Before I start sounding off, this time I thought I’d begin with a photo that’s a blast from the past. The shot above was taken on a Skiathos beach in 1998. Actually, since moving to Greece I’ve been in better physical shape than I was in this picture, mainly owing to the more active lifestyle we lead here, whereas back then I was a graphic designer sitting most of the time at a drawing board and, at about that time too (circa 1998) the Macintosh came into the studio and we began pushing mice around instead of moving the parallel up and down the board. The hair actually still had some colour then too, and it wasn’t out of a bottle. That rather large black thing in my right hand, complete with shoulder strap, was my video camera. Blimey, things have moved on a bit haven’t they? I can take infinitely better quality video now with my phone, that’s hardly much bigger than a playing card, than with that VHS contraption that we used to think was the bee’s knees back then.

Yeah, progress can be a good thing, but then again what’s called ‘progress’ can be complete lunacy. I shall proceed to make my point: for time immemorial one of the things that we all loved about sitting at a taverna table was the fact that the olive oil that was served up usually came in refillable bottles or even earthenware jugs with cork stoppers (better for the environment) and this was quite simply because it was always, either produced by the family that ran the restaurant, or by the villagers who’d been their neighbours for generations. Home-produced olive oil, often from the trees that one would walk past while going to the taverna, could only be the best quality, right? Damn right, and I make no apologies for saying so.

So, back in 2018, when the Greek government of the time allegedly (I have to be careful here) caved in to lobbying from the big olive oil producing companies, a new law was passed making it illegal to serve up olive oil in anything other than sealed plastic bottles, supplied by – you’ve guessed it – the big manufacturing companies, thus freezing out the small guy from proudly serving up his own oil to his clientele at table. And what was the supposedly sound reasoning behind this? Read this article (published in January 2018) and you’ll see how it was pitched, to make it sound so much better for all concerned, except it was the opposite. I make no apologies for saying that, in my view, everything about that article screams “written to please the big companies,” because it says that this move was long overdue, that the oil supplied in little plastic bottles would be fresher (aw c’mon, fresher? Are you kidding?), and that the customer would be quite happy to pay an extra €1.50 for the privilege of taking profit away from the small guy, expanding the profits of the big fat cats, and littering up the already suffering environment with millions more little plastic bottles and their little metal tops, none of which needed to be in circulation before this lunatic law came into being.

I well remember with dismay, as no doubt will many who read this, sitting at a taverna table where I’d eaten for years, and suddenly seeing that the only way I could get some more oil to pour over my salad was to pay for a tiny plastic bottle from a factory somewhere, whereas in the past it would have been a service provided free by the taverna. Now the taverna owners had to buy the stuff in, all the while having barrels of their own fresher oil stacked up out the back, then pass on a charge to the customer which no one in their right mind was really happy to pay. Not only that, but these pesky tiny bottles, all bearing the brand names of the big boys, would often prove too small and we’d have to order a couple more, thus adding yet more to the bill we’d be paying at the end of the meal, and this at a time when prices were going up anyway and taverna owners were trying to shave their profit margins to avoid putting up their menu prices too much at the risk of losing customers.

You probably gather that I wasn’t too impressed with this blatant attempt by the big olive oil companies to boost their profits, and the looks on the faces of taverna proprietors whom I’d known for a long time said it all. They were frustrated and embarrassed to have to charge us for oil, when in the past they’d simply have poured a little more into a reusable jar or bottle and placed it on the table for their clientele to avail themselves of at will. What thrills me nowadays is the fact that most of the tavernas and restaurants I frequent have reverted to using their own IMHO vastly superior and certainly fresher local oil in reusable containers once again, and the police have largely given up coming round and fining them for doing so. Let’s face it, the local police all have families that make their own oil. I would bet that not many local policemen feel too good about trying to enforce such an absurd and flagrantly unjust law on their friends and neighbours, people they’d grown up with, people they harvest olives with every autumn.

In fact, I tend to believe that the tavernas where the oil is once again home-produced and served up ‘draught’ are the ones that locals want to eat at, while avoiding the ones that still comply with that crazy law. Thank goodness that most people seem to be ignoring that law these days, although what the future holds I don’t know. I’ve heard tell that the law to which I refer has since been repealed, but I can find no evidence to support that assertion. Meanwhile, I shall continue to enjoy the excellent quality oil that we can pour as abundantly as we like on to our plates at the start of a meal when we, like the Greeks around us, will add a little salt and then dip our delicious fresh locally-baked bread into it and sip our chilled Restina while perusing the menu.

On a much lighter note, how do you fancy a delicious tasty cake with only three ingredients, that takes about ten minutes to prepare and 45 mins in the oven, after which you can eat a warm slice with your morning coffee and feel righteous about the fact that it’s totally vegan, νηστεία as the Greeks call it, because it can be eaten during their fasting period?

Yup, that’s it in the dish in the first picture above, and I enjoyed that slice (and a second) with my coffee as we took it on the sun terrace a couple of days ago (with the puddy tat of course). The only ingredients for that truly tasty cake are tahini with added cocoa (you can buy it like that in the supermarkets), almond milk and self-raising flour. My better half is fast asleep at the moment, as I forgot to ask her for the quantities, so I’ll get the exact recipe tomorrow and post it on the blog.

Here are a few more from an late afternoon walk this week…

In the zoomed shot of the village, with the sun’s last rays illuminating all the walls, our house is clearly visible. It’s the one right above and behind the gleaming white house just right of centre. If you look closely, you can see the square mural of a white background with a Greek urn and a little piece of climbing vine wrapped around it, which I painted on the back wall of our upper garden, below Gianni’s terrace, which is just to the right of the stone balustrading (Giorgo’s place next door). Our veranda is easily discernible, and there is a picture hanging on the house wall to the right of our full-length bedroom window. Our balustrading is wooden, with that ‘x’ effect design. The bottles hanging from the olive trees in the other shots are insect traps, thus showing that these farmers aren’t using chemical sprays, but rather a mixture of fruit juice and jam, which does the job well enough. Once the insects get inside that bottle, they won’t be coming out again.

Yesterday was so beautiful, at around 22ºC that we went to the beach and Yvonne took a dip. I decided to document her efforts with my camera, so I wasn’t able to join her, sadly (*#??!)…

Ah well, another post done. Keep warm, and don’t over-indulge too much. Remember too, when you fret about the cost of living, that there are entire cities in Ukraine right now without power (not to say glass in their windows for many) in sub-zero temperatures. It’s good to count one’s blessings eh?

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