She, Daniela Blake

I spent a whole morning yesterday observing the goings on at my local ΙΚΑ (recently renamed ΕΟΠΠΥ, and even more recently, ΠΕΔΥ) branch, as I was waiting for my turn to update a health document. 

The woman walked through the doors, holding a plastic supermarket carrier bag in one hand and a water bottle in the other. Her black tracksuit pants looked rather tight on her - perhaps she needed a larger size. They were matched by a white cable knit jumper with a sleeveless jacket. Her sports shoes were well worn. Her curly dark hair was neatly tied back into a little pony tail. She looked young, less than a quarter of a century. The young child that was trailing by her side like a beloved pet dog on a leash looked clean and well dressed. Number 92 was lit up on the priority number system. She looked at her paper: 85. She passed by all the other waiting people and stood in front of an assistant who was serving another customer.

"My number'th passed," she said, showing them the ticket. "Can I get intyu the chew now?" She spoke with what seemed like a lisp; her two front top teeth were missing.

"Only if someone else lets you pass," the assistant said without looking up away from her computer screen.

The woman did not seem to comprehend what she was told. No one spoke to her. They all continued to do what they were doing before she entered: The customers who were being served by the two assistants stood steadfast in front of the window in fear of losing their priority; the assistants continued to type and stare at the keyboard; the people in the waiting room checked their documents and cellphones.

"Can I path thwoo now?" the woman asked again. She edged closer to the window and put her hands on the ledge. The man standing next to her in front of the assistant's window gathered his documents, fearful they may get dirty from the water bottle that was slightly dripping.

"You'll have to come back tomorrow," the assistant replied.

A slight pause as the woman comprehended that last statement. And then a cry of anger:

"You bissch! I'f been here since the morning, with my shild, and you won't sherve me! You bloody bissch!"

And still, no one paid the woman any attention. She grabbed the child (who was still smiling) and left the room, cursing as she left.

"What's the matter, love?" a old-age pensioner asked her.

"Bissches! They don't want to help me! They don't care!" By now, she was crying. The pensioner asked her what help she needed, but the woman continued to wail, patting the child's head at the same time as she hugged it close to her.

"It wath my turn! They diden let me thwoo! I'fsh been here since the morning, with my shild, and they won't help me!" The old man shook his head.

"What number are they at now?" he asked, but he did not get any reply. The woman was continuing to shout and cry. The man walked away, checking his priority number before going inside to see what number was blinking.

The woman was now talking on her cell (not smart) phone: "Bloody bissches! They tols me to come back tomowow! How am I gonna come back tomowow?! Bloody bissches! I'm gonna call the police!" She must have said the word 'police' a couple more times before the supervisor came out of her office.

"What does she want?" the supervisor asked. "Tell her to come and see me." The few people in the office that had managed to secure a seat did not want to give it up that easily. The supervisor repeated her call: "Can someone tell her to come and see me." In the meantime, the woman continued wailing and shouting.

"She should have been given priority before she started using the 'police' word," said a girl wearing jeans, who was sitting on a seat waiting for her turn. "Everyone can see she isn't well in the head."

"Why she not well?" said the Albanian sitting next to her. "She look okay. She just lose number."

"She doesn't understand what's going on", said the girl. "She needs more help than you and me. And she has a child! She needs much more help than us." The Albanian nodded knowingly.

"She looked perfectly fine to me," said a fake-blonde well-dressed woman on the other side of the room.

"As fine as an illiterate country bumpkin," said the girl in the jeans. "She has no idea what she did wrong."

"We're all in the same boat," said the fake blonde. "We're all waiting."

The woman's cries continued to be heard. The supervisor again asked the others waiting to call the woman in. She herself did not leave her cubicle to do it herself. A man eventually told the woman that they would see her now: The woman was still sobbing when she entered the room.

"Come now," said the supervisor, "tell me, what would you like to do? How can I help you?" The woman stopped sobbing and handed her papers to the supervisor. The transaction went through without a hitch. The woman and the child left quietly. All's well that ends well.

*** *** ***

While I was waiting to get my own paperwork sorted out, I took walks around the IKA (EOPPY- PEDY) area on the Souda road, which has never really got itself a proper facelift. It remains scruffy, despite the modern constructions that are replacing old rundown buildings. After a 4-hour wait, I got my job done too.

Although I'm trying to focus on what was happening in the case of the woman that I saw, it is fair to say that not only Daniel Blake types pass through IKA. Every sector of Greek society passes through those offices at some point. IKA is seriously understaffed - the staff are not incompetent. They are even quite polite these days. Health checks are available to everyone, whether they are registered in the system or not (see http://www.haniotika-nea.gr/dorean-exetasis-gia-olous-sto-p-e-d-i-chanion/). The Greek health system is much more democratic than the Daniel Blake type stories I read in The Guardian.

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Aphrodite's Embrace: Feeding your skin with natural beauty products (Go on, have a taste!)

GIVEAWAY! Scroll down to the end of the post for a chance to win a beauty care package with some natural cosmetics for organic beauty.

I was very touched to hear Tina Turner say in an not-so-new interview that she has never done drugs or smoked, nor does she drink a lot of alcohol, which of course all goes against the lifestyle she lives and the people she mingles with, notwithstanding a past troubled relationship. It gives me the courage to declare that neither have I ever done drugs, or smoked, or gotten drunk (I once drank a lot of wine at a NZ party because there was no water being offered with the salty food, only alcohol, but it did not make me drunk - it actually had a very sobering effect on me, making me very sleepy), and this is not because I'm some kind of prim and proper goody-two-shoes, as people often stereotype 'boring' people who have not lived their lives to full extremes: I simply didn't feel any desire to get drunk, take drugs or smoke.

I've always had a passion for natural foods and products, which I was able to develop to a great extent when I came to live in Crete. Here, it is very easy to live as naturally as you want/can, without making a great effort or spending a lot of money, as we are generally surrounded by natural substances which we take for granted. This desire for the natural things in life put me off embracing the well-established Western habits in the beauty products sector, such as using make-up or skin products (like the majority of Greek women who 'put on their face' before they leave home, as a friend of mine once said to me). Maybe I am just lucky to be blessed with naturally good skin, which, unfortunately, my husband and children don't actually share with me - they all have very sensitive skin, something that shocked me as I slowly became familiar with the changes in their faces. Genetical inheritances aside, I am very grateful that I don't need to use what I call 'gunk'.

No one is perfect though. My Achilles' heel is actually found close to Achilles' heel - I suffer from overly dry hard cracked skin on the soles of my feet, something I seem to vaguely remember only my father suffering from (but not the rest of my family). But I also know that that's just an excuse: I confess that I don't actually take care of my feet. I walk around barefoot in and around my home throughout the year (with socks only when it's really cold) and I hardly ever wear anything other than flip-flops during summer. I practically deserve to have dry cracked skin on the soles of my feet.

Whether this condition causes you pain, or you simply feel that it looks very unsightly, there is little you can do to alleviate the condition if you don't use some kind of skin softener. Natural remedies for controlling this problem are time-consuming and rather messy. Applying a mashed banana and honey poultice on a regular basis isn't cheap, nor is it practical to keep applying olive oil on the soles of your feet - imagine all the stains... In my quest to keep things natural, I bought two rather expensive products packaged in attractive clip-top preserving jars from a well known store... and found that they simply DID NOT work! These products put me off buying anything else for a long time. I then bought a cheaper supermarket product which worked much better than the expensive 'natural' stuff (which I realised was more about supporting good causes than actually being effective for what they were being sold as) but it contained ingredients that would only be recognisable to chemists, eg Benzyl Benzoate, Betaine, Cetearyl Alcohol, Myristyl Myristate, P-Anisic Acid... It's really sad to feel that you need to resort to smearing chemicals on your body on a regular basis to make you feel good.

In my search for a completely natural and cheap product for my problem, I came across Aphrodite's Embrace (after the Greek goddess of love) which promotes beauty products with the motto: "Go ahead, have a taste"! I contacted the site owner, Michelle Lasher, a young mother who created a range of natural beauty products during her pregnancy when she suddenly realised that she was using substances on her body that could affect her unborn child. She began experimenting with products she made herself, using completely natural substances, which she is now selling online. I think it's true to say that in this day and age, more and more people are turning back to nature, having tired of chemically saturated products that harm us in such subtle ways that we really can't work out which one causes our irritations, as we imbibe so many artificial products via so many manufactured food and beauty products, not to mention the general polluted state of the air through means of transport, chimneys etc. So Michelle's products are regarded as highly desirable in our times.

On hearing that I live in Greece, Michelle was overjoyed: her husband is Greek - now that is an amazing coincidence, especially since we really did not know anything about each other! She was also very excited to hear about my website and my interest in natural products. Michelle directed me to the product I could use to help soothe my cracked dry heels: her homemade organic Baby Bottom Antispetic Healing Cream (US$8), which contains just coconut oil, olive oil, beeswax, tea tree and lavender essential oil - and nothing else! I find all these ingredients recognisable and pronounceable.

Another important consideration is that the baby bottom cream has multiple uses, as Michelle explained to me: "It can be used for any dry skin, eg dry elbows, knees, lips, knuckles; it is very healing and can be used for sunburns, scrapes and burns; it has completely replaced other antibacterial ointments in my medicine cabinet. It can be used to prevent stretch marks in pregnancy. If I have any irritated skin, no matter what it is, that is the first thing I put on it. I have a friend that likes it for his eczema." Most of us are fooled by the labelling of commercial beauty products which usually designate a specific use, and we end up buying more products than we need when one product could have done more than one job. People are getting tired of being fooled by big business.

I decided to place an order for the healing cream - the prices at Aphrodite's Embrace seemed quite reasonable - which Michelle said would be packed with a gift of her Lip Quenching Balm (US$2.50) containing beeswax, coconut oil, olive oil and peppermint essential oil. On opening the package (which conveniently fit into my mailbox and arrived only a week after I ordered from Texas to Crete!), I was also surprised to find some more gifts: some Honey Face and Lip Exfoliating Scrub (US$5) containing honey, sugar, baking soda, oatmeal, olive oil, tea tree and lavender essential oils, and a Deep Moisturizing Face and Body Lotion (US$6) containing coconut oil, beeswax  and lavender essential oil and extra virgin olive oil. "Try them," Michelle emailed me, "and tell me what you think." I couldn't wait!

I live in a hot country, but this package from Texas, USA came to Crete, Greece in perfect condition - despite being knocked about during transportation, nothing leaked or looked melted or seeped out of the packaging. The products in the above photo are exactly the same products that were photographed in Michelle's home in the smaller photos above. Michelle sent me - she had photographed them before sending them to me.  

The face scrub felt and smell so natural. The aroma it exudes reminds you of a forest full of honey. In two minutes, just a tiny bit mixed with a little water made the skin around my nose oil- and grit-free (in Greece, the hot summer climate gets muggy in September, and my skin usually feels the effects of the sweat mixed with natural airborne dirt). The moisturiser had a nice matte finish - even my very good skin could feel a difference. I used the lip balm by chance before I had a shower - it's highly waterproof!

And finally, the baby bottom cream: it's absorbed quickly by the skin, and again it leaves a nice non-oily finish, two qualities which are very important elements of a good foot skin softener. Once you apply it, you can't walk around much until it is absorbed, and you don't want an oily sensation because it leaves residues on your socks/shoes. Another very important feature of foot skin softener is how often you need to reapply it; it's simply not something you can do every day/night because it limits your mobility. I've used this product once this week, and I don't feel I need to reapply it until the week passes - I would need two applications with the chemically-saturated supermarket product. So it really is quite effective.

It's a nice feeling to know that I can feed my skin in the same way that I feed my body, with completely natural products, to achieve an organic kind of beauty. And at such a reasonable price.

Giveaway! Just leave a comment on this post for a chance to win this beauty care package!

And here's the best part: Michelle has asked me to host a giveaway contest for one lucky winner of a beauty care package from Aphrodite's Embrace, for anywhere in the world! Just leave a comment on this post and I will place your names in the draw, to be held in a week's time from now when I will announce the winner.

©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.

Selling expired food (Ληγμένα)

I could be sleeping at this hour, but Persephone is still around - there's a really noisy party going on at our neighbour's house, including a live band (no crisis in that house, obviously). The musicians aren't very good (even though they think they are), which helps me to disconnect - even though I can;t sleep, I can still read and write.  

Due to a busy afternoon at work ploughing through translations, I bought a sandwich for lunch so I could stay at my desk. The lady at the kiosk asked me if I had taken the sandwich from the countertop. I told her I took it from the fridge, as that's where I thought sandwiches were kept, to ensure 'freshness'. 

"Oh, those were yesterday's," she told me, "the fresh ones are here on the counter." So I took a fresh one out of politeness, because I almost felt obliged to; if you were given a choice between fresh and not-so-fresh, you'd have done the same, I suppose. Except perhaps if there was a difference in price. I was too embarrassed to ask; I just paid the 1.60 euro for the sandwich (and 1.50 euro for the freddo coffee, because a Greek crusty baguette-style sandwich just has to have something liquidy to make it go down), and was just about to go back to the office when the local paper's first-page headline caught my attention: "NO" to expired products, it announced.

Last month, the government announced that it would allow the sale of heavily discounted 'recently expired' food goods in supermarkets under strict terms, but local supermarkets in Hania refuse to sell them, while a survey conducted in the town reported that people are totally against their sale for various reasons: "I won't risk it", "Why should I buy it?", "They are useless", "Those who invented this measure can eat them", "I have had all the necessary vaccinations", "They want to get rid of products they can't otherwise sell", "They want to get rid of what has been left over", "I always check expiry dates", "I'd rather pay more", "They should reduce the prices on all products."

The funny thing is that the day before, my mother-in-law had specifically asked me to buy some ληγμένο (lig-ME-no, meaning 'expired') rice and pasta so she could boil them together with some bones which she had put aside for our pets. We usually give them the leftovers from our own meals - both our dog and cats eat vegetarian food, preferring it to the petfood we buy for those just-in-case times when we run out of 'real' food (of course, they are also very partial to meat when they can get it). 

Even without reading yesterday's local paper, I knew that ligmena would not be available in our supermarkets. It's a very provocative measure for a start. Imagine a special area designated in the supermarket for 'off' food. Would you want to be seen there while next to you, people are looking at the not-off fodd? Not that it hasn't been done by supermarkets before: products that are about to expire are often marked down with a heavy discount. But they don't get placed in specially designatied areas! I've bought them myself - they are usually products I would not normally buy which I would have liked to try but the regular price was stopping me (eg specialty sausages made by regional food cooperatives). I've also bought flour that's about to expire - of course, I used it past its expiry date because I bought all the packets on the shelf and wouldn't have used it all up by the end of the expiry date, but there was never anything really wrong with it in the first place, and it never felt 'off' when I used it. In fact, if you are baking with expired flour, anything that might possibly have been regarded as a spoiling factor in food would have been killed off given the high heat it was cooked in. 

So the real reason for the local supermarkets' decision not to sell expired food is that this is real sign of poverty for the consumer on the one hand, and a desperate measure to make a small profit for the supermarket by using the poor on the other. If you're shopping at a supermarket in the outer suburbs of a Mediterranean summer tourist resort town, it's doubtful that you will be in a position to need to make such choices. There are very money-poor people around - I know some myself - but when it comes to food choices, they are still able to eat better food than expired food. Not that expired food products should be treated with disdain - they are simply not preferred. Beingso poor that you need to buy this kind of food is just too embarassing. 

Even though I knew that there would be no expired products to buy on the cheap, I still had to buy some rice and pasta for my mother-in-law; I also knew that she would question my chocie if the packet looked like 'regular' rice/pasta ("Why didn't you buy the ligmena, Maria? It's just for the animals") so I decided to cheat a little. I bought the cheapest rice and pasta in the store, stuff that is packaged as a private label, and is often an imported product. I bought her some rice and pasta that I would never buy to cook our meals with because I've tried them before, and I know for a fact that they did not cook in the same way that I expected them to cook. They had turned sludgy, ruining the texture of my meals. Hence, I had deemed them inappropriate. Food goods don't have to be expired to be bad, nor do they need to be cheap. But cheap food need not be low quality either.

Most people either do not realise or have conveniently forgotten that once upon a time, in Crete's and the world's (relatively) recent past, there were no expiry dates on food products. People used their intuition to work out if food was good or bad. With fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, your eyes and nose told you immediately if it was still good to eat; those which do not look appetising are still made use of in different ways (eg jams for fruit, and soup stock for vegetables). Dry foods sometimes got bug-ridden, but most housewives knew how to sift the bad stuff out of the good. Frozen foods were often forgotten in some dark corner of the open-top freezers, but they were eventually used anyway - what could possibly have gone wrong with them in their icy stiff state? Tinned foods hardly ever go off - and highly processed foods are so full of preservatives that it's hard for them to go off.

The reason why we have expiry dates is, of course, to protect us. Unscrupulous food traders may have had some products lying around their storage spaces for a long time, waiting to be be sold. Without expiry dates, we would be sold stale food products when there is plenty of fresher food readily available. But this is also what has led urban people to rely on expiry dates when deciding what food is good and what food is bad. And we all know how wasteful people can be when it comes to making such choices. So much food is thrown away because people rely on expiry dates rather than on true evidence that a food product has gone off.

I personally would buy certain types of ligmena, as long as they were super cheap. I don't have expiry dates on my garden-grown products (I know when they have gone off due to their appearance/smell), or my home-made jams and tomato sauces, or the meat that I freeze when I buy it directly from a farmer, and I always bulk-buy flour, sugar, pasta, rice and beans, and I always use them up without checking the date. When cheese goes mouldy, I always scrape off the mouldy bits - it doesn't just get hiffed. Expiry dates have their purpose, but most people have actually forgotten what their purpose was. So has the food industry when they print different sell-by, use-by and expires-by dates on a product. It confuses the customer, and it makes them rely on expiry dates to deem if something is suitable for consumption - it is so much easier to simply chuck something out and buy some more to replace it...

My initial reaction to the local people surveyed in Hania that were included in the newspaper report was that they were not actually poor, nor were they not educated enough to know that ligmena need not necessarily be bad food; they were often citing politically motivated reasons for being against the sale of expired food products. If we were very worried about money, we would be looking for these bargains; then again, why don't the supermarkets just give all their ready-to-expire products to the charities providing food for needy people? I'm sure they would appreciate them.

Yesterday's issue of the local newspaper also contained this month's brochure for the specials at the local supermarket. A lot of the food offers was of the highly processed packaged kind: biscuits, pizzas, salami, ready pies, chocolate powder, coffee, etc. Now that is the kind of food that I would have no worries about buying on special discount as expired products. Such food items are full of preservatives, they are generally overpriced to begin with and they are items I never buy. If I could buy an expired medium-sized pizza, for instance, at 1 euro, I would do it. Seriously, food full of preservatives never really goes off...

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Loutraki beach (Λουτράκι Ακρωτηρίου)

The Akrotiri peninsula ('akrotiri' actually means 'peninsula') was once considered one of the most inhospitable places to live on the island. It was made famous by the setting of the film "Zorba the Greek" (1964), which captured well the desolate look of the area at the time: scrubby thorny plants covered most of the very rocky land, and virtually nothing more grew there, due to a lack of water source. As soon as the area received a regular water supply (40 or so years ago), it slowly underwent transformation. For a start, the shrubby land became covered in grapevines and olive groves. The value of the land increased in a very short space of time, and  - poor villagers - became rich landowners practically overnight. The US maintains an army base in the area, many parts are now forested, giving it a lush green look, and the present landowners, often rich local business people, have built villas there (originally as εξοχικά, country retreats), giving the area a luxurious look.

Typical Akrotiri landscape today

Akrotiri is now treated as a suburb of Hania and is closely linked to the town via main arterial routes. It is well known in Hania as the best place to grow watermelon - something to do with the soil and microclimate. Most residents of the area are well off - there are very few old or badly maintained houses in Akrotiri - and everything looks big, new and luxurious. The beaches surrounding the rocky high peninsula offer some of the best swimming opportunities in Hania.

My kids' sports teams had organised an outing at a beach in the Akrotiri area as a fundraising event. The beach they chose - Loutraki, a lesser known beach compared to its neighbour, the tough and mighty Marathi - I had last visited only once before, about 12 years ago, and didn't like it very much. It was a little untidy and scraggly, with cramped seating space, located in a small protected bay flanked by a rocky coastline. It didn't have much more appeal than my local beach, although the sea looked cleaner. Loutraki used to be a very laidback family beach, with a sole canteen on the sand, which served souvlaki skewers, fried potatoes, packaged snacks and drinks.

The rocky area has now been relandscaped on one side, housing a beach bar with a DJ, a casual restaurant, a formal restaurant, umbrellas and deck chairs (free to use by ordering something to eat/drink), all laid out on a grassy lawn. The scenery is quite stunning; it looks out onto an island situated in Souda harbour, and yachts can be seen sailing past every now and then. The colour of the very clean sea is a dazzling light blue, contrasting nicely with the lush green foliage of the area; edible wild greens *(notably rock samphire) can be seen growing abundantly among the very sharp rocks, and natural sea salt (the kind you pay a small fortune for to use in your cooking) collects in the littler craters. Sea urchins line the sea bed by the rocks. I even saw a sprig of a fig tree that had sprouted among the rocks with a fig on it!

Loutraki beach is now divided up into two areas - the 'family' beach on the sand, which is still very cramped, but it has a lifeguard and first-aid station; and the upmarket tropical-looking beach bar area elevated above the rocks, with sun loungers all over the artificial lawn. Steps have been built to assist people in accessing the rock where they can go freefall swimming. The area is overrun by glamorous-looking people, mainly couples, slim tanned bodies and the latest fashion bikinis. Good-looking young uniformed waiters come to serve you. It is mainly frequented by Greek locals and Greek tourists (ie from the mainland), but there are also foreign tourists. You don't have to be rich to come here - using the deckchairs costs as much as a soda or coffee (something like 2-3 euro). Even if it is overpriced, you would still pay this price for a deckchair at other beaches, and if you add a coffee to those prices, it may end up costing you more. Hania has no pay-to-use beaches - this is as much as you will pay. Going to Loutraki is more of a class thing. There was a Jaguar sitting in the parking space near the restaurant area. I parked my tinny Hyundai next to it.

Since it was a Saturday, most of the sun loungers had been taken, but I was very lucky to find a set of two for me and my son, right by the waterfront, while my daughter sat with her friends from the basketball team (although yoyu could pick one up from the spares lying around the bar and plonk yourself anywhere in the general area). I felt a little awkward being here, but it was a nice experience. It gave me the chance to see how the other half lived.

Clockwise from top left: rock samphire, sea salt, tiny fig tree, purslane. 

The distance between one set of sun loungers and the next was quite close - Greeks are mindful of their personal space around them, despite the close proximity they may find themselves in with their beighbours. But everything said is within earshot of other people. On my left was a very-much-in-love couple (a sexy blonde Russian woman and a tall dark Greek); on my right was a middle-aged foreign couple (they didn't talk much). I don't know who was sitting behind me, but they were definitely Greek, according to the conversation I overheard (remember, I wasn't eavesdropping - Greeks talk in public without considering who may be listening, as it is generally the case that people are talking all at the same time, so they have their own conversations to listen to and maintain):

First man: Hey, long time, no see! Where have you been hiding?

Second man: Oh, I'm at the tailend of a week of leave from the clinic. I'm due back on Monday. 

First man: Have you been busy there?

Second man: Yeah, it's been really busy these days, mainly due to the tourist season. But I'm hoping to be seconded [what is known in Greek as απόσπαση] to a smaller clinic, somewhere on the islands [as the biggest island in Greece, we locals never feel like we are living on a typical 'glossy brochure'-type Greek island], hopefully Kastellorizo [population ~500]. There's a serious shortage of doctors on the smaller islands, most of the community clinics are under-staffed, and I'm really hoping I get a placement on one for September.

First man: Kastellorizo? That's a bit of a hole, isn't it? There isn't much to do there now, let alone the winter.

Second man: Oh, I'm not asking for a placement there in the winter, I just want to ride out the tourist season in a smaller place. I may get a position in Symi [population ~2500] instead of Kastellorizo.

First man: Symi's better in many respects. It's bigger, so there's more to do. Wouldn't you prefer to be there?

Second man: Oh, no, not at all! Kastellorizo has a proper medical centre, so you just take up your position there, there are other staff to cover you, so you don't feel under pressure. But in Symi, there's nothing organised to step into. You're on call the whole time, you may work throughout the whole day and get no sleep at night because you're on your own, and effectually on call 24/7. I really hope I get the Kastellorizo placement. It's like being on holiday down there. In Symi, you end up working the whole time. 

I really hope this doctor gets given the Symi placement. The tax payer likes to know that they're getting value for money, especially these days when the state is unable to afford to pay most of its employees, let alone give them paid holidays. Don't ask me why the larger Symi is under-staffed while the smaller Kastellorizo is overstaffed - I'm just telling you what I heard. (Symi probably has to maintain a number of medical centres located in different areas, whereas Kastellorizo has only one.)

©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.

Frugal living

That fridge looks rather bare, I thought, as I opened it up to find something to nibble on. It wasn't really empty, but I wanted something 'fast' and 'tasty' - and there really was nothing  in there that I could just grab on the spot and eat as is. Most of what was in my fridge last Tuesday (the day I was contacted by the BBC4 Food Programme to discuss frugal food) was unprocessed fresh food grown in our or another person's garden. If I wanted to eat anything from there, I'd have to process it - eg clean, peel, cut the fruit or veg. It wasn't quick enough for me at that moment.

The contents of my fridge, 17/7/2013 - I was surprised at how little processed food the shelves contained (the door shelves always contain more processed food, mainly in the form of my Asian bottled sauces).

Taking the shelves from the bottom upwards, there were:
1)  a range of different kinds of garden-grown peppers, and cucumbers (gherkins and Asian cucumbers which are popularly grown in Crete, known as atzouri)
2) some leftover vegetables, home-made tomato sauce, the last of my home-cured olives, an unopened pottle of yoghurt, some mizithra cheese and some home-made spoon sweets - bitter orange (made by my mother-in-law from our own fruit supply) and kumquat (which I made from a gift from a freind)
3) eggs - loads of them, due to generous friends whose chickens are laying in great profusion at the moment due to the breezy summer weather (free-range chickens don't like very cold and very hot weather, when they stop production), a bottle of water, 2 cartons of milk, and some dark chocolate flavoured with orange bits (I could have scoffed that, but it is not my favorite taste, so I just left it)
4) some melons and watermelon (more gifts from someone else's over-producing garden), and finally
5) a few bottles of beer, some corn husks (I have a craving to make tamales one day, so I saved the husks from our garden-grown corn), some butter spread, my home-pickled capers, a couple of cartons of cream, and some more jars of bitter orange spoon sweets (to last us to next season).

I may not have found exactly what I was looking for, but I was still quite amazed to find so much food in my fridge that was grown by us or someone we know, so much fresh, unprocessed food. (There were also some zucchini and eggplant waiting to be stored on the kitchen worktop.) In other words, most of that food came free - I did not have to spend money on it. But that only tells half the story. To procure that food, I spent a lot time. It didn't cover all my wants, just most of my needs. We sometimes lack variety when eating mainly in this way (using a lot of local fresh seasonal food), so our wants also show signs of lacking. I didn't have what I wanted to eat ready for me to eat it, so I had to make it myself.

By careful substitution, using some frozen and fresh vegetables, and the addition of some leftover meat from a feast we had attended, I made these delisious dumplings (I also made the wonton wrappers myself - recipe to follow). One dozen dumplings cost me not much more than €1.

Most people I speak to about food issues don't believe that it's feasible to rely on home-grown food, and they think I don't do my sums properly when I passionately describe the savings that can be made if food could be sourced as cheaply as possible. They insist that the quantities of such cheaply sourced food would not be enough to feed a family nutritiously. I can proudly tell myself now that what these people say is actually a good excuse for NOT making the effort required to source their food cheaply in whatever way they can. I live in the countryside, hence I have cheap sources of fruit and veg. Urban people will not have these cheap sources of food (I won't say 'free' - nothing is free in this world, it all comes with some kind of effort). My very cheap sources of food allow me to save a lot of money by using a limited variety of foods whcih are turned into an endless variety of dishes. My cheap food saves me a lot of money, because I can process it and make it good for eating at a later date too; I don't waste or throw it away, or spend money on food items that would render my cheap sources unnecessary. Most importantly, the food I have in my fridge at the moment keeps my family very healthy, and it keeps me in pocket.

The day after the BBC interview, I did a big shop at the supermarket and stocked up on things we don't produce ourselves, which complement our fruit and veg food. Kids want a ham and cheese sandwich every now and then, a bit of grated cheese is a nice way to round off a weekly pasta dish, and some ready-to-eat meat (in the form of smoked pork steak) is a good addition to a quick stir-fry, home-made souvlaki or any other meal where just a little bit of meat makes a mainly vegetarian meal so much more exciting. These cheap cured meat cuts go a long way - most will be frozen for later use. I know which supermarkets offer which specials, so I plan my shopping trips accordingly. On this shopping trip, I was accompanied by my husband, who snuck a packet of feta cheese into the shopping basket while I wasn't watching; I could have bought this feta more cheaply from another supermarket - he was obviously not prepared for the wait. 

Another thing those people say (the ones who think that cheap food sources are not easy to find) is that it is time-consuming processing food to make it edible, and then cooking from scratch. I won't contradict them - they are right, it does take a lot of time. But when that is all you have, and you don't make it a habit to buy processed food whose contents you cannot trust or do not know, then you need to do this - you need to think creatively, spend some time looking out for quality cheap ingredients, process them appropriately and find some interesting recipes to turn that food into delicious meals that your family will remember. It doesn't make a difference where you live - there is cheap food to be had. For example, I came across some 100% Greek fatless pork with very little bone for €3.05/kg - I picked up 5 kilos and stored it appropriately in the freezer in meal-sized parcels. That's all you need - you'll be able to save a lot of money by freezing bits and pieces here and there.

 I was a little annoyed with myself for not buying any chocolate on my last shopping trip; I think that;s what I was craving. Then again, the fewer chocolate bars in the house, the less chance there is of their disappearing as soon as they enter the house. To make up for the lack of chocolate in the house, I made the family's favorite chocolate cake instead, to use up some of the eggs. 

During the BBC interview, I was asked if I thought it was indeed possible to eat very frugally. And of course, I said it was. I did keep in mind that I live in a rural area (which helps), and I know I have a keen gardener in my family (which is also useful), but I also mentioned one more thing that is true for anyone who suddenly finds themselves with less money in their pockets and greater financial responsibilities: you have to change your way of thinking. You can no longer continue to live like you did in the recent past, no matter where you live, and you have to make new sacrifices that you thought you would never have to make. If you can't do that, then no matter where you live, you will eventually find yourself in difficulty, whether it's related to money or to your own sanity.

Living frugally - food- or otherwise - is possible ony if you want to make it happen. It's a matter of balancing my wants with my needs. If I can keep my needs down, I can choose which of my wants I can have. One thing I know for sure is that I cannot have everything.

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Neck pain (Αυχενικό)

I have a pain in the neck which causes me discomfort when I'm using a computer, knitting, sewing, ironing, peeling potatoes, preparing salads, and basically anything which requires the head to be lowered at a slight downward angle while concentrating on a task that usually requires you to sit/stand still and focus your eyes on one specific object.

This pain in the neck is referred to as αυχενικό (afheniko) in Greek, and cervicaglia in Italian. It's not referred to as anything in English, because supposedly it doesn't exist. The Italians will know what I am talking about, but sadly, the British will view it as an imaginary affliction, often seen as a way for a hypochondriac to escape from routine, which is why I don't talk much about it. But the truth is that I sufffer from this 'pain in the neck' for long periods every year. It eventually goes away a month after its onset, and there isn't really much you can do about it, except to get a whole lot of tests done to prove that you've got it, and once you're sure you've got it, you can start taking some pills on a regular basis that supposedly relieve your pain, but you need to take them for a long time, even when you don't feel the pain, to see any effect.

The pain usually starts with a weather anomaly, like high humidity, which Hania has been challenged with for the last month-and-a-half: temperatures in the mid-30s during the day, with misty mornings and cold nights. When I see this weather pattern setting in, I know I am going to suffer; it really is a psychosocial disorder, this pain in the neck of mine. 

I've tried the pills, and I know I really didn't feel any differently from when I wasn't taking them, so I've decided to let nature take its course instead, this time hoping that my pain in the neck will go away by the end of the month, and I truly believe it will, since I've been suffering from it since just after the birth of my first child (the things mothers go through), and I know it usually lasts up to a month (or so). But since my whole life revolves around all the above-mentioned activities, it's pretty hard to do much (writing in particular) these days.

 An amazing place I visited during the weekend, with friends and family: the ruins of the ancient walled town of Aptera.

The good thing about my pain in the neck is that walking, being out in the fresh air, lying down, and simply resting doesn't exacerbate the pain, so with all the good weather Crete's been having lately, it's given me the chance to be outdoors more, which means I feel the pain less, and I don't think about it so much. The truth is that the older we get, the more often we feel a pain here or there, and I've got friends my age who have similar annoying aches in other parts of their bodies (and they seem much worse than mine), so I guess my pain in the neck is just one of those things that comes with growing older. But if you have a young family, you mustn't let this part of your natural development hinder your daily dealings with them, so I always try to pretend that there is nothing really wrong with me, even though I do in fact feel a lot of pain.

The only thing I haven't done much of these days is any blog writing, but at least that's given me the chance to do more reading. Once I get over this thingamijig, I'll let you in on my good reads.

©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.