Vegetable chips and fritters (Λαχανικά τηγανίτες)

Should migrant workers learn the main lingua franca of a country before being allowed to take on a job? Although my own parents knew very little English when they first started working in New Zealand, and they learnt very little more after that, I have wondered whether there is a ring of truth in this statement. I have a Kiwi accent and as an English teacher by profession, I would like to believe that I am more tolerant of other people's linguistic difficulties when they have limited English skills.

On a recent trip to London, I went into a burger restaurant at Clapham Junction and asked the (Asian) attendant for a hamburger and some chips. She was having problems understanding me, so I repeated my order. I used all the synonyms for chips that I knew: potatoes, chips, french fries, fried potatoes. I was about to resort to Kiwi slang ('spuds') when she finally nodded and said "Yes, OK". When I went home with the takeaway bag, I found two burgers in it and no fries. I still can't work out what on earth it was that made me misunderstood. The end result was: no fried potatoes, that simple meal no one would make any health claims about, but very few would deny the mouth-watering, lip-smacking moreish taste of.

We all love fried potatoes at home, and it's a pity that it isn't the healthiest dish in our weekly range of meals. The only excuse I have to cook them more often is when I can disguise the platter with the addition of courgette and aubergine chips with garden-fresh produce.

Zucchini and eggplant can be sliced into very thin rounds, floured and dipped in very hot oil to make chips. I like to drain them on absorbent paper to get rid of the excess oil. They can be fried till they are very crisp, or just enough to keep their shape. In restaurants, they are usually served with a dollop of tzatziki or any other garlic flavoured dip.



Aubergine is also made into a tasty soft squidgy fritter. I was very fortunate to pick up some albino eggplant from my uncles' farm the other day. White aubergine looks and feels exactly the same as purple aubergine, except that it has white skin. It tastes a little different: it has a much blander taste, bordering on sweet rather than savoury. This is why I never use it in papoutsakia or moussaka, because it isn't as tasty. As a fritter though, it is perfect.



These fritters can be made with either purple or white aubergine. The best variety to work with is the round rather than the long eggplant. The peel needs to be removed from the aubergine before frying. It is as unpalatable as the skin of red Florinis peppers, whose skins are always removed after being roasted. In this case, slice the aubergine into rounds, and then pare the skin away from the aubergine flesh.



Dredge them in flour and dip them in a light batter so that they are just coated. Put them carefully into a pan with very hot oil; cook only a few at a time, because they tend to stick, and once the temperature of the oil is lowered if too many fritters are placed in the pan, they tend to soak up too much oil and become very greasy. Brown well on both sides.



These delicious fritters only need a hefty summer salad to accompany them. Go easy on the bread, as there's plenty of flour covering them! For an even more tempting way to serve fried eggplant, have a look at Lulu's recipe which uses fresh tomato.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Srivalli from Cooking 4 All Seasons.

©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.

Caretta Caretta (Καρέττα Καρέττα)

August the 15th is the day Greeks celebrate the third most important religious feast in the Greek Orthodox calendar. Easter takes precedence as the most important feast, followed by Christmas (ever wondered why Christmas in Greece is so dull?), followed by the Dormition (Assumption to the Catholics) of the Virgin Mary. A 14-day-long fasting period, along exactly the same guidelines as the Great Lent, precedes the feast day. Although it is a national holiday, it does not seem like one, mainly because it falls in the middle of the summer, just when everyone seems to be on holiday anyway: just like Christmas time in my Antipodes homeland.

Mary, Maria, Panagiota (the One above the Saints, but presumably below God) all celebrate their nameday today, along with Mario and Panagioti. Namedays, believe it or not, are more important than birthdays. Despite the fact that many people are happy to celebrate both their name and birthday, it's the nameday that won't ever be forgotten by friends and relatives. It's also the one that evokes pleasant feelings, which is what makes Greeks the envy of the non-Greeks on such auspicious occasions:

Woman announcing her nameday: "It's my nameday today!" "Oh, really? What's your name?"
Woman announcing her birthday: "It's my birthday today!" "Oh, really? How old are you?"

And for those of you - Greeks and non-Greeks alike - who have a name which is not recognised in the religious calendar of the Greek Orthodox church (my mother's, and even my son's, don't feature in it), don't worry: there's always All-Saints Day.

So here I am, on my nameday, expecting a dozen guests to be fed and watered. In Crete, namedays are celebrated without inviting people to them. Friends and relatives will either phone to wish the celebrant χρόνια πολλά, which loosely translates as: "may you have many years of life to come", which is OK if you're not, say, 84 years old, otherwise it might sound like a curse.

Here are the choices most people select from to celebrate their nameday:
1. Have a big sit-down meal at home. This means lots of cooking and cleaning. This kind of revelry is reserved for Papa Bear: his nameday falls in the autumn, when cooking up a feast is a good way of heating up the house on a cool evening and entertaining guests indoors is the norm.
2. Have guests over at home, but serve only finger food and sweets, kind of like a buffet. I love the idea but would prefer it if someone else would make the finger food and cakes. It still means cleaning up before and after the event.
3. Go out for either a sit-down meal or finger food and sweets. This works well if you know who is coming to your nameday, because it's one of those parties which custom dictates you do not invite people to; in other words, you must make the effort to let people know where you will be instead, because you won't be at home where they may expect to find you.
4. Invite certain people to go out with you on your nameday, but not your regular well-wishers. Too elitist for us; simply not our style.

We decided to go out to a place we knew well and could hope on finding a free table. It's best to book a table if you want good food on this day, being the holiday that it is, otherwise, you have to contend with restaurants, tavernas and other food establishments that may offer a lower standard of food and service. As I have a strong opinion about where you will find very good tasty well-cooked food in Hania (only in a private house), the place I chose was selected purely on the grounds of location: it was right next to the beach (it operates as a beach taverna during the day), the waves could be heard crashing on the sand, and there was a small playground for the younger members of the party to amuse themselves within view of the parents. I was simply lucky that the food also turned out to be good.

Caretta Caretta has nothing to do with turtles: the name simply has a good gimmicky sound to it. We've been going to this seaside taverna for a long time now. It's located on the west coast of Hania, in a village called Agia Marina (Saint Marina). The village borders two other seaside villages which play host to the the classiest nightlife zones in Hania at this time of year: Stalos to the east, and Platanias to the west. This is where everyone comes if they want to boogie the
summer night away. Neither Stalos, Ayia Marina nor Platanias have specific borders, melding into each other in the way that neighbourhoods tend to do when they start sprawling. Once the poorest areas in the district, they are now the wealthiest. Up until the early 1950's (ie pre-mass tourism), the seaside soil was considered infertile, and lay barren-looking. It was the kind of land that refugees were gifted by the state, because it was deemed useless. Some clever person had the idea that they could build basic rooms to meet the low standards of the backpacking beach-sleeping mosquito-bitten grubby tourists at the time, and since then, Greece has been treated as a cheap holiday destination, an opinion which suddenly changed this year with the dollar crisis, or should I say the euro crisis, since our Northern European tourists are particularly feeling the sting of an expensive currency.

Every year, Caretta Caretta shows signs of improvement rather than stagnating. It offers the full range of Greek cuisine, along with internationally known pasta dishes (like carbonara) which are safe choices for the poor tourists who do not know how to ask for good Greek food by name. Along with this standard menu, it also offers some surprises, some of which we chose for my special day: grilled filleted sardines, seafood kalitsounia (better get the chef police onto them for the misuse of Greek culinary terminology), crab stuffed with a cheese filling and our all-time favorite delicacy, the most expensive meze of all, sea urchins, which are dressed with the ubiquitous olive oil and lemon juice and enjoyed as a dip with sourdough bread: a very acquired taste, but a special one nonetheless. We also ordered a seafood salad, some dakos, a plate of fried whitebait, some tasty octopus in vinegar dressing, some fried calamari a few plates of fried potatoes - they were that good. Total cost: 135 euro, for a party of 12.

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Bougatsa from Serres (Σερραϊκή μπουγάτσα)

Today I have to make sure that I get to do every single errand that involves going into Hania, as it's the last day my children are at day camp (ie being supervised by someone else). After parking the car a zillion miles away from the centre (as usual), and carrying a computer screen in my hands (it broke down while under guarantee), I started on the little tasks that make me walk from one end of Hania to the other every time I need I go into my hectic little town, with its erratic traffic problems which are always exacerbated in the summer.

Coupled with the congestion, there is the heat. Sweat poured down my back, my clothes were sticking to my skin, my head felt as if it were on fire. To make things worse, I had forgotten to fill my water bottle from my home, meaning that I was carrying extra useless weight in my bag aside from mizithra, okra, vine beans, children's books, among others. My mouth was dry, my body slowly dehydrating, and it was only half past nine. I needed a sit-down in the shade with something cool to drink.

My errands had taken up to the Agora, behind which there is a large square with cafes and bars surrounding it. I walked along the road and chose the first empty space offering ample shade; the name of the cafe and what it served did not interest me at that moment. In fact, whenever I'm eating out, the food and where it comes from never interests me, because I know that I can never be sure of the truth of anything the restaurateur claims about the menu. Luckily for those who live in Hania, when eating out, there is usually a choice of views, scenery and atmosphere to enjoy apart from the food: this is the motivating reason for me to eat out.

My view was not the most alluring: double parked cars, souvenir shops, tacky jewellery stores and other nondescript eyesores. Even the sight of the tourists who were milling about the area - a well-known tourist spot which may also be referred to as a trap by some - was not uplifting: after a certain point, one easily tires of seeing old-fashioned travel book images from a bygone era, young lasses clad in bikini tops and wraparound skirts and bare-chested men, their shoulders laden with a dusty backpack, in the middle of the town where we all conduct both our formal and informal business. As AA says, this is the image most people still have of Greece: a place where everyone lives by the sea beating octopuses on rocks and traveling by donkey. My tired feet and aching arms had not foiled my senses.

I looked up, spotting the name of the cafe: Ano kato: Serraiki Bougatsa, which could loosely be translated as "Topsy Turvy: Bougatsa from Serres." Bougatsa from Serres? Foreign food, food that our foreign tourists are aching for, the term foreigners including urbanite Greek travellers from Athens, the kind who buy bougatsa in Athens which bears no resemblance to the bougatsa served in Hania, the kind of place a non-Cretan Greek would look for if words like boureki, dakos and stamnagathi scare them, fearing the unknown as we all do to some extent, which is why many of us will search for a Casa di Pasta restaurant in Thailand, or a burger chain in China.

"Parakalo?" Just when I was thinking that this might be a self-service cafe, the waiter had arrived, carrying a serving tray with coffees and glasses of water with lots of ice cubes. He had been busy preparing orders to be served to the local shop-owners, another one of those traditions which gives Greece a picture-postcard image: a waiter crossing the street with a tray of refreshments, specially ordered by businesspeople. No messing around with the cafetiere for them; silver service that even the plebs can enjoy. He left one of the glasses of water on my table.

Being on a diet - always one that is broken - I had left the house without having breakfast, so I decided to order some bougatsa, in full knowledge that it would contain three times the number of claories that my home-made breakfast would contain. I noticed the food display case: croissants, rolls, pastries, but which of all of them was the Serraiki bougatsa?

"A plunger coffee and a serving of bougatsa, please."
"The bougatsa's going to be ready in about ten minutes," he replied very politely. I was beginning to like this place.
"No problem," I smiled, I'm in no hurry."
He smiled too. "And you know it's the cream-type of bougatsa." Oh, the joy of being treated like a local...

As it was still early morning for some, the cafe was empty. I was being kept company by three empty seats round my table. I laid all my bags on the seat opposite mine, when it occurred to me that those inanimate objects might just have a better view than I did. I got up and changed places with the bags.

My whole world changed. No more cars and tacky souvenirs. I saw a different world: traditional handcrafts and woven textiles, a huge linden tree, the wall of the main square where the Cathedral of Hania is located. The most basic elements of the area had probably not changed since my parents' time before they left Crete to emigrate to New Zealand. I wondered whether they had walked in the same side street - probably it had not been pedestrianised in their time - before they left the country. It had the kind of look we are familiar with in those old Greek black and white movies which I used to see at the cinema in Wellington during a private screening for the Greek community.

The ten minutes it took for the bougatsa to arrive passed pleasantly watching the shop owners waiting for business, sweeping the outside of their shops and chatting to their neighbours. A hotel owner sat in the alley opposite with a bowl of uncleaned horta reading her newspaper, while a fresh load of white linen tablecloths had just been delivered to her neighbour's restaurant. Even the cobblestones on the street took on a new interest.

Serraiki bougatsa was surely very different to the bougatsa traditionally served in Hania: custard instead of mizithra cheese, icing sugar and cinnamon instead of white granulated sugar. Even the filo pastry tasted different. If only the woman who's always serving at the counter in Bougatsa Iordanis could be as polite as the waiter at Ano Kato. After a second glass of water, I had come back down to room temperature, having sampled all the delights of retro Hania. Total cost: 4.10 euros.

©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.

Kleftiko (Κλέφτικο)

Postcard from Hania
I spotted the sign while being a tourist in my town: ELA restaurant, Topanas - within the walls of the old town of Hania - in the Jewish quarter; could not detect the sunken pit for the kleftiko oven. Στην υγειά σου, Laurie!

To Sam



Love, Maria

The colours of Fournes: orange August (Τα χρώματα του Φουρνέ: πορτοκαλί τ'Αυγούστου)

(This is the first in a monthly series of colour and texture studies based on the village of Fournes, an orange and olive producing area in Hania. The idea is based on an inspiration from the work by Calliope in her Spectral Studies series.)

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Fournes is the second-to-last village that you will meet on your way to the famous Samaria Gorge, the longest ravine in Europe (the last village is Lakki). It sits below the Lefka Ori mountain range. Its location, on a flat fertile plain just before the long and winding road leading to the mountains, is its greatest asset. The message one receives on passing it on their way to the Omalos valley where the gorge is located is that it has seen better days. The neo-classical designs in the old houses on the main road attest to a certain grandeur that has now become all but lost. The fields of Fournes are covered in olive and orange trees, but they often have a neglected look to them, some of which have been turned into construction sites. The atmosphere hints at a sign of modern times: the demise of agriculture.

Fournes was once considered very wealthy because its location was easily accessible, and agricultural produce was an important source of wealth. Back in the days of wealth and prosperity, people showed off their money by decorating their homes ornately, indulging in the latest fashion and dining out on a regular basis in the town. It is said that a man would get a new suit sewn every month, even if he didn't get a chance to wear the suit he had bought in the previous month. Those days are over. Olives are found strewn uncollected under the trees, oranges remain on the tree even when it is producing new crops, wild thorny blackberry vines strangle olive and orange trees. The decay is obvious: rural decline in favour of urban progress.

Despite its drawbacks, Fournes still manages to lure locals and foreigners alike. The number of residents has grown slightly over the years since foreigners and wealthier citizens started building new houses in the area. This is all due to its proximity to the main town, and the stunning views in amongst the peace and quiet of a village location. It also offers plentiful opportunities in agricultural occupations. In the appropriate season, there is olive picking and orange packing, and if one is not averse to the sweaty toil of fieldwork, there are plenty of seasonal jobs available in the way of cleaning up fields by getting rid of thorny bushes and weeds under the trees, and generally maintaining the land, enticing in this way the many economic migrants who have taken up residence in the old derelict houses.

In August, the colour orange is strongly represented in Fournes, which is located in a wider area well-known in Greece for orange production. The summer sun anoints everything animate and inanimate, encasing it all in a shade akin to the golden globes found hanging on the dusty trees. Orange shades emerge in the terracotta urns that lie abandoned in the gardens of the old brick-orange houses, the chickens under the orange trees, the fallen citrus crop that nobody bothered to pick, the weeds that dry up in the scorching heat. Even the pick up trucks, the packing crates and irrigation pipes cannot evade the hue that Fournes is most well-known for for. The sun parches the ground, scorches the trees and burns the life out of the fallen crops. Yet without it, there would be no crops and rural life would cease.

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A tourist in my town (Τουρίστας στο σπίτι μου)

When I first came to Greece, I stayed with some friends in Kolonaki, an inner-city Athenian suburb whose name rings of the undertones of the elite and upper-class. Their apartment was a 'garsoniera': a studio apartment which had a separate albeit tiny hallway (the front door opened into this room) leading to the three rooms of the apartment: the bathroom, the kitchen and the bedroom. I slept in the hallway on the floor for three weeks until I found my own garsoniera. It was a happy and hilarous time in my life, learning the ways of the Greeks (despite being one) and discovering just what is and what is not acceptable in modern Athenian society. It was also the first time I ever experienced snow in an urban centre. To this day, I have never seen so much snow as the time it snowed in 1992 in Kolonaki.

Not being a driver when I first came out to Greece, I was used to walking everywhere I went. As a woman, I was wary of where I walked alone and what time I was walking. I always kept the street-wise rules in my mind, picked up in a self-defence class I took in Wellington: walk at a steady rate, as if you have somewhere to go; never loiter or act as if you are walking without a purpose. The roads in Wellington were much wider than those of Kolonaki. After work one evening, I saw a man approaching me in the opposite direction as I was walking up to the apartment. I quickened my pace (on the pretext, I suppose, that every male human being is a potential rapist), and started charging ahead on autopilot, like the evzones that push anything in their way aside when they march outside the Greek Parliament. As the man passed me, or as I passed the man, depending on one's point of view, he turned round to face me, and in a disgusted tone of voice, called out to me: 'What's the rush?"

The apartment was too small for three people to stay put in for a long period of time. To beat the boredom, if we were all at the apartment at the same time, we would sometimes go to the local kafeneio. For the price of a Greek coffee (or, as is still often heard in Hania, a Tourkiko), which at the time cost only 100 drachmas, making it the cheapest coffee available, we could stay in a cosy (if not exactly feminine) environment away from our own cage. One time, I remember going to the kafeneio during siesta time, which remained open for throughout the whole day. We ordered our coffees and picked up a tavli (backgammon) set.

"Not allowed," warned the kafetzis (the owner of the kafeneio).
"We can't play tavli" we asked with bewildered looks on our faces.
"No," the kafetzis repeated, giving no explanation, because that's part of the Greek way: you don't explain anything to anyone until the eleventh hour.
"Why?" we asked, in our foreign accents (Amerikanoi, the kafetzis probably thought).
"The sound of the pawns makes too much clatter," replied the kafetzis apologetically. The kafeneion was located in an area surrounded by apartment blocks. The other customers in the cafe (not everyone feels like napping, even if siesta is still a Greek tradition in many parts of the country) watched us as we silently made our exit, going to a noisier upbeat young people's cafe-bar (youth never sleeps), which had a lively atmosphere, but no backgammon sets.

And that was my introduction to the midday Greek siesta.

*** *** ***

During the midday siesta, it is forbidden by law to make any kind of noise whatsoever. Creating a disturbance is a punishable offence, and citizens are allowed to call the police to intervene if anyone or anything is disturbing the peace between the holy siesta hours of 3.00pm and 5.30pm. Being comfortably imbued in the Greek customs, I find that the midday siesta is an absolute must to recover from the searing heat of a summer's day: the weather at this time of year is usually very hot and uncomfortable; last year, temperatures reached over 45 degrees Celsius in some parts of the country.

The midday siesta is perfect for avoiding the hottest part of the day. Without a midday siesta, it is impossible to fully enjoy a hot summer's night in Greece. Without partaking of the midday nap, life on a hot summer's day in the middle of the Mediterranean is simply stifling. You cannot enjoy your afternoon and you won't last into the evening. After spending a couple of hours lying down, we were refreshed enough to get a few jobs done in town in the afternoon, the time of which varies, with a general agreement by the masses that it starts at about 5.30pm (after the midday siesta) and finishes at about 8.00pm, depending on when the sun goes down. We had to:

• return some tiles for our latest home renovation project
• buy some more powder glue for the tiles (from the same store)
  
• pick up some wire scrub to clean the laid tiles (not from the same store -?!?)
  
• do some supermarket shopping, and
• drop off some old clothes and toys at St Nicholas Church in Splantzia, who distributes them to families in need.

When you come to Splantzia, you'll be overcome by an urge to explore. Splantzia is not your every-day inner-city suburb. St Nicholas church has a minaret attached to its side. You will want to find out why. An untidy-looking, seedy neighbourhood - it still houses Hania's red-light district, nicknamed Minoos due its proximity to the main street bearing that name - Splantzia is now the area of choice for economic migrants, with its cheap rents and international atmosphere; the sound of Greek is almost a rarity in amongst its alleyways and tiny houses, all sharing a wall with their neighbour.

The minaret is a reminder of what the town of Hania once was, and what it is slowly turning back into: a multi-ethnic town where many different cultures must learn to live beside each other and respect one another. Splantzia has always been the centre of multicultural activity in Hania. During the 400-year rule of the Ottomans, it was resided mainly by Turks. Now it's the place which tourists seek out if they want to see Hania town 'off the beaten track'. There is also another minaret in Splantzia, behind the area of the Agora.

Splantzia neighbours another inner-city suburb, the area known as Koum Kapi. As the name suggests, it was inhabited mainly by citizens with Turkish affiliations, until the time of the population exchanges precipitated by the Asia Minor crisis in 1922. The Turkish residents left many decades ago, but the names they had been using in Hania for four centuries still remain. Koum Kapi is still called Koum Kapi, and it doesn't look like it will change. Since we were in the district, we decided to enjoy our once-a-month family meal out at one of the dozens of al fresco eateries found there.

Koum Kapi, a coastal area located eastwards of the main town of Hania, takes is name from the Turkish language, meaning 'gate of sand', which refers to the eastern gate (still standing) built into the wall that surrounded the town to guard it and its citizens in older times. Before Ottoman rule, the Venetians had already named it Sabbionara, again meaning 'sand gate'. The bulwark is now covered with trees, and there used to be a cafe operating under their shade. I was lucky enough to enjoy the view from this spot; it has closed down now.

One hundred years ago, Koum Kapi's sandy shores were once covered in straw huts, homes to the 'χαλικούτιδες' (halikoutides), the moslem servant tinkerers of Arab-African descent, who left the town during the last major population exchange in 1922 after the burning of Smyrna. The photo shows their dwellings: a rather unusual structure inhabited by unusual people. This photo has been taken from the book Chania outside the Wall, by Aimilia Kladou-Bletsa.

Koum Kapi gradually turned into another quick-build shoddy-construction ghetto: rows of workers' houses, crammed beside each other like sardines in a can, one room tacked onto the other with no town planning taken into consideration. The area resembled a slum and was considered a 'bad' neighbourhood, the kind where illicit activities take place. The area underwent major re-imaging in the mid-90s; as soon as the slum housing disappeared and the coastal road was turned into a promenade suitable for the evening volta (stroll), along came the developers, turning it into a glitzy cafe-bar neighbourhood. Before this happened, this is what it looked like (again taken from Aimilia Kladou-Bletsa's fascinating book), a little as I remember it when I first came to Greece:

It is now the most vibrant part of town, and there is never an empty seat at the eateries in good weather. It stretches along the coast starting at the right of the touristy old port, the eastern side of the Venetian city wall which is still standing; an open-air theatre operates below it, in the area of a former moat, throughout the summer. Passing St Lucia's gate, Koum Kapi ends just behind the stately Villa Koundourou, a 100-year old house, used in former times by its owner as a country house getaway, subsequently bequeathed to the state by the owner, and presently used as an arts centre.

It seems that Koum Kapi is a well kept secret among the locals, as few foreign tourists are seen strolling along the promenade; while the locals walk slowly along the road enjoying the view and the misty breeze, the Northern European tourists jostle against each other for walking space at the old port in the high summer season.

It was a hot night, the theater in the moat was staging a children's play, the car park next to the theater - again housed in the moat - was choked with cars to full capacity. We were lucky to find a space near the entrance just as we were getting ready to leave it after driving right through it! This was the scariest part of the evening: getting through choking traffic with two youngsters in tow. But they weren't the only children being dragged to their parents' favorite hangout: my children met up with some of their friends from the day camp they have been attending. But the strollers were primarily young Greeks: smiling faces with bursts of laughter, all dressed in the latest fashion.

We took a walk along the promenade. The music coming from the bars, coupled with the style of the older houses, most of which have been renovated, will make you think you are on a backstreet in Havana. The food places were located closer to St Lucia's gate, while the open-air bars and cafes were found by Villa Koundourou. We walked back to find a seat in one of the little bistro-style tavernas, settling on the first place we found with empty seats. The sign above the indoor area gave its name as Kazimi. The seats were positioned next to the promenade, so that we had a direct view of the ocean, with the occassional spray of sea as the waves hit the breakwater. It felt fabulous to sit so close to the sea, but spare a thought for the locals: the music got louder and louder as the night wore on, and apparently no one goes home until well into the early hours of the morning...

We decided to order something simple: a mixed grill, more popularly known in Greek as a 'poikilia' (variety). There was a choice of small, medium and large: we chose medium for our family of two adults and two children.

'Anything to drink?' asked the not-very-talkative owner-waiter-cook.
'Two 'gazozes' for the children (locally produced cream soda), and a couple of ice-cold beers from the tap for us,' my husband replied.
'Sorry, I haven't yet bought the equipment for beer off the tap. We're new in the business, you see.' My husband was most disappointed. I wasn't too fussed; even if the food didn't come up to our expectations from this newly-opened eatery and its inexperienced owner, you have to see Koum Kapi for what it is: a good place to chill out. I wouldn't go to Koum Kapi otherwise. If all I wanted was good food, I'd stay at home. In any case, what we got for 31 euro, drinks included, was not just the food. There was also the intoxicating view and the lively atmosphere.

Admittedly, the food wasn't all home-made, judging by the chicken nuggets and uniform-sized schnitzel, but the meatballs were delicious, and the chicken souvlaki was the most succulent I had had in ages. The potato chips were crisp, but the sausages were the cheerio type, which would have gone down well at a children's party. As an added bonus, there was plenty to take home with us for the next day's lunch (2 kids count for 1 adult). It went well with the leftover boureki.

Funnily enough, I found myself at the same spot the next night with a friend. The bistro didn't fill up, while all the others around it were packed. Is this the effect I have on places?!

©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.

Lenten kalitsounia for The Forefeast of the Transfiguration (Νηστίσιμα καλιτσούνια)

Across the road from the gate of our house stands an iconostasis - a small low brick-built shrine dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ, celebrated every year on the 6th of August. The shrine is typical of such structures all over Crete and the rest of Greece. It may be built for a number of reasons: the owner of the land wants (or wanted) to build a church on it at some time, the dedication may have been made to honour a saint or a special moment in the time of the owner of the land, or for a sadder reason, as is more often the case these days with so many road accidents: a person may have died somewhere close by and the family of the deceased asked for permission to build a shrine in this place.

(Can you see the rainbow in the photo? This photo of the shrine was taken in May, 2008)

The shrine in my neighbourhood has been there since thw second world war. It was built by the frantic mother of a man taken away by the Nazis because he was involved in the resistance. He came back alive (and is still going!), so his mother must have been pleased about her decision to erect the shrine. The women of the area faithfully come to keep it clean and tidy, and keep the flame of the kandili (lamp) lit, which is placed before the icon depicting the Transfiguration of Christ; this makes it more likely that the shrine was built as the first step in a church being erected on the site eventually (which is now highly unlikely).

On the eve of the celebration day of a saint or event in Christianity, the forefeast (paniyiri) is always held in the evening: a liturgy performed by the local parish priest (the congregation - all wearing their 'Sunday best' - stands in the yard of our house!), with a food festival to follow. 'Loaves and fishes' were once distributed to feed the masses; this tradition is carried on by the loaves (pictured in front of the shrine) and the feast that takes place afterwards. No celebration in Greece can go by without food. As life has become more structured in our epoch, the Ladies' Auxiliary Society of the community of Vamvakopoulo decided to take on the organisation of the paniyiri this year, asking members of the community to contribute the food for the festival, which will be spread out for all to partake in, in a little park a stone's throw away from the shrine.

Can you imagine what delicacies the ladies in the area (myself included) might prepare? Word of caution: think lenten. The Feast of the Transfiguration occurs during the fasting period before the Dormition of the Virgin Mary: the first fourteen days of August are fasting days with the same rules applying as for Great Lent before the Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday. Although people don't fast as rigorously as might have been the case in past times, the fast is observed in front of the clergy and for official purposes. So the food being offered must be food that is permissible during a fasting period: no meat, no cheese, no milk, no eggs, no fish (except shellfish and snails).

Because the meal is not going to be eaten in sit-down-at-the-table style, but more as impromptu free-for-all with people wandering around the street holding a plate, it's very important that the food can be eaten without too much cutlery or getting your hands dirty. Therefore, my offering is going to be lenten kalitsounia, traditional Cretan pies. (The finger-food rule wasn't actually followed by most of the other cooks, but everyone had a good time, and there was plenty of wine and orange juice for refreshments.)

Normally, kalitsounia are made with a cheese a mixture, but for the purposes of the feast, the mixture used today is completely vegan: vlita, mint, parsley, onion and seasonings, with some breadcrumbs mixed in to create a stronger mixture that will not break the pastry open due to excess liquids in the leafy greens. Vlita (amaranth) is a bit like spinach, but does not retain as much water. It grows in abundance in the summer - it is never grown in the winter, not even in a greenhouse.

This is probably the best way to use up the vlita in the garden, which has been thriving right throughout the summer incessantly. I normally bake kalitsounia, but lenten kalitsounia cannot be baked: they do not contain any oil or fat, so they won't be tasty if they aren't fried. Hence, another marathon cooking run for me on the eve of the eve of the celebration, as kalitsounia can be prepared ahead and I can join in the fun of the paniyiri on the day.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Divya from Dil Se.

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