Brockwell Park honey (Μέλι από το Λονδίνο)

My household is a great consumer of honey. When I think of the amount of honey we get through in a year, even I am amazed - we buy about 15-20 kilograms of honey every year, which is consumed among the 5 of us. Yes! 15-20 kg per year! Is this too much? I don't know what to say... I just know that we do in fact get through that much and it feels about as normal as going through 150 kg of olive oil per year (again, among the 5 of us). What's more, I rarely (if ever) use honey in my cooking - honey is used in very limited ways in my household's food preparation:

1. a teaspoon in tea or milky coffee 
2. as a spread on bread and butter
3. a tablespoon poured over each individual sfakiani pita, a traditional Cretan dessert 
4. a couple of tablespoons slathered on top of pan-fried cheese-based kalitsounia, another traditional Cretan dessert (occasionally, mainly when I'm in the mood to make them)
5. making syrup (for Greek-style syrup desserts, eg karidopita, galaktoboureko - very occasionally, mainly for a party)
6. as a yoghurt topping

Lately, I've also used it in some savoury meals like fried chicken wings, and I've also tried it in biscuit batters. But generally speaking, we consume honey as a raw product, and rarely as an ingredient in our family recipes. 

All the honey we consume comes from one source: I have a cousin who is a beekeeper. He refills my jars year after year. He keeps beehives in forested area in Sfakia, and produces fresh honey in the summer. So it is fair to call honey a seasonal product. Cretan honey is said to be among the best in the world. But like any overly good product, it can also be prone to fraud. At the same time, it is almost impossible to tell at first glance whether a honey variety is very good or not - colour, smell, density and crystallisation do not indicate this. Beekeepers may also feed their bees sugar in the colder months of the year or when there is a lack of flora, which is 'against' international rules for honey production. But we can't ever know this - such information can only be obtained by a laboratory analysis.

During a recent trip to London, a friend presented me with some honey that he had helped to produce. Apparently bees find London a better place to produce honey than other parts of England because London is where more flowers are grown, at least this is what we were told. The honey we were presented with certainly did look and taste different to our regular Cretan supplies. For a start, it was very runny (ours is very dense), it smelt of mint (ours smelt of thyme), it had a very clear colour (ours is quite dark), and we were told it was prone to natural cystalisation, which we found quite interesting, because we've never seen honey crystallise in our house (it gets eaten too quickly).


The honey came from Brockwell Park, where there are community gardens and a group of beekeepers who strive to produce fresh natural produce in a city where most food is imported into the general area. Apart from honey, my friend also collects beeswax and makes candles, and he is also learning to make mead. My friend also showed us some older honey, which had crystalised, so that it looked like butter in a jar. It's still good honey, he reassured us, which we found amusing, because he still hadn't opened the jar, which contained only a quarter of the amount that are own jars usually contain!

He also showed us a large plastic tub of honey which he explained was not good for eating because it contained too much moisture and tiny droplets of wax. In fact, it did taste a little waxy to us, and it was not very sweet, mainly due to the excess moisture content, we were told. He intended to use it to make mead - this supposedly sub-standard honey could be used as an ingredient, he told us, but it could not be sold as fresh honey. He also gave us some buttery looking manuka honey to try, which as a beekeeper, he thought he should try. As there was no other honey in his house where we were staying, except the buttery honey varieties, we preferred to use the waxy sub-standard honey which was still runny. I used it to make a pear pie with pears I had bought from Crete, and a cheese pie using mizithra I had also bought along with me. In both cases, I used this waxy honey in the batter as well as a topping. We liked the results very much. 

My friend also gave us some Brockwell Park honey to take home with us as a present. When I went to the store room to place it together with our honey jars, I was surprised to find a jar of Cretan honey lurking in a dark corner of the shelf, which I had not used in due time. It wasn't runny, and it hadn't lost its colour or its texture, but I could tell that this honey had undergone some transformation form its taste - it did not taste sweet and it seemed to lack the thyme aroma that I was used to. That's when I got the idea to take some samples of each honey type - fresh London honey (FL), old Cretan honey (OC), fresh Cretan honey (FC) - into the MAICh laboratories at work to have them checked.



Honey is influenced by very many factors: the flower species, temperature, environmental conditions, age and storage conditions are just a few things that make or break a good honey variety. The floral species used in the honey give honey its colour and aroma, as well as its texture. Crystallisation is also a feature in honey of certain floral species (eg citrus). Honey is like olive oil - their properties undergo a negative change as they age. So honey is not like wine, whose taste could improve with age. Apiculturalists check for moisture content, diastase activity and hydroxy-methyl-furfural (HMF) content.

Water content crystallises honey more quickly, which explains why the London honey crystallised whereas the Cretan honey didn't. The environmental conditions of London are damper than in Crete. This in fact was proven in the laboratory analyses: of the three samples, FL contained the highest moisture levels (17.6, while the two Cretan samples (OC and FC) contained  the same moisture content (14.3-14.6). But FL was still within the limits set by international regulations, which state that moisture content in honey must be less than 20.

Diastase activity tells us whether the honey has been subjected to high temperature, which makes it runnier. This is a trick that honey sellers may use if their honey crystalises. Honey production does involve heating but only at appropriate temperatures. Diastase activity is lower in honey that have been subjected to very high temperatures. Of my three honey samples, LH had the highest diastate activity (19.9) while FC had 13.8. Both honey were within international limits, which state that diastate acitivity must be higher than 8. But OC was not within the limit: it had a diastase activity of just 6.7. Since I know my honey source well, and both OC and FC come from the same source, what could have gone wrong? Most likely, the storage conditions of OC were inappropriate: I had left the honey in a space which gets overheated in summer, whcih most likely affected it, since I had forgotten it there for over a year, something I rarely do with honey, given our high consumption levels.

Finally, the HMF content also tells us about whether a honey variety has been heated inappropriately. This should be lower than 40, and all my honey samples fell well within the limit - FL: 3.4, OC: 5.8 and FC: 3. So I am able to conclude that the storage conditions for OC were what reduced the quality of my old Cretan honey sample.

The MAICh laboratory was also able to give us information on the pollen sources of each variety of honey, by checking for the frequency of pollen grains from nectar giving plants found in the honey. More importantly, the pollen information can tell us whether chemicals or artificial feeding have been used in the honey-making process. Bees travel a lot, so they are most likely picking pollen from a wide variety of sources. Here is what we found for my honey samples:

LH: Eucalyptus occidentalis type (29%), chestnut tree (Castanea sativa) (17%), with 3-15% traces of Pyrus-Prunus type (e.g. almond tree), Malus type (apple tree), Trifolium repens type, Robinia sp. (locust tree), sporadic traces of Salix sp., Brassicaceae, Centaurea sp., Boraginaceae, Liliaceae, and pollen grains of nectarless plants: Quercus sp., Graminae, Hypericum sp., Cyperaceae, Pinaceae.
OC: Eucalyptus camaldulensis (40%), with 3-15% traces of thyme (Thymbra capitata) (14%), dandelion (Taraxacum sp.), heather (Erica sp.), Trifolium repens type, sporadic traces of Cirsium type, Urginea maritima, Parthenocissus sp., Satureja thymbra, Citrus sp., avocado tree (Persea americana), Brassicaceae, and pollen grains of nectarless plants: Verbascum sp., Olea sp., Cistaceae, Graminae, Hypericum sp., Vitis vinifera, Ephedra sp.
FC: Chestnut tree (Castanea sativa) (32%), with 3-15% traces of thyme (Thymbra capitata) (12%), heather (Erica sp.), Trifolium repens type, myrtle (Myrtus communis), Eucalyptus sp., Satureja thymbra, sporadic traces of dandelion (Taraxacum sp.), Cirsium type, Apiaceae, Urginea maritima, Oxalis pes-caprae, Centaurea solstitialis type, Parthenocissus sp.and pollen grains of nectarless plants: Verbascum sp., Olea sp., Hypericum sp., Cistaceae, Pistacia lentiscus.

Based on the pollen examination, the London honey was classified as multi-floral while the Cretan samples were honey blends because they contained honeydew elements from pine trees, whereas the London honey contained no honeydew. This tells us a little about the insects that survive in the general area where the honey is produced. Honeydew, a honey blend of flower nectar and pine honeydew, also gives the darker colour of Cretan honey, which is highly prized in for its reputed medicinal value: in Greek mythology, méli, "honey", drips from the Manna–ash, (Fraxinus ornus), with which the Meliae, or "ash tree nymphs", nursed the infant god Zeus on the island of Crete.

However, the diastase activity of OC was below the honey legislation limit, so that particular honey sample can only be characterized as 'baker's honey'. Although I don't use honey in my baking, I am now using this honey in my cake batters and syrup making, instead of sugar to use it up without wasting it. Even my friend's high-moisture waxy London honey was still edible - it just wasn't marketable. Another interesting point is that the famous thyme honey of Crete can only be called 'thyme honey' when the thyme pollent content is at least 18%. Therefore, my thyme honey samples, while smelling unmistakably of thyme, cannot be called thyme honeys in the market sense because they contained only 14.6% (OC) and 13.4% (FH) thyme pollen.

I passed on the tests to my London friend who took them to his apiculturalist's club, who were very pleased to get them. Such tests are not available to small producers in London, mainly due to the cots involved. They were very pleased to read that their honey was of the highest quality that could be produced anywhere in their country. As for my own honey samples, I couldn't have been more pleased - and next time, I'll be more careful of where I store my honey jars.

Many thanks to Slim Blidi, whose thesis on the topic of "Effect of thermal treatment on the quality of Cretan honeys" I had the pleasure to read, whcih helped me to better understand the magic of honey, and enabled me to write this post.

©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. 

Melon drink (Χυμός πεπονιού)

Every day when I come back home from work, I know someone has been doing things in my kitchen, because my mise en place is disturbed. For example, a kitchen tool that I don't often use is sitting on the coutertop, or an opened box of cream that I was thinking about how to use suddenly disappears.

I know what is happening: I used to do it too when I was young. My 11-year-old daughter admitted that she has been experimenting in the kitchen, as I recently found out when I suddenly came home early, when a very desirable surprise awaited me in the refrigerator:

It wasn't so much how she made it, as where how she thought up the idea to make this juice. She likes to prepare food and drinks, and there is a plethora of fresh ingredients in our house that she may get her inspiration from. She told me she uses youtube videos, so I asked her to send me a link through the email to the recipe she used to make her creations: 

Hi mum. To find the recepy that I make the melon juice , you have to go to YouTube and write Rosanna Pansino  and you have to see the video called "star wars lightsaber popsicles .

Not only is her food preparation up to par, but isn't her level of written English pretty good?!

I loved the melon juice she prepared, but I could tell that she had sweetened it. She said that she used a much more reduced amount of sugar to make it than the original recipe stated. I gave her a bit of advice: for every glass of juice, use a teaspoon of honey instead of sugar. So the next day, I came home to find this:


Not only is she is she improving her skills, but she is also being creative!

To make Christine's melon juice, you need:
a large slice of green melon, rind removed
a teaspoon of honey
the juice of half a small lemon
4 tablespoons of water
Blend everything together in a small electric mixer. Serve cold, or with ice cubes. 

The watermelon juice was made with just watermelon blended to form oa drink: "I noticed there was plenty of water in it already, mum, so I didn't add anything else." Super!

©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. 

Xerotigana - Cretan wedding dessert (Ξεροτήγανα)

The tourist season was in full swing. Despite the sunny weather, the cold breeze whipped bare skin under the shade. While the locals were wearing long-sleeved T-shirts, the Northern Europeans - where so many of the tourists came from - were wandering around shirtless in their jandals (the women wore bikini tops). Some had already turned beetroot red, completely unaware that they were only an hour away from sunstroke. Ifigeneia stared at them as if they were aliens.

"Mama, aren't they crazy?" she asked her mother.

"Very much," Georgia replied, feeling satisfied that the flood of foreigners in her town did not greatly affect the culture in which she was raising her children. Had she been in New Zealand, Emmanuel and Ifigeneia would surely have gone with everyone else's flow. And Georgia herself wouldn't have been able to stop it because her children would tell her that they were Kiwis, even though their parents might call themselves Greek.

"They're eating ice-cream, mama. Is it summertime now?" Goergia was feeling like an ice-cream herself. Today was a good time for the first one for the summer season, even though Easter was only just over and spring hadn't finished. During the Easter festivities, she had suggested to her husband to buy some ice-cream for dessert, if of course there would be any space left after the lamb, the kalitsounia, the pie and all the other Easter food.

"Ice-cream, Georgia? Spring isn't even over yet, and you're thinking about ice-cream?" Her husband was very much dependent on the seasons, which dictated to him what he should eat, what he should wear, where he should go for a Sunday outing. The artichokes in the garden would be at their heaviest, harvest drooping with the weight, but Lambros would say: "It's too early for artichokes. Let them keep growing for a couple more weeks," in which time the artichokes would start blooming in purple thistles, their hearts too tough and fibrous to chew. In a September mini-heatwave, he'd carry a jacket in fear of a change of weather, even though climate change had already taken care of that. It could be a fine sunny day in the middle of winter - as so many were during the halcyon days in January - but he'd still want to drive up to the mountain plain of Omalos, because 'that's where everyone goes in the winter.' Georgia had been raised in a season-free country; all year round, one minute it rained, the next it hailed and then the sun shone through the clouds as if signalling that the worst was over - until a gale-force wind blew the roofs off the houses. Ice-cream was eaten anytime of the year. If Kiwis wait to eat one on a fine day, they might even miss out on having one in their own country altogether, as they'd be taking their holidays in Tonga or Tahiti when the sun finally did arrive in Aotearoa. And right now, Georgia felt like a Crazy Joe popsicle.

They were now nearing the Agora, where Georgia wanted to get some shopping done. She needed some malaka to make a meat pie with the leftover lamb from Easter. There was always too much leftover food at Easter; she had already frozen what she could, but it seemed pointless to freeze the lamb as it was - it would involve defrosting, making a pie crust, preparing the filling, and then cooking it. It was easier to freeze a pie in individual servings, ready to defrost and serve up on a busy day when she was at work once the schools opened again.

"Are we going to a park, mama?" It was always a problem entertaining the children when she had to cart them with her in town. Boredom was never a problem; they just wanted to stop at every toy shop window and then go in and buy everything on display. Their faces dropped when they saw the Agora. "What are we going to do there?" asked Emmanuel.

"Well, I just need to buy some cheese, it won't take long."

"Can we go to the park afterwards?"

"We'll see," she replied, something the children were used to hearing from their mother, who was at that moment thinking about the traffic jam she'd have to encounter to get out of the town centre in the middle of the day. The Easter holidays always brought a flood of Greek tourists from the mainland who always travelled with their private cars - usually SUVs - and drove in the same manic way as in their residential Athenian neighbourhoods. They stopped to let other cars pass at STOP signs, while ignoring them themselves. As they were coming into the town, a car with Athenian licence plates had stopped in the middle of a narrow road so that the driver could make a withdrawal from an ATM. He only got back into his car when the taxi driver who had queued behind him got out of his taxi and proceeded to enter his car, presumably to park it onto into someone's driveway, thereby unblocking the flow of traffic.

An idea suddenly struck her. "Would you like something to eat or drink while we're in the Agora?" Snacking out was always a spiritual enhancer for Georgia, even if it was only a coffee or a pastry, as long as she was sitting at a cafe and she could people-watch.

"Nah, I wanna go to the park," said Ifigeneia.

"OK, if you're feeling hungry, don't ask me to buy anything for you, because I won't." Georgia was sure that there was no way the children would pass up an opportunity to sit at a cafe and be served a snack. It's too tempting to pass by a food stall in the Agora and not feel hungry, even if you weren't hungry when you entered. And as Ifigeneia and Emmanuel entered the Agora, they came across a range of bread and pastry products, which filled their eye, as much as they would fill their stomachs.

"Let's buy the cheese first," Georgia told them, trying to lure them away from the buying from the first shop they found, "and maybe we might find a place to sit down and have these."

The cheese store was on the other side of the cross-shaped market. As they walked past the central part of the Agora, Georgia noticed a few kafeneia serving the traditional Greek coffee, with a few old men sitting quietly at one of the tables. Hardly any were speaking, not even to each other. They looked lonely; the kafeneio was a way to see people coming and going all day long. They might have seen some acquaintances passing by, and would greet them as if they were visitors in their own house.

"Antonis, hronia polla, did you have a good time at the village?"... "Emeis, kala persame, isiha pragmata... we're fine, everybody's well, ... hairetismata to your family, bye for now."

They could sit in the Agora all day long until it closed at 3pm. Maybe they'd go home a little earlier for lunch, take a siesta, and then go to their afternoon haunt, like Georgia's uncles, who each supported a different kafeneio in their village in the morning, and a different one in the afternoon, meeting up only for lunch.

The cheesemaker recognised her as one of his regular customers. "Kalimera madam," he greeted her smilingly, in that special way that all Greek shop owners greet their regulars.

Georgia thought it appropriate to use the seasonal greeting of 'Hronia Polla', one of those generic greetings that you can say almost any time (except at a wedding or funeral). "Some tiromalama, please," she asked him, adding "is it fresh?" although she knew it was.

The shop owner turned to his young assistant. "Fere ena fresko malaka."

"Mama, why did he say he was going to bring a malaka?" asked Emmanuel. The shop owner laughed with Georgia.

"Etsi to lene, call malaka by its name," he answered to the little boy.

"What?" asked Emmanuel. Confusion reigned.

After paying for the cheese, the trio took to one of the other sides of the cross and came across a modern cafe with a wide variety of pastries on display: kalitsounia, crepes, spanakopita, bougatsa, cheese pie, donuts, egg pastry avgokalamara, and the largest xerotigana (E1.20 each) Georgia had ever seen. She pointed to them: "Shall we sit here? You can have anything you like from the display." She stood in front of the donuts so they could only see the healthier snacks.

The children were glad to have a seat after all the walking around. "Can I have a xerotigano?" Ifigeneia could not be fooled when it came to food. She seemed to prefer only local cuisine, even though Georgia cooked everything from Indian curry to Kiwi kai. Despite her pre-school age, she had a very refined definition of what good food meant. Emmanuel was happy with a hamburger - as long as it contained no tomato, pickle or mustard. Ifigeneia knew a good pastry when she saw one, and those xerotigana looked perfect: tightly-packed rounds of thinly-spread pastry, fried and dipped in honey syrup. Georgia wasn't surprised when Emmanuel said he'd have what Ifigeneia was having.

A busty chubby peroxide blonde, her tight pink lycra crossover top hiding very little of her cleavage, was clearing one of the tables. She smiled softly at them. Her bra wasn't her size; either that, or she was purposely wearing it extra-tight. One boob was sitting higher up than the other. A piece of thick denim just covering her buttocks was wrapped tightly round her midriff, flabby tummy hanging exposed over it. Her thick footless lime green tights and high-heeled brown mules made her look more like someone who'd just come from Minoos St. The colours of her clothes suited the spring season well; if anyone would look just at her face and not the clown's clothing she was wearing, they would have said she was beautiful, but it wouldn't have been easy not to gape at her from the neck down. She looked a scream.

A man was at the till. "Stella!" he bellowed, and the blonde turned to look at him. "Bring some water to the children." His voice was gruff, unpleasant. He was wearing a black shirt, hanging over his trousers. It was probably more comfortable than trying to smooth it over his huge stomach and tucking it into his trousers.

"Can I have a cup of coffee with that please?" No response. Georgia repeated herself.

"What KIND of coffee dja want?" Under normal circumstances, Georgia would have upped and gone elsewhere, but after living in Hania for so long, she knew that she would get the same kind of treatment at another place, maybe worse. In Hania, shop owners open and close their shops as they please. Like lambs to the slaughter, customers return to the same shops, simply because they were recommended by an acquaintance, while the store owners obviously profit enough to be able to enjoy more relaxed opening hours. They don't need to change their attitude towards customers; the store owner is always right.

So she gaped at his face, as if she was staring right through his head, and replied in a low timid voice: "Cappuccino, please," knowing that he wouldn't hear her, and hoping to grate on his nerves until he finally took the time (there were no other customers) to listen to her in the interested way Georgia had been brought up to expect from a shop owner, the way she used to show interest in the customers' orders in her parents' fish and chip shop in Wellington. After repeating her order two times, the shop owner decided she was British and that's why she spoke so softly; so he forgave her and cocked his head to one side to hear her better. No matter how Greek her face looked, her accent always gave her foreign-ness away.

Some tourists were approaching the cafe; they were Dutch: a middle-aged man, a slightly younger woman, and two spotty pale-faced teenage boys, wearing Hawaiian floral bermudas and T-shirts. The was man carrying a guide book as if it were a bible (with GRIEKENLAND on the cover) , a chunky camera dangling off his neck. They were looking at the pastry display, pointing mostly at the xerotigana with a perplexed look. They stole glances at the children eating theirs, who seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. Georgia smiled at them.

She decided to speak to them. "That's a traditional Cretan wedding dessert." It took them a few seconds to realise that she was talking to them. "We always have it at weddings. It's a pastry dipped in syrup."

The couple looked surprised with her offer of information, although she wasn't sure if they had understood her. They smiled and thanked her in that way that Northern Europeans have of saying 'thank you', as if someone had just offered them a service free of charge, and should be rewarded in some way. In any case, their confused looks had gone. They decided to take a seat. As they passed her table, Georgia almost fell off her chair. One of the boys was wearing a black t-shirt with a bullet-ridden ZONIANA signpost. She wondered whether they supported the abolition of the law stating that marijuana was a Class A drug. They were well versed in Cretan current affairs.

While the children ate their xerotigana, she sipped on her coffee slowly, as a cousin had once instructed her to do when she first arrived in Greece ("if you drink it too quickly, what are you going to do the rest of the time we're sitting here?" she had explained to her), letting it go tepid and undrinkable, while she watched the tourists walk up and down the main aisles of the Agora.

The Dutch family ordered xerotigana and ice-cream. "Stella!" roared the man at the till again. Stella produced the ubiquitous glasses of water, as if they were a sign that the shop owner was not the grouchy ruffian that he pretended to be. Georgia watched them breaking off bits of pastry; no sooner had they nipped a bit off and eaten it than another bit was broken off, until they had got to the tightest part of the pastry, which they ate more slowly.

"You speak very good English," the black-shirted shop owner broke into her daydream. "Are you Greek?" Georgia hated that question; it always carried a class distinction, a kind of segregation that she had slowly become accustomed to dealing with over the years.

"Yes, I am Greek," she replied, stressing the 'am' a little more than the other words, "but I was born έξω (= outside of Greece)." She could have told him where, but she knew that that would be the second question.

"Which country?" He still carried an inquisitive look.

"New Zealand."

"Hey, we're neighbours then. I was born in Australia, but my family left when I was very young. I don't remember hardly anything." Georgia couldn't explain to him that she remembered practically everything; she wouldn't know where to begin: the wooden houses, the wide streets, the dust-less environment, the green hills with their moving clouds of sheep...

His eyes took on a glassy haze, his voice softer than when he yelling to Stella. "I've always wanted to visit the house I was born in. I want to show it to my children. Don't you ever want to go back there?"

"To live there? No... My children were born here," she continued, "we live here now." The shop owner nodded in assent, showing recognition of the dilemma of being the tennis ball, batted between two countries, never gathering any moss, always wondering which side of the fence was greener.

"Kala einai ki'edo," he said, and Georgia smiled. It's just fine here, she thought to herself.

It was time to leave. Picking up the heavy bags of cheese, she got up to leave when the children had finished their dessert. "Now let's go to the park," Ifigeneia said. Georgia couldn't bear the thought of chasing children while carrying a block of malaka.

"Hey, shall we go to the supermarket instead?" Cries of protest came out of their mouths. "I'll buy you an ice-cream afterwards," she said, knowing that what she said was stupid - they'd just had a sweet pastry. "And we can eat it at the park near our house," she added as an afterthought.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaay!" they both cried.

The traffic on the road out of town was horrific. The queue stretched from the town centre out to the Nea Hora junction. It took Georgia half an hour to drive those four kilometres. The trip to the supermarket was to be a quick one: orzo pasta rice ('make sure it's Misko') and lavender-scented chlorine bleach ('in a white bottle') for her bedridden sudoku-solving mother-in-law. The last time she had bought her some orzo rice, she'd bought another brand. "It's not the one I wanted," scowled the old lady, as if it was her last god-given right to be permitted to choose the brand of orzo rice of her preference, and Georgia was simply being inconsiderate towards the needs of senior citizens. So Georgia simply put the pasta in her bag and pretended to make away with it, promising she'll buy Misko the next day, prompting her mother-in-law to snap: "Well, where are you going with it? I may as well have some to use, now that you've bought it!" When she returned the next day with a Misko packet, the old woman simply said: "Why did you bother to buy another packet? I'm not going to be eating kritharaki all this month!"

While the children were running up and down the aisles, bumping into other people's trolleys, and filling up her own one wit KINDER sweets, chocolate milk and coloured yoghurts, she looked for the lavender-scented chlorine bleach on the shelves, which contained every other fragrance but lavender. It became clear to Georgia that her mother-in-law must have seen it advertised on television, and the last bottle she bought could have been quite a while ago, when lavender-scented chlorine bleach was fragrance of the month, while this month, the 'in' fragrance was pine forest - the shelves were stacked with the stuff, outdoing even plain chlorine bleach. She wondered what fragrance was a hit 50 years ago when her mother-in-law had just moved from the manure-laid village paths to the town of Hania as a newly-wed - knowing that it was highly unlikely that fragrant chlorine bleach actually existed back then.

The shopping done, they all climbed back into the car. "Pagoto?" the children asked together. She stopped at a corner store to buy them an ice-cream. They chose whatever gleamed to their eye - shiny smartie candies in a plastic tube with what looked like a toilet roll made of speckled ice-cream stuck onto it. Perfect, thought Georgia; they would stop at the local park to eat it, like an 'out-of-season' tourist', they wouldn't like it because it would be sickly sweet, they'd probably throw it away, they'd forget about the ice-cream while playing in the park, their appetite wouldn't be harmed, and they'll still lunch altogether with dad, as if nothing ever happened.

This post is dedicated to Dimitra, who would have liked to be sharing that coffee with Georgia. And if you want to see how xerotigana (which could loosely be translated as "dry fries"), the traditional Cretan wedding pastry dessert, also handed out at baptisms and other occasions of a celebratory nature, are made, come back to this page in about 20 years time...

©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.

The daily shopping (Ψώνια καθημερινής βάσης)

"Good morning, Mama, do you need anything from the shops?" Dimitra asked her bedridden mother-in-law, even though she knew that the question was pointless. Supermarket shopping, which she loathed, had now become a daily morning chore. If it wasn't a carton of milk that was needed, then it was half a dozen carrots or a couple of bananas - her mother-in-law believed in buying as fresh as possible, and would bin anything that her sight deceived her into believing that it was stale or had gone off, even if its sell-by date hadn't passed, or it was practically unblemished. Neither she nor her live-in nurse kept shopping lists. "We'll be in town today. I'm taking the children to their clubs."

As Dimitra spoke, Harikleia waved her wiry hand in the air. "I don't think you're in a position to know my needs."

Dimitra had heard so many different versions of this so many times that she had now become completely immune to feeling any degree of insult by it. "OK," she said, keeping her tone neutral so as not to show her broiling ire; she knew that before she had stepped out onto the threshold, somebody would think of something that had run out, each item spontaneously emerging as if its need was precipitated at that very moment. She tur
ned to leave the house. "Margaret, do you need anything?" she asked the live-in Bulgarian nurse.

"I've run out of honey, you know," Harikelia said, just as Margaret opened her mouth.

"Yiani gave me the honey jar. I'll get it filled for you," Dimitra answered nonplussed. She had asked Yiani to fill the jar with the honey that they had in their own house produced by her beekeeper cousin, but Yiani told her to get the jar filled from the Agora where his mother usually bought her honey. "Can she really tell the difference?" Dimitra's mind was on the extra weight she'd have to carry in her bag.

"Are you going to the Agora?" asked Harikleia.

"Yes, I am," she replied.

"What I want is a really good chicken," Harikleia spoke as she stared at the wall. Before she had broken her leg, she did all her shopping without anyone's help, not even her son's. She'd order a taxi, be dropped off at the bank to pick up her pension, then go across the road to the Agora. Throughout her married and widowed life, after she had left the village, the Agora had been her supermarket and shopping centre combined. Everything she needed came from there. But now, this privilege - her mobility as an octogenarian - had been taken away from her without any prior warning. And now she had to rely on the foreign wife of her son, who bought in bulk and always from the local supermarket, where the products could be lying on the shelves for goodness knows how long before they were sold.

"Mama, you know I'm no good when it comes to buying meat." Yiani had picked up a similar prejudice against all supermarket-bought meat, no matter how good it tasted before he was told where she'd bought it from. One minute, he'd be licking his fingers, telling her the chicken was as tender as boiled potato. "Mmm, where did you get this chicken from?" As soon as she told him it was from the supermarket, he'd be spitting out his last bite and casting his plate aside: "I'll just have some salad and bread." She knew better than to pretend that she could buy the kind of chicken meat her mother-in-law wanted.

When she first came to live with them, as a new bride, Dimitra was taken on a shopping trip to the butcher's with her husband and his mother. As they entered the butcher's at the back entrance of the Agora, the same stall that she'd been buying from for years, Harikleia, clutching her handbag and dressed in a black skirt, black blouse, black blazer, black shoes and black stockings, walked slowly up to the counter - time always seemed immaterial to her - and spoke slowly and clearly, as if she were talking to someone who was hard of hearing. "I'm wanting some goat, today." The butcher stared blankly at the carcasses that were hanging from the meat hooks and pointed to them. "Yes, but is it really goat?" Harikleia smiled sarcastically. Dimitra wondered why she had to ask the butcher this question; after all, she had been shopping from this person for so many years. "It's goat," the butcher glared back at her. Yiani stood next to his mother, waiting to speak when told to. "Have you got any goat with its tail still attached?" Dimitra felt uncomfortable; she would choose divorce rather than enter a butcher's and ask to see an animal's backside, and why on earth couldn't she just buy lamb and be done with it, anyway? "Spring lamb contains too much cholesterol, and a goat's tail looks distinctive, so he can't switch it with lamb, which always costs less." She wondered if her parents used to pose the same kind of questions to the butchers in Courtenay Place in Wellington, where they always bought half a side of spring lamb once a month, chopped up appropriately into stewing, roast and barbecue cuts. She couldn't ask them if they did, as they had both passed away by this time, and all the butchers in Courtenay Place had closed down, ever since the New World supermarket opened up for business across from the fire station.

Without batting an eyelid or uttering a word, the butcher opened the door that led to the cold storage. He came back carrying half a carcass with a bushy black tail, presumably the other half of the animal that was hanging on the display hook. He was probably used to this kind of customer, the ghost dressed in black, as Dimitra liked to call her. Harikleia peered at the tail and nodded. "Yes, it is goat." She stared at it closely, just below the tail. Her last question sounded totally irrelevant to the circumstances: "But it's a male goat, isn't it?" The butcher quickly retorted, as if expecting this remark, "That's all I've got today, madam." "Meat from male animals has an off-putting smell when you cook it, Dimitra. Trust us, we know about this better than you do," Yiani tried to explain to her. The balance of the sexes is kept in order by Nature who ensures that enough of both sexes are born to continue the breed. "Then who ends up buying male meat if you say it stinks? Is it left to rot and thrown away?" It was pointless for Dimitra to argue about such a culturally controversial issue. So Harikleia asked for chicken instead, and Dimitra told Yiani that if he wanted his wife to cook meat in the house, he'd have to bring it to her, otherwise, he'd have to convert to vegetarianism for the rest of his life.

"I'll let Yiani know, Mama, he knows the kind of chicken meat you want."

"Is Yiani at work?" No matter what he was doing, if Mama wanted something, he'd stop and fetch it for her. He never said no to his Mama.

"Yes, he's in town, it won't be difficult for him to stop off at the market, Mama." You know that, she felt like adding.

"So many responsibilities rest on his shoulders," sighed Harikleia. Dimitra could hear the children waging a war against each other in the car. "We need some milk, and we're out of soap." Margaret remembered what they needed just in time before Dimitra left the house, huddling her arms round her as if she felt cold, even though it was a warm sunny day in March.

*** *** ***

Saturday mornings were now always a pleasure for Dimitra. It was the only time in the week that she spent on the only form of exercise she got these days - she loved walking. Hania however was not a walker's paradise. The roads were often full of potholes, the sidewalks narrow, the streets dusty. There were too many cars being driven by reckless drivers. The port area was supposed to be car-free, but even there drivers disobeyed the law by bringing their cars into the designated pedestrian zone. It was a trial to walk anywhere with children; now she was rid of them early enough to enjoy a hassle-free walk from the cafes by Koum Kapi to the former mosque at the main square by the harbour, and then on into the shopping district of the town, before it was time to pick up the children and go home to cook lunch.

Despite its hazardous road conditions, Hania felt like a safe town to Dimitra, at least during the day, and since she was not a night person, preferring to rise early and seize the day by its horns, she didn't care what she heard about what happened in Hania at night. When she lived in Wellington, she walked a great deal. Her walks were taken for the sole purpose of walking and taking in the view. There was no reason why she had to walk a particular route. She simply walked because she liked to walk. She liked to walk by the sea and look up at the hills of the town belt directly above the bays. Starting from her house, the walk would take her along the business district of Kent Terrace, past the large pub across from the Embassy cinema which always had its doors and windows open during the day, presumably to air it, since it stank of beer and cigarette smoke even as Dimitra walked outside it (she had never been inside and had never wished to), past the fire station, onto Oriental Parade. She felt privileged to live within walking distance of the town beach stretching below the foot of the hill which was covered in pine trees.

But once she reached the old pavilion at Oriental Bay, the road started to frighten her; it was void of human life, apart from the few joggers who sped by with their dark sunglasses and walkmans plugged into their ears, staring straight ahead of them, and the odd loner walking a dog. They probably didn't even notice her, as they would be absorbed in their own activities. Once she reached Point Jermingham, she would quicken her pace and stop every now and then to look behind her, in case someone was following her and she hadn't noticed them. This stopped her from enjoying the breathtaking views of the Roseneath hills and the stunning atmosphere of the quiet bays with their pebbly shores. The privilege she felt to live within walking distance of the sea was overshadowed by the fear that all those nasty things that were reported in the newspapers would happen to her in this lonely stretch of scenic beauty, because she had theaudacity to enjoy it alone. It defied the purpose of the walk. Even the road across from the shore looked uninviting. The people who had built houses on the hillside needed cable car lifts to access them. There was always a strong breeze blowing in the area; it was shaded and received little sunshine for most of the day. Despite its lure as a seaside suburb, it felt too hostile; the houses were silent, the curtains never moved, the windows were closed. It resembled a dormitory town, even though it was only a few minutes walk to the city centre.

But this did not apply to Hania. There were always plenty of people enjoying a walk around the area of the harbour; women pushing prams, men jiggling worry beads, children riding bikes. Kitchens smelled of the aromas that were going to be enjoyed for lunch, shutters were open with curtains moving against the light breeze, rugs were hanging over balconies to be aired, old people were sitting close to the door to keep away from the draught and still be able to enjoy the atmosphere of the colourful little town that they may have lived in all their life, without ever seeking other shores.

*** *** ***

First, she parked the car close to the art academy, dropped her daughter off and walked her son to the chess club close by. She was normally free at this point to roam the town for the next two hours before picking them up again. If she didn't feel like walking, she could choose to go window-shopping, buy a magazine and read at a cafe, or browse through the stalls at Saturday's street market. The town itself wasn't very big, and she could easily cross it twice and walk its circumference in less than the two hours she had to herself.

Today wasn't as free as she had hoped it would be; feeling the weight of the honey jar, she was reminded of her assigned task. She chose the route from the district court, walking past the old mansions lining the former Dimokratias Street, now known as Papandreou Street. The signs had been changed overnight by the PASOK-based city council once the former leader of the left-wing party died, leaving the residents wondering whether the road had been moved to another part of the town right under their noses. The road led to the Agora, where she would have to find a honey supplier.

The Agora's purpose seemed to have become obsolete. Although it was not in decline, it was very much a tourist trap. When she had first arrived in Hania, Dimitra was taken in by its exoticness in and around the square where the Agora was located: a gypsy woman walking up and down its wide corridors selling embroidered tablecloths, old men hawking lottery tickets, a young boy being pushed in a wheelchair by his mother asking for spare drachma. After a few years of living in the town, she got tired of seeing the gypsy woman selling old-fashioned items that nobody seemed to use any longer, the lottery ticket vendors who seemed to push the tickets under your nose, and the paralytic son whose mother always seemed to hit the streets just before Christmas, Easter and the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. Its vegetable stalls didn't hint anything towards organic production, and she couldn't distinguish any special feature to force her to choose any one of the meat, fish and poultry stalls over the local village butcher. There were more souvenir shops and food outlets than what one would have expected of a traditional Greek market.

As she entered, she passed a group of tourists: young, blond, thin, wearing low-slung trousers, singlet tops and flip-flops. The good Hania weather easily fooled most people during the day. But once night fell, the humidity settled and the evenings would become cold enough to shiver in such clothing, especially along the harbour where the tourists usually congested. She saw a row of honey jars on the display case at one of the stalls. As she approached it, she noticed another row of honey jars on display directly opposite the first stall. She knew it wouldn't make any difference which stall she chose, but she wondered just what criteria her mother-in-law used when choosing which stall to mark out as her favorite.



As she was trying to make up her mind which stall to go to, she saw Kiki, the mother of one of her son's classmates, looking very busy and wearing a large white apron behind a butcher's counter. She neared the counter, narrowly avoiding crashing into the tail of a hige specimen of black-skinned fish lying in a supermarket trolley. A man was selling raffle tickets for it: "Simera klironete, prolavete na parete! (Raffle finishes today! Buy your tickets in time!)"


"Dimitra how nice to see you here, you don't often come this way, do you?" No, Dimitra didn't often come into the market; even if she came into Hania every day of the week, the last place she'd go to was the Agora.

"Hello, Kiki, I didn't realise you worked here."

Kiki was a lovely smiling happy woman whose children, in Dimitra's opinion, were very well-mannered and not as boisterous as the other children in the village school. "Oh, I usually help my husband out in his stall every Saturday, you know," she winked as she spoke, "just to keep him company." As she spoke, an Asian peddler passed the stall, carrying an array of goods in a box which she supported with a strap over her head.


What have I got to lose, Dimitra thought. "Kiki, do you think you could help me out?" She explained the situation with her mother-in-law, how she had broken her leg and was now bedridden. "Oh dear," said Kiki, "those old people - it's either pesimo (a fall) or hesimo (soiling themselves) with them." Dimitra was shocked at the crudeness of the joke, but it seemed so fitting for the occasion. She burst out laughing; she hadn't laughed like this in a while. There was no one around at home that could crack a joke with her like this one about her mother-in-law's condition. It was treated as a serious matter. She daydreamed about telling her husband what Kiki had said to her. Would he call it blasphemy, or would he laugh with her? At that moment, she was glad to be away from the house.

"Just this morning," Dimitra continued, "she asked me if I could buy her a chicken, but I'm worried that I might bring something for her that she won't like."

"Is that what you're thinking, dear?" Kiki was a large matronly woman, perfectly suited to her role as the butcher's wife. "Did she tell you what she wanted it for, pilafi, roast, a feather duster?" Dimitra wondered why she had shunned the Agora on her previous walks.

"Actually, I didn't ask her, but I could always phone her." Dimitra took out her mobile phone. She would never have even put the idea of calling her up in her mind, if it hadn't been for the chance occasion of bumping into Kiki. Margaret answered the phone but didn't speak. Dimitra could hear her passing the receiver on to her mother-in-law.

"Nai? Poios einai?"

"Mama, I'm in the Agora--" Her mother-in-law interrupted her. "You're in the Agora now?"

"Yes, Mama, I'm at a butcher's stall. I know the owner. Would you like me to buy you some chicken?" She could hear the delight in her mother-in-law's voice. "Yes, yes, buy whatever you find. Just check that it's small and lean. But make sure it's dopio (local)."

Dimitra called out to Kiki. "A small one with no fat, Kiki, is it dopio?" Zeta laughed. "They're all dopio, just like us."

"Mama, I'll do what I can, entaxi." She ended the phone call. "If she doesn't like this chicken, she won't like any other," Kiki mused. Dimitra half-heartedly thought about asking if the chicken was male or female, but decided against it. It might sound catty, speaking ill of the old woman. She started to feel sorry for her. For so long, Dimitra had been waging a losing battle to try to be accepted as the foreigner that she was and couldn't help being. Now the tables had turned, and her mother-in-law had to rely on two foreigners for her daily needs. She wondered how accepting she would be in her old age of other people's attempts to please her. The two women chatted about school matters - mainly the outrageous dress style of the young teacher in their sons' class - until another customer came by, and Dimitra felt that she was holding Kiki up in her work, when she suddenly remembered the honey jar.

"Kiki, where can I get this jar filled with honey?"

"Grigori, ela!" Kiki called out to her husband. "Hang on a moment, and I'll take you to someone who sells really good honey." Kiki's husband came to the counter. Kiki introduced them to each other and excused herself. "Come with me," she said to Dimitra, as she led her through the corridors of the Agora to another stall, much further away from her own stall. She obviously didn't support her neighbours' stalls.

When she finally stopped at a stall, she explained to Dimitra: "This man's a beekeeper, and he only sells what he himself produces. It's really good stuff." She turned to the stall owner. "Yiasou Niko! I've bought you a customer!"

Dimitra knew she could have asked anyone else in the Agora, and they would have done the same thing as Kiki - taken her to their friend's stalls, 'dikos mou anthropos', their own person, someone who they supposedly trust because they know them, and not much else. She thanked Kiki and bought out the honey jar.

*** *** ***

Walking with a kilo's worth of glass, another kilo of honey and a two-kilo chicken under a hot midday sun was not much fun. Dimitra walked all the way back to where she had left the car and put away the shopping bags. She picked up the children and drove home. Her mother-in-law was sleeping when she arrived home, so she left the honey and chicken with Margaret. She then went upstairs and got the midday lunch going. She was curious to see what her mother-in-law would say about the shopping.

In the afternoon, Dimitra took down some spinach pie which she had baked for the evening snack. "Kalispera, Mama, I've made some spinach pie with the last of the spinach you had planted in the garden last season."

"Oh, did it grow very tall?" her mother-in-law asked.

"No," replied Dimitra, "it wasn't very bushy, but there was a lot of it. I've made three pies with it so far."

"That was some chicken you bought there. It's just what I would have bought myself." Her mother-in-law wasn't exactly complimenting her, but maybe this was her way of thanking her without actually spelling it out. Dimitra was relieved. She didn't care about the chicken. She had enjoyed the unexpected rapport with Kiki, and she knew she would go into the Agora again, just to meet up with her friend for another quick laugh. Maybe she could change butchers, but on second thoughts, she preferred to shop close to where she could park the car.

©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.

Tiropitakia - cheese pastries (Τυροπιτάκια τηγανιτά με μέλι)

Cheese-filled pastries are popular all over Greece, and every region of Greece has its own version of this classic pastry. It can be served sweet or savoury, depending on the filling. In Crete, these are generically known as kalitsounia. One of the many variations of this pastry is a fried sweet. It doesn't take long to make, as long as you use shop-bought pastry. It is a traditional dessert often served at the end of a traditional feast of pilafi and lamb roast, but in my house, we eat it as an evening snack. Because you can freeze it, you can whip it up during unexpected food crises. Use only thick filo (phyllo) pastry for this recipe. I never make the pastry myself; there are shops in Hania which sell two thicknesses of filo pastry: the thin variety that is used in multiple layers for sweets such as baklava, and the thin variety that is used in single layers for pie and pastry dishes. I don't ever use the thin variety as it must be oiled or buttered between layers, so it makes a much more fattening dish. I prefer to eat this kind of pastry only from a takeaway shop or a dessert restaurant, a once-in-a-while treat. Fresh filo pastry can be frozen when you buy it, or prepared with a filling and then frozen, as for this recipe. It also keeps successfully for 10 days in the fridge. This is why I never freeze it myself - I have access to it any time I want.










The pastry can be bought in large sheets to use in pie dishes, or small squares or rounds for making smaller pastries and pies. If you buy it in large sheets, cut the sheet of thick filo pastry into small rectangles, and put it aside. Cover it with a cloth so that it doesn't dry out while you're preparing the cheese mixture. If you really want to make your own, just check out kalofagas - I'm sure you'll come running to ask me where I get my own supplies.

The kind of cheese you need for this sweet is mizithra, the Cretan equivalent of ricotta, a soft white curd cheese. Only this kind of cheese can be used. Supermarket cottage cheese is far too soggy, while cream cheese (Philadelphia-style) is far too creamy and does not have the right taste. Processed cheeses are never used in traditional Cretan cooking. All cultures have their own form of cheese; Crete has its own varieties. Processed cheeses belong to the same culture as milkshake. Another kind of cheese is also known as mizithra in mainland Greece, but it bears no resemblance to the Cretan type. It is a hard creamy-coloured bland cheese, used mainly in dishes requiring grated cheese. It is not part of Cretan cooking.

Mix a fistful of semolina into about 500g of mizithra - a ricotta-style cottage cheese - this is to remove any excess dampness. The best way to do this is by hand. An electric mixer will only cause more strife, as the sticky mixture needs to be scraped off the blades. Some people also add finely chopped fresh mint to the mixture, but this is a matter of taste; I never use herbs myself in sweets. You can also add one egg too. I sometimes do this when I don't have enough mizithra in the house, or the mizithra is very soft (meaning that it will contain a higher level of water), as this helps the cheese mixture to bind better. It does not alter the taste very much.











Using a teaspoon, place a small amount of cheese mix onto the middle of a piece of pastry, leaving clean pastry all around the cheese mix. Roll up the pastry around the cheese mix and twist the edges of the pastry to make the roll look like a wrapped boiled sweet. These twists make a spectacular dessert at the end of a formal meal. If you find that the pastry cracks at the edges and you can't twist them (this happens to me too, when I buy low quality supermarket pastry), fold up the edges instead and seal them with a dab of water round the edges. This pastry is going to be fried. It is not suitable for oven baking - the Greek cheese pastries that are baked are usually thin-filo cheese-filled triangles.

At this stage, the pastries - which we prefer to call kalitsouni (from calzone, reminding us of our Venetian history) rather than tiropitaki (meaning 'small cheese pie'), as that is the Cretan word for a small fried or baked pastry - can be frozen or put in the fridge to be cooked at a later time. They should be placed individually on a flat baking sheet to freeze. After that, they are easily collected together and placed into a plastic bag. I do this all the time. It is time-consuming and messy to make this pastry; the flour from the filo dusts any surface it touches, especially your hands and clothes. It goes mushy when damp. Then the cheese mixture needs to be scraped off your hands and the mixing bowl. To top it all off, you need to use a frying pan, and no matter how careful you are, hot oil spits, so you'll need to clean your benchtop afterwards. It's better that you don't do this all on the same day, otherwise you'll be cursing the tiropitakia before you even eat them. When we come home late from an after-school activity, I can whip these up in less than half an hour. They don't need defrosting, they just go straight into the pan.

When you're ready to cook them, heat some olive oil in a small shallow frying pan. When the oil is hot, place between 6-10 pastries in the pan. (If you place pastry in cold oil, it will soak up the oil and become soggy, a very sorry sight.) Cook on a high heat until the pastry turns a golden brown colour. Using a spoon, turn the pastries over and cook on the other side. They do not need a long cooking time, just enough for the pastry to cook. Don't go away to do something else at this point, because before long, a burning smell will drill through your nostrils, and you won't have enough time to salvage the burning tiropitakia. Then you'll really be cursing yourself.


When they are ready, take them out of the oil, draining off as much oil as possible. Place them on a plate and drizzle honey over them while they are hot. Pile each batch on top of the previous one so that they soak up the honey on both sides. These pastries are a perfect way to end a meal. They are not as rich as they seem. They are preferably cooked just before serving, but they can also be made ahead and eaten at room temperature. They look amazing served on individual white porcelain plates (3 pieces per plate) with honey running over them. For a tangy taste, sprinkle just a little lemon juice over the honey, or mix some lemon zest into the cheese mixture.

©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.

MORE PASTRY RECIPES:
Kalitsounia fried
Easter kalitsounia
Kalitsounia in the oven
Marathopites
Leek spiral
Hortopita (spanakopita)
Filo-pastry making
Sfakianes pites
Summer kalitsounia
Bougatsa

Cheese and honey pies form Sfakia (Σφακιανές πίτες)

These cheese pies are very popular in Crete. They are easy to make and use quite basic ingredients, but they do involve making a slight mess of your kitchen. Although I have made them on numerous occassions, they turned out best for me when I made them for the first time with a friend's mother's help, and just recently (9 years later) when another neighbour friend invited me to her place to make them together, so I was spared the hassle of cleaning up. They involve a little skill, in that when you roll out the dough-and-cheese mixture, you mustn't apply a heavy hand, otherwise the dough will break up, and the cheese will run out. Their name derives from a remote area of Crete (Sfakia) where they were originally made, and they are cooked in the typical style of the cuisine of the Sfakia region, using just oil and high heat.

To make about 15 pies (which can be deep-frozen stacked on top of one another with greaseproof paper between each layer), you need 1 egg, a cup of water, 1/2 cup of olive oil, some salt and approximately 1 kilo of flour for the dough. You also need approximately a kilo of mizithra for the filling. Mix well the egg, water, oil and salt together, and then add the flour, kneading it in well, until you have a soft dough that can be easily spread (not too firm and hard). You'll need almost a kilo's worth, depending on the temperature, humidity, and the size of the cup you used to measure the liquids. Put the dough aside for half an hour to let it become more elastic, so that it won't break up too easily when rolling it out. This dough is not the same as filo pastry - it is softer, thicker and more malleable.

These pies are made in a similar way to marathopites, except that they are slightly bigger. Take a knob of dough the size of a large mandarin (or a small apple). Open it up into the shape of a small saucer. Place a knob of dry mizithra (ricotta-style cheese) the size of a golf ball into the centre of the dough, and roll it up around the cheese so that it is hidden inside the dough. Take a rolling pin and LIGHTLY, not firmly, knead the cheesy dough into a bigger round on a floured workspace. Every time you roll the dough, turn the pie round, so that it turns round like a clock hand as you roll it out. This is to ensure that the cheese in the dough will spread out evenly. Stack the pies one on top of one another, separated by greaseproof paper. If you aren't going to cook them immediately, you should cover them with a cloth, and put them in the fridge. They freeze well, but you must freeze them individually on a flat surface, otherwise, they are difficult to stack, and they lose their shape.

When you are ready to cook them, heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan the size of the pie. Slide one in the pan, and cook on a medium to high heat till brown bubbles have formed on the side it is being cooked. Then flip it over and cook the other side. You can cook them as soft or as crispy as you like. When both sides are done, place the pie on a plate, and pour a tablespoon of honey over it. Repeat the process, starting from the point where you place oil in the pan. Stack the cooked pies on top of each other, pouring a tablspoon of honey over each one.

These pies can be served hot or cold. They make a spectacular desert at the end of a traditional Cretan meal.

©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.

MORE PUDDINGS:
Apple pie
Brownies
Chocolate cake
Chocolate pancakes
Walnut cake
Apple pie
Tiropitakia
Halva
Fruit crumble
Bougatsa