Effortlessly beautiful Crete (Αβίαστα όμορφη Κρήτη)

We returned from our 4-day family seaside holiday in Paleohora (on the south coast of Hania) yesterday to a rather cool urban temperature. Southern Crete remains hot and dry throughout the year, and it is rarely very cold there, even in winter (except perhaps when it's very windy). It's still very warm here in Crete, even though the wind is now blowing a cool breeze most of the day. But the change in thei air is being felt: it's just about getting too chilly to sit on our wide balcony, and I have shut the kitchen window because I can feel a cold wind fanning my still-exposed back - I can't bear the thought of putting away my sun dresses yet (it's still too warm to wear jeans).

For all these reasons, I regard September as the best month to take a summer holiday in Crete. It's still warm enough to enjoy the sea, and cool enough to sleep well through the night. Depending on your location, you can still find a place to sit comfortably outdoors right throughout the day, and if you choose Southern Crete - whose natural landscape is still largely unspoilt - you will think that autumn has not yet arrived. September is not too busy either, so you will be able to enjoy Crete for what she is, and not for what mass tourism has made her out to be.

The following photographs of our summer holiday are all one one-click shots, taken with a four-year-old camera, a pocket-sized Sony Cyber-shot, 12.1 mega pixels. The only effort I made to take them was in the screen shot that I chose, taking into account symmetry, colour contrasts and the use of the in-built flash. As I was taking the photos, I explained to my husband that people often comment on how beautiful my photos are, but I always remind them that my photos are just one-click shots; their beauty is reliant on the natural light that is never really lacking in Greece, and the natural colours of the Greek environment. There are no camera tricks in my photos, while patience is the main element in all my photos: you amy need to wait till your chosen screen shot is 'ready' for you, and you need to be prompt in clicking at just the right moment. I just let nature show herself as she is, and this is what comes out: an effortlessly charming representation of a naturally beautiful country.

Here are some of our holiday highlights:


This breakfast shot looks as though it could do with some more light. But light is something we try to avoid in Crete during the summer - the Mediterranean climate gives us too much light, and often at times when we don't want it. We had breakfast as early as possible because our hotel balcony got too much sunlight after a certain hour in the morning, and it was uncomfortable to sit there until the evening. But the lack of light brought out the natural colours of our natural food.


The clarity of the sea on the southern coast of Crete, together with the brilliant sunlight, give the sea bottom are transparent look - the rocks are distinguishable from the sand.


Vlita greens, with whatever else has remained in the summer garden - some beans, corn and zucchini - cooked in tomato sauce. Even though it was lunchtime, I used a flash for this photo because we were sitting in the shade.


This is not a good photo at all - but the sea blue and marble white contrast very well with the varying grey-blue shades of the sky, rocks and mountains. Because of the hour of the day, the flash darkened the environment, misplacing too much light on the marble; without the flash, the photo wasn't very clear, and because too many people were promenading up and down this area (it was Paleohora art week when we were there), it was difficult to capture a screen shot without people.


Skill is not enough - you need to be patient, to wait until you capture both the right effect and the right light in the screen. Too much glare spoiled this picture, so I kept clicking until I got the effect I wanted.


Using the flash at dusk, you get a photo that you didn't actually see; above left: the flash was used - above right: the flash wasn't used, and that's what I actually saw. Below left: the colours of the early morning dawn in the same area as above; below right: the same place an hour later when there was more sunlight in the morning.



You can't get more natural than this - despite there being too much light in the photo, something I could not control because I took the photo from inside the car, the natural landscape of the southern Cretan - sandy mountains, pebbly beach and blue sea - coast still looks stunning.


Many cafe/restaurant owners in Paelohora have their own source of fresh produce - even though the light is mixed up in this photo (due to the vine plant that provided us with shade as we sat outdoors), the natural colours of the - equally very natural - food easily distinguish themselves from the dark green table.


For this shot to be perfect, I should have taken it more symmetrically - alas, I was in the car again, and it was the best I could get in a split second.


Shade is very important in a hot climate. These brilliantly coloured hammocks have been placed strategically to achieve just that.


The common yuppy is a boring fish that is highly appealing when freshly caught and freshly cooked. Its greens and greys are still visible, after being lightly grilled.


Whatever light they are taken in, the colours of Cretan watermelon and cantaloupe stand out for their boldness.


Mediterranean coastal landscape - golden sand, greens shades of foliage and blue blue sky.


Natural food has natural colours - even at night, they stgand out beautifully on a white plate.


This tangled messy garden took my fancy. There was a lot of street lighting in the area which confused me about how I should take the photo. Standing in front of the street lamps, without using the flash, I got the right effect to show the old building, the blue window frames and the potted plants.


Different shades of blue and green - that's the Mediterranean in a nutshell.


More stark contrasts: the sandy rocky juniper-covered coastline of southern Crete.


Juniper berries, giving a Christmassy look to summertime Crete.


The perfectly symmetrical effect with the changing hues of the pink-blue-grey spectrum, makes this a beautiful shot.


It's well past dusk - almost evening - and everything looks blue (no flash).


The same explanation above can be given for this photo.


Loukoumi is an artifically coloured treat - it still looks great on a white background.


The almiriki (tamarisk) trees in this area have been planted specifically to provide shade - a play on the contrasts of light and dark make this an impressive photo.


Again, with a bit of patience, sunlight is captured in the right places above the pebbly sea bed.


Different shades and contrasting green hues blend well with the blue of the sea and sky.


Crete: effortlessly beautiful.


It's not too late to book a holiday to Crete - plenty of space now, as well as good prices.

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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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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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Kritamos - Rock samphire (Κρίταμος)

Right along the Cretan coastline, kritamos - known as rock samphire in English - continues to flourish, together with caper bushes.

Kritamos in flower

Kritamos - Critmum maritimum - is pickled in the same way as capers; all parts of the plant - stems, leaves and seed pods, except the flower - can be prepared in this way for later use as a flavouring in salads.

The leaves and the most tender stalks are the best for pickling. 

It is used in pretty much the same way as pickled peppers, pickled capers and pickled purslane. In its fresh form, it has an appealing smell, something like a mixture of fennel and peppermint. No surprise that it is also known as sea fennel. When pickled in vinegar, its aroma and taste change, but it still adds an interesting dimension to a potato or tomato salad.

Peppers, purslane, capers and kritamos in the small jar.

As with all foraged greens, you need to be a little picky about where you pick them, by ensuring that the area where you forage is not polluted or contaminated in any way. I picked the kritamos from my local beach, so I don't intend to use it in my cooking. It makes a nice addition to my other more usable pickles - it is very pretty to look at.

The chef at MAICh often uses kritamos to flavour his potato-based salads.

Kritamos is linked to ancient Greece in many ways, in the myths surrounding Prometheus, as well as in Hippocratic medicine. It is also known in Britain and has been mentioned by Shakespeare. Although the Greek islands were once the culinary province of kritamos, it is now becoming more and more well known by restauranteurs all over the world, notably urban centres running top-end Greek restaurants, whose owners get it shipped into their kitchens. No wonder foraged herbs are now in serious decline.

Bonus photo:

The rocky coastline in this photo is full of kritamos. It generally feels unpolluted, but it's probably been contaminated by animals and suntan oil. Such pollution is less visible than car fumes, but at the same time, it's very real.

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Plum jam (Μαρμελάδα από τζάνερα)

A friend recently gave me some rather large firm oval-shaped plums, two large supermarket bags full of them. They were beautiful to look at from the outside, a deep reddish-purple colour, they almost looked like gems. But their yellow interior was rather dry and not so sweet. My friend had used them to make jam last year - this year, since she still had enough jam to tide her through the following year, she decided to make chutney.

Through the internet, I discovered that this fruit is known as the European plum, of the "Tulare giant" variety. They are not so tart and juicy, like regular plums. Since they would not be eaten, I wondered what to do with them - I couldn't just throw them away. If I pretended that they weren't even in my fridge, I would have allowed them to spoil naturally and then I would have a good excuse to throw them away. I set about making some jam with them.

Making jam is very simple, so I decided to use the simplest jam recipe that I could find on the web: 1kg of stoned plums to 1kg of sugar, with a little water to dilute the sugar and some lemon juice to make the jam set. I also used my own jam-making knowledge from past experiences:

• instead of using just the juice, I chopped up the lemon as finely as possible and added the whole thing, including the peel, to the jam
• I also added the large oval pips of all the plums I used (which I removed after the jam was cooked) - fruit pips contain a lot of pectin, which helps the jam to set
• I added a large dollop of a secret ingredient which gives a special taste to dark coloured jam (you can't use this for light coloured jams as it darkens them and they lose their aesthetic appeal): appelstroop, an apple syrup with a firm consistency (I used the Timson brand), which a Dutch friend presented to me as a gift. 

To make the jam, I placed all these ingredients in the pot (I did not use the butter, as stated in the original recipe), let the jam cook away on its own until it set (see my apricot jam recipe for tips there), and bottled it in sterilised jars while still hot. The sealed jars were then boiled upside down in a large pot.

I quartered the fruit to keep it as whole as possible, but if you prefer a less fruity look to your jam, you can chop the plums into smaller pieces.

Bonus photo: 

More preserved fruits - sour cherries, kumquat, biterr orange and unripe figs.

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Persephone departing (Η Περσεφόνη φεύγει)

There really is no point going to bed before 3am in the summer months on a Friday, Saturday or even Sunday night in my neighbourhood, including the eve of any major holiday or religious feast day. Add to that, a saint's feast day, which means that people with the same name are celebrating their nameday. I should point out that every day of the year in the Greek Orthodox calendar is dedicated to some saint. I'm not even including wedding and baptism celebrations in this list - they too tend to take place in summer, at outdoor reception centres. 

Pomegranates ripening in our garden - photo taken 29/8/2013

There is usually some outdoor celebration taking place on most of these nights, accompanied by the full range of music, often a live band, playing loudly with compelte disregard for people living in the area - if you live in places close to outdoor summer entertainment, you basically have to tolerate it unitl the end of summer. The rhythm of the music is often the same - feasts generally start with Cretan music, then go on to general Greek 'λαϊκά', which basically means 'popular' music, and as the evening wears on, the beat increases and the music becomes heavier with the tsifteteli topping things off, before modern English pop music takes over. To make the evening go on for a longer time, a general free-for-all follows in terms of muscial choices - I was recently woken up at 4am with the duck dance (I seriously wondered if they would play Smurf music after that). These feasts could go on until 6-8am, depending on people's kefi - despite the crisis, they don't seem to be lacking in it.

Singing, dancing and clapping are of course some of the joys of life, but in the modern world, there are also rules in place against playing loud music at certain hour (just like there are rules against smoking in public indoor places). But Greeks are very forgiving and forgiveness often overrides the rules. So we often end up having to share our village peace and quiet with a lot of cicadas before the winter sets in, despite our grumpy mood when we have to get up early the next day on so less sleep than we would have liked. I personally prefer ants: they are so much quieter.  

It's the last day of August, and a Saturday at that, so I can guarantee that tonight, there will be plenty of revelling going on. I take comfort in the arrival of September, because I will be able to truly sleep more comfortably at night: not only will it be cooler and I will be able to shut the window while I sleep, but the outdoor music will also fade away altogether with the hot weather. 

Grapevines at MAICh - photo taken 26/8/2013

I can see the signs of Persephone slowly preparing to leave the earth, and I sometimes wish I could hurry them on. She will not leave alone - the visiting Athenian housewives will also follow her, with their spoilt children who are raised fatherless and undisciplined for almost three months of the year while they bring their urban habits to the countryside. I'm tempted to crack open a pomegranate from our tree and eat the seeds, as a way to hurry in winter.

I am not lamenting Persephone's departure, for the time being, at least. In fact, it will mean that I can spend more time in the company of Demetra, Persephone's mother, the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture, who will now have nothing to do when her daughter is away, so she will start raining on the earth, muddying its parched arid appearance. My wild Cretan greens will start growing, which I can forage when Demetra takes a break from her grief, interrupting the cold weather to let the sun peek through the clouds. I am certainly not complaining. I am impatient for life indoors with the windows shut and less dust coming in and the silence of the empty wintry streets. I'm looking forward to using a blanket on the bed once again; living with Persephone for the last three months has made me feel so naked.

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Jujube (Τζιτζιφιά)

A quick post today, showcasing an unusual fruit which most people wouldn't be too familiar with: the jujube.

 

These little berries are green inside, and taste a little like sour dry apples.

The tree that they grown on is not necessarily a very bog one - it can look more like a shrub.

When the fruit wrinkles and dries up, it tastes like a date (no wonder the jujube is also called 'red date').

The Chinese use them dried in teas and tonics.

In Greece, they were very common in many parts of the country, and their Greek name - tzitzifies - is also a common placename (there is a suburb in Athens called Tzttzifies, and even an urban village in Hania).

I would never have got to know this tree if it weren't for my keen eye to spot unusual flora in my environment. Most of the students at MAICh come from Mediterranean countries where the jujube is more well known, hence, I never got a chance to get my hands on the fruit before they did. This year, the jujube seemed to survive thanks to its late fruiting - most of the students who know this tree well have left the Institute!

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Chilling out

We all need to take time to disconnect in some way. Here's where I go to do that, when I can't physically leave my home.

All the photos were taken in the last two weeks at Koum Kapi, an inner-city beach and seaside cafe area in Hania.

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The full catastrophe (Ολική καταστροφή)

It was St Fanourios' feast day yesterday, so we bought a galaktoboureko, and went to our friend Fanourios' house to celebrate his nameday, what was supposed to be our friend's happy little close-to-the-end-of-summer celebration of his name. We were greeted by dour faces which made us wonder whether someone in his Fanouri's family had died and the news had not been relayed to us. But since no one was wearing black (in Crete, we still do this for at least the first 40 days after a death), we felt sure that this could not be the case. The problem transpired as the evening wore on.

Fanouri recently discovered that he is not, as he thought, being paid as a 'permanent' state employee in the position he holds (I can't call it 'the job he does' - he doesn't do much) in the Ministry of Health (some kind of skills-oriented teaching in an occupational therapy environment). He discovered this quite by accident and so he informed his boss, who told him that there must obviously have been some mistake made somewhere. Permanent employees are paid differently from employees who are employed on a permanent rolling contract - the latter get more salary (perhaps that's why Fanouri didn't question anything, as he knew he was receiving more money than some of his colleagues) while the former get εφάπαξ (e-FA-pax), a lump sum payment upon retirement (he was of the belief that he would get this).

But in the state that the State is in, not much can be done about Fanouri's problem unless he hires a lawyer and gets the issue moved to court. But if he goes to court, the way things are going, he can't really be sure of a victory; worse still, if he wins his case (ie, if he is reinstated as a permanent employee), he will probably have to pay back all the extra money he received while mistakenly on a permanent rolling contract.

But Fanouri is in a bit more of a pickle than just that. The accounting office is now moving to another larger metropolitan centre where people do not know him and he does not know them. In the past, when he wanted to earn some extra money on privately-operated government-funded training schemes, his supervisor would OK his application, in full knowledge that he wasn't actually qualified. In fact, Fanouri has no real qualifications, only work experience, because he never finished high school. That doesn't stop him from having a school leaver's certificate though; it was so easy to fake anything in the past, which is how he got his foot in the door to the state sector. All he needed was the right signatures.

But if he goes to court... suddenly everything will be brought to the surface. The extra money, the fake papers, the successful applications that were never properly justified, the signatures on those applications, and who knows what else. Literally everything is now being double-checked. It seems as though someone pressed the button on the Big Brother machine and set everything ino motion. Why on earth that didn't take place earlier is no longer the issue - the fact is that it has happened. And these are not the only things that Fanouri will have to worry about if he ever decides to take the issue to court - he may end up losing his place in the public sector, because he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place...

Aside from his future career and salary prospects, Fanouri also faces another little problem since he stopped paying off his house loan to the bank, because, as he claims, he was given the loan by the state on the basis of his salary at the time, which has now been drastically reduced, therefore it is the state's fault that he can't pay back the money that the state gave him (as he is now arguing in court over that one, too). But since the mergers of some Greek banks, somebody has probably already discovered that Fanouri was never actually in a position where he could not repay his bank loan. He was given a loan from one bank but he had his savings in another bank - which have now become the same bank. And if he is claiming inability to meet his tax debts, well, he's probably in for a nasty surprise there soon.

The game is now over, it seems, as Fanouri's namesake has indeed found everything (like his biography claims about him) that there is to find. Now we need to find a saint that is blessed with hiding everything. But sainthood is more difficult to achieve these days, and miracles are so much more difficult to prove.

"Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I'm a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe."

Just for the record, I don't anyone that goes by the name of Fanourios. This post simply illustrates the latest news stories. My circles of friends and family are rather varied, as are most Cretans', being insular people, so I do actually know of a number of different people who are suffering the agony of one of the problems that my fictional Fanouri is having to deal with right now, but not the full catastrophe. 

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Thai pork satay with peanut sauce (Σουβλάκια σατέ με σάλτσα φυστικοβούτηρου)

When you cook most of your meals from scratch, you will often find yourself cooking on automaton when you are trying to feed your family. Inspiration comes from many sources, but the tried and tested recipes are the easiest to deal with, and you know what to expect from them. It's a little more difficult to be inspired to cook something new and untried, especially when children are involved. But as they grow older, they are more open to new tastes, which has helped me a lot in my desire to cook a wider range of meals at home.

 Ασιατικά σουβλάκια (σατέ): αντί το συνηθισμένο ρίγανι και αλατοπίπερο με λεμόνι ή κρασί, βάλετε τα σουβλάκια σε μαρινάρισμα που περιέχει 1 κρεμμύδι, 2-3 ασκελίδες σκόρδο, 1 κουταλάκι από το καθένα κόλιανδρο, κύμινο, κουρκούμη (turmeric), το ζουμό ενός λεμονιού, 2-3 κουταλιές σάλτσα σόγιας και 5-6 κουταλιές ελαιόλαδο. Ετοιμάσετε μια σάλτσα από 2 κουταλιές γεμάτες φυστικοβούτηρο, 50ml κρέμα καρύδας, λίγο λεμόνι, κύμινο, κόλιαντρο, ζάχαρη και σάλτσα σόγιας. Σερβίρουμε το ψημένο σουβλάκι (που το αλείφουμε όσο συχνά γίνεται με το μαρινάρισμα) με την σάλτσα που κανονικά την αλείφουν πάνω από το κρέας (εγώ την άφησα ξεχωριστά, μπας και γκρινιάζει η οικογένεια, αλλά τελικά όλα καλά - τους άρεσε πολύ ο συνδυασμός. Σημείωμα: τα σουβλάκια είναι φτιαγμένα με πολύ λεπτά κομμένο χοιρινό, όχι με τους παραδοσιακούς κύβους χοιρινό ή κοτόπουλο.

A friend was getting rid of some of her old books, among which were included some cookbooks. They were all written over three decades ago, making those books precious because they were written at a time when internet did not exist, less processed food was mentioned in recipes and printed material (eg books, magazines and newspaper) was the main source of a new recipe for the home cook.

One of the books in my friend's collection was A Cook's Tour by Sarah Gates. As I picked it up, the book fell open at the page showing a satay recipe. The last time I had this (with peanut sauce) was in New Zealand, where fellow Indonesian students would cook it and share their meals. They always ate with their hands - never with a fork - deftly scooping up rice with the first three fingers of one hand and bringing it to their mouths.

I had some boneless pork in the freezer which I sliced before it was completely defrosted in very thin pieces. This was marinated in onion, garlic and ground spices with some soy sauce, before being threaded onto skewers. The peanut sauce was made with canned coconut cream and peanut butter - you can get practically anything you need to cook Asian food from scratch these days in Crete. I served the sauce separately from the meat just in case I got complaints from the family who had never had satay before, but they liked it very much, so I guess we'll make this one again.

Old cookery books are sometimes prized for their historical value; for me, they acted as a reference point of inspiration. Satay was new to my family; they not only loved the way the meat was cooked (as opposed to the traditional Greek souvlaki), but they also agreed that the peanut sauce tasted much better with these novel souvlaki than the tzatziki that was on the table. They are becoming better accustomed to pairing foreign tastes that go well together. Satay is not commonly known at all in Greece, but a quick check on the internet yielded a few links to sate recipes with Greek twists. Tahini can be used instead of peanut butter for a more Mediterranean taste - regular souvlaki can be marinated with ground coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger and soy sauce, instead of the traditional Greek flavours. It's not that hard to produce delicious satay in souvlaki paradise.

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Crete in one dakos (Όλη η Κρήτη ένα ντάκο)

Last night, an attempt was made to assemble the biggest dakos ever at 1.80m x 8m for the Guinness Book of World records. Dakos is a favorite Cretan snack which is often turned into a vegetarian meal when accompanied by a salad. It often forms our own evening snack throughout the summer when we have an abundance of fresh tomatoes growing in the garden. The base of the dakos is made of double-baked bread, usually wholewheat, that becomes hard and can last for a long long time in storage, to be used when needed. The rusk has been eaten in Greece since ancient times and it was one of the foods that soldiers often carried with them, as they were easily transportable.

The giant dakos was presented at the small forested park near the beach at Ayious Apostolous in Hania. Whereas a decade ago, the dakos was known as a Cretan specialty, it is now widely known all over Greece, having entered the mainland restaurant menus. The wholewheat rusk is now made to suit a multitude of different tastes, with white flour, brown flour, multigrain, etc, and most bakeries produce their own version. Dry bread doesn't sound exciting, but once you try the dakos, you will probably be hooked. Dakos can be made vegan or vegetarian, depending on whether you use the cheese - but generally speaking, Cretans associate dakos with the cheese.

The giant dakos event is not going to be remembered just for the dakos that was shaped in the form of the island of Crete (it was baked in smaller parts that fitted together like a puzzle). I preferred to see it as a celebration of the Mediterranean diet. The event was not characterised just by a food presentation. It started with a group of people who had an idea, which was taken up at the community level. The choice of the bakery, the cooking of the rusk, its transportation to the site, the setting out of the tables and chairs, the makeshift kitchen for the assembly of the dakos, the grating of the tomato (by hand, of course!), the choice of olive oil and mizithra (soft white cheese), the designation of the kitchen assistants and how each one would take part, the assembly of the dakos (layer by layer), the congregation that came to the event, and finally, the sharing out of the giant dakos to the audience (children were treated first) all formed a significant part of the event.

The dakos base was baked in a commercial baker's oven, but the grating of the tomato and the  spreading of the cheese was all conducted at the park. In about half an hour, the dakos was assembled; there was a bit of a scramble for photographs (I got a 6 1/2 foot man to take my shot from the dais set up for musical component of the event) after which the dakos was immediately distributed to the public.

Any food celebration in the Mediterranean area does not start and stop with food, so this was not the end of the event - music and dance followed, completing and marking the event as a whole and complete one. The Mediterranean diet cannot be divorced from the lifestyle component:

"The Mediterranean Diet as a unique lifestyle, determined by the climate and by the Mediterranean area, is also manifested through related festivals and celebrations. These events become the receptacle of gestures of mutual recognition, hospitality, neighborliness, conviviality, intergenerational transmission and intercultural dialogue. " 

Our piece came from the Rethimno part of the dakos.

Without a community base and a musical accompaniment, there would be no Mediterranean diet; it would simply be called 'Mediterranean food'. The food of the Mediterranean can be found in other parts of the world, but not the lifestyle - it is actually the lifestyle that UNESCO wants to protect as Intangible Heritage under the general title of the Mediterranean Diet.

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