I'm a bit late with this, but I woke up late, and then I rolled out of bed and directly into a pile of new playthings, a gift to myself just for being me, a brand new Windsor Newton portable Easel complete with ten tubes of paint, three brushes and one canvas. Since I've arrived in Greece I've thrown all snobbery aside with quality of paint or brushes, just hand the crack over and let me go crazy! I'm starving here!
Five hours later Despina called and lured me out the door when she made mention of the possibility of combining and art museum with sampling the goodies from this pattisserie... I made all of the required-by-law adjustments to my person and met the whole troop (Kostas and the little ones) at Syntagma Square.
We needed to buffer ourselves for the onslaught of sugar with a meal first, so we moved back into the fabric district where there are some quasi-secret eateries on Romvis street. We chose "Miniatoura" in part because it was the one that had space for us. Sort of. We ordered a few things... chicken with eggplant, a plate of tabouleh, horiatiki, cannelloni, stuffed zucchinis with rice and meat, potatoes and a delicious vegetable pie that tasted like a combination of eggplant and zucchini. All of this on top of the standard basket of village bread and bottle of water left very little room to maneuver. Despina was managing her daughters while holding one dish in her hand and another in her lap. Two chairs were pulled up to serve as a shelf for the salt, pepper and bread. The little girls ate three bites each and jumped out of their seats to play, leaving both mother and father with cricks in their necks for trying to eat while they patrolled for wild, rampaging motorcycles or other vehicles that might prove disastrous to small bones.
I've learned a new word: Γκριναιζει. Grin-yah-zee. It means "grumble."
The little ones were doing a lot of it during lunch so while I was still reshuffling the plates as they arrived, (all different plates with geometric shapes and bright flowers to my delight) Despina was up, running after her restless wanderers. By the time I looked back up all three were standing at the dumpster, or maybe it was just a big abandoned box, on the other side of the pedestrian street with various items of pink and white toole. M. was carring a large stick with a tuft of it at the end, topped by a wooden castle. I. had a wispy turban on her head making her look like an Arabian princess. Despina was stuffing it inside of her overalls; a makeshift tutu.
It is true; the lord provides.
The concensus on the food was that it was decent. In my personal opinion it was very nice, but I bow to the superior taste of a chef and a restaurateur. In any case I took a card because this place has the genuine feel of a little Greek eaterie without the weird, over the top stuff that the restaurants in the more tourist-traversed sections have town do. I would go back again. I might even take clients.
The hour late, the museum closed, we agreed we were too full to start in on the pastries and made a meeting point for a little later. I split down Ermou street to make an attempt at an errand, difficult in this country. Shops are typically closed on Sundays, even pharmacies, but they acknowledge that someone might need some medicine so there is always one open per neighborhood. It's a bit of a game, however, as it's not the same one every time. You must look up WHICH pharmacy is going to be open that particular Sunday, and for which hours as some might be from 9 to 8, some from 8-2, then 5-12, some from 8-8 (overnight)
And it all seemed so complicated I've never really bothered to learn how to find it. Instead I've just avoided the pharmacy on the weekends, but as life usually likes to force us to learn, this weekend it was unavoidable.
So that was what I was doing while the kids, Despina and Kostas went toward Melilotos. On Ermou street, I passed trains of immigrants, mostly Africans and Pakistanis, selling knock-off purses, belts and sunglasses. All I could think was "eggs." Sent myself into shivers.
Not surprisingly, the pharmacy I'd been informed was the "chosen" one was closed.
I'd like to end here because it gives a humorous detail to a chaotic country, but it would be unfair and untrue, because the informer was likely the one in the wrong here, and when I informed Despina she had only to say, "Paige, when are you going to learn never to rely on men!? They are ALWAYS wrong!"
Fast forward to Despina, myself, and her big one sitting in front of the window of a closed pharmacy reading the small print of the sign posted in every pharmacy listing the locations of the special-hours store. All this to say, eventually we succeeded.
Walked to the playground where I discovered that there is a pocket of Greece I can understand everything that's being said.
"GET DOWN!"
"COME HERE!"
"STOP THAT!"
And various things between the tumblers and the monkey-barrers, the sliders and the swingers, the ball kickers and the diggers.
LOOK AT THIS!
WATCH ME!
I'LL RUN, THEN YOU COME AND GET ME!
dizzy. Maybe it was pleasure. Maybe it was a sugar rush. They were just decadent. Delicious. Everything you want in something you're not supposed to be having. (I mean that only in the way that no part of my body was lacking in the vitamins you might extract from mousse with marzipan, I don't care if Green tea is an antioxidant.)
This is the end, but I'm adding a note. Don't think I'm just going to talk and talk about painting and never show. I will. I'm just getting back into the groove, giving myself the freedom to play. Not worry too much about anything except the act of creating, much like the purpose of a "write for 100 days" challenge. I'm so in the habit that I don't think I could sleep without knowing I'd click clacked something about something, and on occasion that "something" turns out kinda nice.
If this can happen for paint, my days are going to be happy ones, and I'm going to have lots of paintings for the walls of my house, maybe on the wall looking out to the courtyard with the lemon tree and turquoise spiral staircase. The black and white tile and the sleeping cats, pots of basil and menthe.
Just sayin'.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Bravo Koritzi
I called Despina at 10:30 this morning. No answer. As I was in my office with functioning internet, I noticed that she was online, so I sent her a little message telling her I’d tried to call. She answered “Oh the girls must have hidden the phone.”
A plan was made to meet her and her mother at Melilitos by noon for what would be a preliminary run cooking lesson. A private one, as it happened, just for me. We needed to see what would be the issues, would it work out having a cook and a translator, all of these pesky little things that might come up when we bring the first round of visitors into the kitchen to learn how to make Greek cuisine. When I showed up in the little stoa, or alley that Melilotos is tucked inside, I saw a smallish woman with black hair smoking a cigarette, also waiting. Melilotos was still dark meaning Despina hadn’t yet arrived, so I got comfortable on the marble steps and she was eyeing me, eyeing me, until finally, “Perimenitai yia .... (I tend to fade out when people speak Greek to me, still latching onto the first word while they round to a complete sentence.)
“Oriste?” This is what I’ve been taught to say so that they understand I just want them to repeat so that I can try again.
As it turned out this was KIKI. I write all caps because that is her character. Don’t be fooled by the small package. When Despina arrived and opened up, she immediately offered to run for coffee leaving KIKI and I to sit. “Exeis Doulia etho?” (Do you have a job here?) I started to repeat “Doulia” and said, instead, “Dulia” like “Julia.” She made four quick steps over to me, clasping my face in both of her hands saying again, “doooLYAH.” And grinned. “eh!? Ohi, DULIA. Ohi.” (Not ____. No.)
Finally, my own Greek Yia yia!
But KIKI is Despina’s aunt (I believe), not the star of the show, Ireni, which confused me a bit. I kept looking at the photograph of Ireni on the wall with her light hair and Mucha expression (click Mucha for visual reference) and finally, a light, a presence entered the place wearing a white muslin blouse embroidered with flowers and a serene expression. This was Ireni, master cook and teacher of today’s cooking lesson.
But what shall we cook? The discussion surrounding this went on for a few minutes while I sipped on my coffee. Every once in a while Despina would poll me.
“Paige, what is the most traditional Greek dish you think people would like to learn?”
I told her it seemed like her department. I’m the dum-dum that’s here to learn how to cook after all.
The discussion continued. Despina turned to me.
“Do you think people would like to learn to make Dolmadakia?” or stuffed grape leaves.
I said surely yes and told her it’s something they could find the ingredients for when they returned home if they hunted a bit, but the discussion continued and everyone had seemed to agree on a final point. Despina looked at me again, saying with finality,
“We will make pita.” (Pie.)
If you have been a faithful reader, and even if you have only peeped in for one or two entries here on this online journal, you will see many many mentions of tiropita, or cheese pie. It is the national snack of Greece and one that I have happily added to my snacking repertoire, but I’ve always expected it to be a bit of a bugger-bear to make, at least for a stir-frying, egg scrambling cook such as myself.
Allow me to fast forward the tape a bit so that you don’t get the full lesson with paying for, I mean enjoying it in person! We beat dough with our fists like welter weight champions. We rolled it out with a long stick and spun it in the air until it was as thin as a bedsheet. We washed spinach, once, twice, three times, and I was filled with the terrifying realization of how much dirt I have probably consumed in my life now that I know what it really takes to clean greens, the peaks of grit that had accumulated on the sink serving as hard evidence. We crumbled feta, cracked eggs, poured, beat, rolled, and spun more dough.
“You’re doing the hardest lesson first, Paige!”
I beamed.
Bravo Koritzi mou. Ella Koritzi mou. By the time I’d finished I was dusted until my elbows with Allevi, flour and a bit wounded from the all of the effort. What a wimpy baker I am. Every criticism for me was “MORE FORCE, Paige, don’t be afraid.”
Eventually the bulk of the work had been completed and Despina excused herself to go shopping for a baby birthday party she would be attending later. I continued rolling with force and the big stick, watched more vegetables being washed, and before I knew it, it was singing time. KIKI started, out of nowhere, belting a Greek ballad, and Ireni joined in while she rolled the dough. Then KIKI was laughing with such emotion tears were in her eyes and said, in Greek, we’re all crazy here!!
They asked me if I knew any Greek songs. I said I was a fan of Hadzidakis, and they immediately started in with this:
The pita went in the oven. Despina returned. We sat. They smoked. We talked about life. I drank the same cup of coffee I had been working on since Despina offered it which had also been drunk by everyone there. The community cup, marked with an orange poppy.
To pass the half hour needed for the oven Ireni decided to make spring rolls. Without much talk the four of us started in on wrapping vegetables in rice paper until there was none left. Finally, the hour was upon us and our creation was ready to meet its purpose, to fill our now hungry bellies and delight our senses. Honorable pita that it was, it did its job perfectly.
The phylo was dark and crispy, falling in paper thin flakes on my lips, my shirt, the table, everywhere. There was an unusual addend of spearmint with the feta that gave it a fresher, lighter twist than the usual greasebombs sold on the streets. Having it hot, just out of the oven, made by my hands (even partly) was perhaps the meal of the year.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Orange and Green
9am Sunday morning found me walking alongside Attikoulamou on Kodrou street. I came upon a wide canvas of Attica blue tracing the roofline of the Aghia Soteira church, framed by a stretch of dark cypress trees and a sprawl of jasmine. From inside, you could hear the brothers singing, an organ accompanying, and one priest reciting his prayers out loud. Two suitcases clattered down the cobblestone and the road of seemingly distant Syngrou Avenue purred with morning drivers.
If only I had a recorder to share with you moments like this. THIS is music.
I promised to finish off reporting the loveliest of days by detailing my visit to the Orange and Green. G and I were walking one day, a dog day let's call it, for my heart was dragging along behind me like a tired dog, and I said out loud, "I think I would like an ice cream."
"Why didn't you say something earlier? We were on Makrigiannis street with all of the ice cream places."
"Well here is ice cream," I said, pointing to the inside of a cafe with orange and green chairs where there was a beautiful case of billowing clouds of gelato, every color in a box of crayons.
In fact it was this day. You see the power it had.
Well now that I was having a cat day, because my heart was literally purring, I decided it was also a nice time for an ice cream. Only natural to return to the place with the orange and green chairs, which I later found out bestows the appellation, "Orange and Green." I was just rolling up to a nice place to stop when I heard my name called out loud.
Funny the affect that can have on a person, hearing their name when they don't expect it. Instantly pulls you to the present, doesn't it?
Kostas and Despina, the owners of the order out only restauraunt Melilotos were there with their two little girls, sitting at a sidewalk table with four huge dishes of various ice creams. I met them but a month ago and together we've been scheming about starting a Greek cooking course to offer to visitors and locals alike.This is the second time I've run into them by "accident."
"Why don't you sit? Have something?"
Well as luck would have it...
Kostas and Despina were still spooning away a la John Henry at their mountains, but the two bowls on the adjacent side were melting into molten, rainbow sprinkled soup.
In true little girl form, the participants ignoring their bowls and more interested in the pink butterfly balloon attached to a pink stroller had more on their sleeves and cheeks than what was likely in their little pot bellies. G came along and joined us a bit later. His aura must have been pink also because the little girls flew to him like mice to the pied piper.
My ice cream companions are what I don't hesitate to call quality folk. You know it by their restaurant, started out of frustration with being bossed around by penny pinching managers to compromise the quality of food with cheap ingredients. They've chosen to keep their kitchen "take out" only so that they can stay focused on their product, working only monday through Friday so they might stay focused on their blooming family. This day, being a Saturday, had been spent at a food forum in the arty area of Gazi where they had strolled (pinkly) through various tables of food vendors and gathered some information about other cooking classes being offered elsewhere in Athens.
Despina, who is a glassy lake regardless of whether she is detailing the flavors of ice cream that she chose, chasing after her street-magnetized two year old, or criticizing her fellow restaurateurs, spoke very plainly about the competition:
"These people are charging fifty to two hundred and fifty euros for a two hour class. They do not care about food, and I hate that. They only care about making money and staying a big name. I only want to work with people who love what they do."
Like they do!
While we talked about the relevant, I was inwardly singing sweet love songs my bowl of chocolate orange ice cream. Kostas must have intuitively guessed it, for the subject turned to ice cream and he happily consented that Americans do it very, very well. We discussed Ben and Jerry and how it was better before it became a giant franchise, continuing the theme of the belief of staying small, controlling quality, doing what you love and not doing it to become an empire. Village life. Oh Ben and Jerry, why couldn't you have been content with Virgina?
When the conversation turned to books and Despina and I raved about the genre of Magical realism.
"I feel that this kind of book is the way I am," and I agreed.
"Somewhere between dream and reality," and our discussion, evolving into dreams, omens, and creative coincidences, was also rainbow sprinkled with events; one parent or the other, sometimes both, breaking out of their chairs and running after one child or the other, to the bathroom, pulling off a chocolated t shirt..
Until finally one got so close to the street that the fire of motherly instinct took over the otherwise composed Despina. The lioness bounded after the endangered cub, snatched her up and scolded her to such a degree it sent the little one into a fit of wails.
She was put into the pink stroller for a mandatory nap.
Shortly after we lost G to the world of their big one, a four year old who had discovered the limitless potential of clean backs of airport signs and a parcel marker. He, being purveyor of both along with fountains of complements on her creations, had unwittingly become her new best friend.
The sidewalk was now quiet. More intimate. The story of how Despina and Kostas met was shared. As it's their story and very special, I feel wrong about putting it here without having permission, but we branched off to couples, drawings of couples, and how a therapist in Greece diagnoses the relationships of these couples by their drawings.
Apparently women tend to draw their relationship, themselves with their mate in a twisted embrace and men draw the picture with both people standing and looking away from each other. These are both indications of a poor relationship.
"The only drawing of a good relationship has the man and woman standing side by side, joined only at the hand."
Each person is supposed to have their space but there is also connection.
"Have you ever done the Hut trick?" said Despina suddenly.
I informed her that not only had I not done any trick of the sort but I didn't know there were tricks to be done with huts.
She pulled G out of drawing pie faced, body-less girls with legs like skyscrapers and informed him that he must help her by translating.
"If I stumble on a word it will break your concentration..."
So the big one was asked to be quiet for just a moment while Despina told a story to Paige. The expression on her face showed she was thinking long and hard about whether or not this held any real significance to her, but finally she agreed to try.
"Close your eyes!" Despina commanded.
Then she whispered her instructions in quiet Greek to G who spoke them to me in English, asking me to imagine a scene, detail what I saw, what I did, where I was...
My request, Mr Fellow One hundred dayer, Mr. OHD, and anyone else who chooses to, is to stop reading at this point. Print it out and have someone read the next few lines to you. Mr. OHD, I ask especially that you include your answers in your next post, because only then can I tell you what it all means.
Here it goes. Close your eyes!
Imagine you're on a mountain path. Where is the path? What is it like, what is it made of?
The path leads you through some trees. What do the trees look like?
Past the trees you see an open field, and in the open field there is a hut. What is the hut made of? What does the area around the hut look like?
The door of the hut is closed. What do you do?
(If you go inside, what does the inside look like? Is there anything in there? Is it clean or dirty?)
Now go to the other side of the hut. There is a tall wall blocking you from going further. A bear is coming toward you.
What happens? How do you feel? What do you do?
And finally, you face the wall. There are no stairs, no windows, no doors. What do you do?
If only I had a recorder to share with you moments like this. THIS is music.
I promised to finish off reporting the loveliest of days by detailing my visit to the Orange and Green. G and I were walking one day, a dog day let's call it, for my heart was dragging along behind me like a tired dog, and I said out loud, "I think I would like an ice cream."
"Why didn't you say something earlier? We were on Makrigiannis street with all of the ice cream places."
"Well here is ice cream," I said, pointing to the inside of a cafe with orange and green chairs where there was a beautiful case of billowing clouds of gelato, every color in a box of crayons.
In fact it was this day. You see the power it had.
Well now that I was having a cat day, because my heart was literally purring, I decided it was also a nice time for an ice cream. Only natural to return to the place with the orange and green chairs, which I later found out bestows the appellation, "Orange and Green." I was just rolling up to a nice place to stop when I heard my name called out loud.
Funny the affect that can have on a person, hearing their name when they don't expect it. Instantly pulls you to the present, doesn't it?
Kostas and Despina, the owners of the order out only restauraunt Melilotos were there with their two little girls, sitting at a sidewalk table with four huge dishes of various ice creams. I met them but a month ago and together we've been scheming about starting a Greek cooking course to offer to visitors and locals alike.This is the second time I've run into them by "accident."
"Why don't you sit? Have something?"
Well as luck would have it...
Kostas and Despina were still spooning away a la John Henry at their mountains, but the two bowls on the adjacent side were melting into molten, rainbow sprinkled soup.
In true little girl form, the participants ignoring their bowls and more interested in the pink butterfly balloon attached to a pink stroller had more on their sleeves and cheeks than what was likely in their little pot bellies. G came along and joined us a bit later. His aura must have been pink also because the little girls flew to him like mice to the pied piper.
My ice cream companions are what I don't hesitate to call quality folk. You know it by their restaurant, started out of frustration with being bossed around by penny pinching managers to compromise the quality of food with cheap ingredients. They've chosen to keep their kitchen "take out" only so that they can stay focused on their product, working only monday through Friday so they might stay focused on their blooming family. This day, being a Saturday, had been spent at a food forum in the arty area of Gazi where they had strolled (pinkly) through various tables of food vendors and gathered some information about other cooking classes being offered elsewhere in Athens.
Despina, who is a glassy lake regardless of whether she is detailing the flavors of ice cream that she chose, chasing after her street-magnetized two year old, or criticizing her fellow restaurateurs, spoke very plainly about the competition:
"These people are charging fifty to two hundred and fifty euros for a two hour class. They do not care about food, and I hate that. They only care about making money and staying a big name. I only want to work with people who love what they do."
Like they do!
While we talked about the relevant, I was inwardly singing sweet love songs my bowl of chocolate orange ice cream. Kostas must have intuitively guessed it, for the subject turned to ice cream and he happily consented that Americans do it very, very well. We discussed Ben and Jerry and how it was better before it became a giant franchise, continuing the theme of the belief of staying small, controlling quality, doing what you love and not doing it to become an empire. Village life. Oh Ben and Jerry, why couldn't you have been content with Virgina?
When the conversation turned to books and Despina and I raved about the genre of Magical realism.
"I feel that this kind of book is the way I am," and I agreed.
"Somewhere between dream and reality," and our discussion, evolving into dreams, omens, and creative coincidences, was also rainbow sprinkled with events; one parent or the other, sometimes both, breaking out of their chairs and running after one child or the other, to the bathroom, pulling off a chocolated t shirt..
Until finally one got so close to the street that the fire of motherly instinct took over the otherwise composed Despina. The lioness bounded after the endangered cub, snatched her up and scolded her to such a degree it sent the little one into a fit of wails.
She was put into the pink stroller for a mandatory nap.
Shortly after we lost G to the world of their big one, a four year old who had discovered the limitless potential of clean backs of airport signs and a parcel marker. He, being purveyor of both along with fountains of complements on her creations, had unwittingly become her new best friend.
The sidewalk was now quiet. More intimate. The story of how Despina and Kostas met was shared. As it's their story and very special, I feel wrong about putting it here without having permission, but we branched off to couples, drawings of couples, and how a therapist in Greece diagnoses the relationships of these couples by their drawings.
Apparently women tend to draw their relationship, themselves with their mate in a twisted embrace and men draw the picture with both people standing and looking away from each other. These are both indications of a poor relationship.
"The only drawing of a good relationship has the man and woman standing side by side, joined only at the hand."
Each person is supposed to have their space but there is also connection.
"Have you ever done the Hut trick?" said Despina suddenly.
I informed her that not only had I not done any trick of the sort but I didn't know there were tricks to be done with huts.
She pulled G out of drawing pie faced, body-less girls with legs like skyscrapers and informed him that he must help her by translating.
"If I stumble on a word it will break your concentration..."
So the big one was asked to be quiet for just a moment while Despina told a story to Paige. The expression on her face showed she was thinking long and hard about whether or not this held any real significance to her, but finally she agreed to try.
"Close your eyes!" Despina commanded.
Then she whispered her instructions in quiet Greek to G who spoke them to me in English, asking me to imagine a scene, detail what I saw, what I did, where I was...
My request, Mr Fellow One hundred dayer, Mr. OHD, and anyone else who chooses to, is to stop reading at this point. Print it out and have someone read the next few lines to you. Mr. OHD, I ask especially that you include your answers in your next post, because only then can I tell you what it all means.
Here it goes. Close your eyes!
Imagine you're on a mountain path. Where is the path? What is it like, what is it made of?
The path leads you through some trees. What do the trees look like?
Past the trees you see an open field, and in the open field there is a hut. What is the hut made of? What does the area around the hut look like?
The door of the hut is closed. What do you do?
(If you go inside, what does the inside look like? Is there anything in there? Is it clean or dirty?)
Now go to the other side of the hut. There is a tall wall blocking you from going further. A bear is coming toward you.
What happens? How do you feel? What do you do?
And finally, you face the wall. There are no stairs, no windows, no doors. What do you do?
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Such a perfect day...
Just after the full moon, things that you have been searching for always seem to show up. Today was nothing that I expected and everything I wanted it to be. It was everything I've wanted for the entire month of April, but it's found it's way to me now.
This morning I knew was my only free day to go and refresh my knowledge for an upcoming walking tour, but it was May 1. No one even emerged from their houses until 1pm. The streets were empty and the sun was out... everything was in agreement: today was not a day for work, but foolishly I thought I could push on.
First interruption: My father called. This was at ten in the morning meaning some indecent hour in the USA. I was standing in the middle of Monistiraki square, just over the ancient reservoir housed in glass, amidst the pigeons and the fruit vendors and the beggars and street performers. No matter how technology advances, it never ceases to amaze me to get a call from Magnolia Texas when I'm in a setting such as this one.
We didn't have a great connection the first and second attempts, and while I was waiting for him to redial my already overactive imagination was running wild with the reasons for a call at such an hour on their end, but when he finally made it through, a croaky, groggy father just missed his daughter, happened to be up, (has an excellent phone plan) and wanted to chat a little. I sat back on the glass covering the ancient reservoir, there in front of the old mosque and the "little" monistary and we talked about race cars, upcoming adventures, the ruined Gulf of Mexico and the miserable state of Louisiana, the development of my (very) little niece, 100 day challenges... not much else. Pretty soon he realized he was very tired and we exchanged terms of endearment, closing the phones.
I sat there, glowing for just a minute, then tried to get back on track. Right. Walking tour refresher. I started out... in a different direction. I don't know why, but suddenly I was thinking, "Maybe I could do something a bit different. I want to go see the Keraimakos cemetary." Which indeed, would be a very nice place to see on a walking tour, but impossibly far from all of the other very nice things I've organized and tested long ago. This was occurring to me with each step, but soon there I was in front of the Ancient Athenian cemetary, named after the son of the God of Wine and the Daughter of King Minos, and the patron of Potters. Keraimakos, Ceramics, you see? It is such a beautiful setting. A HUGE Spread of ancient tombstones and statues honoring the mysterious passage from one life to the next. Apparently there used to be little statues and tablets put inside of the caskets, curses created by special magicians directed at those already passed. They were made of lead to speed them down to Hades. I thought, "that's serious business, cursing the dead." It says a lot about the ancients belief in the afterlife.. and all of this was going through my head when my feet took me left instead of straight and I started up a bridge. Why? I don't know.
So I went over the bridge and through a new neighborhood I've never seen before. A quiet, classy neighborhood that is home to "friends of the bicycle" which I am now enthusiastically researching. On my way to investigate their sign, however, I crashed my bare toe, dangling out of my stylish gold sandal (smart as a choice for a day devoted to walking) straight into a broken concrete post. Wow was it putting out some impressive, black blood. Whatever. Took down the website address from the sign and pressed on until I found myself back in the familiar territory of Thissiou and the parking lot sized pedestrian road of Apostolou Pavlou, stuffed with cafe tables and idle coffee drinkers, cigarette smokers, laissaiz philosophers...
Hobbling now and getting beaten down by the intensity of the sun, I passed Vrahakia, a taverna where we've occasionally taken clients because of the pleasant and flexible chef and owner, Christos. Passed it, thinking of him, and then my feet turned right around and walked all the way through the door and up to the kitchen. I was really not in control of anything today.
Still early, he wasn't busy and indicated to a table near the kitchen, grabbing his coffee and his ashtray and ordering the woman still busy at the prepratory work to make me an Hellniko cafe, or Greek coffee.
Conversation turned to the Ancient Greeks. Christos believes everything about them, mostly that they were the most advanced civilization. Ever.
Some Greek people that I've spoken with believe that the Ancient Greeks were the ONLY advanced civilization. Not that the others didn't exist, but that they were actually Greeks. Meaning: Ancient Egyptians? Greeks. Mayans? Greeks. Chinese? " "
So I delicately asked Christos if this was his theory also, swatting away at the judgemental voices in my mind.
"Look, it's simple. Civilization started and people slowly started to move. They went to the north, the west, the east, but the most clever ones came here because the weather is perfect."
It's very difficult to argue with this logic!
I interpreted it as that he acknowledged that there were other great civilizations, but obviously the ones that chose the prettiest water, the nicest spring, the mildest winter, are the ones who had the best heads on their shoulders.
I thanked him for the coffee and continued on my "path," which lead me to an old book seller. Not pressed for time, no one expecting me for anything, I hunkered down and flipped one by one the collected postcards from years past, the black and white photographs, the Greek comic books, and then I saw a tattered, water color illustrated childrens book in English. "Greek Folk Tales: The Good Advice"
I'm going to tell it to you here:
There was once a very poor man who had to find a way to feed his wife and small son, so he left for a bigger town and appealed to a very rich man for work.
"Yes you can work for me, but I will hold onto your wages or you'll squander them." So the man had no choice. He worked for the rich man until ten years had gone by. Finally he asked for his wages.
The rich man thought and thought. "Shall I give him one hundred? No it's far too much. But so is fifty. Is his work worth ten?" And finally he said to the man, "I'm giving you three pounds. I'll give you three more if you work another ten years." But the man was poor, not stupid, so he took the three pounds and started on the road home, despondant.
On his way he passed an old hermit sitting on a rock.
"Give me a pound and I'll give you a good piece of advice!" said the hermit.
Well, thought the man, I'm a poor man with three pounds and I'll be no poorer with two. So he gave the man a pound.
"Don't ask about things that do not concern you. Now give me another pound and I'll tell you advice even more valuable than the first."
And the man thought, I'm poor with two coins and will be no more poor with one, so he gave the hermit another pound.
"Stay on the path you've chosen and don't get lead astray. Now give me another pound and I'll tell you a final piece of advice more valuable than the first and second combined."
The man thought, I'm poor with one coin and there is absolutely no difference with having one and having none at all, so he gave the coin.
"If you get angry at night, don't act until morning's light, and that is my final piece of advice."
The man ends up learning by some very clear cut, folk-talish situations (meeting a giant hanging gold on a lemon tree, passing up a group of laughing men going into a tavern, coming home and his wife not recognizing him) that the man's advice is worth much more than he paid for it. He comes home rich, managed to avoid being mixed up with a gang of thieves, and avoids killing his wife and son because of a misunderstanding upon first appearances.
And I thought to myself, "Huh! Those are good pieces of advice," until I started looking at how I've lived just today.
- I ask about everything that doesn't concern me. I love stories.
- Don't get distracted from your chosen path? What if you forgot to choose one in the first place?
- The last one, let's say I follow it. One out of three is a start.
I closed the book and realized my terrible choice in reading posture had caused both of my feet to fall asleep. I wiggled one, stamped the other and moved along.
Next up, the blue and white train! The Sunshine Express. I've been acquainted with all of the employees so I sidled up and said "Kalimera!" My wasn't I the social one today.
"How are you!?" Said Adriano, the train's ticket seller.
Pointing down at my gorey toe, "Well I've got a new hole..."
"Oh no! We're fixing it now." Just like that a first aid kit was coming out of the driver's cabin. A flurry of Iodine and cotton and suddenly my toe was neatly packaged in a little brown band aid. Off I went.
Finally back to my corner of Athens, Voulis Street, where I see Panos of Acropolis House, George, Vangelis, owner of Deseos...
Then a good meal at Mitso's taverna, eating horta in olive oil and lemon juice, ground eggplant with garlic, horiatiki with a big slab of feta (you might remember a prior entry where I said I would start minimizing this. You forgot it? Yes, so did I.) All while being entertained with old Mitso in his saucer-sized eyeglasses and his hunch backed wife in a flowered dress, screaming at each other in Greek. "Woman, why did you put them at that table? I told you it was reserved!" "Go to hell! It was the only table open..."
I asked George if he thought they had ever been in love.
"Oh, they can't live without each other!" he said in genuine earnestness.
And finally a little bicycle ride to the orange and green. This part is so good it deserves it's own entry. Besides, I've been writing for two hours off and on and I'd really like to get back to Ellen Cherry Charles in Skinny Legs and All before drifting off to sleep.
To end where I started, I said this day had everything I was looking for. What I've been missing lately is relationships. Discovery. Being alone without being lonely. Perfect weather. A still, inner peace. The notion that you haven't been walled in, that you're not in a cage, that there is still more to explore. That you can still be well and happy if everything around you falls to smoke and ashes, and lastly, a couple of concrete facts to help you deal with all of the ambiguity in the world. Example: My daddy called me at two in the morning just to say "hey."
True, I didn't detail how the little adventures of today lead me to some of these grander conclusions but you will just have to trust me that without them I couldn't have concluded anything.
I've said that I hope to become still in spite of the waves. I've said that I'm looking for this country to teach me to be a little tougher, to stand on my own legs. I'm learning that to achieve these things, you must build yourself a strong foundation AND a network of support... and I think I might be rambling at this point. Look, I'm just happy. I have a little clarity for once. Sort of.
I'm going to bed.
This morning I knew was my only free day to go and refresh my knowledge for an upcoming walking tour, but it was May 1. No one even emerged from their houses until 1pm. The streets were empty and the sun was out... everything was in agreement: today was not a day for work, but foolishly I thought I could push on.
First interruption: My father called. This was at ten in the morning meaning some indecent hour in the USA. I was standing in the middle of Monistiraki square, just over the ancient reservoir housed in glass, amidst the pigeons and the fruit vendors and the beggars and street performers. No matter how technology advances, it never ceases to amaze me to get a call from Magnolia Texas when I'm in a setting such as this one.
We didn't have a great connection the first and second attempts, and while I was waiting for him to redial my already overactive imagination was running wild with the reasons for a call at such an hour on their end, but when he finally made it through, a croaky, groggy father just missed his daughter, happened to be up, (has an excellent phone plan) and wanted to chat a little. I sat back on the glass covering the ancient reservoir, there in front of the old mosque and the "little" monistary and we talked about race cars, upcoming adventures, the ruined Gulf of Mexico and the miserable state of Louisiana, the development of my (very) little niece, 100 day challenges... not much else. Pretty soon he realized he was very tired and we exchanged terms of endearment, closing the phones.
I sat there, glowing for just a minute, then tried to get back on track. Right. Walking tour refresher. I started out... in a different direction. I don't know why, but suddenly I was thinking, "Maybe I could do something a bit different. I want to go see the Keraimakos cemetary." Which indeed, would be a very nice place to see on a walking tour, but impossibly far from all of the other very nice things I've organized and tested long ago. This was occurring to me with each step, but soon there I was in front of the Ancient Athenian cemetary, named after the son of the God of Wine and the Daughter of King Minos, and the patron of Potters. Keraimakos, Ceramics, you see? It is such a beautiful setting. A HUGE Spread of ancient tombstones and statues honoring the mysterious passage from one life to the next. Apparently there used to be little statues and tablets put inside of the caskets, curses created by special magicians directed at those already passed. They were made of lead to speed them down to Hades. I thought, "that's serious business, cursing the dead." It says a lot about the ancients belief in the afterlife.. and all of this was going through my head when my feet took me left instead of straight and I started up a bridge. Why? I don't know.
So I went over the bridge and through a new neighborhood I've never seen before. A quiet, classy neighborhood that is home to "friends of the bicycle" which I am now enthusiastically researching. On my way to investigate their sign, however, I crashed my bare toe, dangling out of my stylish gold sandal (smart as a choice for a day devoted to walking) straight into a broken concrete post. Wow was it putting out some impressive, black blood. Whatever. Took down the website address from the sign and pressed on until I found myself back in the familiar territory of Thissiou and the parking lot sized pedestrian road of Apostolou Pavlou, stuffed with cafe tables and idle coffee drinkers, cigarette smokers, laissaiz philosophers...
Hobbling now and getting beaten down by the intensity of the sun, I passed Vrahakia, a taverna where we've occasionally taken clients because of the pleasant and flexible chef and owner, Christos. Passed it, thinking of him, and then my feet turned right around and walked all the way through the door and up to the kitchen. I was really not in control of anything today.
Still early, he wasn't busy and indicated to a table near the kitchen, grabbing his coffee and his ashtray and ordering the woman still busy at the prepratory work to make me an Hellniko cafe, or Greek coffee.
Conversation turned to the Ancient Greeks. Christos believes everything about them, mostly that they were the most advanced civilization. Ever.
Some Greek people that I've spoken with believe that the Ancient Greeks were the ONLY advanced civilization. Not that the others didn't exist, but that they were actually Greeks. Meaning: Ancient Egyptians? Greeks. Mayans? Greeks. Chinese? " "
So I delicately asked Christos if this was his theory also, swatting away at the judgemental voices in my mind.
"Look, it's simple. Civilization started and people slowly started to move. They went to the north, the west, the east, but the most clever ones came here because the weather is perfect."
It's very difficult to argue with this logic!
I interpreted it as that he acknowledged that there were other great civilizations, but obviously the ones that chose the prettiest water, the nicest spring, the mildest winter, are the ones who had the best heads on their shoulders.
I thanked him for the coffee and continued on my "path," which lead me to an old book seller. Not pressed for time, no one expecting me for anything, I hunkered down and flipped one by one the collected postcards from years past, the black and white photographs, the Greek comic books, and then I saw a tattered, water color illustrated childrens book in English. "Greek Folk Tales: The Good Advice"
I'm going to tell it to you here:
There was once a very poor man who had to find a way to feed his wife and small son, so he left for a bigger town and appealed to a very rich man for work.
"Yes you can work for me, but I will hold onto your wages or you'll squander them." So the man had no choice. He worked for the rich man until ten years had gone by. Finally he asked for his wages.
The rich man thought and thought. "Shall I give him one hundred? No it's far too much. But so is fifty. Is his work worth ten?" And finally he said to the man, "I'm giving you three pounds. I'll give you three more if you work another ten years." But the man was poor, not stupid, so he took the three pounds and started on the road home, despondant.
On his way he passed an old hermit sitting on a rock.
"Give me a pound and I'll give you a good piece of advice!" said the hermit.
Well, thought the man, I'm a poor man with three pounds and I'll be no poorer with two. So he gave the man a pound.
"Don't ask about things that do not concern you. Now give me another pound and I'll tell you advice even more valuable than the first."
And the man thought, I'm poor with two coins and will be no more poor with one, so he gave the hermit another pound.
"Stay on the path you've chosen and don't get lead astray. Now give me another pound and I'll tell you a final piece of advice more valuable than the first and second combined."
The man thought, I'm poor with one coin and there is absolutely no difference with having one and having none at all, so he gave the coin.
"If you get angry at night, don't act until morning's light, and that is my final piece of advice."
The man ends up learning by some very clear cut, folk-talish situations (meeting a giant hanging gold on a lemon tree, passing up a group of laughing men going into a tavern, coming home and his wife not recognizing him) that the man's advice is worth much more than he paid for it. He comes home rich, managed to avoid being mixed up with a gang of thieves, and avoids killing his wife and son because of a misunderstanding upon first appearances.
And I thought to myself, "Huh! Those are good pieces of advice," until I started looking at how I've lived just today.
- I ask about everything that doesn't concern me. I love stories.
- Don't get distracted from your chosen path? What if you forgot to choose one in the first place?
- The last one, let's say I follow it. One out of three is a start.
I closed the book and realized my terrible choice in reading posture had caused both of my feet to fall asleep. I wiggled one, stamped the other and moved along.
Next up, the blue and white train! The Sunshine Express. I've been acquainted with all of the employees so I sidled up and said "Kalimera!" My wasn't I the social one today.
"How are you!?" Said Adriano, the train's ticket seller.
Pointing down at my gorey toe, "Well I've got a new hole..."
"Oh no! We're fixing it now." Just like that a first aid kit was coming out of the driver's cabin. A flurry of Iodine and cotton and suddenly my toe was neatly packaged in a little brown band aid. Off I went.
Finally back to my corner of Athens, Voulis Street, where I see Panos of Acropolis House, George, Vangelis, owner of Deseos...
Then a good meal at Mitso's taverna, eating horta in olive oil and lemon juice, ground eggplant with garlic, horiatiki with a big slab of feta (you might remember a prior entry where I said I would start minimizing this. You forgot it? Yes, so did I.) All while being entertained with old Mitso in his saucer-sized eyeglasses and his hunch backed wife in a flowered dress, screaming at each other in Greek. "Woman, why did you put them at that table? I told you it was reserved!" "Go to hell! It was the only table open..."
I asked George if he thought they had ever been in love.
"Oh, they can't live without each other!" he said in genuine earnestness.
And finally a little bicycle ride to the orange and green. This part is so good it deserves it's own entry. Besides, I've been writing for two hours off and on and I'd really like to get back to Ellen Cherry Charles in Skinny Legs and All before drifting off to sleep.
To end where I started, I said this day had everything I was looking for. What I've been missing lately is relationships. Discovery. Being alone without being lonely. Perfect weather. A still, inner peace. The notion that you haven't been walled in, that you're not in a cage, that there is still more to explore. That you can still be well and happy if everything around you falls to smoke and ashes, and lastly, a couple of concrete facts to help you deal with all of the ambiguity in the world. Example: My daddy called me at two in the morning just to say "hey."
True, I didn't detail how the little adventures of today lead me to some of these grander conclusions but you will just have to trust me that without them I couldn't have concluded anything.
I've said that I hope to become still in spite of the waves. I've said that I'm looking for this country to teach me to be a little tougher, to stand on my own legs. I'm learning that to achieve these things, you must build yourself a strong foundation AND a network of support... and I think I might be rambling at this point. Look, I'm just happy. I have a little clarity for once. Sort of.
I'm going to bed.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Breakfast with Orfeo
I love the mornings. I’ve always loved them, everywhere I am. When I wake up and the silt of the dream of night turns into the absurd thoughts of the dream of the waking day, and the air is fresh and new and the birds are chattering away in thoughtless conversation, I get to start thinking “Breakfast.”
Today it consisted of my Nescafe with milk in an Acropolis museum mug, egg and tomato fried in olive oil over twice baked, hard as a rock, Cretan rusk with oregano and basil, a little cheese, five olives, and three dried mangoes given by Filappino tourists as a “tip”
While I eat, I take the pesky thoughts that are boring their way through my brain, one by one, and I decide which ones count. The tedious things on my illusory “to-do” list. The paintings I haven’t painted. The friends I haven’t written. I catch them, like little firebugs, and put them in jars to observe them and decide, “shall I deal with you today? Or shall I not?”
Today I happened to have in front of my a French art magazine and my laptop. My fellow one hundred dayer captured doves outside his house after his morning ride. I closed my eyes and I was in Texas, hearing the occasional squall of the sharp-eyed grackel cutting into the cloud of coos. It finished, I finished (breakfast) and slowly turned the pages of my magazine. I traveled across Africa, Paris, India, and Russia without leaving my breakfast table. I saw details of intricately carved flowers in the marble walls of the Taj Mahal, the glass and iron dome of the salon d’ atomne, the extraterrestrial wooden horseman as envisioned by a craftsman from Niger, until I stopped with a sharp intake of breath at this preliminary drawing of the death of Orpheus by Gustav Dore.
The doves outside of my kitchen walls mixed with the high chirp of wiley sparrows, and I asked myself, "what's missing?" A deep baseline, strumming slowly, unpredictable chord progressions in polite accompaniment to their chorus filled my mind. I got goose bumps.
My own composition to trick Hades into letting me bring back my beloved.
Then, I had to listen:
Today it consisted of my Nescafe with milk in an Acropolis museum mug, egg and tomato fried in olive oil over twice baked, hard as a rock, Cretan rusk with oregano and basil, a little cheese, five olives, and three dried mangoes given by Filappino tourists as a “tip”
While I eat, I take the pesky thoughts that are boring their way through my brain, one by one, and I decide which ones count. The tedious things on my illusory “to-do” list. The paintings I haven’t painted. The friends I haven’t written. I catch them, like little firebugs, and put them in jars to observe them and decide, “shall I deal with you today? Or shall I not?”
Today I happened to have in front of my a French art magazine and my laptop. My fellow one hundred dayer captured doves outside his house after his morning ride. I closed my eyes and I was in Texas, hearing the occasional squall of the sharp-eyed grackel cutting into the cloud of coos. It finished, I finished (breakfast) and slowly turned the pages of my magazine. I traveled across Africa, Paris, India, and Russia without leaving my breakfast table. I saw details of intricately carved flowers in the marble walls of the Taj Mahal, the glass and iron dome of the salon d’ atomne, the extraterrestrial wooden horseman as envisioned by a craftsman from Niger, until I stopped with a sharp intake of breath at this preliminary drawing of the death of Orpheus by Gustav Dore.
The doves outside of my kitchen walls mixed with the high chirp of wiley sparrows, and I asked myself, "what's missing?" A deep baseline, strumming slowly, unpredictable chord progressions in polite accompaniment to their chorus filled my mind. I got goose bumps.
My own composition to trick Hades into letting me bring back my beloved.
Then, I had to listen:
Friday, April 23, 2010
PS
I didn't miss a day. For some reason unbeknownst to me, my "recording" was posted on March 26th. I believe it might have something to do with the fact that I was starting on a post I'd never finished!
It's called Crisis
and can be read by clicking on the purple writing with the underscore that says "crisis."
Now, onto the next,
I want to start by writing a short love letter to my Ολγμπος, Στραγγιστὀς γιαὀυρτι. My bucket of 2 percent, Greek yogurt, that I might dip my big spoon into, oh, one, two, five times a day.
Dear γιαὀυρτι,
You are so creamy, tart, nourishing, decadent, innocent... and I know you love me as much as I love you because I feel healthier AFTER you’ve allowed me to partake of your thick, silky, probiotic filled spoonful than I did before. You’re so good to me. Even after we are through with our delighting in each other and I am longingly, remissantly scraping the bucket, you say, “Paige, please, take of my bucket and use it for your paints!”
And this... is love.
Thank you for all of the times you’ve let me dress you with cinnamon and honey. Thank you for all of the times I don’t even bother with a bowl. My most sincere appreciation for how wonderful you taste on top of a biscuit and how you help me digest a big, Greek meal.
For all of this and more, for now, forever, γιαὀυρτι, Ι λοβ γου.
I'm glad that's out of the way. I've been meaning to say it for a long time.
XRONIA POLA to all of the George's out there! There's quite a few in my life. I collected four or five while I was in limbo waiting to make my grand debut in Greece, and now I have one or two more just by hanging around. I'm going to opt out of the little cakes this time. Once again, a diet of bread, cheese, and olive oil, while delicious and healthy, is sneakily gathering forces from inside and collecting around my middle, ready to start building a little stripmall where it can hang out and relax. Seems climbing mountains and bicycle riding isn't enough to keep the population count down. Not a surprise that I can't eat like a boy just because I'm as active as one, but it's not fair, either.
Easy enough to curb. I just have to ignore the delicious village bread offered in baskets at every table I sit at, politely decline on the condensed milk the kind people in the cafeterias (coffee places) offer to pour into my coffee, and skip on the beautiful little cakes that are lethally imbued with sugar, mastica and honey, offered on name days.
Feta cheese by the teaspoon instead of the ladle.
Olive oil by the tablespoon instead of the teacup.
No problem.
But I might have to start tomorrow. For today, I'm going to celebrate Steve's birthday, George's name day, and the start of our new entrepreneurial enterprise with the office which means:
Wine by the kilo
Fried calimari, zucchini, tzatziki, and potatoes
saganaki and grilled tomatoes
Grilled sardines
Horta, or greens soaked in lemon and olive oil
stuffed mushrooms
and these are just the things I want. Who knows what the "Name" and the "Birthday" are going to request. Lamb? Sausage? Feta by the ladle?
I'm prospecting that as we intend to start at 3, I'll be wrapping it up and peddling home by 8:30. In a way it's useful getting all of one's eating out of the way in a five hour block of time. I mean you have all of the morning to be productive and all of the evening to digest.
I have my trusty yogurt...
It's called Crisis
and can be read by clicking on the purple writing with the underscore that says "crisis."
Now, onto the next,
I want to start by writing a short love letter to my Ολγμπος, Στραγγιστὀς γιαὀυρτι. My bucket of 2 percent, Greek yogurt, that I might dip my big spoon into, oh, one, two, five times a day.
Dear γιαὀυρτι,
You are so creamy, tart, nourishing, decadent, innocent... and I know you love me as much as I love you because I feel healthier AFTER you’ve allowed me to partake of your thick, silky, probiotic filled spoonful than I did before. You’re so good to me. Even after we are through with our delighting in each other and I am longingly, remissantly scraping the bucket, you say, “Paige, please, take of my bucket and use it for your paints!”
And this... is love.
Thank you for all of the times you’ve let me dress you with cinnamon and honey. Thank you for all of the times I don’t even bother with a bowl. My most sincere appreciation for how wonderful you taste on top of a biscuit and how you help me digest a big, Greek meal.
For all of this and more, for now, forever, γιαὀυρτι, Ι λοβ γου.
I'm glad that's out of the way. I've been meaning to say it for a long time.
XRONIA POLA to all of the George's out there! There's quite a few in my life. I collected four or five while I was in limbo waiting to make my grand debut in Greece, and now I have one or two more just by hanging around. I'm going to opt out of the little cakes this time. Once again, a diet of bread, cheese, and olive oil, while delicious and healthy, is sneakily gathering forces from inside and collecting around my middle, ready to start building a little stripmall where it can hang out and relax. Seems climbing mountains and bicycle riding isn't enough to keep the population count down. Not a surprise that I can't eat like a boy just because I'm as active as one, but it's not fair, either.
Easy enough to curb. I just have to ignore the delicious village bread offered in baskets at every table I sit at, politely decline on the condensed milk the kind people in the cafeterias (coffee places) offer to pour into my coffee, and skip on the beautiful little cakes that are lethally imbued with sugar, mastica and honey, offered on name days.
Feta cheese by the teaspoon instead of the ladle.
Olive oil by the tablespoon instead of the teacup.
No problem.
But I might have to start tomorrow. For today, I'm going to celebrate Steve's birthday, George's name day, and the start of our new entrepreneurial enterprise with the office which means:
Wine by the kilo
Fried calimari, zucchini, tzatziki, and potatoes
saganaki and grilled tomatoes
Grilled sardines
Horta, or greens soaked in lemon and olive oil
stuffed mushrooms
and these are just the things I want. Who knows what the "Name" and the "Birthday" are going to request. Lamb? Sausage? Feta by the ladle?
I'm prospecting that as we intend to start at 3, I'll be wrapping it up and peddling home by 8:30. In a way it's useful getting all of one's eating out of the way in a five hour block of time. I mean you have all of the morning to be productive and all of the evening to digest.
I have my trusty yogurt...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
My Daily Bread
SCHLACK
goes the doors of the train. I'm sitting inside on a green bench, an American, next to who looks like a Venezuelan, across from a Pakistani who is next to an African.
Two dark Greeks sit across from the African...the level of darkness that comes from years of mixing with the moors, the Turks, the Balkans.
I have a loaf of bread in my backpack that I stood in a crowded forno to get, looking at the rows of loaves speckled in powder, oblivious to the differences between them as more knowledgeable ladies made their choices confidantly (and quickly) from behind. If I could have spoken the language, if the bakery had not been as crowded as church on Easter Sunday (when the pagans go) I might have asked for what I was really after:
"I would like a bread to slice for breakfast and have with butter and jam, or honey on some days when I feel like it. Something that will fill me but not too heavy...a darker flour."
But as it was I could just look confused and point, reading out a sign that said "village bread." The woman held up a loaf for my approval and I nodded, waiting until I'd paid the sixty cents and was safely outside before I examined my purchase. It was beautiful. Round, dusty with white flour, uneven... the kind they take pictures of to make you nostalgic for the sort of place you buy your bread at a neighborhood bakery. Oh the lies we all have stuffed in our heads!! Buying food is perhaps the most stressful aspect of life in Greece.
I spent, on average, two hours at the grocery store in the States because I loved browsing the aisles, delighting in the epicurean labels, and my favorite was the international food aisle! Imagine. Now I spend on average one hour, and it's because I can't read the labels at all and also the produce scale. (cue a woman screaming.) This is the stuff that nightmares are made of. You have to remember the number of what you're buying and repeat it to yourself all the way to the scale. If you've managed to remember it you then have to find the number amongst the others that are just under the corresponding picture of the produce you're buying. And here you might say, "well Paige, that sounds very organized and user friendly!"
LIES!
The pictures just make it altogether more confusing because they're terrible pictures of unrecognizable vegetables. It's an apple or it's a tomato? This is spinach or horta, or romaine lettuce? Oh, there is no romaine lettuce? Why is there no romaine lettuce? And once I made the mistake of trying to ask someone. She yelled at me, grabbed the lettuce out of my hand and put it back.
I guess I didn't want lettuce after all.
Later I discovered that somethings are so commonly purchased there are no numbers for them. They weigh them at the counter in this scenario, but this is a dicey bet because if it just happens that there is no number there and it's NOT a commonly bought item, they'll yell at you at the counter, and this is in front of a line full of people who might also start yelling or at least it's very clear they would like to.
I've started buying my produce at the street market because mostly these are run by Albanian boys who seem to like me more than the Greek girls, go figure. Even better than service with a smile is that they weigh the lettuce for me.
goes the doors of the train. I'm sitting inside on a green bench, an American, next to who looks like a Venezuelan, across from a Pakistani who is next to an African.
Two dark Greeks sit across from the African...the level of darkness that comes from years of mixing with the moors, the Turks, the Balkans.
I have a loaf of bread in my backpack that I stood in a crowded forno to get, looking at the rows of loaves speckled in powder, oblivious to the differences between them as more knowledgeable ladies made their choices confidantly (and quickly) from behind. If I could have spoken the language, if the bakery had not been as crowded as church on Easter Sunday (when the pagans go) I might have asked for what I was really after:
"I would like a bread to slice for breakfast and have with butter and jam, or honey on some days when I feel like it. Something that will fill me but not too heavy...a darker flour."
But as it was I could just look confused and point, reading out a sign that said "village bread." The woman held up a loaf for my approval and I nodded, waiting until I'd paid the sixty cents and was safely outside before I examined my purchase. It was beautiful. Round, dusty with white flour, uneven... the kind they take pictures of to make you nostalgic for the sort of place you buy your bread at a neighborhood bakery. Oh the lies we all have stuffed in our heads!! Buying food is perhaps the most stressful aspect of life in Greece.
I spent, on average, two hours at the grocery store in the States because I loved browsing the aisles, delighting in the epicurean labels, and my favorite was the international food aisle! Imagine. Now I spend on average one hour, and it's because I can't read the labels at all and also the produce scale. (cue a woman screaming.) This is the stuff that nightmares are made of. You have to remember the number of what you're buying and repeat it to yourself all the way to the scale. If you've managed to remember it you then have to find the number amongst the others that are just under the corresponding picture of the produce you're buying. And here you might say, "well Paige, that sounds very organized and user friendly!"
LIES!
The pictures just make it altogether more confusing because they're terrible pictures of unrecognizable vegetables. It's an apple or it's a tomato? This is spinach or horta, or romaine lettuce? Oh, there is no romaine lettuce? Why is there no romaine lettuce? And once I made the mistake of trying to ask someone. She yelled at me, grabbed the lettuce out of my hand and put it back.
I guess I didn't want lettuce after all.
Later I discovered that somethings are so commonly purchased there are no numbers for them. They weigh them at the counter in this scenario, but this is a dicey bet because if it just happens that there is no number there and it's NOT a commonly bought item, they'll yell at you at the counter, and this is in front of a line full of people who might also start yelling or at least it's very clear they would like to.
I've started buying my produce at the street market because mostly these are run by Albanian boys who seem to like me more than the Greek girls, go figure. Even better than service with a smile is that they weigh the lettuce for me.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Motorcycle Tiropita
Tiropita on a motorcycle
At the time of writing this I am across the street from Ariston bakery at a noodlehouse called "Yum Yum." I spent 6.80 on a bowl of Shang Hai Noodles and a bottle of water. I wish I had spent 1.80 on a mushroom pie.
Voulis Street is narrow, crowded by two inadequate sidwalks stuffed with skinny trees, scooters, sock shops, lamp shade shops, and "wiry thing" shops as my mother loathingly calls the places where you buy modern necessities like PDA's, IBM's, RCA's, LG's, Mp3's, R2D2's, MI6, NBA... and in spite of how much I prefer to go into a simple mom and pop shop where electric kettles are stacked on top of televisions and towers of cardboard boxes make their way to the ceiling, sometimes it's easier to go to the major corporate store. One such shop in Athens is called "Plessio." It's American equivalent is something between Circuit City and Office Depot, but bigger. Six floors of gadgets you didn't know you needed with corresponding accessories hanging adascent to each. One day I needed a navigational system because George told me so. He delivers these instructions like a holy mission:
"You will go and find a GPS."
I went first to a big box store near my mystic pocket under Syngrou Avenue. A soul-less enterprise (as in, I stared at the GPS devices for forty five minutes and never saw a soul that might sell me one) I moved next to one located in the city center. I met a boy in black glasses who carefully described to me each and every GPS device within my price range. Happy and confidant, brimming with knowlege about navigation in general, I made my selection. He ran to retrieve it from that secret place known as 'the back' and came back empty handed, shoulders slumped.
"Then ekhoume." (we don't have.)
The adventure continues. I leave Sintagma Square, heading down the narrow little street of Voulis with Plessio in mind.
There is a bakery on Voulis that puts out tiropita, or "cheese pies" in such volumes that it perfumes three whole blocks with the aroma of baked butter. I wish I had a motorcycle just so that I could have a place to sit and eat my hot pie from this bakery. I first read about it in a travel book which declared it to be the BEST place for tiropita. It is consumed by Greeks, typically, between the hours of eleven and three p.m. as some subsitution for one of the meals they chose to ignore, be it breakfast or lunch. You can find them on every block, so it occured to me that travel guide could not possibly have tried them all. How accurate is the statement that Ariston's pies were the best? Shouldn't someone put this into a scientific evaluation?
So I tried seveal pies in seveal places, mostly tiropitas and spanakopitas or "spinach pies" Once I tried leek but I didn't like it. And I'm not saying the cheese pies alone are to blame but eventually realized the truth to the adage, "you are what you eat," and was starting to feel a little like a cheese pie, and all the walking in the great hunt of the city's best tiropita was not enough to counter this effect. The mission was abandoned.
So this time that I was walking down Voulis Street I went past Ariston Bakery and made a conscious effort to strongly pass by and go directly into Plessio. I met there, on the second floor, a boy with a low brow, bad complexion, and not a lot of "spark" if you get me. But okay, he was there.
"Kalispera?" Which means "Good Afternoon," but the way he said it it might have been more like a reactionary twitch, Tourette's style, raising his tone on the last syllable like a non-committal parrot.
I pointed to the same model the boy with the black glasses had so carefully detailed for me to which he nodded, and kept nodding, and kept nodding, and then he looked at me and said in broken English, "Yes but we don't have it. Kalispera?"
(This time it was not addressed to me but to the girls that were in the nearby vicinity.)
And I faltered. But without changing the expression on his face he asked
"I could sell you this one?"
Oh! Floor model! Which means a bargain, and he took ten euros off the price, gave three more reactionary "kalisperas" to four more people who came into his sphere of conciousness, and I was happy and went home with my new friend the talking dashboard GPS.
George and I tested it out on the way to Killini, a port a few hours away from Athens where we were to pick up some clients that had been looking at wildflowers on an Ionian island. There were a few issues: One is that I hadn't counted on George preferring English type. "So you can read it also!" And several other tedious details that usually accompany one of these gizmos, giving directions being the primary one.
The next week I tried to get some answers from the GPS provider, Mr. Kalispera.
"Kalispera?" he reacted as I waved at him, allowing him space to continue with the person in front of him. The minutes passed and I positioned myself a little closer, doing a very American thing by just trying to get his attention through proximity and meaningful gazes, which did not work.
"Excuse me, maybe you remember me I was here the other day and bought this GPS? I have some questions..."
"Kalispera?"
"What?"
"Mmm? So you bought this here?"
"Yes, from you. I just have some-"
"Kalispera?"
"Some questions..."
"Sorry, one moment?"
And he took off in another direction for reasons known only by God and himself. I stood there, baffled, Greek speaking GPS in hand. Waited fifteen minutes for him to return but he did not, and I left with a frown.
Another trip passed where a functioning GPS would have been handy and I resolved to make one last attempt, but I would need to go in with good spirits and a full belly and that meant succumbing to Ariston's. At four pm, most of he shelves had been cleared save for four varieties: Leek, beef, cheese, and mushroom. It comes in mushroom? I paid the one euro eighty and turned left outside the door, tempted to just "borrow" the motorcyle of someone else for immediate gratification. I looked for a step, a bench, anything, and finally I caved and just poitioned my bulging backpack against the wall and crossed my boots at the ankles.
This was my five minutes in heaven. Stuffed with limp, buttery mushrooms, rice and onions that leaked out like magma from it's flaky enclave, it spilled into the white paper bag so that by the time I'd finished the pie I began sucking up the reserves. I think now I can say that I don't care who has the best pies, because knowing this one exists I can deal with all of the Plessio automatons of the world. Any activity is manageable when you've buffered yourself with the right drug.
What is funny is that while writing this, on the paper covering my table at "Yum Yum," I have observed the rotating flow of pie-holes coming directly out of Ariston's and positioning oneself against the wall is customary, save for a few that choose to eat on their motorcycles or are borrowing someone else's with less scruples than I.
Friday, January 9, 2009
My Greek Education
"Why Greece?"
This was the question posed to me by Stamos, bass player to "Defile des Ames" and new friend. I urgled something about how I liked it here and I'd been learning the language and yadda yadda, but it didn't satisfy his question, so he asked it again. I think actually he had to ask three times, and finally I brought in all of the dirt.
Love, the sea, the mystical signs of the universe, and instead of reacting with skepticism he just nodded thoughtfully and winked.
"Bravo."
Which is very Greek.
This discussion was held at a bar that is very unlikely for the 29 year-old Paige to be seen in, but those of you who remember the Doc Marten, black lipstick wearing Paige of the days when Seattle was the coolest city on the universe and Kurt Cobain was god, well, she would be very impressed. The name of the bar is 'Underworld" and most people have seen this sort of place in action movies. In this scene the hero goes straight through the throng of spike-haired, chain wearing, trench coated goths that are thrashing around to pulsing bass drum and lyrics about "death and blackness, blackness everywhere, in your hair, which is dead..."(I just made those up but I bet if you google them they're in a song played at Underworld,) through the chain fence and past the mohawked bouncer to the little door where he's going to go converse with the resident hacker or techie genius, or maybe a villain who's sitting around a table with a bunch of Chinese prostitutes...
This is that bar, and I was there looking very cute in my yellow sweater from Anthropologie and sketching these two girls who looked like carbon copies of the same theme: Morticia Adams after too many Ho-ho's. There was an excellent documentary about Alexander Crowley playing on the overhead and as I
mentioned, I was there with friends. Manos DJ's here as well as the little whiskey bar, Low Profile. The crowd and the music is entirely different but doubly entertaining for me, the observer.Stamos, Manos and I celebrated New Year's eve on top of the rock of the Acropolis. From our vantage point we could see all of the fireworks displays of the city happening at the same time. I had Tom Waits playing "Hold On' on my little iphone speakers and we had champagne and chocolates, courtesy of Stamos. We smashed our glasses on the rock, making a wish before leaving the rock and entering into the new year.
I ended up going back to the same rock the next day by way of wandering with another sort of one-day-only friend named Panagiotis. Everything was closed so we just climbed up the hill and took in the view of the squillions of concrete buildings stitched into the valley, blue mountains all around.
"We have destroyed this land," said he, squinting and frowning and using a lot of hand motions to emphasize his point.
It is interesting that this ancient city with it's temples and shrines and history is also one with unbelievable amounts of graffiti! The tradition goes way back, I believe, with what is essentially "Antonio was here" carved into some of the Doric columns by Roman sentries, and of course Lord Byron made his mark during his stay, in more ways than one. Historians would probably see it as a disgrace, all of this defacing of monuments and architecture, but sociologists might argue that this is very in keeping with Athenian tradition of anarchy and saying "FU" to the gods. The other remarkable thing about the graffiti here is how colorful and positive it is in spite of the black views most Greek citizens have of the state of their country. Every single on
e that I have interviewed has mentioned how they don't approve of the Greek mentality, the backwards thinking, the corrupt religion and politicians, and yet when they speak of their traditions, literature, language...this is a love cemented 
by blood and time.Not knowing the language is getting to me. I feel left out of the club and a little bit stupid. For every time I congratulate myself for knowing how to say something simple, like "A little more, please," I'm baffled when someone expects me to know how to say what it is I want more of! Some mornings I spend an hour or two over breakfast with a newspaper and Panos, the owner of the hotel. I carefully read out the headlines and he corrects me on my pronunciation. If I'm feeling very ambitious I try to understand what it is that I'm reading, but when I ask what a particular word means, Panos more often than not, has to launch into ancient mythology and folkloric concepts to help me with a definition. From what I gather at this point, most Hellenic language is rooted more in stories and metaphors than direct meaning. For instance, the word that is frequently thrown around for "terrorist" in the headlines, what with the riots, is "koukoula" or hood, cowl, and very similar to the word for cocoon and kernel and anything else that is closing in or protecting something. Quite possibly this is also true of English and I have never looked at it with fresh eyes to understand the connection between roots and meanings, but what a tangled language I've chosen, and this after ten years of flirting with Spanish. I still can't order a taco without pointing to the menu!
One morning I was studying over my "Speak Greek!" cheap-n-easy phrase book for tourists, trying to learn some adjectives I could use for expressing myself. I learned the word for "pretty" is "O-morfos," and that the word for "ugly" is "A-skimos." I learned the word for "terrible" is "fove-ROS" but could not find the word for something that would be the opposite of terrible. Something more than "Kala" (good) something really really great. So I asked Jasmine as she breezed by,
"What would the word be for something really really great? Something awesome?"
She looked down at my notepad where I was writing these words and pointed to "fove-ROS."
"Neh, that one. That means "really good."
"But that's not right, the book says it means terrible!"
"And that's what you get from learning a language from your books!" and left.
So the book is out. Panos has paired me up with two of the figures in his world that need to learn English and we spend maybe an hour a day each trying to communicate. One is a small, quiet guy named Takis. We usually meet at the coffee shop down the street where he hangs out and plays computerized poker. He actually owns another coffee shop near the university but for some reason he's always at this one. He's fluent in French but never paid much attention to English, and so we spend a lot of time staring blankly at each other, lacking even the words for "What is the word for..."
The other is an employee, a cleaner and cook at the hotel, named Rula. She's brassy and hot and is the reason I know a lot of bad words. She chooses to spend our conversations finding out about my sex life and telling me gossip about the "gang" that is the group of men in Panos's social circle, who on occasion invites me to a two hour long lunch of keftathakia (meatballs) patatas (potatas) bread, zucchini, wine, apples and bananas fried with ouzo and mastik, fava beans, octopus...
And there is the other love of the Greeks. They can spend the entire two hours slamming their government (and everyone else's for that matter) and I can't help but wonder how the attitude of the whole country would shift if they chose instead to talk about how incredible their food tasted, how much they love their wine, what they want to eat tomorrow or what they might have tasted today if they had not stuffed themselves like little "tiropitas" (cheese pies.) If they ran out of adjectives they could switch to metaphors, talking of food as the fruit of unrealized potential, all encompassed in one word with a lot of consonants. Probably "K."
"The good thing about Greece: Men pay."
This was actually from a Greek girl named Nelly as I tried to pay for a drink and her boyfriend insisted on paying for the both of us. It's a welcome change of culture, but I try not to take advantage of it too often as the food here is sort of ridiculous in cost. Fortunately for me the street food is equilateral in fantastictitude in economic sense, taste, and availability. For under three euro I have many many dining choices. My favorites are the aforementioned tiropites, from a bakery down the street, and souvlaki from a stand around the corner. A teensie-weensie taverna that is passed up by most tourists for it's size and sparse decor has chickpea and lemon soup served with feta in oil and a giant piece of brown bread for five euro. Damn the noveau-riche hippies for making salads so trendy and thereby so outrageously expensive because every once and a while I think that if I don't find some green I'm going to wither and die, but the Greeks have one of the longest life expectancies in Europe, so I'm not going to worry about it just now.
And who knows, maybe I will find one of these Greek boyfriends that insists on paying for my fifteen euro salad. I read once about a woman who started accepting every offer she got for a date because she was so tired of being single. She kept a chronicle and made it into a book because some of the results were so entertaining. One time she was invited to go riding around with an ice cream man in his truck, for instance. Unfortunately I cannot do the same because the propositions here seem to be a little more involved. A street performer from Congo, named "Filo" invited me to come and live with him. A waiter at a taverna suggested I marry him, and an older gentleman at the next table waited until he left to say that marriage wasn't necessary. Perhaps I would just like to escort him to dinner and the occasional movie? Life would be very convenient if it weren't for all of those pesky morals and solid upbringing. Don't worry mom, I may have failed algebra, but I mastered the art of the diplomatic response as well as a cat-like agility in getting away from a hungry dog. All the same, you better keep those prayers coming.
I love my little hotel house. I'm including some photos so everyone can see how beautiful and cozy it is, as well as some pictures of Jasmine and Rula. I've been so blessed with matriarchal
characters throughout my life, women who exude strength and wisdom. In the past they have come in the form of my mother, my godmother, my enchilada lunch-partner, my belly-dancing instructor/coffee guru. These are the two in my life right now, granting me with daily lessons in how to stay in love with life. Sometimes in Greek, laced with bits of colorful profanity, because why not?
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