2010!!

It's a new year and a new decade and I think it's time for a fresh start. So I'm thinking about revamping this blog and maybe changing the content, the look...something. I've been inspired by so many people this year and I want the blog to reflect that.

Of course, I have no idea how to do anything "internet" so I think one of my new New Year's resolutions is going to be to learn how which means it'll probably take me some time to figure everything out.

I'll post as I can, but I'm going to be taking a while to decide what I'm going to do and what direction I want to go. Please bear with me!

Greek Photography

Greek Food

We did a lot of unusual sight seeing around Athens this trip. Unusual mostly because we did a lot of free stuff that just involved walking around the city. I'm sure Idle Husband had some idea, but when we arrived (on the 24th), everything was closed for Christmas until Monday. Everything. Good thing we had already been to all the museums last time, hey?

We spent a week at his family's house where we...ate. Ate and slept and that was about it, because by then it was New Year's and again everything had completely shut down until Monday. I think there was only a few days scattered here and there where things were open!

Anyway, because all we did was eat, I decided to take a lot of food pictures. That and because it's kinda interesting to see what other people are eating. Well, to me it is. And this isn't like, oh here we are eating a Greek salad in Greece! which is such a typical Greek vacation photo. This is like actual home cooked meals (and some take-out) from the home of a typical Greek family. Which makes it more interesting, no?

Our first "light" meal when we arrived.

Ok, my favourite meal IH's mom makes is stuffed tomatoes (and now stuffed eggplant -- or "little shoes" as they were called -- but I didn't get a pic of that cuz it was too delicious to stop to find my camera). It's such a simple dish, but the taste is divine. It's probably because of all the olive oil (as you can see there), but if I had been able to, I would have eaten both of those tomatoes plus IH's (he's not a fan). I also learned of another lesser known Greek salad. Even better than the first? Maybe! It's also super easy (most Greek food tends to be) as it was made up of only shredded lettuce, chopped green onions, olive oil, and a ton of lemon juice. So good! I'll be making that in the near future. Anyway, this meal was just to tide us over until dinner time which is crazy because to me that WAS dinner and it was at dinner time -- well, our dinner time of about 6. The actual dinner was to be served at 10:30 or 11.

Another light meal.

Let's see...there's tzatziki (natch), greek salad (obivously), feta and mozzarella, terrokafteri (which is like feta ground up with spices used as a dip), crepes filled with ham and cheese, moussaka, and mini cheese pies.

Pasticio. It's like lasagna only it's made with a macaroni-type noodle and it has a thick layer of bechamel sauce on top.

Mmmm fireplace meat. Honestly, I have no idea what kind of meat this was. I'm going to guess it was pork, but I have no idea. They had this twirling around in the fireplace pretty much nonstop since we arrived.

Saganaki. Breaded, fried cheese with lemon. You can make this with any hard white cheese and it's super easy, though I have one thing to say about it. It tastes so much better when it's burning hot right out of the pan. If you let it get even a touch cold, it's just like eating a block of cheese and it loses it's magic. Weird, that.

Pretty standard breakfasts included:

Greek pancakes. Like our pancakes but smaller, with no sugar and "deep fried" in olive oil (well duh). IH ate them with honey, but I preferred them with jam.

Pomegranite seeds. I did this once at home in Canada and hated it immensely. So much work, so much mess, and then they tasted awful. I loved them there. They were so much sweeter and tastier! Of course they were probably getting them from some tree in the village, I'm sure.

Greek yogurt. Oh how I wish we had proper greek yogurt here! I can't properly describe to you how good this is. Because I've been spoiled for having tasted the good stuff, I can't eat that runny crap they call yogurt here anymore.

And his mom would squeeze us fresh orange and blood orange juice every day. They had trees in their backyard. And orange trees lined every Athen's street. It's what I noticed most this trip. It kinda blew my mind though because no one picks the ones in Athens. They just grow, fall off, and rot in the streets. IH said it's because they're not very good. But I'm still like, "but they're free!"

Sweets were also served after dinner and again for breakfast

I don't know what this one was called, but it's IH's favourite cake. I wasn't that keen on it, it was too strange. I thought it was trying to be too many things at once. Jello, fruit salad, mousse, cake -- choose an option and stick with it, dessert!

Melomakarna. A traditional Greek Christmas cookie. It tasted very much like gingerbread (very nutmeg-y) but it was soaked in honey so it was very soft and sweet, but strangely not that sweet. We ate a lot of these.

Vassilopita. Greek New Year's cake. They bake a coin inside and whoever finds it has good luck for the new year. I really loved this cake. I would knock off all the icing sugar and eat it plain. It wasn't very sweet, but it had a really nice flavour all the same. I like how most of their desserts fall in the not-too-sweet category.

This was special just for us. They ordered a wedding cake so we could do that whole wedding-cake tradition and everyone could take pictures. It wasn't awkward at all. Nope. The cake was really good, though. Creamy, with cookie bits...pretty standard, I think.

IH told me these were the cookies I had last time on the ship. Remember those? Anyway, they were not the cookies I remember. We both had one of these and that was it. They were really dry and flavourless. I think my ship cookies are but a distant memory...

Some of our take-out meals included:

Authentic gyro. This is how it's done people: Warm pita, gyro meat, lots of tzatziki, tomatoes, purple onions, french fries. The end. They have those "Greek gyro" places here but they're not doing it right.

Cheese pie. It's actually really easy to make at home. Feta mashed with egg, add some seasoning if you like (I've added nutmeg), then pop it into some sort of pastry. There it's puff (I believe), I've used a standard hand-pie dough here. Whatever you like!

Gyro meat, this time minus the pita.

They have a fast food restaurant called Goody's and it's everywhere you go. This meal consisted of a chicky sandwich (chicken nuggets in a bun), a bowl of french fries, and the Goody's grill (three types of meat with salad and potato wedges). What I find fascinating about this fast food is the fact that they serve it on proper plates with forks and knives.

Mallioras' souvlaki, one of the best take-out meals we had, honestly. For our last meal there, this is what we ordered. IH wanted to get burgers from a new burger place there, but I was like, "burgers?! We can get a damn mushroom burger anywhere we want when we get home. I want Mallioras!" It's just so good.

And that's just a sampling of what we ate. There were lots of other foods I didn't manage to take pictures of. More desserts that I either loved so much I didn't take the time to capture it, or that I didn't like and it never got past the single bite stage, or that I ate while around IH's entire family and just couldn't find the opportunity. There was a pork chop the size of my head that I made a fair attempt at finishing. Some eggplant with mozzarella and tomato sauce, breaded chicken filets, crackers with jam, chestnuts (not what I expected at all). And some dining out with IH's friends where in one instance I forgot my camera and the other we ate at a traditional Italian restaurant and I just had a salad.

I'll post pics from around Athens and the activities we did soon!

Will things ever return to normal?!

I was all set to pop up some Greece photos here yesterday, honestly, I was! I meticulously went through about 400 of them and started picking out the best of the best. Well, that was Friday, anyway. Saturday early morning (like 3 a.m.), Idle Husband woke up with terrible stomach pains and after some convincing, I managed to get him to the emergency room. After being there until about 4 in the afternoon, we finally started to get some answers. His gall bladder was inflamed and had to be removed. Don't worry, he's already had his surgery (quite speedily, too) and he's home resting comfortably! I just have to say, Canadian hospitals and doctors know how to get it done. I can't thank them enough for actually taking the time to figure out what's been causing IH's stomach so much pain for so long. And thank god for health care, too. I don't know why some Americans are so against it.

Here's an idea: IH had a stomach episode when he visited the states for a conference about 2 years ago. He had to go to the ER. They had no idea what was wrong with him. They did no tests. They gave him Pepsid AC (what's that? $7.99 at the drugstore?) and sent him home with a bill of about $800.

We got to the emergency room. About 30 minutes after arriving, we were in and they were getting pain killers into him. They took blood. They took x-rays. They took an ultrasound. Discovered the problem. By 8 p.m. he was in surgery. He stayed the night, had a nice breakfast. I picked him up and brought him home today by noon with a bill of $0.

We're so lucky to be Canadians. I will gladly put up with a little snow and cold temperatures just to have emergencies like that taken care of thankyouverymuch.

I'm going to spend today babying him (like a proper wife), and I promise there'll be pictures tomorrow!

Planes, trains, and automobiles

Sorry I've been away so long. We just returned from a trip to Greece! I took a lot of pictures of food so I could remember stuff and maybe try making it myself (there's a new Greek salad in my life), so after we've settled back into the snow (oh the snow! oh the temperature!), I'll make sure to post some of my favourites from the trip.