Just Now In Crete - January 2010

[filippos]

So did Filippos. I’ll get there in the end.

I see there's a PM to you that's been sitting in my outbox since Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:09 pm. It hasn't yet hit my Sent box which suggestes you haven't seen it. Not especially important and more about pics than linking.

[Clio]

Oooh you are a tease. I don't get that many billets doux from chaps that I can afford to miss one, even an elderly one.* Send it along!

* the PM not the sender...

[filippos]

Love it when you gels talk dirty. .. billets doux indeed? As far as I know it's just sitting there waiting for you to look at. When you do it should hop from my Out box to my Sent box.

The sender isn't old ............he's b£**%# ancient.

[Clio]

Have billet doux'd you.

[bobscott]

I like the Greek Met Office one at

http://www.meteo.gr/waf.asp

and also

http://www.crete-meteo.com/

because I can get very localised forecasts. If I'm going to be in Rethymno town or Chania I use accuweather or weatherunderground.

I prefer this one for the Souda area - it seems about 95% reliable. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/ ... 46&LANG=en

[Clio]

My mind is still boggling at a recent post on another forum: someone complained about a British-run taverna where they apparently offered one slice of lemon with fish and chips, and said extra lemon must be paid for.

How is it possible to live on such a small island and inhabit such different universes? Or for two nationalities to have such different mindsets?

It’s citrus season, for heaven’s sake!

Our lovely neighbours always pass on their surplus, but this year I have been completely overwhelmed with gifts of citrus. I weighed the first bulging carrier for fun (8 kilos) and there have been, I think, five since. Quite often I don’t know the identity of the donor – the bag is just left on the doorstep.

When one of my elderly boyfriends asked in the hearing of the second if I wanted any νεραντζια, No 2 was at the door later that day with enough marmalade oranges to start a cottage industry. I have made as much marmalade as I can be bothered, given that the pantry is still stuffed from the year before last, and as much as I think will be appreciated when I give it away to village friends. (This means the fine shred jelly kind, terribly fiddly to make, because I don’t think the Greek sweet tooth is ready for a quick-cook dark chunky Oxford.)

Marmalade oranges are said to freeze well, but the freezer is groaning. So I’ve juiced them and eaten them as is. I’ve frozen grated rind for flavouring cakes. I’ve made orange mousse and lemon jelly and tangerine sorbet and orange drizzle cake and lemon barley water. And I am still up to my knees in sweet oranges and sour oranges and lemons and mandarinia and the mongrel ones I call lemanges – all straight off the tree and strangers to the waxing and spraying that gives long life to citrus fruit in England, so they won’t keep for very long. I have to try to work out what to do with them all, but as problems go, it’s a sweet one.

Can you imagine trying to explain to Iannis and Iorgos and the rest of my benefactors, every one born with a natural generosity of spirit, that someone who runs a taverna might begrudge one slice of lemon? I don’t think there are the words for it in Cretan.

[margarita]

because I don’t think the Greek sweet tooth is ready for a quick-cook dark chunky Oxford

I know a man who would love this - do you have a recipe?

Have you tried making lemon curd with any of your bounty? I made my first batch several years ago when we were inundated with eggs and lemons from our generous Greek neighbours.

Regards,

maggie

[filippos]

What, Clio, no mention of lemon curd? 'Er Indoors makes it luvverly.

Do you think the post that started the thread you refer to might have been a wind up by a bored somebody just to elicit a reaction from 'the hordes'?

[Clio]

do you have a recipe?

Recipe sent via PM.

no mention of lemon curd

Lemon curd is one of my favourite things to eat in the whole world (actually lime curd used to be even better and mandarin curd is pretty damn good too) but as I am two weeks into the Veg ‘n’ Lentil Diet I daren’t make it cos I’ll end up eating it. I did treat Co-Chef to an old-fashioned English curd tart, which is effectively the same preserve ingredients baked in a pie shell (and the pastry was made with butter and the last of the lard, so you can imagine the calories) and couldn’t sleep for thinking about the leftovers in the fridge…

Other British friends claim to have scored a hit locally with lemon curd offerings, but I swear Vangelio crossed herself when I told her what went into the jar I’d brought her.

Do you think the post that started the thread you refer to might have been a wind up?

You think? Could well be, on reflection. That’ll teach me to keep well away!

[margarita]

Recipe sent via PM.

PM received & replied to.

Thanks,

maggie

[bobscott]

Just now in Crete.

Chilly, innit? 5C in Kokkino Horio yesterday morning. Friends here on holiday in their part-time house can't wait to go back. We tell them it is winter and you have to expect it.

The road blockade near Megala Chorafia etc appears to have gone. Driven indoors by the rain and cold perhaps?

[paulh]

Just now in Crete have come in after, over the last few hours, burning off all the branches I cut off the pine and the olive trees at the beginning of December. Waited for a day when the wind was in the right direction and it was likely to rain and everything was fairly wet anyway so no excuses. Wet or not with the oils in those plants it wooshed up.

Yup it started off a bit on the cool side the Lefka Ora are living up to their name (in the distance) but it soon got warm. Got to get rid of the lot before it gets too dry for bonfires.

All in all great fun. I think if I am reborn I want to come back as a pyromaniac .

2 whole hours without touching a keyboard and I am still alive! Addicted? moi?

** this post is certified free of all mention of cooking, jams chutneys or indigenous fruit being converted to preserves