Next to our holiday balcony, there was another one used by a woman on her own.
I used to spend holidays on my own and I know there is pleasure, and less pleasure, about being on your own.
So, I asked her if she would like to share some wine with us one evening.
She was there to spend time with her son and his girlfriend, working all the hours god sent in the summer to make money.
She waited up to eat with them at the end of their evening shifts.
Meantime, we talked about her life as a single parent, changing her job because of the Greek financial crisis, learning massage as a calming therapy, how her ex-husband was a good father but a rubbish financial provider, her new job, her real wish to retire but there is not enough money in her life…..
Then we got onto immigrants and she said, We all have to understand the new world.
People are just trying to escape, to make a better life, to live their lives to way we do.
Climate change, wars, poverty – they all make people want to move and who can blame them?
We have to learn about how to accept that – all of us.
I have tried to show my son what it means to have a good heart.
She said a lot more, but I think you get the picture
It was a very good way to spend an evening with a stranger.
Some food just tastes better in its original surroundings.
A good greek salad tastes better when you are sitting at a table overlooking the sea, that it ever does at home in Deepest Sussex – even if you have the ripest homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers, the posh feta you have splurged on, really good olive oil.
(Though it has to be said not every Greek salad in Greece is brilliant – just saying.)
But though I am on about Greek food in Greece, can I just add I had one of the best dosas I have had in a long time in a tiny south Indian street place in Athens – see below.
But back to where I was, and apparently, and not entirely surprisingly, the Greek salad as we know it had only been around since the 60s or early 70s.
‘Everything started at the end of the 19th century when the Greeks were still ‘counting the wounds’ from their bankruptcy of 1893 and the Greek-Turkish war of 1897.
The main meal then consisted of vegetables – cucumber, olives, onions and (later) tomatoes and just sometimes cheese, with bread.
If you lived in the countryside, you took your vegetables whole, wrapped in a cloth, to the fields.
If you lived in Athens, you cut them up, put them in a dish and added olive oil, salt and oregano – that’s posh city folk for you.
Apparently, there was some tax which limited what you could charge for a basic salad to locals, and the growing number of tourists arriving in the 60s and 70s.
Folklore has it that an enterprising restauranteur in the Plaka area of Athens dropped a slice of feta on top and that meant it was no longer a basic salad – and he could charge what he liked.
My take aways ( as it were) from this year’s Greek holiday (want a photo – well here you go) were Fava, chickpea stew and lamb baked with thyme ( and no doubt, time.)
Fava, just in case you don’t know, is basically yellow split peas cooked to a creamy mush with added flavourings.
It is a popular appetiser but beware, in the wrong hands it can turnout bland and, occasionally and unforgivably, lumpy.
If you get the flavourings right you can eat it by the spoonful all on its own. If you don’t you need all kinds of additions to make it tasty.
We had a very good version on the day we met our new friends, and the Best Beloved and I had another lovely and delicious lunch with them ( see previous blog about picking up friends on holidays).
It was Sunday lunch.
Unlike in Deepest Sussex , chickpea stew is a local Sunday lunch tradition, cooked for a long time on the stove and in the oven.
It had a dark, almost gravy-ish sauce, was unctuous and generally very good. I am pretty sure it was started Friday and left to its own cooking devices for a good long time and then kept to let the flavours all steep in.
I had the tavern’s speciality of lamb with thyme and though I am sure this is a speciality of eating places across Greece, it was very good indeed.
We left our dog with long-suffering neighbours whilst we went on this jaunt to sun-kissed shores (want another photo? well if you insist.)
And as this island has very little in the way of shopping-for-a-thank-you-present to offer, I decided to bring Greece to them and cook a Greek meal.
So by the time you read this, I will have made a chickpea stew with lamb and thyme and maybe Fava to start.
I will let you know if it was a satisfactory thank you.
The island we were staying on is small so it was not entirely a surprise to bump into the gay couple we had struck up an intersting conversation with in a coffee place the day before.
We kicked ourselves for not arranging to meet them for another coffee, or even lunch.
And despite keeping our eyes peeled, we didn’t catch them again.
That was last year, and there were just the vaguest of hopes that we might see them again this year – but we didn’t.
So, when we were on a beach and I saw a nice looking gay couple I, well basically, picked them up.
Had a chat, and suggested coffee in the nearby restaurant in half an hour.
Coffee morphed into a (delicious) lunch and conversation.
One of the couple was a professor of early renaissance Italian philosophy and history and the other was a family lawyer.
The Best Beloved complained about the way philosophy was taught in Oxford (mind you that was a very long time ago) and the professor explained his way of teaching was to put the ideas in a historical context.
We talked about art (and its context), we talked about what lockdown was like in Rome – not too bad given they have a large airy apartment with a balcony and could eventually escape to their house in the Umbrian countryside.
We talked about the merits of various Greek islands, where to go in Southern Italy, how it was lonely doing all your legal work on Zoom and missing the chat with fellow lawyers and even divorcing clients.
To save the BB from writing holiday suggestions on the back of his hand, gave his email and suffice it to say, the next day he had a lot of holiday suggestions and we made an arrangement to meet for lunch on Sunday.
We get on fine on holiday but there is something good about conversations about things you don’t know with people you don’t know at all.
Picking up gay couples could well be a holiday habit from now on.
Apparently, the right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility according to Malcolm Gladwell – a man who gets a lot of things right.
Sometimes it works brilliantly and sometimes it doesn’t.
Especially on holiday, I don’t exercise the cautionary principle much.
We got talking to one taxi driver and as a result, he spent quite a lot of time slowly driving so he could dictate into Google Translate what he wanted to tell us about basketball – did you know that there was a Greek basketball player in a top league in America? No, nor did we.
Despite the BB’s grandson being a school and weekend basketball player, we soon ran out of conversation to dictate back into Google.
So, to change the subject I said, So what is this part of Athens?
It is toxic, he said.
And then there was, not bothering with Google, a one-sided ‘conversation’ about ‘toxic’ Bangladeshis and other immigrants.
Now, there is no denying that Greece has taken more than its European fair share of refugees and immigrants.
But this was not an easy listen.
The next day, I went out from our hotel and bought some water. From, it turns out, a Bangladeshi man.
He asked where I was from.
England.
You are so very lucky, he said.
Greece? I asked.
Not England, he said. Not so good. Not so good.
There are a hundred things to unpack from these ‘conversations’.
I do like making a pickle, preserves, chutney – but it has to be said, we are not great eaters of any of these.
There are a few exceptions – homemade pickled red cabbage is a must with a cottage pie – meat or vegetarian.
Now, I am sure I have mentioned this before, and I know people (maybe you, dear reader) may sneer at that suggestion but bear with me again and give it a try – not the bought stuff though because it is too vinegary.
And I do like a Kilner jar of confit tomatoes in the fridge – lush and sweet and great with all sorts when you need a taste of summer in the winter.
If you make it to the end of this, there will be recipes.
Having said that, I still have a freezer drawer with cooked down crabapples waiting to go through the faff of turning them into crabapple jelly – its a two day operation and involves hanging muslin bags on broom handles, enough said.
But I have just found a book in the shop which makes me think of more pickle, preserves activity – making things we should but probably won’t eat, and will give to (hopefully) more appreciative friends, family and neighbours.
Today, I have made preserved lemons not least because we both have some covid-like lurgy and so are in a mini-lockdown – afternoon television beckons but a few things have to be done first, hence the lemons.
( And a roast chicken with tarragon sauce because I feel like making it but probably not so much eating it….. we shall see.)
So recipes;
Preserved lemons from this:
We have a great rosemary bush.
And you will notice tomato plants growing along side and they are earmarked for some confit assuming they are prolific – and given they are grafted plants they should be.(Gardening advice here, always buy a grafted tomato plant to ensure lots of fruit.)
So, you need a Japanese rice vinegar. ( I have to say that Waitrose in Petersfield only had Chinese rice vinegar so that is what I used, hey ho.)
I used less sugar – about 250g – just saying.
Cut up lemons, add your rosemary and you are done – about two weeks later admittedly.
Pickled red cabbage:
So, you shred ( don’t worry you don’t have to do it too finely and I rather prefer to cut with a knife not shredding in a food processor) a red cabbage. Not the hard stem – just the leaves.
Put it in a bowl and sprinkle salt over it and leave it in the fridge overnight.
Also, put a litre of distilled vinegar in a pan, add 200g ( or less if you prefer) of sugar, a teaspoon each of cloves, peppercorns, coriander seeds or juniper seeds ( I do like a lot of flavour but you can be more minimalist if you like) and a couple of cinnamon sticks. Warm up until sugar has dissolved – a bit of stirring here.
Cool and put in the fridge.
Next day, take the cabbage out of the fridge and rinse the salt off. Leave to dry, or pat dry with kitchen paper – though beware, you don’t want bits of kitchen paper in your pickle.
And this will keep happily for a year or two if you don’t eat that much cottage pie.
Meanwhile, confit means basically slow cooking in a lot of olive oil.
So, take some tomatoes – small ones I would recommend. Don’t both with cutting up or pricking the skins, or taking them off their stalks.
Put them heaped if necessary as they will cook down, into a roasting tin with whatever herbs or spices you fancy – garlic, oregano, thyme, chilli flakes, rosemary – a good grinding of salt and pepper, and enough olive oil to come at least half way up small tomatoes.
Put in the oven at a low temperature – say 100 in a fan oven for a couple of hours, or if you are a lucky Sussex housewife, in the bottom Aga oven – but do check if you are using fan oven which can dry things out more quickly.
You want them well-cooked.
Cool, then squash into jars and use leftover olive oil to top them up.
They will keep in the fridge for a year or two and ignore the rules which say you can only keep for a week after they are opened.
They will make a good ‘sauce’ for spaghetti, or a quick supper, serve well if warmed under fish, in fact anything you like with tomatoes will work with these.
Off now to feed my tomato plants and then a relapse on the sofa.
Another bit on niche books – attractive to my only Vice Admiral (and Sir) reader, I would guess.
So, if you are not into ships/boats/history/niche books, now is the time to walk away.
And after this, I maybe off to a blog on pickles – I bet you can hardly wait.
Right, now we are off to the Falklands.(Or Malvinas if you prefer.)
(Before we get onto the content, for those of us who remember bashing away on a typewriter, this little pamphlet was a trip down memory lane – obviously typeset from a typewritten ‘manuscript’ with added sketches – done by the author.
I do like a real, original typewriter typeface.
And presumably he did not print so many that he couldn’t bear the thought of changing the odd mistake by hand – see subsequent photos.)
I am guessing the author was the same John Smith who wrote a memoir called : 74 Days: An Islander’s Diary of the Falklands Occupation. ( No, that has not been donated.)
We have had got two of these pamphlets and one is signed and other has an interesting dedication but more on that later.
So, there are notes and sketches on 14 wrecks in the Falklands harbour – from Capricorn to Fennia.
And indeed the 3-mile long harbour does seem to have an abundance of wrecks.
There is a bit of history – and I have to say, well-written interesting stuff which is not inevitably the case with self-published/locally-published books…..
Back to the ships:
Here they are:
Apparently, it is indeed in the museum and …….
The Charles Cooper was built in Black Rock, Connecticut in 1856 and is the only surviving American ship of its kind in the world. It is the best surviving wooden square-rigged American merchant ship. Built for New York’s South Street packet trade, the vessel voyaged around the world during the golden age of sail, and when it could sail no longer, became a floating warehouse for nearly a hundred years on an island off South America. The ship sailed for a decade from 1856 to 1866. It carried cotton to England, salt to India, gunpowder ingredients to the North during the Civil War, and brought European immigrants seeking economic opportunity and freedom in America. The Charles Cooper began with regular fixed schedules between New York and Antwerp. Then, with the outbreak of the Civil War, it no longer had set published departure times and instead voyaged based on spot demands from America to Europe and Asia.
So, finally to the inscription:
So, it turns out that this pamphlet was given to Martin Kine by Cosmo and Phillida Haskand. Haskard was the Governor General of the Falklands (1964-1970) and who ‘played a key role in defeating plans by Harold Wilson‘s Labour government to cede the sovereignty of the islands to Argentina. ‘
Martin was the HMS Endurance navigator, and dashing he looks too.
Of course, of course, this was not the original HMS Endurance but a later version – originally a German ship bought by the British navy and used as an ice-breaker among other things.
But she had her place in history – she was the ship on which ‘the final surrender of the war, in the South Sandwich Islands, took place.’
Apparently she was known by her sailors as HMS Encumbrance towards the end of her life ‘due to unreliability problems.’
I have no idea why the Haskards had ‘such a memorable passage ‘ on her but it has been a memorable little find in Oxfam.
There is something special about accidental conversations.
We are on holiday in Greece – so if that makes you curl your lip, please don’t read on as there will be mention of food, sea, sunshine, wine, relaxation and all those other privileged things – though mostly in the next installments.
So, one of the Sundays we were on holiday, the Greeks went to the polls again – it was a foregone conclusion that the New Democracy centre right party would win.
According to an accidental conversation with a taxi driver we learned what the canny Greeks do – and apparently there are a lot of canny Greeks
It appears they can choose to keep their voting rights in the area where they grew up.
So, you can legitimately say to your boss, you need one day to get there, one day to vote, take one or even two days off, and then you come back. Long weekend all round then.
Not sure that was what Joseph and Mary had in mind when they had to go to Nazareth to pay their taxes but I am pretty sure they didn’t go to make a long weekend of it.
Anyway, that leads me on to the next conversation.
Staying in Athens in the same hotel we stayed last year, I was set on re-visiting a small, rather dilapidated church which was apparently one of the first built when the Greeks shucked off the Ottoman ‘yoke’.
Allegedly, the first ‘free’ cathedral in Athens.
Of course, there is a much bigger, posher ‘proper’ cathedral built later.
(By the way a German aristocrat was made king and not by the Greeks, so not entirely free then…)
In St Demetrios’s the frescos are blackened by years of incense burning and swinging about the place, there are water damage marks, the icons are overlaid in (possibly) tin not silver.
There are upstairs galleries where the women used to sit in the old days but apparently are not now needed on a usual Sunday as everyone sits together, and they only get a dusting off at Easter.
But still, it is a gem of a place
When we went in, an unmistakable Greek Orthodox priest was sitting at a desk by the door.
We have a look round and the Best Beloved sighs as I say, I am going to have a chat.
It turns out Father Nickolaus was a real font (excuse the pun) of information.
He told us that as part of the rejection of Ottoman/Turkish style, the artwork and icons were Western style – more realistic faces than the more abstract Eastern style.
And as one of the first such churches in Athens, it was Western frescos all the way until there was a swing back to the abstract, which he preferred.
He said, no-one knew what these saints looked like so why pretend, just a beautiful artistic symbol was much better in relation to how you thought about saints.
There are now some Eastern icons.
So, in an Orthodox church there is a wood-carved and icon-covered wall with a door and the priest operates in the space beyond with his back to the congregation for much of the service.
Apparently the wall is relatively new innovation, by Orthodox standards, – a place to show off your icons and carvings.
There is an interesting theological difference of views about the priest having his ( well maybe her, but not in the Orthodox persuasion) back to or facing the congregation.
The Orthodox view is that having his back to the filled pews and facing the cross means he is with the congregation looking to God.
He is part of the people, not God’s intermediary to the people.
At this point, I mentioned the Pope who is, so I gather, God’s intermediary on earth and infallible and so on.
Father Nickolaus was beautifully diplomatic – smiled, and pointed out something else of interest in the church.
As a special treat, he opened the door in the carved wall and let us see inside where he performed his duties as the priest. (But to take a photo would have seemed rude, so I didn’t.)
And he told us that the bread and wine ritual is also part of the Orthodox communion but instead of wafers and a slurp, they have proper home-made bread brought in by local women and marked with a special square stamp.
It is cut up and into squares and I think, but maybe I misinterpreted or you dip it into the wine.
As if on cue, a local woman brought a loaf to the church so we could see it – but of course until it is blessed, it is not the body of christ.
Father Nickolaus told us, he had spent time with a friend who was an Orthodox priest in London, and St Albans.
It turns out that St Albans – a protestant cathedral is on a bit of an ecumenical mission.
It has services not only Orthodox, but German Lutheran ( who knew), Catholic ( well not that surprising) and the Free Church ( which is not that free if you are a gay, or a woman who needs an abortion, or a divorce.)
But anyway, good on St Albans.
(I looked up St Demetrius and it turns out he was run through with spears in 306 CE as part of the emperor Galerius’ persecution of christians.
Presumably, he got martyr status pretty rapidly as a result of that, but he made it into sainthood by, though dead, intervening against Barbarian barbarities in his city of Thessaloniki.
Now, Demetruis was the son of a senatorial family and in his time was proconsul of the district, so it was surprising to learn he was patron saint of agriculture, peasants and shepherds.
But on closer inspection of Wikipedia, it turns out that he was doing that familiar christian thing of adopting ‘pagan’ practices.
Apparently Demeter, the greek goddess and handily with a similar name, had a local cult going on.
She was the Olympian goddess of the harvest, the earth’s fertility, crops, etc.
As her cult died out, St Demetrius stepped into the breach and took over her responsibilities.
(All sorted then.)
Needless to say, Father Nickolaus’s English was great and I could have spent much longer listening to him.
But he kept getting mobile phone calls and so we left him to his (in his own words) small flock, but not as small as they are in England.
I think he had a pretty good idea that we were not practising christians of any sort, but he liked to talk to people who asked questions, and maybe he was a bit bored of re-arranging the candles.
As I left, he said, I will give you an icon of St Demetrius, and I thought wow! But actually I got a card with an icon image of said saint.
I think I may have said before the if you wait long enough there a book on every subject under the sun will come into our Oxfam bookshop – and today we had a bit of a niche-book bonanza.
So, in case you are not clear, this is a book on the embroidery of traditional Romanian costumes, with patterns and with a Romanian text – not something we get every day in our Petersfield bookshop. (Apparently worth £50 and should you be interested, it is for sale on Oxfam online.)
This, is a record of the High Sheriffs of Gwynedd from, as it promises, from 1284 to 1993.
Not what I expected from the title – Kalendars? No I don’t know why a Kalendar is a list of High Sheriffs.
But as far as I can work out, it means a list – and in Danish it is a calendar.
Ok I should do more research but I won’t – any research welcome on a (virtual) postcard.
According to a letter inside the book the author said it was out of print pretty quickly.
But he kept ‘ a few copies’ and he gave this one to a Major Corbett, a High Sheriff in the 1990s and donator was indeed another High Sheriff 1989-1990.
No idea how, or why, it ended up with us.
There is quite a lot ( not that I have read it all) of political history as well as the list of the HS.
As I may have mentioned before, we went holidaying in Greece.
That makes us among the most privileged people on the planet and yes, somewhat guilty about the flying – rationing ourselves to once a year is hardly self-denial.
Talking about self-denial – packing.
Now, we have been on Mediterranean holidays for many years, and what is more, this time we went back to the same Greek island as last year.
So, packing should have been a doddle.
But, and yes I am hoping you are saying ‘but’ too.
And at this point I need to tell you the Best Beloved has to use two sticks to get around so any heavily-packed suitcase falls to me to move around – another good reason for packing lightly – you would think.
There were days in my youth when my job involved a lot of travel and I could pack fast, lightly, for all the necessary occasions – a smart Rubic’s cube of a small case, and all sorted.
Apparently, I have lost this skill.
So, despite the fact that we both know what the holiday will involve, we take so much more than we need/ever wear.
Did the BB need four shirts? – actually two of them will go home unused.
Just for example.
On my part, I have an image in my head of an early evening when I shower after a day visiting somewhere, being on the beach etc etc.
I will then slip on something casual but rather nice and heading out to dinner.
I never do this.
Yesterday we ate ( a very good) lunch in what we had been swimming in, with a bit of a cover-up item – actually a worn every day, charity shop jersey ‘dress’.
And ate supper ‘at home’.
The day before? see above.
Probably ( actually very probably,) I will never wear the fancy patterned trousers, the other pair of shorts, three of the four white T-shirts, the glamorous orange top, the white shirt I bought (surprisingly for me) at full price and not from a charity shop.
The BB will not wear the nice linen trousers he brought (neither will I wear mine), or the other pair of trousers – useful though they seemed in Deepest Sussex.
He has worn the same shorts every day.
I needed a cardigan and denim jacket – really? It is in the low 30s centigrade.
The BB brings snorkelling gear for me every year in the hope I will overcome my irrational fear of putting my head underwater and go looking for small fish – in my defence, there aren’t many.
So, for all the complaining about lifting and moving a heavy case and a pull-along, I only have ourselves to blame.
We have every intention of coming back here next year, not least because it works for the BB – and probably to the same apartment.
It would be good to be able to leave a bag of stuff here that we only use here – flip-flops, snorkels (see above), a few clothes, factor 50 sun cream….
But I am guessing Panos, the apartment owner would rather we took them home and learned to pack better.
Have you ever grated a tomato? I can almost hear the shouts (from my small but perfectly formed group of readers) saying what?? Open a can of nice Italians. Job done.
But dear reader(s) I am here to tell you that though it is a more lengthy process than opening a can, it can be really worth it.
If, at this point you are still not convinced, you need to go and find something else to do – knit your own jumper, dig up the ground elder (though that is a thankless task) etc etc.
Anyway, if you are still with me, let me tell you again good things are possible with a grated tomato.
But first you need to hear a story about sausages.
As long-standing friends will know, I work at some events across the year which are a mix of gardening exhibitors/stallholders and large marquees of food and other artisan makers of everything from jewellery to pottery.
Yes, the lovely Tracy is an ex-con turned pig farmer – who knew? and employs other ex-cons to work on the farm, come to the shows – and sell sausages.
I bought some, and some of which which were pork and fennel. (They are excellent and please buy some if you can.Tracy’s vision and making it work – just saying.)
Rootling around in the freezer one day I found them, and rootling around in the fridge I found a fennel bulb.
And I had some properly nice tomatoes.
So, here is what I did.
No of course it is not a proper recipe, but a general idea of what you can do…
Grate your tomatoes. Get your usual cheese grater, cut tomatoes in half and grate against the large grater side. The skins stop you grating your fingers.
Put what all of what you get into a pan/casserole. I was using a Le Creuset inherited from my mother who sent me off to university with them, and I have them still. But other not-so-posh pans will do nicely.
Better tomatoes, better result, so please don’t do this out of season. And even in season, keep the tomatoes out of the fridge so they have chance to develop their flavour.
At this point I would like to say firmly, that no, a tin of tomatoes, however good, will not do instead.
You need the thinner ‘sauce’.
Now, take your fennel bulb and cut around the tough centre and keep the fronds for decoration.
Cut the layers into slices and fry gently in butter, be generous – yes not that healthy but it does work, believe me.
It takes a while but you should either eat fennel raw ( in a salad with orange, say) or very well cooked and softened – and in this case you want it well cooked.
Cook your sausages however you like.
Add some Marigold bouillon to the tomatoes, a splash of white wine and at this point you can slice up some new or old potatoes and add them in and then cook gently.
You might need a pinch of sugar if your tomatoes are not just perfect – which mine weren’t.
Keep tasting the sauce and add pepper, more bouillon, whatever, if you need it.
Now, if you want a thick sauce, then take some of it out of the pan with some of the potatoes and whizz them up with a hand-blender and put back into the pan.
Either way, then add fennel and its butter, cut up sausages and snipped fennel fronds and serve to an appreciative Best Beloved and neighbours.
By the time I remembered too late that I should have taken a photo ( beautifully lit) of the finished product – but hey ho, it had gone and no one wants a picture of the washing up in waiting.
thereluctanthousewife 