To market to market to buy a fat pig.....

Celery for sale - Tripoli market

On Wednesday and Saturday mornings in the towns of Tripoli and Sparti, which are each about 35 kilometres from us, there is a market. We have tried all the time periods and we prefer the Wednesday market in Sparti. While it does not have fish or a drapery stall, it does have wonderfully fresh produce and seems to us to be a little more genteel than Tripoli.

Get your tomatoes from the pretty lady in the Tripoli market

These are not the markets of the south of France   where cheeses, meats, olives and soaps are on offer alongside the farm fresh vegetables, but, as in France, we're beginning to have our favourite vendors.

Of course the season lasts longer here and we have fresh-from-the-ground vegetables that are long finished in Canada.We find the produce tastes terrific and tomatoes are one of the foods we enjoy the most. Not since my grandfather's green-house have I tasted such flavour. It is only this week that the neighbours in Karyes are pulling their plants out of the ground and our main vendor in Sparti prides himself in telling us that his tomatoes are not grown in a green-house but by the sea.

Greens for you?  .....in the Tripoli market

The greens are delicious and while we have been buying spinach that is tougher and older than what we pick from the garden in the summer or buy in the winter in the supermarket cello paks, we find it very tasty in a salad, sauteed in an omelette or stirred into a pasta. The cabbage is huge and seems to be less densely packed one leaf to another than ours. The other day while having lunch with very kindly people in our village, I watched her make a cole slaw. She cut the cabbage in half and then turned it on its non-flat side before shearing off the slivers on the diagonal with a bread knife. It was so tasty and so delicately presented that I tried it the next day and it worked beautifully - no Cuisinart needed.

Three generations of women sell  'horta' in the Tripoli market

Interestingly enough, Minas is enamoured with the greens called "horta" which are loosely translated as grasses. Basically they are dandelion greens of a variety of sorts and while the premium ones are collected from the wild, many farmers grow them as a cash crop. Antonia from Alaska told me that her grandmother grew them in her veggie patch in Arizona. And they are delicious. So watch out, neighbours. I may be on the prowl next summer for your dandelions. We have bought them every week in the market since we got here. Boiled up and served with olive oil and lemon, they are quite delicious. However this week we have our own 'agrio horta' - 'wild horta' - because our friend, Yota, 

Horta on Minas' plate at lunch

who took us on a walk, showed us where they grow and helped us collect a whole bag full from the mountain side. They are now washed and ready for cooking and eating. We have them in our outdoor fridge, also known as the balcony.  And the learning here is to never go for a walk along the mountain paths from the village without a plastic bag and a knife. Now, instead of just looking for decorative elements for the house, I am also foraging for food.

Oranges in the Sparti market

And then there is the fruit. The apples for my breakfast compote are 50 centimes a kilo and the old gent is finally smiling at me after 4 weeks of patronage. He really took offense when I brought my own plastic bag for the apples rather than take a new one from him. They use far too many plastic bags here and no one takes cloth bags to the market. The old lady who grows the tiny green grapes laughed when I asked her what the name of a bag was in Greek and then all kinds of women around the stall wanted to help me practice the word "sacula".

But it is the oranges at this time of the year that hang over the fences by the road-side that show up in the markets in all manner of sizes. I never tire of driving by the orchards and I am always astonished at how densely packed the trees are one to the other. So far, it is the tiny tangerines of the old gent in Sparti that I love the best.. There will be no need for boxes of imported mandarins for our Christmas celebrations. They will come fresh -picked from the local market.

We have been spoiled with eggs from our friends, Richard and Lynda, in Durham all summer long. Here again we were spoiled when our landlady gave us a gift of eggs from a friend but we have been unable to find a village source that will sell them to us. The chickens who live next door, apparently aren't producing enough.

We did buy eggs from this lady but she charged so much (tourist prices) that we did not return

 eggs for sale in the market in Aghios Petras

One old lady in the market had great looking eggs so we took our carton to buy six and were astonished that the price was 3 euros ---  here in a market where I can buy fruit and veg so much cheaper than at home. Her 75 cent eggs were good; but now we have found a nearby village  where one of the stores sells fresh local eggs. It always interests me that, unlike in Canada, eggs here are not refrigerated but they do look pretty in the basket.

And the potatoes in this area are exceptional. The local ones around our village are all spoken for as there is so little of the rich red earth to grow them and we have no "in" with a farmer. However, there are lots in the market from Sparti and from Tripoli. They are delicious cooked in the oven in olive oil and sprinkled with garlic and oregano, which also grows wild around here. The other day after our hike, Panayota and her husband, Vassily, invited us for lunch and what a feast it was.  Vassily has an enormous vegetable garden and was telling Minas that he was preparing for the "ekonomiko crisi".  Vassily's potatoes were so tasty, as was his wine, and the other day Yota showed up at the door with a gift of eggs, wine and potatoes. Now we, too, have Karyes potatoes and a lot more.

shopping in the sunshine in Sparti

We are waiting for the olive harvest because although we received a gift of 10 litres of olive oil from our landlady when we arrived (her family has trees not far from here), we have not yet found those kalamata olives we find so yummy back home. All that is for sale in the market are the fresh ones just off the tree. I think here they brine and prepare their olives at home; but I want mine already done and ready to pop into my mouth.

Not a week goes by without me buying eggplant, not the dark purple variety that we buy at home, but the delicately striped mauve and white variety . I just can't get enough of it, while Minas can't get enough of the small crisp cucumbers that are also on our weekly list.

But we cook very little in the way of meat. We save that part of our diet for our meals out except for one very special kind of pork. Across from the market in Tripoli is a restaurant that has a large glass case outside under which sits a whole side of pork.

Anyone for pork tonight?

You can buy pieces of this pork to take home and we have done just that on a few occasions. The outside fat, what my mother called "the crackling",  is so crisp and delicious, you have to ration yourself to stave off a sudden heart infarction that would be of your own making. The village cats love the leftovers.
So it really is .... to market to market, ... to buy lots of fresh veggies and just a little bit of that fat pig!

Deck the Halls

the first snow on the Taygetos Mountains above Sparti

 
Minas has been telling me for quite a while now that Greece is not so big on Christmas. Easter is the time of the year for festivities, he says. Of course, that just might be to avoid any participation in Christmas shopping - an activity he is not too fond of. Gifts? Bah, humbug!!
It is quite true that I have not felt any stress with the upcoming season, but that is more likely due to the fact that it is just me and Minas - no family, no friends no snow, no Canadian rituals of carols and sweets, no trees, or stockings or lights - well hardly any that is.

I had better watch it here or I am likely to fall into the blues. So, instead, I am searching for Christmas in any of its forms, here in Greece. Just sing Deck the Halls to yourself while you look at the pictures. 

large blue tree in a small platia in Sparti

 But perhaps Elvis might come to mind. Anyone for a "Blue Christmas"?
Sparti has embraced the notion in several sizes - megalo and micro.   

small blue trees at the main intersection of Sparti

dried flowers high on the cliff in Monemvasia

Just what do these have to do with Christmas? Well, there were masses of these dried flowers covering the cliff-side above the rocky island town of Monemvasia. I picked -- a lot! And now they adorn my Christmas tree and they look like this.....

Monemvasia flowers with berries and rose hips on our tree

a small table top creche outside a taverna in Aghios Petras

 And the Greeks haven't forgotten the real meaning of Christmas in their nativity scenes both small and humble and....................................

a life sized manger scene in the square of Sparti

 life sized and ornate!








And what signs of Christmas do we have here in "the independent republic of Karyes" as Minas calls it?

We have trees.........

Sophia's tree in her cafenion

     

Aphrodite's tree in her grocery market

and we have lights.................


The platia in Karyes at night

and of course we have really friendly folks that meet and greet you with "Kales Yortes", that happy holiday greeting.

So my search brings me right back home, for that is where you always find Christmas.
For weeks now, I have had that old Bing Crosby (or was it Frank Sinatra?) Christmas song on my mind - the one with the line " on my own front door". The rest of the lyrics are buried in some forgotten place in my brain but here indeed is my own front door.

And today, December 23rd, it snowed here in Karyes so we will have a white Christmas after all.

the road out of Karyes

Merry Christmas one and all!

When the Saints Go Marching in.......

The church of Aghios Andreas from the platia in Karyes

Rather than celebrate birthdays in Greece, the important thing to do is to celebrate your Saints Day. Aghia  Katarina day was November 25th this year and the custom is to treat other people to food, drinks and gifts. We were in Athens and I followed the custom but I am not sure I like sharing my special day with everyone else in Greece who shares the same name. However, in one of the stores, when I heard one of the girls call the other by name, "Katerina", I was able to wish her, "Chronia Pola". Although there are hundreds of saints, and enough days of the year to accommodate them, I guess you have to name your baby a traditional name. I am not sure there is a Saint Day for grandchildren, Cole and Paige. Maybe more hope for Rachel and Micah. Perhaps I will adopt the custom of celebrating my Saint's Day by treating others and my birthday by expecting others to treat me.

The bishop and priests on Aghias Andreas Day in the church of Karyes

Last Wednesday, November 30th  was Aghios Andreas Day, St Andrews Day. Because the main church in Karyes is called Aghios Andreas, it is an important day here. The bishop of Laconia presided over the service which began at 7:30 in the morning with the pealing of the bells to remind you of where you should be. We got there at 9 am but the real crowd showed up between 9:30 and ten o'clock.. Of course my first faux pas was to follow Minas to his seat. The women are supposed to sit on one side and the men on the other. Whoops! I quickly corrected that, finding a seat in the last row so that I could copy what the women in front of me were doing. I soon realized that I had missed a number of important rituals upon first entering the church. My trusty guide, and supposed authority on all things Greek, did not observe them either. Next time.....

the sermon on Saint Andrew's Day

Today was Aghios Nikalaos Day - Saint Nicholas, so appropriate for December 6th, and we had been invited to a monastery of the same name by one of the three nuns who live there, Sister Katerina. Up at six thirty for the one hour drive, we arrived just after 8: 30 am. The tiny church in the monastery grounds is exquisite and it was standing room only for the crowd of over one hundred people who showed up in dribs and drabs, closer to the end of the three hour service.

The priests bless the bread as the nuns of  Aghios Nikolaos look on

 This time, I handed over the cookies we had brought for the coffee party afterwards, slipped my offering into the slot, and picked up my candles, one for each grandchild. After lighting the candles, I stood quietly before the icon of Aghios Nikalaos, before finding a place on the correct side of the church. After the service,  pieces of an enormous round of delicious cake dusted with icing sugar are typically given out at the door of the church and a social time follows.

the tiny door to the tiny church

the tiny hill-top chapel of Karitena

There are tiny little churches all over the country-side, which,  I think, are a tribute to the faith of the people of Greece, but Minas attributes to ancient classical Greek habits. When we walked up to the ruined castle at Karitena, we found that the little church was unlocked and  in good repair.  A small table at the door was furnished with candles  and lamp oil as well as several euros lying in an open basket. We knew no better so we just admired the little building and continued on our way.

On Friday, Panayota, whom we met in the cafenion after the Aghios Andreas service, took us on a long and lovely walk to the tiny church of  Zoodochoo Peeyee, the life giving well. Over a hundred years ago, a monk had built the church and lived there.

We  prepare the oil lamps

Minas places the lit oil lamp in it

 Finally I understood the table with oil, candles, matches and offering basket in other tiny country churches we had visited. There, Panayota led us through the ceremony of lighting all the oil lamps, and wafting the incense under the saints' pictures. When we were finished and were sitting there, such a feeling of peace came over me.

This Sunday, I will go to church, not for any special Saints Day but for my mother. I don't think there is a Saints Day for Rachel despite her having a biblical name but to her family she was often a saint. I will light a candle, only one, to speed her on her way and to pray that we never forget Rachel: the mother, the grandmother and the great- grandmother. It seems fitting that this last picture is Sister Katerina of the monastery lighting a candle on Tuesday, December the 6th, the twins' first birthday and the day before my mother passed away. Godspeed, Mum. You will always be with us, in our hearts and in our memories.

Sister Katerina lights a candle in the monastery chapel on Aghios Nikalaos Day

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

Autumn on the road in the Peleponnese

While we are touring around the small mountain roads of the Peleponnese, Minas often sees something that reminds him of his youth. It may be a tree, a bush or a plant but it usually has something to do with eating. I am typically admiring the scenery, enchanted by the Fall colours and lost in a reverie of one kind or another. Then the car screeches to a halt, pitching me forward, and Minas says, " I just saw something" and leaps out of the car. I get no more information than that and I am left wondering whether this thing he saw is animal, vegetable or mineral.

What are these fruits?

This happened just the other day on a dirt road through the Taygetos Mountains.
Minas "saw something" and by the time my feet were on the ground he was deep into some bushes hung with tiny red fruit. As I reached him, he mumbled enthusiastically, despite the red juice dripping down his beard, "Have some -- they are delicious". But what are they? Will I be poisoned? ...... Is there the Greek equivilent of Montezuma's revenge on the horizon for me? .. maybe just a sore tummy and a lost night's sleep. Whatever! I dove right in and consumed a number of the mystery fruit. They were.... interesting!! Not terribly tasty but quite juicy and with a pleasant texture. They would have made a nice jam.

Minas shows the ones that he left

What were they? We asked and were told first that they were called "mura" in Greek. Later this was amended to " koumara". In any case the dictionary translated  'mura' as mulberry although they look nothing like the internet picture of a mulberry. They did, however, grow on a bush and I suppose that we did look like the monkey and the weasel as we ate our way around the bush. Luckily there was no nasty aftermath of our road-side snack.

Cactus fruit anyone?

Not more than a day later, Minas did another "screech to a halt" just when I was admiring a grove of olive trees laden with fruit.  This time it was a stand of cactus with each paddle tail sporting a fat red fruit - very attractive and very prickly. This time I stood and watched as Minas took his trusty knife and cut each fruit off ; dropping it into a plastic bag. At home he removed the prickles, peeled each red globe and stored them in a tupperware container in the fridge. I got one cut up in my breakfast cereal the next morning. Another interesting fruit with a little more taste but many, many small seeds. Good roughage, I guess.

Closer to the village, when we go for walks on the hills we find lots of good eats lying on the road or not far off it.

Cathy picks up walnuts

the three stages of walnuts

Although walnut season was past when we arrived here in mid October, just this past week we found a tree overhanging some green space next to the village water cistern.  The tree was on the private property of obviously 'summer only' residents but the nuts were clearly on the public side of the fence.
They were hard to spy with all the fallen leaves especially as some were in their green coats, some in the already turned brown coats and some 'au naturel' as we know them. After two visits to the tree we now have enough walnuts for Christmas and beyond. Delicious they are, as Minas whacks them apart with a small stone against our stone balcony floor. They are so fresh and to me there is a green grass taste so different than ones that have been sitting in 'bulk bins' for months.

Cathy holds prickly chestnuts

And we still are tempted to continue picking up the last few chestnuts we find on the road even though the commercial growers have just finished their work . We enjoy them roasted most afternoons, but we still have several baskets of them left. I heard today that you can preserve them just as good as fresh-picked if you bury them in river sand and place them in a moist, dark place with no mice or rats to eat them. YIKES!

Minas covets this sign. Will I let him steal it?

Of course there are some things along the sides of the roads that are of interest to Minas but that I really don't think fall into the 'gathering category'. One of these things is a particularly beautiful road. sign. Translated it reads:
CAUTION Danger of fire!
He is even contemplating buying a battery operated drill so that he can dismantle it from its support. What  would he do with it even if he managed to steal it and then smuggle it out?

Goats cross the road

However, we don't gather all living things along the road. These goats have a definite mind of their own. And they make you stop while they cross to nibble their favourite things. It does give you a chance to see if there is anything you might want to snack on in the vicinity.






And gathering rosebuds you ask. Well would you accept rosehips embedded in chestnuts in a vase? 

Rosehips in chestnuts in a vase fill a corner in the apartment

Cheers until next time when we explore real food for people from the local markets.

The Rhythm of a Village

Karyes as seen from the clock tower

No matter where you go in the world there are some commonalities to daily life and there are some differences. We have been trying to adjust ourselves to the way the day evolves in our Greek village under the banner of, "When in Rome......."
Karyes  has no mayor,  no village council, no committee of representatives but it is ruled nonetheless by a very large and imposing fellow.

The Karyes clock tower. The time is wrong but the bells are right

The major domo of our village is none other than the clock tower which sits at the top of the village.

It chimes out the number of bells, on the hour, all through the day and the night and it tolls out one bell on each half hour too. If you have one of those nights where you wake up at 3 am and can't get back to sleep then our clock lets you know just how long you have been awake.  In our early days in the village, it was the clock who alerted us to the fact that the time had fallen back by one hour. It took us all day to figure it out but by 6 pm, the time change, announced by the clock, was verified by the TV. Our clock is sometimes annoying but always helpful.

The church dominates the village skyline as you approach Karyes

In most of the French villages we have visited, it was the church that tolled the hours and was the centre of the village. Karyes has several churches. The two main churches:one in the lower village and one in the upper village take turns having Sunday services. We usually go to church when we live abroad but so far  the three hour Sunday morning service beginning at 7:30 am has seemed a little daunting and in the Greek language too. The main church on the upper platia  was built with money sent back by villagers working abroad. The group in Toronto sent such a sizeable sum that the Greek orthodox bishop of  Toronto came here to consecrate the church at its opening.

But the heart and soul of this village can be found in the central platia with its three cafenions and two tavernas, the church and the town hall. Here the day is marked, here the villagers gather and here you get a true sense of the village.

The platia at Karyes

The day starts early with the crowing of the rooster who lives next door and the sounds of gunshots echoing in the hills where it is boar hunting season for the locals. The  trucks are soon pulling out of the village and by 8 am, the children are walking to school. The local grocery shops open a little later and stay open until 2 pm. They close for three hours and re-open from 5 pm until 8 pm. Although the old men sit in the cafenions most of the morning and afternoon, the really busy times are between noon and 2 pm and between 6 and 8 pm. I don't really know the working hours of all the professions but it is consistent in any town to find the cafenions  crowded in those two time periods.

There is also a weekly rhythm to our village. Sunday is a special day not only because of the church services but because it is the day when families go out for lunch --- at 2 pm.

The taverna on the platia in Karyes

We have learned to eat later and we have plans to do Sunday lunches out. A few weeks ago we went at 1 pm to the taverna for lunch. 

It was crowded then; but by 2 pm people were waiting outside in the sunshine for a table to become available. Many were outsiders from a nearby city out for a drive and a rustic lunch in the country. And a hearty lunch of roast lamb and potatoes, local wine and bread it was. It was good that we had just been for a bike ride. But when we went for a walk at 4:30 pm, the taverna was still busy with folks.  In village Greece, they take Sunday lunch seriously.

the only diners outside at Kastanitsa

And so, we try to fit in. It is useless to think about going on a tour in the afternoon so we have learned to go in the morning. We come back for lunch late or we stop for a 2 pm lunch if we are far from home.
We often go to a cafenion at 5 or 6 pm for a tea called chai too voo noo or tea of the mountain which is really a wild sage type plant. We bought some in a nearby village and when not at the cafenion we make our own at home to go with our scavenged chestnits which we roast.

We are not used to living close to other people but the village is friendly and the noises are mostly of a natural kind. The wind often howls around the old stone houses much like the French mistral. The hunting dogs, kept chained, often set up their protests and the stray cats can yowl into the night. Several times a week, farmers drive their little trucks through the village announcing produce for sale through their megaphones; workers  are re-building a stone house nearby and we hear the saws and the hammers all day long . Georgis, one of the workers, who spent two years in Toronto has an endearing habit of driving by and calling out of his truck window, "How are you, dear lady?". To which I reply, "Poli kala.." And then there is the village telephone. When you want your kids for supper, there is no need to phone their friends, you just open the door and call their names. The response is almost instantaneous. This works for discipline too. I have heard George, discipline his son, Costas, with a loud utterance of his name when the boys were getting into mischief such as they did when they let the old lady's chickens out. And George never even leaves the job site.

Kitty eats on our balcony

skittish kitty doesn't trust the camera

Everyone is very welcoming but the one who loves us  most is this little black cat who sleeps on our door mat  We  feed him each day but he is still quite skittish. Black cats are my favourite. Truffles grew up with my kids and a black stray kept us company at The Tobermory all summer. Perhaps this one is the Greek incarnation.

Ta Petrina is the apartment we stay in

  All in all, the rhythm of life in Karyes suits us well. Until next time, "Yassus" and "Adeeosus"