Sorry for the radio silence. We recently got back from Greece. We have been there for the summer, mainly in the large southern island of Crete. I have so many blog drafts talking about our food experiences over there but it was such a whirlwind (we stayed in 15 place over three months – yes, I know, we are crazy) I never got around to finishing any of them. So I’m thinking of a series? I don’t know, let’s just say you can bet the next few ‘episodes'(?) on here are going to be dedicated to the many things we learned about food from Greece + our new favorite recipes from there. Let’s get started shall we?

Notes I took (not necessarily all food-related):

• Every restaurant gives you something free – usually a dessert of fruit and/or raki (a local clear digestif).
• Every airbnb or hotel we stayed in also came with a lovely welcome food package.
• Every meal comes with a bread/oil starter.
• The desserts here are usually a pass for me, often too sweet and artificial – orange cake is an exception.
• Crete in general smells like wonderful herbs.
• I guess I can go about a month on one genre of delicious food before I start really craving something else. Tonight we are going out to a restaurant in the middle of a tourist shithole – why? Because it’s Japanese and we need that right now. (this note was taken when we were in a beach town in Crete, we ended up at a place aiming to be luxe-y, high end – you know, moving steak slices onto plates chopstick style with big spoons, ugh – new/old lesson – high end/high priced is usually a disappointment and always far from the best)
• Though there is less cuisine diversity than what we are used to in Atl, the general food and water quality is superior.
• The salads here are GREAT, not just the greek salads, all of them.
• Dakos* is the best thing ever?
• South Crete is more hot and hippy. East Crete is quiet and wild.
• There are large pockets of old, arrogant, pinch-faced expats around Chania.
• Not flushing loo roll is annoying.
• Don’t get anything special shipped here. A third party courier tried to extort 120 Euros from me, after some googles apparently this is a thing
• Some of the best, clearest (though very salty) water – Libyan sea was fave.
• Electricity and sometimes water seems to go out for ~4hrs every week.
• Lots of food pride, probably why it’s so good – ‘this is from MY goats!’
• No rain the whole time – supposedly very windy rainy winters but summers, not a drop.

Some of our favorite foods:

• feta fornou/ feta/pepper sagenaki – baked feta, sagenaki is the vessel used to bake things in, you can also have shrimp sagenaki which is very popular
• dakos, my favorite lunch (see below)
• kolokythoanthoi – rice and/or cheese stuffed squash blossoms
• tzaziki – so many variations – I really liked one that surprisingly included carrot shavings – not a fan of dill
• boureki – a kind of lasagna/casserole of sliced squash, feta, spearmint, so good
• horta – boiled greens, the specific green can vary, we often had amaranth – topped with olive oil and lemon
• briam – basically a veg bake
• giant beans – big white beans in a tomato sauce, this is one of the dishes you can find tinned and makes for a fab quickie lunch
• Spinach pie, all the pies. I am surprised I have not turned into a giant spinach pie at this point
• Green Beans – can get fresh or tinned – usually with bits of tomato and olive oil, always delicious
• OLIVES
• all of the greek salads – I could just sustain on greek salads for the rest of my life…
• Mountian Tea (aka Malotira) or maybe just herbal teas over there in general- Kopeli’s ‘herbal cocktail’ was my favorite, a mix of dittany, sage and marjoram.

Here are some raw photo dumps of all our food experiences in June, July +Aug. I popped in some comments on the pics to reference some of the dishes mentioned above. Over the next few months I will share with you some of our favorite recipes, I will start with my absolute fave, Dakos – crunchy, creamy, fresh and delicious.

Dakos begins with rusks (which are everywhere in Crete grocery stores, they are ancient, very healthy, and delicious), I will leave you with this link, which I will be surely posting a lot lately, to a store of ‘Creten goods’, you can buy said rusks here, or you can try making them yourself. There are many varieties, my favorite is barley. I ran out of my supply this week, and Nick has committed to giving it a go, if he has any luck I will update this post to include his recipe. Another option, a bit of a reach but certainly the easiest, would be to get some great whole-grain bread like Ezekial 4:9 and toast it to super crunch level and use that as your rusk, it won’t be the same but you will be able to get an idea of dakos.

Ok, so you have your rusk. now, grate a tomato onto it (grated tomatoes are a game-changer), in the wake of what should be mizritha, crumble some feta (sheep, not cow, if you can find it), chop up some quality salt-brined Kalamatas (or you can opt for Nicks preference here – big, juicy capers), and top with a healthy drizzle of the best olive oil you can find, and some salt and pepper. The rusks soak up the tomato juice and oil but still maintain their yummy crunch. This is a dish you can get at every taverna in Crete and to me it’s the perfect snack that is all about the quality of ingredients – which in Crete is unfortunately unparalleled – just buy the best and freshest you can find!

Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention the horrible state of the world right now. Without getting into anything too much, I will just place this study right here for your enjoyment: A VEGAN DIET REDUCES SEVERE COVID-19 SYMPTOMS UP TO 73 PERCENT, NEW STUDY FINDS. Covid is here to stay, and it’s time to start bringing to the fore therapeutic means of handling it. Maybe it’s time I cut the yogurt? (hah, never)

Dakos

• two barley rusks, you can keep them whole or break them into smaller pieces
• One tomato, grated (traditionally skin off, but I keep it on)
• a healthy dollop ~2 Tbsp of mizritha cheese (sub for feta, feta and cottage cheese, or ricotta)
• a few Kalamatas or capers
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• s+p
• optional garnish of some lovely sprigs of mint, basil, sliced spring onions.

Place the rusks on a plate or bowl, grate your tomato on top, crumble your cheese on top. The recipe should include myzritha cheese (great feta-like flavor but a bit softer) but since that may be hard to find you could substitute it for feta or a feta/cottage cheese mixture, ricotta, or if you have ever seen the eastern european ‘white cheese” in your international supermarket, that would work great as well. Throw some olives on there, drizzle with olive oil and finish with s+p.