Life in Greece: “Do You Ever Eat at Home?”

“I am just wondering,” asked my friend Elana, “do you ever eat at home? I mean, do you cook?”

It was a valid question. She'd been at The Stone House on the Hill a couple days and never eaten a bite there.

Stoupa Restaurant has views of the sea and the village

It made me laugh and I answered in the affirmative but she likely didn’t believe me. From the moment she and her husband had arrived we’d traveled in high gear from one location to the next as we tried to have them experience all our favorite eateries.

With even the heartiest of appetites and the best of good intentions, with so many places from which to choose, it just wasn’t going to happen in the few days they were with us. They ended their visit not once eating a meal at The Stone House on the Hill.

Is it the food or the views that bring us back to this tavern in Kardamyli?

When discussing houseguests with our ex pat friends who live in our slice of The Mani we often ponder the difficulties and dilemmas of how many places can we take our visitors before we all succumb to that heavenly near-coma state brought on by overeating.

With a typical visit lasting three or four nights, we have to squeeze a lot of eating into a short amount of time.

Moussaka and chips to the left; seafood pastitsio on the right

What, Where and How much?

Actually Elana’s question was one asked by many. Eating – the what, when and where – is one of the biggest curiosities we’ve found that people have about our life in the Greek Peloponnese.

* Do you have a grocery store nearby?
Yes! A large supermarket, several bakeries and the ‘fruit man’ makes regular runs through the villages selling fruits and veggies from his truck.
* Can you get rose wine there?
Yes! White, red and rose – served in pitchers in quarter-, half- and kilo amounts is the most economical at restaurants (never more than 6-euros for the largest) but sometimes we ‘splurge’ and buy a bottle (10 – 20-euro restaurant price) and drink to our heart’s content for far less than in the U.S.
* Are there restaurants near you?
Yes! Definitely!

What is Greek food?

In the United States we came to know Greek food as being a ‘Greek salad’, a gyro (yh-ero, not JI-roe) those pitas wrapped around meat, French fries, tomatoes and onions and slathered with tzatziki sauce. Or the multi-layered traditional Greek dishes, moussaka (layers of aubergine, potato, minced meat (hamburger) and topped with a bechamel) or pastitsio, (layers of pasta and meat or fish dish with bechamel).

Easter's traditional meal - roasted lamb

Little did we know of the wonders of the varieties of Greek dishes: their stifados (slow-cooked, stew-like dishes), their grilled lamb, pork and beef, their beet root creations, oh, . . .how the list could go on. A plate of giant beans is ambrosia when eaten in a Greek taverna. The pastas and pizzas rival those produced by the Italians to the north. The fresh greens, tomatoes used in salads – not to mention that slab of feta (which rivals gold prices if purchased in the US) brings exclamations from all our visitors.

Salads we have known, loved and eaten

Sometimes I am not sure if it is the cuisine that makes these places our favorites or if it is the settings or the warmth and charm of the owners. Perhaps it is the lovely combination of all those factors.

A favorite restaurant of ours is housed in an old olive press in a nearby mountain village

Eating at Home

Truth is we do eat at home. Quite often.

As I said earlier, tree-ripened fruit and just-picked vegetables are in abundance. The ‘fruit man’ makes a regular run through the villages several times a week. Several fishermen sell their catch at the harbor each morning. Just across the street from the harbor there’s a meat market, a bakery is a few steps away. Kalamata, the big city an hour away has a large municipal market operating two days a week and Aeropolis, a bit closer and to our south operates a Saturday market.

For less than 10 euro. . .

And it is fun to try new recipes. Converting ingredient amounts to the Metric systems is a bit like solving a puzzle and challenges the brain. Although sometimes it is nice to just ‘whip up’ a salad for casual deck dining.

The bowl and serving tongs are gifts from friends

Or when the autumn or early spring chill keeps us indoors, it is fun to light a fire in the fireplace and serve up a helping of something slow-cooked during the day.

We don't eat this 'formally' most nights.

So a note to future houseguests: bring loose clothing and an adventuresome appetite as we plan to have you sampling some incredible food served in the most picturesque locations you’ll ever find and at prices so incredibly low that you, too, will ask,

“Do you ever eat at home?”

Thanks for your many comments on last week's post about down-sizing and de-cluttering.  It is nice to know we aren't alone in this tedious task! We are taking a break this week in the declutter and downsizing efforts and are off to visit The Scout’s hometown in Central Washington State.  I’m writing a freelance article about it and we’ve got some researching to do! I'll tell you about what we find in a future post.

Hope to see you back next week and until then safe and healthy travels to you and yours. And - as always - our thanks for being with us~

Linking this week with:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration
inking up this week with:

Greece ~ When the Cicadas Sing. . .

We can’t leave until the cicadas sing, I announced several weeks ago.

For some reason those little insect mariachi bands hadn’t heralded summer’s arrival as early as they did last spring. And that was reason enough in my mind to stick around until they did. (And it didn't take much to convince The Scout that more time here was in order. . .even singing cicadas.)

The Stone House on the Hill

Cicadas are the sound of summer and the song of the Mediterranean. If you've never heard them, their symphony of sound is reminiscent of those 'shaka-shaka-shaka' rhythms generated by orchard sprinklers or an electric wire’s buzz in the mid-day heat.

Our part of Greece was quite literally abuzz with the cicadas song when we returned two weeks ago from our whirlwind trip to France and Switzerland. Since then the temperature has been rising and the cicadas have been singing so . . .

Sunset from The Stone House on the Hill

Our time here - for now - is coming to an end. We are next week returning to America’s Pacific Northwest.

Spring burning in the grove brings a magic haze

As anyone with a second home, vacation home, boat, cabin, RV or other can understand, we are in the pack-up, close-up phase of this ‘other’ life we step into and out of like scene changes on a stage. 
Dust covers will soon be in place; cupboards and refrigerator emptied of perishable food. 

We’ve attached specially treated bags to our olive trees in an eco friendly attempt to kill the ‘dako’, the fly that is ravaging olive crops in Italy and Greece and who might threaten in our absence. We’ve applied the insecticide to keep our citrus trees from insect attack during the next few months.  (A whole new set of behaviors and routines we’ve developed as result of this ex pat adventure.)

Our grove was carpeted with wildflowers in March

We will have lived more of 2017 on this side of the Atlantic than on the other.  So as I am packing up our life and house I thought I'd tell you a bit today about our last 106 days ~ random memories of a spring at our Stone House on the Hill in the Greek Peloponnese:

It is only fitting to start with 'our' cats (who’ve been front and center of our FB posts of late): The photo below is of Mom Cat/Maggie Mae, left, Princess/Sulita/BooBoo, right, and Scamp/Mackie on the floor. 

Maggie Mae is the former stray who’s been the neighborhood baby producing machine until finally we took her in for surgery and she's now our Maggie Mae, who's enjoying being a permanent ‘empty nester’. Princess (aka Sulita and BooBoo, depending on the house she's living at) continues to reign at our place despite belonging to a couple from Athens who have a home further up our hill and are here for less time than we are. Scamp (aka Mackie) lives three doors down, but the other cats at that house intimidate him – as does his shadow – so he hangs out with us when we are here.

Cats Rule at The Stone House on the Hill

And what is a blog post about our Stone House without a report of projects undertaken and completed during our stay?

Aside from obtaining our residency permits the only big project we hoped to accomplish was converting our concrete ceilings to wood. And once we made the acquaintance of the carpenter and his son who live at the foot of our hill, it didn’t take long to make that happen.

I guess we also had planned to buy a car, but you regulars here know that could only happen with the residence permit which came too late in the stay. That goes on the 'next fall' list.



We’ve also been reminded the last few months of the joy that comes from spending quality time with friends. Not a rushed dinner or a quick text, but real time, real talk. Our friendship world is expanding as we meet others in this new home base. And we love having friends from our other world come and stay with us. What fun it is to show those from our U.S. life this new world of ours and have them say they finally understand what drew us here and what makes us want to stay longer.

The Scout and his long-time friend Mike look out at  Viros Gorge.

Even better when they say they want to return for another visit!

We knew all these friends back in Kirkland, two have moved here, two were visiting

This really is a world where meals can last for hours, where wait staff won’t clear dishes or bring bills until we summon them. . . we’ve grown accustomed to the pace and this lifestyle.

Orange honey cake, one of our favorites

Our days have been sweet and we’ve savored each of them.  More importantly we’ve reminded ourselves how important it is to keep stepping out of our comfort zone. . .and make ourselves stretch our minds and abilities. It isn’t always easy to live in a foreign country but it sure is fun. For that reason we are counting the days until our return in September.

Bus to Kalamata passes through our village a couple times a day

“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”

--Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon

I’ve not yet told you about how we toured the French countryside by public bus nor have I shown you some of the hauntingly beautiful but nearly abandoned ‘tower’ towns just down the road from us here.  I will get to those in future posts but its time to go dig out the suitcases. . .I've got some packing to do!

As always thanks for the time you spend with us and our wishes for safe and healthy travels. And a huge thank you for the overwhelming response you gave us to the news of our Greek residency.  Your enthusiasm and good wishes have brightened our week and made our success a real celebration!

Linking this week with:

Through My Lens
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Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
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The Stone House on the Hill ~ Living in a ‘DIY’ World

 

DIY – abbreviation for ‘Do It Yourself’

            -- Webster’s Dictionary

DIY or Do It Yourself projects are the focus of some of my favorite blogs, television shows, FB posts and publications.  Always inspiring, they provide step-by-step directions to living in a colorful, clever world that you’ve designed, painted, built, sewn, or otherwise created by yourself.

The Scout completes the clothes line

Long before it became the catch-phrase for creativity, Do It Yourself, was a way of life in the rural area of Greece where we make our part-time expat home. And it continues to be the way repairs and projects are completed even now in our part of the Greek Peloponnese.

To be honest, it has tested the skills and abilities of these two city-slickers from suburban America, each of whom are more comfortable and confident at a computer keyboard than brandishing a hammer or screwdriver.

Dozens of parts and directions in Greek

In the States, we have been known to pay a wee bit extra to get items assembled before delivery or to hire a handyman to make repairs or changes. While we still hire help for many of the projects we’ve undertaken in Greece there is a remarkable (for us anyway!) number of things we’ve accomplished by DIY. 

By the way, ‘It’s Greek to me” is favorite phrase we use when directions for the DIY are written in Greek. Thank goodness for illustrations: we’ve often resorted to matching parts and screw sizes to the drawings and then guess at what we are to do with them. 

The Stone House on the Hill - the Mani, Greek Peloponnese

Slowly, slowly, or siga, siga as they say in Greek we’ve strung a clothesline, assembled coat racks, and constructed book and storage shelves. Each completed project bolstered – a wee bit --our DIY self confidence!  Just enough that by last fall we were dreaming up things we could DIY at our Stone House on the Hill:

Chalk painting the chest of drawers - DIY project

Our first project – such a tiny step for most DIY folks but a giant leap for us -- required finding a paint store in Kalamata (our big city an hour north), then explaining we wanted to purchase craft ‘chalk’ paint, wax to finish the project and the tools to apply both.  (Keep in mind neither of us had ever ‘done’ chalk painting but I’d been insistent  we do it – after reading those darn inspirational DIY home decorating blogs. . .) 

“You know, you create your own hell.”  --Warren 'Dean' Starr 

While we still had the painting bug --  and upon discovering they make a paint for bathroom grout, we tackled our guest bathroom.  A dark-colored gray grout had apparently been popular (because it didn’t show the dirt) when our 10-year-old house was built. From ceiling to floor it was used, making the room look, well. . ., dirty.

Painting the grout white - a DIY of tortuous, tedious measure

If we each painted, we reasoned, we could probably change that room in a day. Once started we couldn’t change our minds either. So with teeny-tiny brushes and cloths to wipe the excess, we set forth. What. A. Joke. Hours and hours, days later, our DIY was done.  Happy with the end result, but vowing never to do that again!  

“Life is trying things to see if they work.”

— Ray Bradbury

 

So how much stone did we order anyway?

Having spent a week of gloriously beautiful fall weather indoors on that tedious project we headed outside for the next.  We had a vision for our garden area, so we set to work.  You might say that we had rocks in our heads, both literally and figuratively, on this one!

First step, hauling the stone down the steps

We ordered brown gravel which we would use to create new garden cover at the front of the house, to the side, and in parts of the upper garden.  Darn, those Pinterest photos of Mediterranean gardens!! First task, hauling the gravel from the bags in our parking area, down the stairs and to the gardens. (If you are wondering, we used plastic pails and made hundreds of trips up and down those stairs – a better workout than going to the gym!)

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge
-- Robert Fulghum

The 'before' garden DIY project photos

We added a new Greek word: kopiastiki, to our vocabulary. It means ‘backbreaking’.  Finally, we accomplished what we had set out to do:

Garden in front of The Stone House on the Hill

From the front of the house down into the grove. . .

Olive grove terrace garden - The Stone House on the Hill 

  To the side garden. . .

Our vegetable garden - The Stone House on the Hill 

And in the upper garden. . .

We added a winding pathway through the upper garden

“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte 

Before we returned this spring we told ourselves  that this stay we’d get out and do some hiking on those wonderful old trails that still link the villages scattered about our hillsides. We’d go to the beach – something we have yet to do. We ordered books that we’ve been wanting to read. But then I saw a cute little strawberry planter on FB that you could make from a laundry basket. . .it just required a few supplies.  Then a video came across for making concrete plant stands and stools which could be so cute . . .

So what will we be up to this spring at our Stone House on the Hill? Not sure yet.  But we do hope you’ll be with us again next week as we settle into life in Greece. And if you are in the neighborhood in real life, stop by. There’s always time for a visit!  As always, thanks for the time you spend with us at TravelnWrite ~ Safe travels to you and yours.

Linking this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

Greece ~ Where Autumn Comes in like a Lion. . .and Lamb

"Listen!  the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!"
-  Humbert Wolfe

The wind which began last evening continued through the night. Its gusts have unrelentingly rattled the window shutters and pummeled our doors. The rain that threatened yesterday has made good on its promise today. I am wrapped in my flannel robe as I write on this dark, chilly October morning.  This time of year the sun doesn't make it over the mountain behind us until after 8 a.m. 

View from the Stone House on the Hill on a stormy day

I suspect we won't see it at all today. And to believe that two days ago I was wearing shorts and basking in the afternoon sun on our deck and later that day we sat outside at the local taverna sipping krasi, wine at sunset.

Sunset sipping wine in Stoupa village

This autumn's weather in the Greek Peloponnese, The Mani specifically,  is proving to be much like last year: both a lion and a lamb.

How are gardens grow in the autumn

Autumn is a time for gardens to flourish. Blooms are no longer punished by the intense Mediterranean summer sun. Garden stores are selling tiny truck garden plants for winter garden harvest – we only wish our time here would be long enough to plant and harvest them. Our flowers are in full bloom, these photos taken within the last week and all but the Lantana (bottom corner) are growing at The Stone House on the Hill.

Autumn leaves begin to fall. . .

Yet, there is no doubt that autumn is preparing the area for winter’s arrival. . .

A cloudy October day

We had two sets of guests last fall, one came in late October and we sat huddled together in The Stone House on the Hill waiting for a break in the wind and rain to go explore the countryside.

A November morning

The second set arrived in early November and we explored the area in our shirt sleeves under sunny, warm skies.

A number of you have told us that you are planning to visit ‘someday’ and some have asked,  “When is the best time to visit, when is the weather the best?” 

Late September Stoupa beach

We prefer -- and recommend -- the spring and fall but I checked a couple of travel sites to see what other travel writers have to say. While they are speaking of Greece in general, it pretty much echoes our thoughts:

September view from our deck at The Stone House on the Hill.

Frommer’s Travel Guides say, “. . . that the best time to visit is Greece is spring and early summer (mid-Apr to mid-June) or autumn (Sept to mid-Oct). This way, you'll avoid the summer high season, with its inflated prices, hordes of tourists and high temperatures (heat waves of 100°F/+40C are routine)."

Another site, greek-travel.gr points out, “December to March are the coldest and least reliable months, though even then there are many crystal-clear, fine days, and the glorious lowland flowers begin to bloom very early in spring.”

Approaching Kalamata airport - Taygetos Mountains

Airfares, like the weather, are usually better on these shoulder season months than in the height of summer tourist season.  But those of you thinking of flying directly to Kalamata should keep in mind, that flights here operate primarily during high season (late spring, summer, and into October). We just managed to catch one of the season’s last on British Air from London in September.

British Air flies from London to Kalamata in the spring and fall

Speaking of travel, regular readers know that travel to other destinations in Europe and beyond, was one of reasons we bought a home here Well, I wrote this post at the end of last week because I knew we'd be on the road this week -- our first such close-to-home trip in Europe. We flew to Rome from Athens on Monday, (two hours and 10 minutes gate to gate)  and we set sail on the Celebrity Constellation on Wednesday.  If you want to take a look at where we are off to, just: click this link. 

Thanks for spending some time with us during these blustery autumn days in Greece’s Mani. It is currently gorgeous weather in Rome, but they are predicting rain showers tomorrow.  Lion and Lamb, it seems, everywhere this fall.  We’ll be back as shipboard internet allows in the next few weeks. Hello to our new followers who wrote us such nice messages about our blog last week (you know who you are)!  To all of you, wishes for safe travels~

Linking up with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

Greece ~ An Ode to Our Olives and their Oil

Olive harvests have been a part of autumn for thousands of years in this Mediterranean region in which we’ve chosen to make our part-time home.  The importance of olives and their oil to mankind’s rituals and rights have been recorded since ancient times by the likes of Homer, Virgil, Aristophanes and Pliny the Elder.

Kalamata olives

But for us, it is a whole new world – all a part of that daydream, that adventure we’d been seeking -- when we purchased our Stone House on the Hill in the Greek Peloponnese a couple years ago.
So Harvest Day is a big deal at our house. A Very. Big. Deal.  Frankly, we’ve surprised ourselves at how much we love growing olives.

Greece is home to some 520,000 olive growers,

many who use the traditional hand-pick methods.

            --- Bloomberg, 2014

HARVEST DAY

It’s been crazy weather here - sporadic downpours mixed with summer-like-temperatures -- so it shouldn’t have surprised us that Saturday morning dawned with a few clouds, some sun and was so hot and humid that you could work up a sweat with minimal amounts of movement.

It was olive harvest day at the Stone House on the Hill.

A view of our back garden area -ready for harvest

We are among those small growers who use the traditional hand-pick methods. Our steeply-sloped property is a section of a  decades-old olive grove. The terraces are narrow and steep and not conducive to fancy automated harvest equipment. And, truth be told,  there is something about harvesting by hand, as it has been done for centuries, that makes the experience a richer one. That said, it is good we have only 17 trees.

Part of the crew and their harvest tools

In reality, that method of harvest is a hard, back-breaking, sweat-inducing experience. The tools involved are as low-tech as anything made in the world today. Our crew this year included two American couples (both are friends and have moved to this area) who wanted to ‘experience’ olive harvest.  The Scout is joined in this photo with Chuck, our friend from the Pacific Northwest and David who hails from New York. David is holding the rake used to gather twigs from the fallen fruit and the other two tools are used for beating the fruit off the branches.

The harvest begins. . .

We hired a harvest professional, Aris, and his wife, Donika, (wearing blue and red shirts in the photo above), who take care of the property in our absence.  We took our marching orders from them. Some olives are beaten from the tree and others from branches Aris had cut. The process is a mix of harvesting and a first-round pruning in preparation for next year.

Olive harvest is underway in our area of The Mani

Netting covers the ground beneath the tree to catch the harvest. . .

Olives are then put in burlap sacks

The olives collected, raked and large twigs and branches removed (the machine at the processing plant removes the smaller stuff). . .

Larger twigs are removed before bagging the remainder done at the plant

Last year we’d been quite pleased to take almost three bags of olives to the press. It was our first harvest from a previously neglected grove. We were lucky to have any crop. This year was a bit different:

Our friend Yiannis (pictured) hauled the bags for us

FROM OLIVE TO OIL

Then and Now - a striking contrast in olive oil production

While harvest methods are still tied to the past, the processing of olives has gone high tech.  No longer are the olives pressed as much as they are processed.  The two top photos are of equipment used in the olden days and the two lower are at Taki’s processing plant where we take our harvest. (Taki is monitoring a computer screen that is alerting him to the status – in this case – of our oil being processed).

Everyone - not just us rookies - take photos at the plant

Ours was to be the third batch processed Saturday afternoon, we arrived to find our bags ready to dump. . .

There they go. . .

The leaves and twigs are separated in the first step and then those pretty little olives become, for a time, a rather repulsive looking sludge that smells like thick rich olive oil. The scents are so strong that you can smell the oil when you drive by the plant during processing hours.

On the way to olive oil. . .

The sludge is stirred for a time and then is fed into a horizontal extractor that uses centrifugal force to separate the water from the oil. “Siga, Siga!,” (Slowly, Slowly!),” Taki said to me about the third time I asked, “Is that ours going into the extractor??!!”  From olive to oil took an hour and a half but it was at this point the excitement really started building.

Our harvest crew had gathered to watch the ‘fruits of their labors’ be turned into oil and voila’ . . .

Oil to the left, water to the right. . .siga, siga!

Then there was oil. . . .lots and lots of oil. . . 60 kilos, (think liters) or about 20 gallons of oil.

There is such an adrenalin rush when the oil comes out the faucet!

‘If you collect them early and are prepared to stock them,

you won’t have any damage

and the oil will turn out to be green, and the best.’

     

--- Pliney, the Elder, Roman author, AD 23 – AD 79

Less than 24 hours old - a nectar of the Gods

Harvest Day was a long day. . .which resulted in a long blog post. Thanks for hanging in there and making it to the end of this one!! And a big hello and thanks to those of you who've written to tell us that you are now following our blog - it means a lot! Thank you!!

Hope to see you back next week when we’ll have some more Greek tales for you from The Stone House on the Hill. . .

Linking up this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration