We mainly stayed in Crete this summer though we did have some jaunts off to other islands, one of those was Paros. Each island has it’s own vibe, Paros was one of my faves because it has two lovely little port towns (Nouassa and Parikia) and is quite sparse, rural, and gorgeous in between.
We rented a scooter with no experience (questionable, I know) and got a lesson from our host, Pavlos. Pavlos and his staff were the most kind, parental, loving hosts ever – they did our laundry and dropped off fresh baked bread daily! When Pavlos realized how inexperienced we were on the scoot, he was truly concerned about Nick’s survival. Once when I was walking down the road back to our place from a little hike to a nearby monastery, I bumped into Pavlos in his car on the way out, he rolled down his window and with the most desperate, wide-eyed, look of panic said ‘Where is he?! Is he ok?! What happened to him?!” I told him I was just on this hike alone and Nick was out on a joy ride and as far as I knew, still alive – temporarily sated, poor Pavlos was really only properly able to breath a sigh of relief once we had dropped those keys off.
In part because of the aforementioned stellar level of service, and in part because the beautiful accommodations were nestled in the mountains, not conveniently located near any amenities, the place came kitted with an excess of food. This suited us fine as we were busy with work and just wanted to be situated somewhere beautiful with our laptops. Each night we would raid the stockpile of food to see what we could throw together for dinner. Our favorite creation from this was very simple and came from the glut of tomatoes on hand. It’s just tomatoes, lemon, olive oil, mint, kalamata’s, and feta – but it is perfection (even without the view!)
We named the salad Paros Butterfly Salad as we were staying next to a tiger moth butterfly reserve, “The Valley of the Butterflies”, and this beautiful butterfly shares the same colors with our salad!
Bonus Paros pics:
Paros Butterfly Salad
- 3 large tomatoes
- a couple sprigs of mint minced up
- a handful of kalamatas, sliced
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 a lemon, juiced
- 4 oz feta, cubed
- s+p
Dice your tomatoes, slice your olives, dice your feta. Drizzle the olive oil on top, squeeze your lemon in, throw in your mint leaves and give it a good stir. Finish with salt n peppa. Quality ingredients is key, always, but especially here. Fresh tomatoes, fresh mint, Maldon, the best olives you can find, etc. + be liberal with your high quality olive oil.
Deceptively addictive.
