Book quilt

Dear ______,

How are you? We hope you and You-know-who are both well and happy. At the moment, we are in the middle of our school exams. We know that this is a poor excuse to talk to you less often and we feel terrible about this, but we hope this letter makes up for the lost time(s). So far, we have been tested on Maths, Physics, Biology, Modern Greek, Composition, Ancient Greek, Religion, the Odyssey, the Iliad, English (we didn't have to study for that) and German. (Mum helped us to study for that, but she thinks it's not the most useful foreign language to learn. She wants us to learn Chinese during the summer.)

We also think it's time we presented you with a gift. You've given us so many, and all we say is 'Thank you.' It's time we gave you something more tangible, as a keepsake. Actually, Mum made this gift for you, and not for You-know-who, because she says that if she gave it to You-know-who, then You-know-who would probably flog it on e-Bay. That's why Mum made this quilt just for you, to settle the ownership issue. (If she made a bigger quilt for both of you, You-know-who might divide it into two, take one piece and flog that on e-Bay).



We watched Mum making this quilt over the last three weeks. She was working in the living room, while Dad was watching TV and we were studying. (We like studying in the living room, each of us taking up one sofa. Mum says she now wished she had bought us a desk for our rooms from a second hand shop, like her parents did, because it would have been cheaper, since we don't use our desks. But she remembers that when the bedrooms were being renovated, Hania didn't have second-hand shops. There are lots now.) The noise from the sewing machine drove Dad nuts, so she'd take her sewing machine into the kitchen and do her sewing there. We really didn't know what she was sewing at first. It simply looked to us as if she was cutting up fabric and sewing it back together, with totally unmatched colours. We didn't worry so much because we'd seen her doing this before. She's made quilts for all of us. When she started making them, it looked like she was going crazy, cutting up large pieces of material into smaller pieces and then putting them back together again. We could never really see the patterns in the fabric which she could see.


But as the quilts all grew, we began to see what she was making, and we all really liked them. Even the cat liked them. Since there isn't enough space anywhere to lay out a quilt, as she was making each one, she would spread it out on the floor in the living room. The cat would walk around the room slowly and then take a last step on one of the corners of the quilt and sit there. Then we'd go and pick it up off the quilt and put it on the rug, but the cat would go back to the same spot on the quilt. Eventually, it would get the message and leave the quilt alone. But it really did prefer the quilt. (Don't worry about the cat sitting on your quilt: Mum put the quilt in the washing machine when she finished it - it's fully washable. It won't smell of Mum's cooking, either, when she was working in the kitchen on it. Mum always laughs when she reads crafts sites selling 'pet-free, smoke-free' products. "The Western world thinks it can be so sterile," she says.)

We would really like to present you with the quilt ourselves, but travelling is getting a little difficult for us now. We don't want to leave yiayia alone at home. She's in her nineties now, and looks like she's on course to celebrate her 100th birthday. Now that it's not cold, she goes out into the garden and does some weeding, or she looks after her rose bushes. She always cooks for herself, and she washes and irons her own clothes too (by hand). She doesn't take any medications. She says that if she has to take medicines to keep her alive, she'd rather die. But even though she feels so strong for such an old person, we don't feel we can leave her alone on her own while we go away on holiday to see you. So that's why you'll have to come and pick up the quilt yourself. It's time you took a Cretan holiday yourself, come to think of it.

We told Mum that she can go on holiday by herself and take the quilt to you, but she said that the political and economic instability that Greece is going through right now doesn't give us the luxury of making holiday plans. We told her that if she books flights early, she will get a better price, but she said: "Booking flight tickets for a future date just might mean that our holiday plans may coincide with national elections, or the closing down of banks, or even the airports, if things get that bad." We know what an election is, and we heard about the banks in Cyprus not letting you take money out, but we don't know what she means by the airports closing down. She says it has happened before in Greece, in 1974, while she was holidaying in Greece with her parents (and Cyprus was involved in that episode too):

"After three and a half months, our holiday had finally come to an end: our return tickets to New Zealand stated 21 July 1974 as the departure date. On the eve of our departure, we woke up on a hot summer's day in Pireas. It was a local holiday in the neighbourhood, as the district church was celebrating its patron saint, the Prophet Elias. Our bags were packed and ready for our departure the next day. Peace and quiet is expected on holidays, and the neighbourhood was silent. My father's sister told us to get ready to go to church. She was about to prepare a picnic to eat near a park in the churchyard's garden. We turned on the radio to listen to some music. Every single radio station we tuned in to was playing the same pre-recorded message: "... state of war..., ... emergency... γενική επιστράτευση (mobilisation of military forces into combat)..." Now my aunt was worried. Turkey had invaded Northern Cyprus and the Greek airports closed down to all international flights. Overnight, from holidaymakers, we had officially become overstayers." (http://haniadailyphoto.blogspot.gr/2008/07/bad-timing.html)

It's difficult to believe that things like this have happened in our country. We don't feel this fear at all, but our parents tell us these stories about our country's past, and we try to relate these details to the present, but it doesn't always seem to fit in well. We think we have a lot of freedom here, and we can live pretty much how we want, just like you. Mum agrees with that. She says Greece is one of the most democratic countries in the world, and it is little wonder that democracy was invented in Greece. But she also says that too much democracy is not good. Even Dad agrees with her on that one.

Mum says that you should not think of this quilt as a big present, because she made it entirely from scrap material (even the batting) that would have ended up in the wood-fired heater (ready to be used next winter) if she didn't look up the internet for ideas on how to use fabric scraps. "I could make a hundred book quilts if I wanted to, it won't cost me much at all," she said. She says the same things about the food she cooks, too.

We hope you enjoy the book quilt. Till you come to visit us, we will enjoy looking at it.

©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.

Quilting

About mid-March, I decided that it really was about time I started using my fabric stashes, mainly made up of cheap remnants and used clothing whose fabric I liked. A number of items could not be used for The Greek Collection, as they did not feel very Greek to me, even though most of my fabric stash has been collected here. This past winter, I started making things out of my fabric collection, with the internet as my guide, and I still can't believe how fast I am - in just 8 weeks' time, I have made 3 large quilts, and completed a number of smaller patchwork projects in between, recycling and upcycling various items lying around the house.

The arts of quilting and patchwork are not at all well known in modern-day Crete, although there are now quilting groups all over the country (mostly headed by non-Greeks!). Since I've never quilted before, I didn't expect my fabric projects to go so well and get finished so quickly. We usually procrastinate over such tasks. In the past, all I did was small patchwork projects, without any quilting. I've now discovered that quilting using a simple made-for-home-use sewing machine is not at all easy because it involves pushing very thick (and often wide) fabric through a limited amount of space between the machine motor and the needle. This made my arms and back ache. But it was worth it!

My first project was a small mat, as a way to get back into patchwork, after a long break from it. I had made a patchwork armchair cover many years ago, using cheap fabric remnants bought in Athens back in the drachma days from a store that sold sheet and curtain fabric. (Such stores are long gone now.) The cover was all hand-stitched. It had gotten rather tired looking, and was eventually replaced by a store-bought cover. But I didn't want to discard my old patchwork given the amount of time I had put into making it. So I cut a piece and used it as backing material for a quick patchwork denim mat, made from my kids' old jeans. The light padding all came from remnants I had picked up from a mattress maker in Hania when we bought new mattresses for our kids' beds. This whole project took me just one afternoon, thanks to the sewing machine stitching.
Cost: just the electricity I needed to machine-sew it.

I decided to get craftier and tried a more advanced patchwork pattern, again using fabric remnants. I made another small mat for the bathroom based on a design called 'fake cathedral windows', as it is known among patchwork circles. More old denim was recycled, and the 'windows' were made using fabric scraps that were very small and practically useless and would otherwise have been thrown out. Again, the cost was virtually zilch.

My children had been watching me working on my patchwork projects throughout the winter, and they liked the idea of a quilt of their own, made by their mother. They have never had a quilt, mainly because my own mother left me a lot of blankets (we use what we have!). Quilts feel almost like a luxury to us. Having never quilted before, I decided to do a sample quilt using plain fabric which was not patchworked. The first quilt I made was for my son. The whole family loved it!

The designer fabric is called Tournament by Jane Churchill, acquired at a garage sale in Brockley, London, on a balmy September day as I walked through the area last year. My son is a fencer, so I immediately imagined these knights gracing his bedroom in some way. The red fabric has a medieval look to it - it was bought at a fabric store in Athens (more drachma days) and I used to use it as a sofa cover while I lived in Athens. The blue-white floral fabric used for the binding came from an upholstery remnants store in Hania.
Cost: designer fabric - £5; red fabric 1000 drachma; binding €1.50; €20 euro for the batting, from a local mattress maker. 

Before moving to Greece, I had bought a cheap king size quilt made of Indian cotton at a Wellington shop called Narnia. (I don't know if it's still trading - it was one of my favorite stores.) I have been using this quilt since I bought it, but it's now feeling rather old and needs repairing/replacing. During our New Zealand holiday 11 years ago, I bought some NZ-based fabric designs which were found in the remnants stash at the well-known Nancy's Embroidery store. I remember Nancy from her time in James Smiths (mention of this name does age me - James Smiths closed just before I left NZ). I embarked on a rather ambitious project using the 'disappearing nine-patch' patchwork technique. I needed 25 square blocks for the finished quilt top.

 Close ups of the main fabric used in the NZ based quilt. I didn't let any material go wasted by making squares from off cuts. 

Since the NZ designs were not enough to make a king size quilt, I bought some more fabric which had a NZ look to it from ebay sellers, eg shells, pebbles, (green coloured) sea, among others. I also cut up a NZ tea towel with a map of NZ on it. The sashing and binding were made using remnants from the local upholstery store, some cheap fabric bought in Athens during the drachma days, a used clothing item from the street market in Hania, and a batik design gifted to me by an Indonesian student while I was studying in NZ. The mattress maker sold me some more ready-lined padding, which meant that I didn't have to do most of the quilting myself. This was a very big project, so that was quite helpful. Most quilters leave the quilting part to professionals who use long-arm sewing machines, while others have computerised machines which are programmed to create intricate designs. (Maybe my next model!)

Cost: 3 metres of ready to use wadding - €35; NZ fabric designs from NZ - approx. NZ$22; ebay fabrics - £20; remnants/used clothing - approx. €10, plus a thousand (or so) drachma; the batik was bought in Indonesian rupiah. This really was quite an international project. 

The reverse side of the quilts did not need any fabric, thanks to the mattress maker. I took my quilt tops to him so that he could measure them and advise me on what I can use to pad them. In Hania, we have quite a few mattress makers, thanks to the tourist industry. A quick check on ebay confirmed that I would have paid roughly the same price for this wadding. (I'm not sure about how the quality compares - what I bought seems quite good).

The reverse side of the two quilts looks like this - the white cotton fabric was already sewn onto the wadding and I simply quilted the top side onto the ready-lined fabric.

My latest quilt project was for my daughter. It was made using fabrics I had bought on a whim while visiting Brighton on New Year's Day, walking through the Lanes (a bit like Hania's old town), where my eye caught a glimpse of some nifty floral fabric made into pyjamas which were displayed on clothes hangers. I decided to check out the store just because I liked the fabric, which turned out to be none other than a Cath Kidston fabric designer outlet. Rather overpriced of course (8 fat quarters for 25 pounds/30 euro), but I couldn't help myself.

On returning home, I decided that the fabrics looked a little too kitsch for my tastes. but my daughter loved them. I've used some of the CKs in my daughter's quilt - she chose the 'raggedy quilt' design. The CK fabrics were not enough for the quilt, so I had to add fabric obtained from all sorts of places: some skirts my daughter had grown out of, clothes bought from local second hand stores, 'old ladies' dresses (we call them 'robes') bought at the laiki, some fabric remnants that I had since my NZ days (off cuts from a dollmaker), as well as some cheap fabrics from my local suppliers. Some of the fabric that went into this quilt is over forty years old. With the use of so many different fabrics which can be traced to the very beginnings of my interest in patchwork, this quilt quite unexpectedly became a memory quilt.

Although the raggedy quilt design looked rather easy, it proved quite a challenge. It requires a lot of cutting and sewing, and trimming of threads. It becomes quite a heavy quilt to work with piece by piece, and gives you sore arms and backache. But I guess the end result was well worth it. I bound the quilt with fabric from a pink linen skirt in my wardrobe, last worn a decade ago.

When I buy clothes for patchwork, I always buy XL sizes and never pay more than 1-3 euro per item, at the street market and second hand stores (sometimes, the clothes are new, from previous seasons or store clearances). Upholstery remnants sell for all sorts of prices, but again, I go for the larger pieces, selling at 1.50-3.50 euros a piece. The bonus of the raggedy quilt design is that the padding for it could all be made from off-cuts from the mattress maker, so I didn't need to buy any. When I bought the padding for the other quilts, I was allowed to take all the off cuts that I could carry which were strewn around the workshop. Everything on the floor in the photo below went into the boot of my car.

Cost: second-hand clothes - 10 euro; upholstery remnants - 10 euro; Cath Kidston fabrics - 20 pounds; padding - free. 

During a recent window-shopping experience, I checked out the prices of  store-bought quilts. At the supermarket, you can get a simple king size quilt for 35-40€; similar prices can be found in the home stores. These quilts are padded, with one fabric on one side, another on the other side, simple binding and an elaborate machine-sewn design.  I can quite easily keep my quilt costs very low, but the real cost of home quilting is not based on the cost of the fabrics alone. Thank goodness for the invention of the sewing machine, which means that I can sew as fast as I can collect fabric that I like to work with. There are more quilt projects scheduled for the summer when I can work outdoors. These quilts will all be specially designed with certain people in mind. Watch this space.

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Wheat berry salad (Σαλάτα με στάρι)

My son has recently become a mature eater: he is now willing to try anything, and even though he won't eat everything, he will still attempt to finish his plate, just to show that he has tried something, even if it's not ti his liking. I notice that he likes to eat something new on its own, perhaps to get a full feel of a new taste. Only after that is he willing to eat it in combination with other food items.

I think he likes beany dishes, especially when the beans are served in a very transparent way (ie plain). He is fond of kernel-sized food, so he is happy with peas, corn, lentils, kidney beans... basically anything small and round. This includes wheat berries, the main ingredient in koliva, a memorial dish for the dead, served after a religious service. But the truth is that wheat berries are an unusual ingredient in Greek cuisine - they are hardly ever anywhere used except in koliva; they remind Greeks too much of death.

The chef at MAICh uses wheat berries a lot in his salads, in combinatin with corn, peas, carrots, lentils and an array of beans. When my son has lunch with me at work, he always goes for these dishes. I decided to make one of these salads myself. Wheat berries need a bit of preparation - it's best if you boil them overnight, dry them on a flat surface, and then use them the next day in the salad. When storing cooked wheat berries, always keep them in the fridge.

For 1 salad that serves up as a main meal, or a salad for 2 served with another main meal, you need:
100g wheat berries, already boiled and dried on a cloth on a flat surface, stored in the fridge.
50g corn niblets (I used canned)
25g baby carrots (I bought some canned ones for the first time - they were on sale)
25g red kidney beans (I used canned - this is generally the only way red kidney beans are sold in Greece)
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley
1/4 green fresh bell pepper, cut into strips
2 cups of freshly shredded cabbage
a pinch of salt
a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
some beetroot, for garnish

Salt the cabbage, and mix in the olive oil. Place it on a wide oval plate. Mix the wheat berries, corn, carrots and kidney beans and place them on top of the cabbage. Sprinkle the strips of  pepper and chopped parsley over them. garnish the plate wiht some beetroot. I added some onion slices to this salad as an afterthought, but I don't think it really needed it when served with a piquant meal.


We had this delicious salad yesterday with pork chops and some baked orzo pasta rice among which I had roasted a lamb's head. There was something for everyone in this colourful meal, and I'm glad to say that only a small serving of orzo has remained - the rest was razed.

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Blue and white

A middle-aged neighbour saw me using my camera this morning. I hesitate to say that he saw me taking photos of the roadside flowers, because I doubt that he realised what I was doing. I explained exactly what I was doing which was just that: photographing roadside flowers.

My favorite flowers at this season - Daucus carotta and Chicorium - growing right outside my house. The chicorium flowers close as the sun becomes stronger, so it's only feasible to take the photos early in the morning.

"Oh, those useless things! What can you possibly find fascinating about them?" 

Daucus carotta and Chicorium are both edible species - wild carrot and chicory

I knew he was going to say this. It's an automatic fear reaction to the unknown, the strange, the odd, the peculiar; it's scary watching a sole minority doing what the ramining majortiy would never do.  

Wild chicory can be quite tough and fibrous, so it's only good for eating when it is at an early growth stage

Taking pleasure in simple things was probably a favorite Greek past time in the pre-EU days, sadly replaced quite quickly once excess cash settled into the locals' pockets.

If you know your chicorium species well, you will instantly recognise this one as Chicorium spinosum, the well known Cretan horta species commonly called stamnagathi, due to its thorns that were once used to cover terracotta urns to prevent crawling creatures from entering them. This is not a wild species - it was growing on the other side of the fence, which constitutes my neighbour's garden. Although Chicorium spinaosum grows wildly, it does not do so at low altitude - this was grown from seed or transplanted from wild plants.

Some people are finding it very hard to return to valuing the simple things in life, but at least they can recall them. The problem is that their offspring were never taught to value them - so what is left for them? Life always looks greener on the other side, especially when you can't see the foliage on your own side.

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Koum Kapi

Koum Kapi stands like a sparkling jewel amidst the crumbling ruins of the old tightly packed houses of Minoos St and the newly-built box-style apartment blocks that have sprouted up beside the decay. The sea has been left in its original state, as it remains unable to be built on. The cafes lining the street are some of the most popular in summer, due to the breezy atmosphere created by the sea mist. Foreign tourists rarely venture to this part of town, as it's partly obscured by the commercial centre. A walk towards the east will take you to another side of Hania that doesn't include the view of the lighthouse from the Venetian harbour.

If you want the right atmosphere to observe the locals, Koum Kapi is the place to be, not the old harbour. Swimmers, drinkers, bar staff, dog walkers, strollers, fishermen, tourists, locals and immigrants, of all age groups can be seen in the area, enjoying pretty much the same things.



Koum Kapi was once regarded as the seediest part of town. It was home to the poorest and the most down and out of Hania. Brawls were common, and so was crime. About 25 years ago, Koum Kapi was cleaned up of a good deal of its slum/ghetto appearance, making way for outdoor cafes of all classes. It is now the coolest place to be seen, not just status-wise, but also because of the shady afternoon atmosphere.



But you can still see the poverty of its origins - it remains in full view, often sharing space side by side with the plush cafes; despite Koum Kapi being located close to Hania's red light district (the infamous Minoos St), its mix of locals, immigrants and (well-informed) tourists is a sort of proof that different people can live together harmoniously. Immigrants wash ther underwear on the street hwere they hand their laundry to dry, as tourists stroll through the narrow lanes behind the seafront where the locals are sipping their frappe.

One thing that surprises people about Koum Kapi's beach is that it is very clean. While flotsam and jetsam were commonly seen bobbing up and down in the water, Koum Kapi's waters are now considered some of the cleanest in Hania, due partly to the biological treatment facilities further east, as well as Greeks' greater grasp of social responsibility. As you look out onto the horizon, you catch a glimpse of Zorba's hill in Stavros, which looks so close you can swim out to it.

Koum Kapi is the best place to enjoy an afternoon drink outdoors, as it also tends to be quieter than the Venetia harbour, but beware of the evenings - each cafe is equipped with outdoor loudspeakers, which means that you will be surrounded by a variety of different musical tastes all at once, making it difficult to comprehend what is being said around you. This is nothing new to Koum Kapi, where Hania's African community used to live in the 1800s, economic migrants from a different era. They were named the Halikoutes by the locals precisely because they didn't know what they were talking about when they spoke among each other - all they could hear was 'ha', 'li', 'kou' and 'ti'.

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A colourful life

It's been a busy and colourful weekend, moving furniture around and fetching bits and bobs for the painters...

Alphabet pasta and purslane pepper salad...

Freshly picked loquats and strawberries...

... and the colours of our paintwork - olive green for the kitchen, and earthy tones for the living room.

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Greek colours: Landscape (Παιδικές κρεβατοκάμερες)

After we strengthened the house last year, which involved breaking rotten concrete and stucco, replastering and building up new ones, the interior of the house became a dustbomb, which I felt could only be cleaned if we moved every single piece of furniture out of each room and dusted everything.

I also knew that we would get round to painting the interior nine months after we finished the exterior so for the last year, I never attempted to dust or clean anything, remembering the word of Quentin Crisp (in The Naked Civil Servant), who admitted that he never attempted to clean his home: "The dust doesn't get any worse after three years," he observed.

That was then...

... and this is now.

Mediterranee (above), with colours reminiscent of our own environment,
 and Garden Dreamland (below), with nature-inspired colours 

The house is a bit of a mess at the moment. The painting job is very piecemeal, as we wait for one room to dry before moving furniture in and out of the next room to be painted. But it's taking on a cleaner look every day, and I am imagining what other things I can change or alter, and how I can make use of some old fabrics for new curtains. Summer will be a busy one for my sewing machine.

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Greek ways with food

This post will be short, as we are in the middle of painting the house; put it this way: I only found my toothbrush last night...

Today, I came across the most appealing and original Greek food porn that I have ever come across, which I am sharing with you in this post.

Thanks, Margot and Demetra, for pointing out this photograph.

The last time I came across this array of mezedakia was at a taverna in Athens in the Plaka district. My friends invited me to come out with them to see Αθηναϊκή Κομπανία, a music group that was playing there (the name of the taverna escapes me at the moment, but it was wildly popular in those days). I saw waiters zipping in and out of the kitchen with tens of uniform-sized plates (in the same shape and size as those in the photograph) piled up high on their trays, each one full of a taster of good Greek dishes. The plates all carried the same price, and the plates were counted at the end of your evening to work out the price of the meal.  

Memories of a safe Athens (we would around in the evenings until the wee hours) and a carefree lifestyle, matched by equally carefree economics, flooded back at the sight of this photo. Can you name all the mezedakia? The answer lies in this link.

For more information, see trofos.com.

Traditional Greek cuisine doesn't use many flavourings. It's usually lemon- or tomato-based; keeping things basic is the best way to maximise the flavours of the main ingredients, while a sprig or two of fresh or dried herbs are used to enhance the flavours. Michael Pollan would certainly love Greek cuisine, given his belief in not eating anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce. 

This beautiful photo shows us the colour-coded simplicity of Greek cuisine: most Greek recipes can actually be made using lemon or tomato as a base. So you could make a tomato-based bean dish one week, and the next week you can eat the same bean dish using a lemon sauce. Exactly the same applies for vegetable and meat/fish dishes.

The Real Greek, London

What do you think of this novel way of presenting Greek food at a taverna? Love it or hate it, I think it's perfect for variety-loving Greeks who want to enjoy as many mezedakia as possible, but there is never enough space on the table! A cake stand (as one of my English readers pointed out, or a  vegetable basket, in my Greek reader's eyes - what you see depends on your culture, doesn't it?) looks completely foreign in this rather Greek context and treats the subject of food as if it is some kind of game.

Service in Greek eateries presents us with a tricky question to solve. It's a bit of a conundrum: in the summer, tavernas are filled with both Greek and foreign tourists. But Greeks like to be served in one way, and non-Greeks (our tourists, the people who leave money in our country) like to be served in another way. Greks are used to a particular informal style. Tourists are more open to novelties and they actually like gimmicks. They value them just as much as they value the food. Greeks may be surprised to see a vegetable basket arriving at their table, but I personally love it.

So now you know what my taverna would be like if I ran one: the food would be simple, it would all be served on small plates, and I'd bring it out on cake stands/vegetable baskets.

Καλή όρεξη and Στην υγειά σας!

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Black and white (Ασπρόμαυρο)

Whenever we visit London, we always go to a 3D cinema to see a movie as a family. It's one of those memory-building events in a family's short history when its members are still bound closely to one another; each time, this event reminds me of how my kids are getting older and that soon we won't be doing this together. We went to the BFI IMAX close to Waterloo Station, an impressive-looking round building plonked in the middle of the very busy South Bank on its own little island. We got there a little early, which gave us a little time to relax in the lounge area and warm up from the freezing cold outdoors. 

The lounge was located just outside the entrance door to the cinema, near a kiosk selling over-priced state-approved ISO-certificated junk food like popcorn, crisps, candy bars and - to my ocular delight - an array of all the lollies (I think the Brits call them 'sweets' and the Americans 'candy') familiar to me from my NZ days, in the shape of milk and coke bottles, omelettes, teeth and gums jaws, blackberries and raspberries, babies' dummies, multi-coloured snakes, marshmallow bananas and strawberries, jellybeans that looked like pills and pink I-LOVE-YOU hearts, among others. We'd buy them loose in dairies (which means something like 'mini-market', or 'corner-shop', depending on which part of the world you live in). I can still conjure up the taste of these E-numbered sweets even though I haven't had them in years. I can't believe I used to eat this stuff. My kids don't show a preference for them - they are not commonly found in Hania, anyway, nor are sweets of this sort sold in loose in bulk. We bought the kids some popcorn and took a seat at one of the tables in the lounge.



Most of the other tables in the waiting area were taken up by a group of school children, a classic sight in London. Every single time I have been to London, every single day, throughout all the school hours, wherever we go, whatever site we visit, there is always at least one group of uniformed school children visiting the same site at the same time as us. You can't help feeling envious of the opportunities given to them to live so close to one of the world's most exciting cities, to have so many chances to experience so much global worldliness. At the same time, I often wonder how much time a London school child will actually spend in a classroom if they are being taken on school trips all the time; then again, that is why I come here too. Living in a country like Greece, and in the state that she is in at the moment, I know what it feels like to feel responsible for my children's education. 

The children were having their lunch at the time; they all had packed lunches, judging from the gladwrap (what we called 'saran wrap' in NZ), plastic bags and aluminium foil on their tables. A popular home-packed school lunch in London, judging from the kids at the cinema, must be something like sandwiches, a juice box, a packet of crisps and a banana. (Aside from the crisps which I class as junk food, I thought that looked quite healthy.) This may have something to do with school rules when kids in uniform are on the road during school hours (as opposed to when they sit in the bus on the way home after school - it's all hi-sugar hi-fat junk food then, while the wrappers pile up under their seats). This was a concerted effort to make everyone conform to the ideals of equality: just like their school uniform which makes them all look the same, the children were eating the same kind of food, a packed lunch consisting of standard items. In this way, discrimination is avoided, and the rich and the poor would not be differentiated.  

Their three teachers, who sat at a separate table, were also eating lunch. Their lunches were quite obviously bought - the sandwiches, for instance, were wrapped in triangular cardboard containers, like those sold in most British supermarkets (Marks & Spencer and Sainsburys comes to mind) and they were drinking coffee. Whenever one child looked as though it was about to step out of line (standing up for more than 10 seconds, talking too loudly, moving from one table to the other for no reason, not sitting down while eating, dropping litter on the floor), one of the teachers - all females - immediately sounded out a warning. They were multi-tasking: having lunch, chatting with their colleagues and doing their job all at the same time, something you rarely see among Greek teachers in similar situations. And of course, everyone was being treated equally. I pointed all this out to the family for its purely educational value; unfortunately, this kind of peaceful normality, where everyone does their job showing some degree of obedience is unusual in Hania; just take my word for it.

A sole white girl was sitting amongst the largest group of children. There were nine other black girls sitting together in a circle. 

"She has at least one black parent or grandparent," I said to my husband. He looked surprised. Then he started laughing at the implausibility of how this sounded. My kids were too engrossed in their popcorn (some of which, to my horror, I noticed had fallen under the table) to be listening to our discussion.

"She's white," he insisted. "That's not possible."

"Take a better look at her," I said. The girl had natural blonde shoulder-length afro-frizzy hair, shiny white skin and a snub nose with wide nostrils. It took him a while, but eventually he agreed that there was possibly something that made this girl look similar to the girls she was sitting with. I explained that he didn't notice this initially because he hasn't grown up in a multicultural environment. In his schooldays, everyone was Greek. 

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A wider look at the other groups of children - 12-13 year olds - revealed similar group tendencies. They had all broken up into little friend groups, as is natural for children of this age to do. Boys sat separately from girls, and each gender had broken up into smaller groups. Each friend group contained similar-looking faces: black children sat with other black children, South Asian children with other South Asian children. The only two girls wearing headscarves were siting together. Of the minority white (in NZ, what we called 'Pakeha') children in the group (something like a ratio of 1:3), one white child grouped with two or more non-white, possibly reflecting the general multicultural mix of the group, as well as -again possibly - the fact that when white-skinned people find themselves to be a minority, they are generally more mobile than non-whites. The standardised school uniform gave these children a homogeneous look; but their self-grouping pattern is evidence that they are not all the same.
 

The different shades of my schooldays are reflected in these photos of Clyde Quay School (left) and Wellington Girls' College (right), from the years I was attending these schools. Compare these photos to my husband's schooldays, when all the children, without exception, were of Greek heritage.  All were born in Crete, but about hlaf were the offspring of Asia Minor immigrants, after the the population exchange in 1922.  

Despite my multicultural primary school days - unlike my high school years: they were very white - this didn't make me grow up multi-culturally. I had a separate home side (I was a Greek) from my different public side (I was a Kiwi). Multiculturalism is a bit of a lie: we break up into groups that resemble our own micro-cosmos. We are not really multicultural people; places where a wide range of cultures congregate and live together seemingly side by side are simply multiracial. Coincidentally, I found it much more difficult to make friends at my very white all-girl high school. When you don't find a cultural group to attach yourself to, you have to find an interest group. At this school, these were manifested by previous primary school associations,  involvement in sport or some kind of Protestant church group. I belonged to none of these categories. I was one of a very few Greek girls, and to make matters worse, I had no social life after school because I worked with my parents in their shop every single night, including weekends. (Fish and chips - there I go, mentioning it again, as I have throughout this past week in my blog. It could easily form the title of a book.)

Even if you want to claim that your background includes a colourful cultural potpourri, say 1/8 Irish, 1/8 Scottish, 1/4 Maori, 1/4 Dutch and 1/4 Greek (a perfectly plausible Kiwi combo) jazz, the truth is that in the end, only one of those cultures will have a greater influence on you, and I doubt it will be your Irish or Scottish side - you will probably be a 'fair dinkum' Kiwi. 

Οι Αλβανοί της Ελλάδος μιλάνε όλοι ελληνικά 

"The Albanians of Greece all speak Greek"

(Source: http://www.lifo.gr/team/bitsandpieces/37383)

The differences between my upbringing and my family's are often heightened when we leave our country. They see the world through purely Greek eyes. My children's school has a small percentage of non-Greek children - but the different cultures are not really visually noticeable. Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians and Russians do not make a highly colourful array of faces. We are generally all Caucasian - also termed 'Europoid' - which gives our main immigrant groups' children the opportunity to blend more easily into mainstream Greek culture, which helps in their eventual assimilation. That isn't really multicultural, because eventually, we all become mono-cultural in this way. But it might feel more comfortable than being multiracial where the cultural distinctions remain differences. 

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Red (Κόκκινο)

The tomato season in our garden is over, but it isn't over in everyone's gardens yet. We have garden-grown fresh tomato available to us for at least six months a year. Red foods, including other garden favorites like red peppers, and a summer staple like watermelon, supposedly protect you from strokes., due to their lycopene presence. So go red and keep healthy.

The Cretan farmer's favorite snack for half the year: tomato salad and dakos rusks. Greenhouse tomatos are also available after the summer, but they never really taste the same as a summer-grown tomato.

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Greek colours: Mediterranean (Χρώματα του Μεσόγειου)

I find it difficult to match colours; even when someone points out my mismatches to me through my clothes, I still can't understand why it is that certain colours don't go well together. I believe this has to do with being very frugal - when you're frugal, you don't really care about the colours; you care only about the cost.

So when my husband, who has a much keener sense of what colour goes with what, asked me about what colours we should paint the house, I thought he was just being nicely democratic about the issue. which of course, concerns all of us. At the moment, our house is painted in an off-white colour, with little to differentiate it from other houses on the area. It doesn't stand out like the bright green colour over stark grey concrete which a villager didn't bother to stucco before it was painted; not does it look like that garish purple-mauve choice of our feminist neighbour. Being located on a hill, our Mediterranean home does not have the traditional blue-windows white-walls imagery tourists often associate with Greek islands - we are not near enough to the coast for that.

 A store in the old town of Hania: the colours are typically Mediterranean, similar to our own house. These yellow-orange colours suit the homely Greek house look, and they go well with wooden doors and windows.

I would have thought (with my frugal mind) that we would stick to the same colours that the house was already painted in - why change something good that has, to date, proven its worth? As the painter was preparing the house for the colours to be applied (which meant a lot of sanding down of the rough gritty concrete and stucco, creating more white dust which unavoidably enters the house and sits, highly visibly, over all the surfaces), he bought out a paint-brand brochure showing those typically mesmerising colours in all their shades and hues, with a few ideas of how to combine a number of different colours on one exterior surface.

The combinations included some very bright colours, creating a greater contrast for the various surfaces of a house, something I've always associated with more modern constructions. The same building can be painted in a completely different colour set, which will give off a different image: blue-grey hues give a modern urban look, while the yellow-orange-terracotta colours fall within the Mediterranean colour range. This colour set goes well with the natural wood colour of our doors and windows, despite their shambolic state after the rip tear and bust antics of the Greek builders who preceded the Albanian painters. My husband naturally went for the latter which fits quite nicely with our garden's year-round greenness in its rural setting. I agreed, although I wasn't sure about that dark terracotta red - it reminded me of the more modern houses being built in the area, which are all painted to look like villas with the colours of Arthur Evans' Knossos palaces. Not that I didn't like the idea of such a bold look, but I was worried that the house would eventually look like an archaeological relic (ie ruin) if we didn't constantly maintain the paintwork every time it acquired a nick here and there. Where would we find the slaves needed to preserve it intact?

The painter found a solution for our dilemma once we showed him our choices: "Don't choose terracotta," he said, "because it shows up marks and imperfections. And it's difficult to keep clean," he added. I would have thought a dark colour would hide scuff marks, not show them. He explained that the pigment used in teerracotta red had something to do with this. Not all colours are pigmented in the same way. Since I wasn't too keen on this colour, I felt at least that I had an excuse not to use it after all. The terracotta look is often used as a substitute for the lack of natural brickwork in the house , such as a tiled roof, for example, which is actually an expensive addition to a Greek home. This is why most houses in Crete have a ταράτσα (taratsa - flat roof); since it hardly ever snows in Crete, a sloping roof is unnecessary. Quite a different story up north, where it does snow a lot, hence the preponderance of the triangular sloping roof there. Snow collecting on a flat roof for days on end causes cracking and eventually destroys it.

We decided instead to go for an orange colour for the balconies and staircases to maintain a contrast, to make a small μπαμ (bam, as in the sound of a 'bang') as Greeks like to put it, with yellow hues for the walls and an airy off-white shade for any ceiling surfaces (eg above the balconies), to create a sense of greater space with a light colour. We noted down the numbers on the brochure and showed them to the painter, an Albanian living and working in Crete for almost as long as I have been here myself. He's much younger than us, although his children are much older; for this reason, we feel a certain solidarity with him, since we see him as having passed through more of life's channels that we have yet to go through.

"Orange?" He had a shocked look on his face. "No no no no no no," he uttered, repeating the syllable rapidly, at the same time as shaking his head. He pointed instead to a shade of orange-brown, with a greenish hue which looked too grassy to me. I questioned him about his aversion to the bright orange colour - maybe that one left marks too, or didn't clean well either. He shook his head slowly, showing as if he didn't want to speak, but he knew he had to give us an explanation.

"It's something personal," he said. "I've never painted in that colour."

"And you don't want orange to spoil the colour array of your worker's smock?" I joked with him.

"It's too... gay," he whispered, as we burst out laughing. So much for the μπαμ that we wanted to make - in his eyes, the house had already exploded. Albanian immigrants to Greece tend to have similar conservative tendencies as those of Greek immigrants of the 1960s to other countries.

The colours aren't too bright, nor too subdued - they suit the leafy green garden and brown-red soil.  

Eventually we settled on an earthy ochre blend that seemed to match the yellow-beige colours of the colour combination we had chosen. But I can't help thinking it would have been easier to stick to the same colours...

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