{"id":2325,"date":"2010-09-28T16:30:56","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T16:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2011-04-12T16:09:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T16:09:37","slug":"quiet-days-with-family-and-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2325","title":{"rendered":"Quiet Days with Family and Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kastelli beach with Gramvoussa peninsular in the background, Crete<\/p><\/div>\n

Here in Kastelli,\u00a0the days begin with Katina\u00a0first tending to the animals then the table is made ready for\u00a0a very simple breakfast. \u00a0Paximadia (thick slices of bread oven baked – made from excess bread so that nothing is wasted) spread with delicious runny\u00a0honey or marmalada (jam made from peaches off their own tree),\u00a0Graviere (a hard cheddar like cheese) a large mug of Greek coffee and a glass of water –\u00a0a\u00a0cup of goat’s milk (optional).\u00a0 Hippocrates, the Father of Western Medicine 460 BC who said “Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food” would have\u00a0approved of the overall\u00a0Cretan diet!\u00a0<\/p>\n

With wonderful summer like weather continuing and\u00a0daily temperatures in the high 20’s,\u00a0for me the beach beckons and I will go there as often as I can –\u00a0this afternoon\u00a0it was for\u00a03 hours and still I was\u00a0reluctant to leave.\u00a0 Yesterday at 1300 hours,\u00a0I met up with my English friends Jillie and Rick at “Petra” Taverna\u00a0on the Square.\u00a0\u00a0Having returned to\u00a0Crete a couple of weeks’ ago\u00a0to their house in Keramoti –\u00a040 minutes drive from Kastelli on the west coast, they have been\u00a0working hard on their restorations.\u00a0 Fortunate to have found\u00a0a good plasterer in Jimmy, an Albanian who has been living here for 6 years, after sleeping for 2 weeks in a tent, they were looking forward last night to their bed.\u00a0 Hopefully I will\u00a0have an opportunity\u00a0to visit them in Keramoti before I leave here on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other familiar faces at\u00a0“Petra” yesterday were Gijs from the Netherlands and Bob and Lorna, the English couple who have a permanent home in the nearby village of Ayios Giorgos.\u00a0 After exchanging greetings with them all, I sat down with Jillie, Rick and Jimmy for a light lunch of Gyros and soft drinks.\u00a0 Naturally, they were keen to hear all about my travels and curious to find out more about my relationship with Costas.\u00a0 After lunch a drive to Roma’s factory followed by a visit to Roma and Vanna’s home proved fruitless,\u00a0later we learnt Roma was working in Hania and Vanna was most likely having her siesta.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quite happy to walk back to our house, we said our farewells on the main road – in any case, I wished to pass by the Zaharoplastio (literally, sugar\u00a0shop) to buy a 1 kilo box of mini ice creams as a gift to the household.\u00a0 Incidentally, when invited to a Greek home, it is customary to take a small gift\u00a0such as\u00a0flowers or as is often the case, something like brandy, cakes or ice creams from the\u00a0Zaharoplastio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any time of day or night, unexpected visitors\u00a0arrive and surprise us.\u00a0 Yesterday there was a funeral in Kastelli\u00a0for a 52 year old who died from a heart attack.\u00a0 Vassilis (son of Costas’ sister Chrissoula – he was married\u00a0last month in Iraklion) came from Hania for the funeral then visited us at the house.\u00a0 During the evening Katina’s son Yanni who was\u00a0in Kastelli for an appointment\u00a0–\u00a0he also came\u00a0by the house\u00a0with a female friend,\u00a0\u00a0his mate Yiorgos arrived too and a table was laid.\u00a0 The evening’s conversation centred mainly around Yanni\u00a0who relished in telling us stories of his time doing compulsory military service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This evening Katina is busy making Kalitsounia – small pastries made from rolled dough, not phyllo and depending on how they are folded, baked or fried.\u00a0 Sweet Kalitsounia are stuffed with fresh soft Myzithra, a whey cheese (made from milk from the family goat)\u00a0and eaten drizzled with delicious thyme honey.\u00a0 Savoury Kalitsounia are stuffed with spinach, wild greens and herbs and are equally delicious!\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s not quite the same without Anna here –\u00a0most likely\u00a0she will return from Hania\u00a0sometime tomorrow\u00a0and I very much look forward to seeing her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here in Kastelli,\u00a0the days begin with Katina\u00a0first tending to the animals then the table is made ready for\u00a0a very simple breakfast. \u00a0Paximadia (thick slices of bread oven baked – made from excess bread so that nothing is wasted) spread with delicious runny\u00a0honey or marmalada (jam made from peaches off their own tree),\u00a0Graviere (a hard cheddar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2325"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2584,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions\/2584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}