we needn't have taken our jackets after all. Spring and summer sometimes get confused here in Crete!

Koumandros taverna, Kalives, Hania, Crete

Koumandros has a very traditional feel to it. The family-owned restaurant was the first in the area, and the father of the father of the father of the owner (I am not sure about the accuracy of the number of generations that I just mentioned) started the business in 1867.

An old family photo adorns the wall of the taverna.

When we arrived, we were the only customers. I was a bit worried, because, you know what I mean, what with the economic crisis and all that, but I needn't have worried. While we were having our meal, more and more and more people came in, and it was really good to see some tourists too (they were German).

We sat by an open window to enjoy the sea breeze, and watched the tourists sunbathing by the hotel pool, which we thought was funny because the sea was right behind them! Each to his own, though, Angela; it's a free country, as the saying goes.

The waiter came over very promptly (well, we were the first there), and told us what was on the menu today: "Well, today we've got pretty much everything," he began, "oktapodi on the grill, soupies in wine sauce, fried kalamari (fresh or frozen), fried maritha and atherina, gavros in the oven, grilled fangri or tsipoures, galeos with skordalia, fresh fried garida, frozen lemon garida, baby koutsomoura fried, filleted sardeles with lemon sauce, fried bakaliaro, saganaki midia, er...." he pondered there for a moment, trying to remember what he'd missed, "oh, yeah, and ahinous."

It's amazing how much the Mediterranean sea offers us in the way of food, especially when you hear a line-up like that. The kids wanted some fried squid, I chose the shark (I absolutely adore the garlic dip it comes with - I'll warn you if we're at a meeting together and I've just had some!) and my wife chose the cuttlefish in the wine sauce. We also ordered two plates of those chunky freshly cut fried potatoes, and for our salad, we chose beetroot, because it's traditional with seafood, and greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers don't quite do it for me at the moment (better to wait until they are being picked in the open; they have more taste then, you see, something like a mixture of sun and sea mist, which brings out their flavour), and to wash it all down, we ordered some local white wine and let the kids have a fizzy sodas - just for a change, again.

Click on the link to see the slideshow of what we ate at the taverna.

While we were having our meal, Dimitris popped into the restaurant, and sat down with us. He had told his wife to put his meal on hold, because he wanted to go out and see his friend George, which I thought was really nice of him, don't you think, Angela, a millionaire dining with the hoi polloi, like us?! Anyway, we were in the middle of our meal, and I felt a bit embarrassed because we had practically wolfed down most of it - it was just SOOOOOooooo good. He hadn't told me he would be coming, and I didn't think of asking him on the phone if he would like to join us. But Dimitris didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, he knew the staff at Koumandros very well, and he called them over, as if they were his own children, and ordered his meal: bream on the BBQ, stuffed vine leaves, fresh sea urchins, beetroot salad (great minds think alike, don't they, Angela) and a small bottle of ouzo. It may seem like Dimitris ordered too much all for himself, but he works it off in the sea every day, don't forget, and he looks really good for his age too.

Time passes quickly, and the children were getting scratchy bum syndrome, if you get what I mean, Angela. They had been quite good at the table during the meal, but now they had started throwing the bread out of the window into the river below, where a few ducks were wading. I pretended to go to the bathroom so that I could pay our bill (which came to 42 euro for the four of us), because I knew Dimitris would want to pick up the tab for all of us himself. For a millionaire, he's really generous; he kept offering us some of his meal, but we were too stuffed to eat any more than we had already eaten, so out of politeness, I got the kids to try sea urchins, but they weren't too impressed (it's kind of an acquired taste), and we all had some dolmadakia because they taste really good now that the vine leaves are very tender - the wife's made them a few times this year already.

When Dimitris finished his meal, he asked for the bill (his alone came to 40 euro - can you imagine how annoyed he got when he realised that I had already paid my share!), and the waiter brought us the customary on-the-house dessert and some ice-cold tsikoudia. The children, being the fussy modern Greek kids that they are, having not quite developed a taste for the true Cretan cuisine of their roots, didn't try any of the yoghurt or pergamon spoon sweet that we were offered, so Dimitris bought them an ice-cream at the kiosk by the sea, just down the road from the taverna.

Dimitris invited us over to his house for coffee, but I thought it best that we let him relax at home, because the kids were now tired and becoming all the more of a nuisance as the afternoon wore on. So we thanked him for his παρέα and φιλοξένια. "What hospitality?" he glared at me, with an angry tone in his voice, "μου την έκανες!" he said, reminding me that I shouldn't have paid the bill in secret.

I just came back home, and thought I'd have a little siesta myself on this lazy Sunday, when I noticed your urgent emails. I am available and at your service - phone me whenever you like. I am not sure if you take a siesta yourself, and as I do not  want to disturb you (in case you are indeed in the middle of taking a forty-winks break), I await your call.

Greetings from a warm and sunny spring day in Hania,
George

*** *** ***

I personally don't know any millionaires (this is a story, remember), but I don't need to be a millionaire to be able to afford to eat a cheap meal at an outdoor eaterie in my country. You can eat your choice of fish and any other Greek delicacy at a simple cheap taverna by the sea, where you won't know if the people at the table sitting next to you are package holidaymakers, or locals or millionaires; they will have come to the same place that you did for the same reasons, and chosen their meal from the same menu card that you did. And even if you are not a millionaire, you will feel like one even if you chose the cheaper cuts, as you sit by the sea, enjoying your meal without anyone hurrying you away, with the waves lapping the shore close to your feet, under the warmth of the Mediterranean summer sky.

This photo was taken at the tail-end of last summer, at a cheap seaside taverna near my house.

And no one can take that away from us, economic crisis or not, unless they can harness the sun and keep her up in the north, and dry up all our sea to transport it up to their country to flood their canals and build cafes and bistros on their river banks, just to get a feel of that lazy lifestyle that they think we live in Greece.

And if anyone thinks I sent the kids off to school this morning, and spent my time writing silly stories on my day off from work, you can see how else I spent my morning: getting two days' worth of freshly cooked home-made meals ready for my family. Lick that.

* πατρικο: the house of one's forefathers

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Falasarna (Φαλάσαρνα)

The best preserved antiquities that lie in Crete are found mainly in the Iraklio prefecture, namely in the area of Knossos. But Crete also has some lesser known but highly significant archaeological areas which have slowly been discovered and are still undergoing excavation work to reveal their value in the ancient world. One of these sites is Falasarna (also spelt Falaserna, and with 'Ph' replacing the 'F') in the northwest of Crete.

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Once you get to the coast where Falasarna is located, you've reached the end of the road: if you took a boat and travelled westwards in a straight line from this point, your next sighting of land would be Malta, the mere size of a pin-prick compared to Crete.

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The beaches of Falasarna (sometimes spelt Phalasarna) are some of the cleanest on the island. They are crystal clear and very cool. Falasarna is located along a wide stretch of beach area running down the west coast of Crete, with different kinds of beaches to suit a variety of tastes, from rocky shallow pools, to wide stretches of (shadeless) fine sandy beaches. The most popular beaches are the ones with the beach umbrellas, with little elbow space between two adjunct tanning bodies. The coast with no umbrellas is usually too rocky for swimming, but perfect for taking a long cool dip in super-clear water. These less popular areas, mainly used by fishermen, are just as easy to access from the main road, and their islated atmosphere makes them very inviting.

The wide stretch of sandy beach is always very crowded; further westwards, the beaches become very rocky and not suitable for swimming, but still perfect for a cooling dip.

We came across this scene close to where we took our dip, probably used by anglers, as there are no eateries in this area.

Falasarna has just enough hotels and restaurants to sustain itself as a weekend resort for the locals during the hotter months of the year, and it's perfect for foreign tourists who come during the high season and want to holiday in an off-the-beaten-track coastal area. Falasarna is very quiet; it has no nightlife or shopping. A great number of Italians come here (as well as Elafonisi) every summer (mainly on camping holidays); it's cheaper for them to take a holiday by the sea in Crete than it is to do the same thing in their own country.

Falasarna has two main beach areas: the "Big Beach" (with fine sand) and the "Little Beach" (a rocky cove). Neither offer much shade, so you have to choose between hiring beach umbrellas and deckchairs (at 5-7 euro for a set of two chairs and one umbrella, I call that 'expensive'), or going for a swim and then leaving the beach area to sit at a shady cafe or restaurant. We chose the latter option. Luckily for us, it wasn't windy when we visited, which it usually is due to the west coast of Crete being severely exposed to the elements, whipping up the sand and throwing it hard onto the tanning bodies; the "Big Beach" is especially affected.

We preferred an isolated inlet where fishermen often practice their hobby.

In the summer, there is very little else to do in the area apart from this; it is simply too hot to walk among the archaeological ruins, situated close to the "Little Beach" area. They consist mainly of the ancient harbour of Falasarna, which is now located inland of today's water's edge, suggesting that the Cretan landscape has changed significantly since ancient times: the land level of Western Crete has risen, while Eastern Crete has sunk by a few inches.

Below the taverna where we sat and ate our meal, there is a small church; the road on the right leads to the "Little Beach".

Falasarna is not difficult to access, but public transport is very infrequent and limited. It is also a starkly hot environment with very few trees providing shade near the beach area. There are plenty of rooms available as well as a few cafes, restaurants and well-stocked mini-markets (in fact, I was surprised with how much construction work had taken place since the last time I visited Falasarna, nine years ago). There is no nightlife, making the place perfect for people who want to enjoy a peaceful atmosphere where they can get away from urban life in its entirety.

Greenhouses operate right throughout the winter. The lower flat lands skirting the coast are covered in olive trees.

You may be wondering what the locals do from the end of the tourist season to the beginning of the next one (economic crisis in tow). The photographs speak for themselves: Falasarna is even busier then than it is in the summer. The greenhouses spoil the magnificent views which offer stunning sunsets all year round. It is amazing that so much can grow in a place that, on first sight, resembles an arid lunar landscape.

It is also amazing that the beaches are still so clean; there must be a fair amount of fertiliser run-off from the soil eventually trickling down into the sea via irrigation channels and leaching - the greenhouses have been built right along the coastline. Falasarna is among the many pockets of arid-looking villages that have been given a new lease of life with this kind of business activity. These areas are usually located by the sea and have year-round work seasonal work available: in the summer, there is the tourist trade, while in the winter, there is greenhouse agriculture and olive oil production, supplying the whole country with fresh produce.

The sandy dry landscape resembles desert conditions.

We had a meal at the Sunset taverna, one of the oldest in the "Little Beach" region. This was probably a good idea. When it comes to eating out in remote resort areas, you never know how good the taverna is going to be: if it's catering mainly for tourists (as most do in these places), the food offered may not be high quality and it will reflect tourists' choices rather than the traditions of the local cuisine. If a taverna endures the test of time and it is still being run by a family (as Sunset was), it is bound to be doing something good: look what we ordered, and what we paid for it.

A cold jug of water always awaits the summer holidaymaker at a Greek taverna, along with the cicada choir.

Beef stew, tzatziki, chicken and okra; the souvlaki needed to be cooked a little longer. The beer was served icy cold - perfect.

For the four of us, we ordered a portion of souvlaki (three kebabs), braised okra, chicken cooked on the spit, beef in lemon-tomato sauce, tzatziki, a side order of fried potatoes, 2 large tap beers and 2 lemonades. Total cost of meal: 36 euro (you are reading that correctly).

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.