Athens

Notes on Reopening: An Athenian Taverna Prepares to Face the New Normal

Restaurants closed in Athens on Friday, March 13. For Sophia Vracha, it was a “horrible” day, a real “Friday the 13th,” as she put it. Together with her parents, Nikos and Mary, Sophia runs Kissos, a taverna in Chalandri that I wrote about when things were still “normal,” just about a month before the city went into lockdown. While it was a hard day for the family, they had seen it coming. “There was a rumor out and about in the week before it happened,” Sophia said. As she described it, a general feeling of uneasiness and insecurity was in the air. People really began to panic when Covid-19 arrived in Italy, thinking that it was just a matter of days before the virus would come to Greece.

Athens

Recipe: Spanakoryzo, Greek Spinach Rice

Considering that there are more than 40,000 cultivated varieties, it’s no surprise that rice has fed people so successfully for so long. Many believe the wonder crop was first cultivated in China as early as 2500 B.C. before spreading to Tibet, India and beyond. It was in India that one of Alexander the Great’s military campaigns came across rice in the 4th century B.C. In his work Geographica (“Geography”), Greek geographer Strabo (c. 62 B.C.-24 A.D.) quotes a source from the campaign: “The rice, according to Aristobolus, stands in water in an enclosure. It is sowed in beds. The plant is four cubits in height, with many ears, and yields a large produce.”

Athens

Recipe: Clay-Baked Chickpeas, a Pot of Culinary Gold

Legumes have been at the core of the Greek diet since antiquity, with chickpeas being especially popular. We find references to them, and the ways they were cooked, in the works of several ancient writers and poets, including Homer, whose epic poems provide insight into the eating and cooking habits of the time (roughly the 8th century B.C.). Revythi (ρεβύθι) is the Greek word for chickpeas, and it derives from the ancient Greek word erevynthos (ερέβυνθος), which referred to both the plant and the seed. Sappho (c. 630-570 B.C.), the greatest female Greek lyric poet, spoke of “Χρύσειοι ἐρέβινθοι ἐπ ̓ ἀιόνων ἐφύοντο,” which translates roughly as “Golden chickpeas that have for centuries been growing.”

Athens

CB Cooks: Carolina Doriti’s Galatopita Recipe and Video

Greek Easter was extraordinary – in the truest sense of the word – this year. Despite the fantastic weather people had to stay at home to celebrate, quite a lonesome setup compared to the crowded daylong outdoor feast that we are normally used to. Despite being at home, my 7-year-old son and I did all the same Easter traditions, just in smaller quantities. One of the most fun traditions for children is the “egg breaking” ritual. We dye eggs on Good Thursday; this year, since my son is into space and Star Wars, we used that as inspiration and dyed our eggs like planets – we’ve got plenty of time, so we might as well use it creatively!

Athens

Coronavirus Diary (with Recipe): Athens

It’s 6 a.m. Lately I’ve been waking up really early. I don’t expend enough energy I guess – not in the rhythms that I am used to anyway. Everything is suddenly so different, so eerie and lonely, and at the same time I feel like I’m being watched – as if I’m part of a movie or a weird version of Big Brother or Survivor, the kind of game show where everyone is on the same mission, but no one really trusts each other. Everyone’s scared of something invisible, and if you sneeze or cough, you get a strange look. I was joking around with the few people who were worried about Covid-19 before it had even reached Europe. At the end of January, the coronavirus made it’s way to Italy – right next door. That’s when more people started worrying.

Athens

Galaktokomio: Brothers in Milk

The refrigerators are spilling out onto the sidewalk. That’s the first thing we notice at Galaktokomio, a dairy shop in Ambelokipoi. We step inside and, unsurprisingly, more of these large refrigerators line one of the walls of this tiny shop. The opposite wall is filled with shelves of pasta, trahana, almonds, flour, honey, tahini and other edible goodies, while a freezer filled with frozen pies, which look homemade, looms at the back. But their most precious gems are in the refrigerators: dairy products, including some of the best yogurt in Greece. As we stand, enthralled by the contents of these gleaming cases, Vicky approaches us. The polite and professional shopkeeper, she begins to unravel the story behind this small shop in one of the most densely populated areas in Athens.

Athens

Kissos: Circle of Life

This is a story that starts and ends with the land. First there was the father, Spyros Vracha, a farmer who owned fields nearby Chalandri, now a middle-class suburb around 8 km north of downtown Athens. His crops supplied the kitchens of the tavernas in the area, which until the 1980s was dotted with villas, rather than the apartment blocks of today. Before it closed down almost 30 years ago, Ta Marmara (“The Marbles,” so called because of Chalandri’s many marble suppliers and workshops) was one of the tavernas that Spyros supplied. It was owned by Stavros and Athena, Spyros’ neighbors.