Red cabbage (Κόκκινο λάχανο)

Apart from salad and lahanodolmades, what else do Greeks do with cabbage? I got my husband round to planting red cabbage this year, so I had to find ways to enjoy it. Thanks to a friend, I found a great way to turn nutritious anthocyanin-packed red cabbage into a very locally-based delicious warm salad that goes well with sausages or cheese.



According to web searches, it's popular to cook red cabbage with chestnuts and apples. I sauteed 1 large thinly sliced onion in 1/2 cup olive oil, and then added half a small red cabbage, shredded, and 1 large apple, diced. For a sweet and sour taste, I added 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 1 tbsp honey, along with a shake of paprika and cumin, for a spicy taste. The vegetables were cooked until the cabbage had wilted.

And now that you know I'm supporting the Greek wine industry, I can tell you that this dish was accompanied by some chilled dry white wine (Peloponesiakos PDO Moschofilero), which is an easy drinking wine that dampens the heat of the spices.

Thanks to Eva for the idea.

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New Zealand literature (Λογοτεχνία απο την Νέα Ζηλανδία)

I recall a moment when my way of thinking, being influenced by the people who raised me, in combination with my lack of contact with the mainstream community (due, I suppose, to my parents' avoiding it wherever possible), except as a school pupil/university student/shop assistant, made me get a low mark in a school assignment. I remember this incident with as much clarity as is possible given that it took place over 30 years ago, in my first year of being in a 'clever girls' class group at an academically-inclined mainstream Kiwi high school in the early 1980s, where the subject called simply 'English' was compulsory for all high school students. Generally speaking, I never did do very well in English throughout the three years that I had to take it at high school; my mother thought this to be an indication of my lack of essay writing skills (and I believed her).

Iconic New Zealand literature

In English, we studied a bit of grammar, some essay writing, and quite a bit of English literature chosen among well known British and American authors and titles (eg Shakespeare, To Kill a Mockingbird), as well as the young but growing list of New Zealand works of literature. We read Katherine Mansfield's short stories of life in early New Zealand, some of whose works were set in Wellington near my school area (she was a WGC Old Girl). They show her highly developed people-observation skills depicting the relationships of a fledgling British colony which was establishing some kind of identity modelled on another country. The Doll's House is a good example of this. : 

... the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children in the neighborhood, the judge's little girls, the doctor's daughters, the store-keeper's children, the milkman's, were forced to mix together... But the line had to be drawn somewhere. It was drawn at the Kelveys. Many of the children, including the Burnells, were not allowed even to speak to them. They walked past the Kelveys with their heads in the air, and as they set the fashion in all matters of behaviour, the Kelveys were shunned by everybody. Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers. They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr. Kelvey? Nobody knew for certain. But everybody said he was in prison. So they were the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird. Very nice company for other people's children!

NZ-born Mansfield was educated in England, and eventually left NZ, preferring Europe where she eventually died after a rather eccentric and very troubled life. 

The God Boy by Ian Cross served to remind us that we are not to blame for who raised us. The story (published in 1957) was a rather sad one of a troubled youngster, but it had its funny moments too. Jimmy Sullivan went to a Catholic school, and one day when he didn't feel like participating class activities, he told a nun that he wasn't able to go swimming (I think - I cannot find an online copy of the book to verify this) because he had his period, something he had heard from his sister.

My first introduction to Maori stories was through Pounamu, Pounamu by Witi Ihimaera, whose works revolved around rural life in Maori families; as a child with an immigrant background, I could relate to these stories very well; Maori and Greeks were minority groups living among an Anglo-Saxon majority. Ihimaera wrote as a reaction against the belief that there were no Maori writers in New Zealand at the time, writing the stories he himself wanted to read, which were missing from the available literature. (Andrea Levy does the same thing - she is another of my favorite writers.)  Pounamu, Pounamu is still described as something every Kiwi should read, even 40 years on. The stories naturally contain many references to racial prejudice, written from both the Maori and the pakeha point of view:

Could the children have done it though? Could they have gone into the henhouse? No.... But you couldn't blame Jack for thinking that tehy had, could you? No, you couldn't .... Stil, he shouldn't have hit Henare. That was unforgiveable. What a mess, what an awful mess. Every conflict with the Heremaias has been a mess. Of suspicion, of doubt, of accusations proven or unproven. If only the Heremaias weren't so large, so obvious. They stick out like a sore thumb in the neighbourhood. they have not yet learnt the art of living with European people who may not understand their ways nor like them. They are essentially good people, but oh so tactless and troublesome at time... Is it any wonder that when some accident happens in the street the Heremaia children are blamed? They bring it upon themselves, really they do!

Maori Girl by Noel Hilliard.is not a savoury novel. It shows us what happens when someone falls out of favour with their rural family, drifts into the city without any guidance and ends up in a state of moral and financial difficulty. In other words, it tells us a familiar story which arouses the mixed feelings of shame, guilt and compassion. Such stories rarely have a happy ending and they are dictated with a "preconceived conclusion" which ends up in predictable tragedy. The story is meant to highlight racial prejudice and social disintegration, but as it also depicts alcohol abuse and promiscuity, it serves as an illustration of corrupted morality. 

Netta, a Maori girl, leaves her provincial home after quarrelling with her father who was against her doing pakeha things (she was seen with white men). She goes to Wellington, where she finds work as a cleaner in a boarding house. The company she keeps here led her to meeting the low-life pakeha Eric who moves in with her. After a bad relationship which also caused her to lose her job and home, she eventually meets pakeha Arthur after a casual night out. Arthur falls in love with Netta. Netta realises she's pregnant and Arthur makes arrangements for the baby's arrival. But he then realises that Netta was pregnant before he met her, and he breaks up with her, although he feels shame and guilt for what he does:

... the point of Arthur's guilt and dissatisfaction is to pass on to the pakeha reader the guilt and dissatisfaction he should feel at what his society has done to Netta..., and any one of dozens of other Maori girls.

We also studied Bruce Mason's play The Pohutukawa Tree, published at about the same time as Maori Girl (1960), which also dealt with a Maori girl's pregnancy to a pakeha. In this case, Roy didn't want to marry Queenie, because she was Maori. Even though he liked her, he perceived that the differences between their cultures were too great. Queenie's mother dies from the grief she felt of the decline in Maori values of her children (her son had smashed up a church in a fit of rage). 

We read parts of Maori Girl and The Pohutukawa Tree in class and for homework, and the teacher also gave us an assignment to complete on them. Although I can't remember the exact wording of the questions, one was something to the likes of:

How do you feel about Arthur's/Roy's behaviour at the end of his relationship with Netta/Queenie? Was he justified in breaking up with Netta/Queenie?

If you're a Greek girl and you've been raised by Greek parents in a non-Greek environment, you'll know that both Arthur's and Roy's behaviour was hardly surprising and that they would both dump their girlfriends (because they weren't very stable characters. Your mother would have warned you about them too. You'd feel sorry for Netta/Queenie, but you would also know that the pressure she would be facing in this situation would not allow for greater leniency to be shown towards her. Netta and Queenie had in a way made the bed they were lying on (at the age of 15, you'd be influenced by your mother on this one). Arthur and Roy left a relationship as freely as they had entered it, so they could never have been that reliable in a relationship which carried responsibility. ("Good Greek boys don't just turn up out of nowhere", I can imagine my mother saying.) Arthur also felt lied to, while Roy had to face the pressures of his own family's beliefs. Maybe it's ultimately the way Netta's parents would have felt too had they known about their daughter's pregnancy; Queenie's mother in fact did want her daughter to have a wedding (but not a white one, with the knowledge that she was already pregnant):

"It is in fact the commonest failing in the attitude of people who claim to be sympathetic to Maoris that they will not appreciate that there are differences in the traditions, the outlook and the aspirations of Maoris, and further, that many of these differences are an advantage in that they enable Maoris to cope with the changes that social, economic and policy pressures are forcing on them. Many socialists, like many other pakehas, assume that such differences are inferiorities; and one is likely to be called a racialist if one insists on them." 

The above quote comes from a review of Maori Girl, written a year after the book appeared (1960). It helps that I read this now as I try to justify my own opinions back then. We mainly remember the surface details of such sad stories:

... it is the subsequent and much simpler sequence of events that most pakeha readers will remember: and socialists should be careful not to fall for the temptation to take this as simply an indictment of landladies and restaurateurs who either discriminate against Maori girls or exploit them: the contemplation of such practices, because one condemns them, can give one a very smug conscience. For this section of the book is an accusation against pakeha society itself, the assumptions of which are shared by a great number of those who condemn racial discrimination.

I didn't have this review on hand to show my English teacher, and it is indeed interesting to see the book being discussed in this way as early as 1961, when political correctness was not even a concept then. I completed the assignment, writing as honestly as I thought I should, from my own experiences, without asking my parents (who would have been astounded to think that this kind of reading material was being used with 15-year-olds) or getting any other help. But in my liberal-minded mainstream (and at the time predominantly pakeha) New Zealand high school, socialist ideals, liberal thinking and compassionate protestantism were being drummed into our minds, and my kind of answer just happened to be 'wrong'. I recall the teacher's remarks: something about taking Netta's predicament into more consideration and the fact that Arthur was actually in love with her, so he could have been a father to her baby, even if it wasn't his. Roy too was in love with Queenie, and the racial issue should not have been considered before others.

The assumption of right/wrong answers in a society that was made up of various cultures was not really a good one on the part of the teacher. The view of morality was from the side of the pakeha, but it was also the pakeha that created the situation that corrupted Netta and Queenie. My own Greekness in this case could be said to have been viewed indirectly by the teacher as simply a part of my adjustment process in multi-cultural New Zealand. In other words, it would only be a matter of time that I would start to see things in the more 'correct' manner.

But even though political correctness has come a long way in the western world, the way the world is now shaping itself shows that we still have a long way to go yet. Some ideas will never quite be politically correct because they are too enshrined in a non-liberal framework which work differently for different cultures. When we can't agree on how an issue must be handled, we have to agree that we are indeed different, and not the same at all.

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Wine (Κρασί)

I was saddened to hear that Greek wine producers are facing a dip in sales. The crisis has stopped people from buying wine. But wine prices have never been better than now. This is one reason why I am actually buying bottled wine these days, something I had not done for at least 15 years.

We are not heavy drinkers, but there has never been a lack of wine in our house. In fact, we even give wine away to our friends. My late father was an amateur wine maker, in the style of many rural people, and he left us four 20kg barrels of home brew. This wine is quite different from bottled wine. It's made with the grapes of the season, and is usually drink quite soon after it is made, with supplies running out just when the next wine-making season starts.

Home brew is not considered by wine makers to be true wine in the spirit of modern wine making. It's the stuff tavernas serve. It's very cheap and can be bought in bulk. The display of barrels in a taverna make for a picturesque but rather quaint view. It varies in taste and quality. It is wine, but it does nto compare in any way to bottled wine. Sometimes, it's downright awful, like house wine in restaurants in Western countries, which serve the leftover untouched wine of other customers, all mixed together, or the bulk-buy wines that we can get in plastic bags packaged in boxes. But there are also times when it is very good. It is very cheap to buy: a 1.5 litre PET bottle (for that is how this wine is sold) won't cost you much more than €3-4.

None of the bottles pictured cost me more than €4-5 a bottle, and all were purchased as a pair (buy one, get one free). Our local friends will be getting wine (and good Greek craft beer) for Chrsitmas.  

It's all a question of taste. I am now tired of our rose-coloured home brew, which is starting to taste more like brandy than wine. I have always liked dry white wine. When I decided to buy some (I have only started buying bottles Greek wine since last summer), I was surprised to find such a large array at our local supermarkets. The bottles are nearly all standard size wine bottles (750ml), at a range of prices. What's more, there seem to be many offers these days for wines being sold as 2 bottles for the price of 1, so you can get 2 bottles for under €10. The range of wines is so large that I never seem to be buying the same wines.

A friend asked me to consider buying some imported wine to understand the differences in wine making traditions from different countries:

"There is a lot to be said for the creativity and unrestricted rules of the Kiwi winemakers that few Greek producers can match, burdened as they are by history, tradition and unadventurous customers. Kevin Judd recently said at a talk in Athens that there is very little bad NZ wine."

Despite my friend's advice, I will probably not bother buying foreign wines. They will most likely be more expensive than Greek wine, but there is another reason why I wouldn't buy imported wine. Even if I bought wine just once a week, there are hundreds of wine producers to choose from even at the supermarket, and all Greek of course. And I've never bought 'bad' wine (ie something that is not drinkable). It's all a matter of taste which is measurable by degrees.

I am not a wine geek, but I would like to be, in a sense. At the same time, there is too much mysticism surrounding wine: there are people who who analyse it not just by its taste but by its aroma; then there are those who tell you what food will pair with which wine variety; the price factor is also another aspect - must wine be expensive to enjoy? I know nothing about the above-mentioned aspects. I just know what I like to drink.

It's times like this when our finances do not allow for luxuries that Greek wine has not just become  affordable but also improved greatly in quality. So now is definitely the time to buy wine.

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Olive harvest

Although the olive harvest was a good one this year,

it began and is finishing much earlier than other years.



Our own olive harvest usually took place in January, but this year, we're harvesting this month.

Climate change, and all that jazz.

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Political correctness (Πολιτική ορθότητα)

Political correctness is often what used to stop me from offering my opinion about an issue. In the NZ that I remember, everything was 'nice', 'lovely' and 'choice'. You never made your darker thoughts public out of fear of offending. And anything goes - if you see a man wearing a petticoat entering a Cuba Mall eaterie, that's none of your business (I did see this a decade ago, and I wondered where he had got the petticoat from - I didn't think women still wore them).

Politically correct thinking in Greece is only just starting to be applied in the laws of the country. I won't say it's catching on, because that would be far from the truth. It's often treated like a joke by most people. In my line of business (academia), I used to hear the odd racist joke being made by high-status people, although I admit that I hear this sort of thing less often nowadays. But some of the stuff I have heard from the mouths of Greek university professors used to shock me in the early days, especially since I came from a country where I would have been reprimanded severely were I to enter such a thought just in my head, let alone utter it.

Somewhere in my reading, I recall hearing about a Greek gay man who lives abroad, saying that Greeks are recist and do not show political correctness because they have never been taught to be politically correct. In other words, they aren't politically correct because no one ever told them that they have to be:

From early on [Greek] youngsters are injected with the conviction that the Greek people are special, that their history has always been great and that the connection of contemporary society with ancient civilization is linear and uninterrupted.

In the context of this dominant culture, testosterone is king, femininity is a must for every woman and homosexuality is divergent behavior.

But political correctness should not be the obsessive compulsion of leftists in Kolonaki.
If we want the young children of today to become the responsible European citizens of tomorrow, the fundamental principles of equal treatment and respect for human rights should be taught together with the alphabet.

It takes years and years and years of cohesive integrative politics and willingness on the part of nations and peoples to instill politically correct attitudes in their countries. It's not something that happens overnight. The British political climate now regards shows that I used to enjoy watching with my parents, like the Black and White Minstrel Show and Love Thy Neighbour, as racist, even though they seemed to be very popular and completely harmless. In the the second decade of the new millennium, Brits are now horrified to learn that there were serial sexomaniacs in high places among them in the 1960s. 

But the Brits can at least now say: "Oh, we were like that then, but we're not like that now." Greeks can only do that a certain extent. They generally show some conservatism towards traditional ideals. Although Greeks have shown signs of slowly adapting under the pressure of politically correct policies, I don't believe it will happen to the extent that this kind of politics will be permanently enshrined in our laws, as it is in other countries. Let's not kid ourselves - Golden Dawn's racist policies are imprinting themselves in Parliament. 

The only time I felt that politcal correctness in Greece may actually have had a chance was when Voula Papachristou was expelled from the 2012 Olympics, after she retweeted what I regard as a typical Greek-style joke, as such comments are often made with complete disregard for the feelings of the people at the butt of such casually made statements, as if those others are not even people, but some kind of lesser being that is not classed as human: “With so many Africans in Greece… At least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat home made food!!!” What's more, this peroxide blonde's nonchalance was expected of her - after all, she was heavily involved with the Golden Dawn clan. She probably took it for granted that she is superior to Africans.

It seems only fair that she was expelled from taking part in the Olympic Games as she did not seem to be sporting the Olympic ideals of respect and friendship. I imagine that if she were allowed to compete (whether she tweeted or not), she would have looked on her black counterparts with contempt. Maybe they would not even be visible to her. Let's not forget that she was not the only Greek athlete to make racist jokes against blacks; does anyone remember what the now infamous Kostas Kenteris said when asked about his win in the games? (He'd already won the gold by then.)

Some people say that Voula's expulsion was only symbolic, a kind of facade to show the world that Greece is making progress in the area of human rights, embracing global ideals of respect and tolerance, and that the Greek Olympic committee only decided to expel her because they were put in a difficult position and felt compelled to do it by the IOC. It's not difficult to believe this, since Greece has not shown in any compelling way that she keeps her word. She only makes promises. "Was he badly beaten up?" a man was recently reported to ask about an illegal immigrant who was attacked in Greece. When he heard that the man almost died, he said: "If so, good - he deserved it." Where in Northern Europe would such a statement be tolerated?

To be truly inculcated in the politically correct mindset, you will have to experience "a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety," when you go against political correctness; you will have a susceptibility to feel shame. I see this happening now in terms of economic subjects: shop owners for example feel shame when you remind them to give you a receipt, receiving a disability allowance when you aren't disabled is now taboo, supporting a political party in order to receive perks is also seen in some way as shameful. But I'm not sure if I can say the same thing about Greeks' views on issues like immigrants, smoking and animal rights.

I'm not suggesting that people can't learn to be more politically correct. The responsibility for this however usually rests on a smaller group of tired souls like myself, who've had enough of the wild mob, and we constantly drum it into people who act politically incorrect (only they don't realise it - they think they are some of the most open-minded nicest and most polite people a person can come across). Only two years ago, I recall entering a room clouded with smoke. All the people in it were English teachers (all female). The no-smoking law had recently been passed, there was a sign on the door reminding people not to smoke, and there was another one on one of the desks in the room. Yet these foreign-educated high-status women, most of whom were of Greek origin (they were mainly diaspora Greeks like myself) were all blatantly disrespecting both the law and other people. 

"Why are you all smoking in here?" The irritation in my voice was clear. I couldn't have asked them this question more politely. My voice boomed across the small room, boomeranging across the walls and hitting each one of them in the face. "Can't you see the sign?" 

"Well, everyone else was smoking when I entered," one of them replied very meekly.

"OK," I said, completely unflustered by their behaviour, because I have learnt to encounter rule breakers in all walks of life in Greece. We all work around them, letting them get in our way as little as possible. I had obviously made myself unpopular, but since I didn't want to sit in a stinky room with them, it hardly made any difference. "I'll just sit in the corridor then." Nasty Maria, bad sport, unfriendly person. Who cares what they thought of me, anyway? At least they began to put out their cigarettes (I don't want to go into the details of this - the room had no ashtrays). But I stayed in the corridor until the examination officers arrived and the meeting started. I suppose I could have been really difficult and asked for another room to be made available - but let's think this out more realistically: we are only at the beginning of the politcally correct ladder. One step at a time; in another country, the room would have been changed had I requested it (but a no-smoking room would probably not smell of smoke there in the first place). But this is Greece - at least I wasn't told to mind my own business or fuck off, and that's a step in the right direction.

The next time my colleagues saw me (we were all oral examiners for external English examinations), I really didn't care if they thought of me as Scary Spice. On coming to Greece, they had obviously gone native. At least I had instilled some shame into them, and possibly reminded them of the countries they left behind, which must have felt like a slap in the face, since they were all born/raised/educated in places which practice zero tolerance for people who do not respect each other.

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Interlude (Διάλειμμα)

This post has been written in response to a comment I received recently on another post.

As this is a personal blog which gives my own unguided point of view of things as they happen and as I experience them in a very modern and rapidly changing Greece, readers should bear in mind that I am simply stating my way of seeing things, even if it may sound quite misguided to others; in other words, I am trying to find some logic amidst the mess that Greeks find themselves in at the moment. I get my ideas about what to write from my daily life, the things I hear about, and any reading material that comes by my way.

It helps to remember that nearly all the people I am surrounded by (family, friends and colleagues) see Greece as the only place in the world that they will ever live in because they have known no other home and are not at a stage or a state in their life where migration is an option for them (most have never put it into their mind). We're in Greece for good, whether she's better or worse, richer or poorer, sick or healthy. I am not a political analyst, nor am I an economist; I'm a Greek blogger, which is kind of like coca-cola: it goes with everything these days.

Life in Greece at the moment is money-poor and resource-rich. I predict this will change in the near future: five years from now, Greece will not be so money-poor, and her resources will be quite different to the ones now relied on. (The vegetables were all picked on Saturday morning.)

I have never advertised my facebook page or my blog and I have never paid for 'likes'. I know that more people come into my facebook page than the number that have actually 'liked' it, and I physically know very few of my regular blog readers. I will not profer reasons for this, suffice it to say that these are public pages. If people are interested in what they read here, they will come back for more. If they find something they don't like and decide to fly off the handle about it, I will not be surprised: in fact I will expect it from my compatriots - as another (Greek) reader recently noted: "Greeks are notoriously passionate, and the majority of the public think with their hearts first, not their minds." I am very fortunate to live in a country where freedom of expression has not been censored: what happened to Shaheen Dhada and Renu Srinivasan will never happen to me because I live in Greece, an imperfect country which strives towards democracy.

Through blogging, I've made and physically met many good friends; I've also managed to see places in the world that I would not have been to (both in Greece and abroad) had I not been blogging. I like to share these experiences with others, that's all; I'm not here to sell anything, and I’m not asking anyone to agree with my opinions – I’m just posting mental notes to myself which may help my own children understand how their parents saw things ‘back then’ and why they were raised the way they were. Life isn’t that random, after all, and I urge all conscious parents to do this in some way.  

Regular blogging is scheduled to resume tomorrow.
PS: it's all organically cooked as long as we pick it from our own garden.

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Pumpkin and tahini honey dressing

Pumpkin is not really well known in Crete. It's commonly turned into sweet and savoury pies in other parts of Greece (particularly the North), but here, it's still considered an oddity by the rural community, used mainly as animal feed. My uncles' animals got their fair share of it recently, and I asked them if I could take away just one of the pumpkins lying around their farm, to turn it into something suitable for human consumption.

First, I roasted some thick large pumpkin chunks. Before they went into the oven, they sprinkled with minced garlic, seasoned with salt, pepper and cumin, and finally they were drizzled with olive oil and some water in the baking pan. When they were ready (about 30-40 minutes in a moderate oven), I doused them in a tanini and honey dressing.



The next day, I turned the leftover roast pumpkin and dressing into a tasty mash, which went well as a side dish with sausages, which I often cook when our main meal consists of mainly leftover vegetables.



In the evening, the leftovers of the leftover roast pumpkin and dressing mash was used to make a soup, thinned out by adding a few tablespoons of water and olive oil.



The following two recipes make the three dishes described above.

Apart from the roasted pumpkin pieces, all you need is some tahini dressing, which can be made in various ways. My inspiration for this dressing came from a recipe used on broccoli. Since then, I've found that this dressing can be used over cauliflower, potatoes and pumpkin.

The amount of dressing you make depends on the amount of pumpkin you roasted. For 250g pumpkin, you need:
40g tahini  (about 2-3 tablespoons)
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp wine vinegar
1 fat clove of garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients together in a small sauce pan, stirring constantly over low heat, to avoid the tahini forming lumps. The mixture will be quite thick. Add some water, 1 tablespoon at a time, to make the mixture as runny as you like. The thicker, the more intense the flavour of the tahini.Serve immediately, as the tahini tends to dry out if let unused too long. It can be added all at once, or gradually as required. If any dressing is left over in the saucepan, it will need to be reheated (with some water to make it smooth.

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Pride and prejudice

Thank you Nik, for the CD. And Clyde Quay School, for the most embracing teachers I ever had.

Yesterday I received a video celebrating Prof. John Psathas, a music professor of Greek origin in New Zealand. John had a very typical Greek upbringing, similar in many ways to mine, and we are the same age. We were born to Greek immigrants in New Zealand, we both had unpronounceable names (he was sometimes called John Pissartist, while I was often called Maria Veryfarty) and our hard-working parents did many factory jobs before buying food businesses where the whole family was employed. We came to Greece for the first time in our life at about the same time (he in 1975, I in 1974), where we experienced the "impossible feeling of coming home"; although we had never lived in Greece before that visit, Greece was more familiar to us than where we were born and grew up. We also had our first experiences of drunkard behaviour through our shop customers, and although we did not realise it at the time, we experienced what we recognise now as racism through the school system.

My primary education was at an inner-city school located in an area known for immigrant neighbourhoods. The area is now one of the most sought-after places to live in and the house prices have risen exponentially. My high school was on the other side of town, where Anglo-Saxon professionals were known to reside (it was and still is an affluent area). it was also an area filled with private girls' schools (and the Parliament buildings were just down the road, so the whole area was pretty much elitist). The reason why I changed school zones was not because we moved house, but because my parents bought a business on the other side of town, and the high school close to our house was too far away for them to pick us up and take us to the shop afterwards, where we also helped out in the afternoons. Eventually, we would take the bus to the shop, which had a stop close to our high school.

My first year in high school was quite a shock to the system; having left a multi-cultural school where one's differences were celebrated, I came to a school that prided itself on mainstream academic excellence. It drew pupils from the locality (middle-to-upper class Anglo-Saxon professionals), as well as girls from areas in its vicinity which did not have single-sex high schools. In other words, they were also Anglo-Saxons who came from the greater urban area, whose parents did not want them attending the co-ed schools of the newly built cheaper-housing suburbs. Those schools, like immigrant-filled schools, were stigmatised according to their social class. 

I felt this stigma immediately when I began my education at high school. For a start, the other Greek-heritage girls came from the 'right' schools (which were included in the school zone - either they lived in the zoning area, or their parents were in the same situation as mine: they lived far from where they worked, so their children were educated closer to their business than their home). To be allowed into this school as an out-of-zone pupil, I had to choose Latin as an option, which I wanted to anyway, because I was good at languages. The Greek girls were also studying Latin - but we were grouped along the lines of the expectations teachers had of us: all the Greek girls went into the 'A' Latin class (they came from the 'right' school zones), except for me - I was the only one placed in the 'B' class, and this because I was from the 'other' side of town. This was quite different to what went on at my primary school - the Greek children were often grouped together, as a kind of cultural support mechanism.

My first year of high school was not much fun. Neither were the remaining years, but that first one was particularly difficult. I was in a class full of mainly middle-class Caucasian girls (known then by the Maori word 'pakeha', meaning pale-skinned; it is now viewed as somewhat derogatory). It wasn't that I was dark-skinned; my 'darkness' seemed to show up in different ways. For a start, it was common knowledge that my parents picked me up after school (while everyone else took the school bus), and I went to a smelly greasy fish and chip shop (where the term 'greasy Greek' came from). Anyway, I lived quite far away. No other child from my class lived near me. I was like an outsider.

But I was also a good pupil. I stood out for that reason more than any other. Unbeknownst to me, I was placed in a 'bad girls' class group. This was because I came from a school that was considered as having a low-achiever status. I had always been a clever student at school because I had always liked learning, but at my primary school, we were not taught to be competitive - whereas in school with a high-achiever status, students were competitive. So even though I never had the pre-conceived idea that I was one of the best students in the class (because the school's culture did not cultivate this kind of concept), at the end of my first year in high school, I was pronounced top of the class.

This did not change my class group the following year. I was placed in a middle-achiever's group: I was there, but not quite there.  I recall being so bored in class sometimes, that I completed all the maths exercises in the set course textbook in the first two months of the year. When I showed the teacher, I vividly - and can still - recall her wide-opened stare. She felt sorry for me - the other girls weren't very academic, and I had clearly been placed among a group I didn't fit in to. But the following year, I got what I wanted: I was placed in the same class group as the Greek girls (finally! I thought), where we were all doing 'clever girls' subjects, like French, German, Latin and history.

There I got another shock - those girls, along with the rest of the class, were way ahead of me, not academically, but socially. Half of them had professional parents, they were connected to high-status people, and they worked cohesively in this group, whereas I was still an outsider. In terms of social norms, so I had a lot of catching up to do, and I can say that I probably never did catch up to them.I was always lagging socially.

This didn't have any bearing on my future, as I suppose I can say I turned out OK. I don't think life would have turned out any differently for me if I had been placed more 'appropriately' in the class groups right from the start. I think I boldly ploughed through life, despite the impediments. So the prejudices, so to speak, of the school - of grouping children according to areas of origin rather than abilities - didn't have any bearing on my later life. They probably made me stronger.

The inspiration for this post came from a news article about how UK state school pupils are often disadvantaged by the university application process because they don't have the 'right' contacts to get the 'right' experience to be chosen in favour of 'public-school' graduates of equal calibre. An interesting example was given of one application from an 18-year-old public school graduate, who listed their life experience as:

working "for a designer in London; as a model; on the trading floor of a London broker's firm; with my local BBC radio station; events planning with a corporate five-star country hotel; in the marketing team of a leading City law firm… and most recently managing a small gastro pub".

I discussed this very issue with my whole family over today's lunch table; my husband and I know our kids would never be able to make such claims (for one, they will not be allowed by their parents to work as a model at any time in their teens), and I then had the chance to explain to them all about my own school experiences in another country.

Psathas' speech summarised everything my humble parents of a peasant background stood for. I am unlucky in that I lost them both too early in life, but I have never forgotten what they taught me, and it all came back to me as I heard him speak: Greek parents want to see their children doing better than they did. And if you want it, life can be all about what you make of it, not what somebody makes of it for you. This is what I try to teach my own children, who face the local stigma of having a rather different upbringing among a very hardcore traditional village mindset, and the global stigma of being Greek.


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Uncle's treat

While visiting an uncle at the local village cafe-taverna last night...

- Χρόνια Πολλά, θείο Νίκο!
- Well, aren't you going to sit down, then? It's my treat.
- I've just come home from work. We really need to get back home, and...
- Well, you need to rest then. Sit down.
- OK, just for a few minutes.

- So what am I going to treat you? Souvlaki, steak?
- We've just popped in to say hello, uncle!
- OK, just a souvlaki then. What about you, kids? You'd like a souvlaki, wouldn't you?
- Um, no.
- OK, and what will you have to drink?
- Um, nothing.
- Just water.

- Water with the souvlaki? OK then. Hey, Ilias, two souvlaki for the kids.
- We didn't say anything.
- What did you say you were having to drink?
- Just water, thank you.
- And one coca-cola, Ilias.
- Can I please have a gazoza instead?
- Who, you? OK, who wants the coca-cola then?
- I'll have it!

- And one gazoza, Ilias, and get those souvlaki going! What are you going to have Maria?
- Oh, I'll just have some fries, then.
- Don't you want any sausages with that?
- No, not really.
- Ok then, two sausages, Ilias, got that? What's your husband having?
- I'll be fine with a nip of tsikoudia, thanks, uncle.
- A pork steak then. Ilias, make that two!

The photos are from a previous similar occasion at the same venue, but the story is always the same. A visit to these people inevitably means a treat.

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Barbecue

The last time I went into a LIDL supermarket branch in my town, after paying for my purchases at the cashier with my credit card (LIDL Greece used to accept only cash in the recent past, but I guess old dogs do learn new tricks after all), I was given a voucher to take part in a draw for five 'lucky' winners (from all over Greece, mind you) who would get their liquid heating fuel paid for that year. All I had to do was fill in my details on the ticket. Since we aren't using liquid fuel for heating any more, I offered my voucher to the person standing behind me in the queue.

 

 The picturesque character of this scene relies on keeping olive trees trimmed, so that their shape and size makes it suitable to harvest the fruit efficiently.

"Oh, I don't need it either," she said to me. "We've got a fireplace." We both laughed, and I offered it to the next person. Same thing; I don't know who got it in the end, and it really doesn't matter anyway; the point is to show how useless prizes can be, and how cut-throat competition is between supermarkets.

It sounds 'obscene' (as one reader put it) that "(a) in the 21st century we're burning trees for heat, and (b) in Greece, land of the burnt-our-arsoned countryside, we would actually deliberately burn our last trees for short-term benefits". To put it bluntly, it also sounds absurd that this is what Greek citizens have been reduced to - burning anything flammable just to keep warm. The greenest and most noble among us will be burning nothing and keeping warm by wearing coats under our blankets (this is not a joke; it's quite true, no matter how difficult to believe it may sound). Calling Greeks arsonists is not far from the very common habit of the mass media depicting Greece as a country full of lazy, cheating, violent, rude, racist, tax-evading, troublemaking, thieving vandals, all part of the latest trend in 'crisis pornography'; η κρίση πουλάει, as we say in Greek.

Long branches of olive trees with many twiggy tops (known as φούντες - tufts) make up the bulk of what is burnt on the field. Only logfire wood is marketable. Olive leaves are also used as fertiliser, but the twigs and branches do not have further use in Crete at the moment (they may eventually  be worked into pellets for pellet-burning heaters). It is too costly to remove them for burning elsewhere and they are difficult to dispose. But they need to be cleared from the field because olive trees need regular trimming - things grow quickly in Crete.

Olive wood burns very easily, so once a fire starts up in an olive field, it could easily get out of control if not watched properly. But lighting fires in olive groves is actually very common all over Crete. As long as there is no wind, a fire can be contained easily. The remains of a clearance come in as useful cooking apparatus: the barbecue. Pork steaks are the bbq meat of choice in Greece. Lamb chops are much more expensive, and beef is never seen on a Greek barbecue. Barbecues nearly always consist of charcoal - gas barbecues are simply not very common. The wood-scented aroma of the meat is particularly fragrant - and very tempting.

When my husband clears wood from the field, he thinks it is a waste not to use the remains of the fire. It's a perfect time for pork steaks and sausages.

You need: 
the charcoal embers of an open fire 
a folding barbecue grill that holds meat securely 
a rake
some rocks 
heat-resistant gloves
4 pork steaks
4 sausages
2 lemon halves 
salt, pepper and oregano

 

Place the rocks on the ground and rake the embers between them. Make sure there are no flames. Secure the meat and sausages in the grill. Rub the grill on both sides with the lemon halves. Place the grill on the rocks above the embers. Sprinkle salt, pepper and oregano over the meat. Wearing heat-resistant glove, check the meat and turn when it is cooked on one side. Season the meat on the other side and cook till done. 
 

If it's warm enough, you can stay at the field and picnic around the fire. We just made it back to the car when it began raining heavily just after the meat was cooked. At any rate, our olive grove is located on a hill and there is just enough standing room on the terraces where the olive trees are rooted. Not very comfortable - one wrong move and you could end up rolling down.

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Home and hearth

Supermarkets are quick on the mark to cash in on our misery.

Who would have thought that 'barbecue equipment' would be coming in handy at the beginning of winter? Matchsticks are clearly making a competitive comeback, while fireplace knick-knacks such as stokes and brooms to sweep away the ashes can be bought as cheaply as €2.50 a piece.  The chairs are labelled 'near the fireplace!', which is a clear indication of how Greek people are heating their houses these days.

Keeping warm and toasty...

If you have any doubts about that, come out of your house and smell the wood smoke...

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Lazy pie (Tεμπελόπιτα)

The zucchini is now starting to become rather watery if it isn't used up quickly. A quick and easy way to use it up quickly before it turns bad is to grate it and put it into a pie. I've already blogged about the history of this easy-to-make pie before, so here's the quick version of a smaller edition of the pie, which I made last night.

Mix together 500g grated zucchini (or marrow), 2 beaten eggs, 200g mizithra (or crumbled feta cheese), 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup olive oil, some cornmeal (enough to thicken the batter without turning it into a dough), salt and pepper. Pour the mixture up to 1cm into a medium-sized baking tin (or pyrex dish). Bake in a moderate oven for about 45-60 minutes, until golden.

There are many other versions of zimaropita, which means 'dough pie'; it also happens to be called 'lazy pie' (τεμπελόπιτα), because it's so easy to make, and 'naked pie' because it is self-crusting and doesn't need any pastry. You can use tomato instead of zucchini, and you can even turn it into a sweet chocolate pie. It depends on what you have in your kitchen, eggs, cheese and cornmeal forming the base of the pie.

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What with so much good weather at the moment in Hania, it was a perfect opportunity to take an evening stroll. Together with my friend, we walked in some of the oldest parts of the Venetian port, where the cobblestoned roads made us trip over often.



My infatuation with boats continues. The sepia tones are natural (this is a one-click shot); combined with the retro low-seater, it looks like I took a trip back in time. Maybe it looks like the 60s or is it the 50s? I know it's 2012. Some things won't change much where I am.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Leafy green rissoles

I started off yesterday making spanakorizo with 2 spinach roots, which I discovered were not enough to make a meal for the four of us, so I added some Swiss chard leaves as I was preparing the spanakorizo sauce. I realised what a mistake this was from the aroma coming from the pot - it was too sour! Rather than risk hearing my family's objections, I decided to find another edible way to use the mixture. Here's what I got: leafy green rissoles.

Clean 2 spinach roots (stalks and leaves) and 15-20 large Swiss chard leaves (very stalky bits removed). Finely chop all the leaves. Sauté 1 finely chopped large onion, some finely chopped parsley and 2 cloves of garlic in some olive oil. Add the leaves and the juice of 2 grated tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook till they wilt. When the mixture is cool enough to handle, squeeze it to remove all excess liquids. Add 4-5 tbsp chickpea flour and shape into short fat rissoles. Roll each one in breadcrumbs and pan-fry quickly over high heat in very hot olive oil, turning them to cook on all sides. Drain on absorbent paper. Serve with spicy red sauce.

This recipe yielded 17 rissoles. Spinach can be used to replace the Swiss chard (but not vice-versa - Swiss chard can be a bit too sour on its own). Plain flour can be used instead of chickpea flour, and flour can also replace the breadcrumbs. In half the mixture, I added some mizithra cheese (you can use crumbled feta instead) - the vegetarian as opposed to the vegan fritters were definitely tastier. Bottled Asian sauces are a perfect accompaniment. 

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Zucchini in sunlight

"Looks like you went to the λαϊκή," my husband remarked, when he saw a baking tin full of tomatoes and peppers, four broccoli heads and a large cabbage head. This is our private joke which we crack every time one of us visits my uncles' farm. They have spent most of their lives living in the same village and cultivating their land. They grow nearly everything: potatoes, onions and garlic, zucchini, eggplant and fennel bulb, lettuce, cabbage and even bok choy (I gave them seeds from a friend last year, which they allowed to go to seed and they have replanted them this year).

 Whenever I visit them, I hardly ever leave empty handed. Sometimes it's just one pomegranate, other times, it's a bag of cucumbers, and there are also times when it's a crate of pears. Since I am their only living descendant in Hania, I get a lion's share of everything. 

When the Chinese leafy vegetables began growing, my uncle phoned me to let me know. "The Kinezoi have arrived," he said.

It reminds me of something my aunt once told me. She had had serious financial problems when she was raising her family, and when things were very rough, she often stayed on the farm with her brothers. Even though these events are from a time long past, she always acknowledges the help of her younger brothers, insisting that their help sustained her throughout those periods of hardship.

The brocoli became a warm salad with tahini dressing.

Whenever I pick up this fresh produce from my uncles' farm, I feel that I'm reliving those past times of other family members. At any rate, I know I wouldn't buy much of this even if I didn't have access to it. So if my food is colourful and looks less boring, it's because of a lot of hard work that has gone into growing it to get it on the table.

 Summer-planted zucchini, sunbathing in our winter garden - 24°C today, even if it's December!

A broccoli head may sound insignificant because we aren't going to survive on just broccoli, but I'm saying that now because we haven't reached the bottom of the pit yet. If and when we do, it should be remembered that there is light at the end of the tunnel - even though it's winter, sunny weather is always round the corner in Crete.

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Computer lessons (Μαθήματα Η/Υ)

About a month ago, my workplace decided to offer the staff a subsidised computer training course - you are paid for attending lessons. It meant staying at work for a few hours after you finish, something very few working wives and mothers really want at a time in their lives when they are already too busy. I was roped into taking part because the minimum attendance number had not been reached. The five 3-4 hour-long lessons are now keeping me at work until 7-8pm on the days that the course runs.

My evening work at MAICh gave me a glimpse of the evening meals enjoyed by the students: soup is always on the menu, followed by meat or fish, with at least one carbohydrate, and the ubiquitous salad and fruit.

Kitchen and ground staff, as well as some of the younger members of the administration staff, were all taking part. They are generally people who do not spend all their time sitting at a desk with a computer on it. I wondered what I really needed to learn about computers that I didn't already know. In the first lesson, I thought the answer to that was 'nothing': one of the first things we did was to 'learn' how to turn a computer on, and then we learnt that the Windows screen kept the same things on it that our office desk would have, were we not to be using computers. OK, I thought, as I silently read 'other material from my secret cache.

 


  The family still have to eat: I prepared the dough, and some instructions on how to cook a pizza.

The next day, I realised I had lost a memory stick where I kept some files I was working on at the time. Luckily for me, I did have back up copies of my work, but admittedly, like all people, we are sometimes lax about things like that, and my files weren't completely up to date in terms of back up. I fretted a little. Maybe that's why I need computer lessons, I thought.

The second lesson proved much more exciting - the very well informed info-tech instructor advised us about how we can jaz up our WORD files. WORD is a program I use regularly, and if I had time, I could make all those graphics discoveries that I learnt about in the lesson all by myself. But time is of the essence and I don;t have time to much around on such things. After the lesson, I went home to download some files that I had sent to myself through my workplace's intranet. Alas, I was to discover that the internet wasn't working.

 I specifically reminded them to take photos for me.

What to do now? I fretted, much more than the last time. I had lost the memory stick, the internet wasn't working, so I was now stuck. The next day, I noticed there was still no internet at home. I went into work early, frantically downloaded/uploaded/saved whatever I could onto a new memory stick. It was then that I noticed the black memory stick, wedged between the computer tower and a black file box. I still had time to write a little post about how my kids had their first no-adult-supervision cooking session while I was away. To my horrors, Blogger did not seem to be working. I gave up and got on with 'real' work.

I was pleased to see that the house hadn't burnt down when I arrived back home, and I was equally pleased to see the results. The kids have seen me roll out filo pastry dough, so perhaps this is why they made a mistake with the pizza dough -they were trying to roll it out too thinly. But if they hadn't made this mistake yesterday, they wouldn't be better pizza makers today. I called their pizza creation 'omelette pizza' because it turned out to be much easier to eat it folded up.

So here I am back at home. I've backed up my file register, the internet is now working, but I found I still couldn't write anything on Blogger. I did a quick internet check, although I admit that it took me a while to find an appropriate search string to give me the information I wanted: for instance, 'blogger down' led me to some entries about similar problems that took place over a year ago. The best one was 'can't (WITH the apostrophe, take note!) write a new post blogger', where the latest entry had appeared only half an hour ago. The 'best answer' to the question had already been posted: 'turn off draft blogger'. And sure enough, it worked.

Despite being too tired to do much, I still found the time to show the kids how it 'should' be done.  Life doesn't get much better than this in our tiny small quiet part of the world.

Next week, we'll be focussing on Excel. Powerpoint will follow, and the last computer course session will be based on the use of the internet. I clearly have a lot more to learn than I thought. There will always be something for everyone to learn, no matter how long they've been using a computer for.

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Clogs (Τσόκαρα)

When I was in Holland, I visited an open-air windmill museum in Zaanse Schans. One of the windmills was being used to show the history of the clog, and there was a display in the windmill of how clogs were made. Dutch clogs look kind of strange, and I didn't think anyone would wear them now, as they look so dated, stemming back from a time when people had less and didn't have access to much else - until I saw an older-looking gent wearing a pair of bright yellow clogs as he was riding his bike in a quiet suburb of a Dutch town in the north.


When I decided to buy a pair of clogs (in the Swedish style and not the Dutch, even though they are made in Holland, because I'd really stand out if I ever chose to wear the latter in Crete), my husband thought I was mad. But they suit my kind of lifestyle - I only wear shoes when I have to, and if I can slip them on and off easily, all the better. I was given instructions at the clog windmill as to how to wear them "Always with a thick pair of socks, so they don't cause you any discomfort."

I began wearing my clogs in Hania in late autumn. I noticed that they made a lot of noise as I walked on the bare tiles of the floor, but I only put them on just before I was ready to leave the house. They were relatively quiet on the carpeted areas. But still, they did not pass by unnoticed. I wore them yesterday as I was taking a piece of moussaka to yiayia (which we cooked in the wood-fired heater). She looked down at my feet and said "So it's you who's been wearing tsokara!"

"Oops," I started apologetically. Yiayia lives downstairs from us, so I was obviously making quite a clatter as I walked about the house in them. "I  didn't realise they were that loud, mama, sorry."

"I haven't heard that noise in years," she continued, as if she hadn't heard me. "They were the only shoes we had when I was a young girl, and throughout the war years. Our fathers would hew them out of wood, and nail a piece of leather on top for your feet. Most people didn't actually have any shoes at all, so I was very lucky that my father had made me a pair. And my mother never let me wear them without socks, unlike other children, whose feet were always looking red and sore, because they had no socks to wear with their clogs. And they had no other shoes, so if they didn't wear them, then they'd have to go barefoot. So many children had dirty feet in those days."

"They must have been useful in the fields, mama," I said, hoping to coax her memory to tell me more.

"Well, they never got left stuck in the mud, but if you were walking on the flat road, you often tripped because they were quite slippery. They needed a bit of rubber on the sole, but we didn't have anything, especially when the war broke out. We had nothing, not even any food. And I walked in those clogs without socks to the neighbouring village where we took refuge with another family. By the time we got there, my legs were so red and sore that my ankles had swelled and I collapsed."

Although she went through a terrible ordeal during WW2, she still has the courage to talk about it. Even though she says she'd like to forget those times, it seems that in her older age (my mother-in-law is 88), she remembers those days even more clearly. 

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