Sea Change

Food
• We had worried that Greece would have less produce, and have been most relieved to find the opposite. Along with the typical Mediterranean vegetables (tomatoes, zuchinni, eggplants, capsicum) there are lettuces, cabbages, beans, and often spinach or horta (locally gathered leaves).
• Menu's at tavernas are usually variations of the same theme. Starters are many small dishes to share such as tapenade, taramasalata, squid, eggplant dip, meatballs, saganaki (fried cheese), and stuffed vegetables. Salads follow, then mains are usually grilled fresh fish, pork or lamb, sometimes chicken. Desserts are a variation of nuts, pastry, honey, ice-cream. Pretty delightful stuff, and the average prices including wine is around 15 Euros each. We usually share everything, and order only a couple of mains. A couple of times we've encountered a whole piglet being cooked over charcoal, pretty delicious
• A local elderly man dived beside our boat each day, and yesterday came up with an octopus. He removed the ink sac, then bashed it on the concrete (40 times - dead and tender). Fresh fish is a feature on the islands, often you can choose the fish you want for dinner.
• Greek food has strong ingredients of sweet (honey), salt, and sour (often lemon), but it is rare to see heat in a dish, or even find fresh chillies.
• Some of the on-boat food in Greece highlights so far:
o fresh figs lightly warmed with a little good olive oil and balsamic and serving alongside our own version of saganaki, or with our remaining Italian prosciutto
o excellent lamb chops and sausages from a good butcher
o barbecuing chicken marinated with rosemary, lemon zest, garlic and chilli
o the tuna we picked up from Trapani, served with capers, cucumber, mayo, and a little lemon juice on brown bread
o grassy olive oil from Paxis
o thick Greek yoghurt made locally
o olives - soft, plump, juicy, black
o eating almonds fallen from the tree in a deserted bay in Kastos
o Stonefruit - nectarines, plums and peaches have been high quality right through summer.
o Nuts - dry roasting almonds and hazelnuts, and some seeds too


This and that

• Cats are everywhere, often skinny, although in Kioni the cats were plump and lazy. Last night just beside our dinner table, a calico cat exerted bad tail management and inadvertently wrapped its tail around the neck of ginger tom. The tomcat frowned, turned its eyes into angry orange saucers, then wrapped its paws around the calico's neck and rrrrr they were into a big fight. Greek cats,though, aren't afraid of dogs, never running or moving out of their way. This leaves the English dogs from yachts very perplexed and unnerved.
• The Greek landscape is marred by many half-built houses - a second story with only foundations is very common. To start we thought this a sign of financial strife, but since learned tax is only payable on completion of buildings, so they are left unfinished.