Caper capers (Κάπαρι)

The fire in our neighbourhood left its mark in the open fields close to the houses. Luckily for all of us, our houses were not affected (some suffered very minor damage, eg sooty walls). Although the fire caused widespread damage, it was fortunate that the natural landscape did not burn right down to its roots.

The fire started behind the buildings, from a short-circuit during high winds, which helped it spread from one side of the road, jumping over the buildings to the other side f the road (not visible) and up the hill to where we live.

I recently took a little walk in our neighbourhood to see the aftermath. The main damage occurred in the olive trees, which are laden with an oil content that makes them sizzle like a frying pan before they go 'whoosh' and burn in a matter of seconds.

This poor tree caught fire in its trunk, making one part of it fall down as it gave way to the flames. 

The few citrus trees in the area were less affected, as they have a greater water content.

The lemon tree has survived despite its burnt leaves. The fruit will all still be edible.

The woodier trees like the decorative palms were not so lucky - neither were the snails that were enjoying their shade on the bark.

This palm is located in the garden of a private home - the blackened shells of the snails can be seen.

The odorous burnt smell in the area will not go away until the winter when the rains fall. Until then, the wind will make the smell travel whichever way it blows.

A neighbour's house - the fire came that close.

Although the earth where the fire touched now has an orange-brown hue, the greenery that was growing on it  before the fire has shown great resilience. The caper bushes continue to grow as if they were never affected by fire. I found a caper bush by a church which the fire surrounded but did not burn, not even singe the walls; that could be some kind of sign, but I put it down to the concrete and stucco walls playing the rols of firebreaks. This caper bush is special in another way: it is completely removed from pollution, as no vehicles, no animals and no people come near it, except for once a year during the chirch's feast day.

The caper plant is very beautiful with its fushcia-shaped pink and purple blooms. These flowers come from the edible buds of the plant, which is fully edible but very thorny, so it's a bit of a pain to harvest the tenderest shoots for pickling. It also produces a downy fur on the leaves and buds, but this just natural and does not need any special removal technique.

This caper bush was full of small buds and tender shoots. I chopped the shoots as far as the most edible part, placed them in a bag and took them home. Then I picked all the buds and leaves (and a few of the berries from the flowers that had lost their petals - they are edible too!), and the shoot tips to 1-2cm. The stems were discarded.

The parts for pickling were rinsed mainly to get rid of ants and any other potential contaminants. Capers can be pickled in just plain vinegar with a bit of salt, but a few spices do not go amiss here. I added some bay leaves, some peppercorns, and some Pimenta dioica known in Greece as μπαχάρι (ba-HA-ri), for a bit of aroma.

The jar can be placed in a dark corner of your kitchen, and you can start using the capers a month later. Capers are excellent natural taste additives in tomato sauce for pizza or spaghetti, tomato salad and potato salad. They look very pretty sprinkled over red and white food.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Fire (Φωτιά - Πυρκαγιά)

I feel lucky to be sitting in my office at work today, after what we went through in the very early hours of this morning. The problems didn't really start at 3am when I noticed the fire - they started at about 5pm on the previous day, when my husband told me to raise the canvas awnings over the  balconies due to the strong winds that had begun to blow. Spring brings with it many high winds, but rarely southerlies (hot strong African winds); climate change has had this effect on Crete - it has made our once hospitable climate very dry and dusty, with unseasonably high temperatures.

It was an early night for me as I was exhausted. The painter had been working in the kitchen for the last two days, which made it difficult to cook. After coming home from work, I began clearing up the plastic sheeting, sweeping away the dust and getting the kitchen organised for cooking once again. To my horror, I discovered that I had forgotten that I was supposed to be defrosting the deep freeze - one pie was ruined (it will be cooked for the dog's food), but I managed to save two pies (we'll be eating lots of spanakopita over the next few days). Just before I was about to start cooking the pies, I smelt a chemical odour coming from the oven - so I had forgotten to clean the oven too! I began cooking φακές (lentil soup) which is a fuss-free slow-cook Greek cuisine staple, and we even managed to goet to the dermatologist (it's free melanoma checkup week in Greece). All's well that ends well, I thought.

We had secured everything that could suffer damage in high winds, and had then closed both the shutters and the windows before we went to bed. Normally, we leave the wooden windows partly open on hot nights, but in high winds, this is not possible as it causes doors to slam and nothing stays in place in the house. Not to mention the dust. I couldn't sleep at all - that wasn't just any kind of wind: it was 10 on the Beaufort scale and 31C and only 3am. The temperature is raised by the hot strong dust-carrying African winds. So I just lay in bed listening to the wind blowing and trying to hear any unusual sounds. Wooden shutters do not seal out sounds - if we had aluminium doors and windows, I would probably have slept through it all, as they are good sound insulators.

At 3am, I heard a car come down the road beeping systematically. We often hear blaring music coming out of road rage drivers' cars, but this sounded more urgent, like a warning, as the car drove slowly along the road. There were people on the road: "Get out now, παιδί μου!" I got up feeling terrified and went to the kitchen - the only room with no shutters. I couldn't see anything untoward. So I opened the back door of the kitchen which was on the other side of the room. The sky was bright orange behind the two-story house located across from our house while the air was thick with dust and smoke. Lighted sparks and ash were flying onto our staircase. I went back into the house to wake up the family, who I now know love to fall into deep slumber. (Another neighbour told us that he was woken up by the police banging on his door to tell him to get out.) My son's bedroom was already smelling of smoke, and the windows had not even been opened.

The video shows the fire that was burning right below our house. 

The fire was burning behind the houses on the opposite side of the street. The fire brigade had been informed, but they had not arrived yet: this fire had spread very rapidly, and we were to find out later that it had a number of fronts, all burning in different spots in the same general area. Explosions could be heard in the distance. Greek houses are made of concrete, so they don't burn down completely in a fire - they blacken, and anything that can catch fire and burn does (eg plastic paint, wooden furniture, foam insulation,), but the basic structure remains. Concrete also acts as a wind and fire break - we had that going for us, as well as the fact that the houses which were adjacent to the burning fields were separated from us by a tarmacked road. The wind direction was also in our favour - it was blowing the wind southeast, whereas our house faces northwest. Our house does not border fields. Our firewood hoardings were the only real problem - my husband began hosing everything down, from the road to the soil in our garden to the walls of the house.

I never miss a moment to photograph whatever I can, but I met my match yesterday. There were other more important things on my mind. This photo was taken outside our house, on high zoom, as the fire spread eastwards, to the neighbouring village. It felt the safest time to snap a shot, when the danger was all over - for us, at least.

The fire brigade came, but they could only do so much for the area. As the fire was spreading, aided by the high winds, through the sparks flying onto the parched crops, the firemen constantly moved about among the different locations. Their priority was areas where occupied houses were burning - people are more important than things. A policeman came by and told us to get ready for evacuation if necessary, so we told the children who were by now crying to get dressed. At first they were worried about their grandmother. Then my daughter asked: "What about the house?" And her father replied: "Who cares?"

I think that made a big impression on them. We don't care about the things we care about the people. We can rebuild everything, but we can't bring back everyone.

Some victims of the hot winds included my balcony herb garden - the coriander and rocket didn't make it, and the parsley plant has also been affected. So far, the garden crops are doing OK.

Despite losing out on a lot of evening sleep, we still got up this morning to get to our jobs. While driving the children to school, I saw the aftermath of the fire. Trees suffered the most damage, as did a number of businesses on the main road; no casualties were reported, but some people have lost their home, or at least a part of it. Our house is no this morning w filled with a smoky smell and the ashes that came in and out of the house as we opened the door to check on what was happening. It's a small price to pay for getting away with out lives. We're all still wondering what caused the fire to break out - we only know why it spread so quickly.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.