Folk Dancing

 

Last year’s festival was a complete surprise to us.   This year we knew a little bit more about what to expect.  Yesterday I noticed people sweeping the streets in front of their shops and houses, and saw barriers of stacked plastic chairs in front of the central parking lot.  It’s the only place in the village with room enough for seating, dancing, and a raised platform for the live actors and Greek musicians.  There is a low wall at the north end of the parking lot that offers a nice breeze with a dramatic view of the terraced landscape below and the Augean Sea beyond. In the far distance, beyond the Aegean, loom the dark mountains of Turkey which stand in dark contrast to the pink sky of the setting sun.  It was an exhilarating setting for the event.

The current economy has caused the villagers to charge for the food and beverage this year, but the music, costumed dancers, village skit, and fire jumping, remain an unbroken tradition.  When the costumed dancing had concluded, a portly grandmother, perhaps moved by nostalgia and the music, strode forth and began to dance all alone in front of a good 300 people or so.  Gradually the center of the parking lot was filled with people of all ages, doing the same, often intricate, line and circle dances that costumed dancers had performed.


 

One dancer in particular, a thin man in his 60’s fortified by wine, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.  He had a florid complexion and danced with a lit cigarette behind his back.  Someone told us that he was a local Sheppard who had seven children and a “large” wife.    With each different song there seemed to be a specific dance step to accompany it, and everyone, without cue, seemed to be on the same page.  I suddenly realized that we were watching a spontaneous demonstration of a local folk dancing tradition that was probably far older than the 400 yr. old village itself.
 

 

 

 

photos by Newell

 

Stuffed Goat

 

Christo and his mother, Effie

The Galazio Pigadi Taverna, or “Christos’,” is a seasonally operated, high quality, low volume restaurant, with good prices, a loyal customer base, and great atmosphere.  It has been awarded a four star rating by international food critics and it’s located less than a block from the house.  It is one of our favorite hangouts.  There is a printed menu, there is the chalkboard, and there is Christos Chiou, who is the owner, chef, and waiter.  He will explain the menu, offer suggestions, or make custom adjustments to his menu on the spot, time permitting.

Occasionally the menu will list “special order” meals that require a day or two of advanced notice to locate and assemble all of the items necessary for an authentic presentation. “Katsiki Plati,” or Stuffed Goat is one of those meals.  It comes with all of the appropriate side dishes, and feeds four to six people.  You would be hard pressed to find a menu on the island that does not boast the words “traditional” or “authentic,” but to prepare our meal, Cristos brought in his own mother Effie, who cooked the goat, brought it to the table on a garnished platter of grape leaves, then carved and served it herself.  I’m not here to give away the secret family recipe, but she stuffs the goat with rice, then roasts it with potatoes in a set double broiler pans, with fresh grape vine stems in the bottom pan.  It was like Thanksgiving.

When the last carafe of barrel wine was empty, Effie brought us a stack of covered aluminum pans to carry the leftovers home in.  We finished most of the vegetables last night, with grilled chicken, but there’s still this goat carcass in the refrigerator, waiting to be picked and turned into some kind of creative leftover dish, just like Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

   

photos by Newell

 

The Mule Skinner Cell Phone Blues

This picture of Kostas and his donkey were added to this post in
July 2017, four years after the this original story was published.

 

Kostas is a fixture in the village, he has lived here all his life.  He had been a successful shop keeper and business man until a stroke left him partially paralyzed on one side of his body.  It left him impaired in other ways too, I suspect.  The doctors told him not to drive any more, but Kostas could not slow down; he already had a donkey and still needed transportation. By then, he had also discovered that miracle of modern telecommunications, the cell phone.

Our first encounter with Kostas came one afternoon during “siesta time.”  Street sounds here, are amplified and reflected off of the solid walls and narrow streets, to give the odd sensation that the sound of church bells, motor bikes, or even footsteps, are coming from inside the building. One day we were roused from a nap by the clatter of iron horseshoes on stone pavement accompanied by a loud uninterrupted barrage of Greek expletives moving in the same direction as the horseshoes.  We looked through the shutters to see this man who looked like an unmade bed with a week’s growth of beard stubble on his face riding a donkey sidesaddle, down the middle of the street, talking on a cell phone.

It was like nothing we were remotely accustomed to seeing in Mayport, and what a surreal, anachronistic image it was to see this little donkey clipping along smartly, by 19^th Century standards, with Kostas on her back, his one good arm flailing wildly, addressing his cell phone with the intensity of a Wall Street floor trader; a 21^st Century mule skinning business man, still closing deals in the streets of Vourliotes from the back of a donkey, Greek style.  I’ve been trying to get a good picture of him for weeks, but like Donald Trump, he can be a hard man to catch.

The Metaxa Mafia

The Blue Chairs Restaurant

Metaxa is a brandy based liqueur distilled from, among other things, wines from Samos.  The label on the Metaxa bottle proudly proclaims itself to be “The Original Greek Spirit.”  The drink was originally produced by the well connected Metaxa family from 1888 until sometime in the mid 20^th century, when the French quietly acquired a controlling interest in the company, much to the chagrin of Greek pride.  The company is now completely run by the French Remey Cointreau Group.

Several times a year the French execs fly over to Samos, en masse, then drive up the mountain to Vourliotes in a motorcade of black SUVs with dark tinted windows, and treat themselves to a lavish banquet at the Blue Chairs Restaurant, all on the corporate nickel.  It’s always quite an event.  The locals refer to the group as “The French Mafia.”

It’s an interesting compliment to the restaurant and the village that the French, who have a reputation for xenophobic snobbery, especially when it comes to food and drink, come here to spend their money.  The Greeks don’t see it that way.

photos by Newell

 

The Cemetery

 

In the States we are accustomed to seeing sprawling cemeteries that take up enormous tracts of land, especially in rural Southern hamlets, where the living population seems to be dwarfed by acres and acres of the departed.  The cemetery in Vourliotes is a modest, but immaculately tended, quarter acre plot of land at the west end of the village.  It is surrounded by a stuccoed stone fence, with a domed chapel just inside the ungated entrance.  The chapel is flanked by a low, flat roofed building, about the size of a one car garage, which could easily be mistaken for a caretakers shed.  It is an ossuary.

photos by Newell

Living space is at a premium here.  What is not used for human habitation has been given over to agricultural use.  It is the custom then, for the dead to be placed into small above ground crypts of nicely finished marble, for several years, to decompose. The bones are then removed, placed in a much smaller box, and stored in the ossuary.  I don’t think that there is any artificial (electric) lighting in the building, but it is constantly lit by dozens of little lamp candles that burn day and night.

Instead of headstones, most of the crypts are topped, at the head, with little glass enclosures that have sliding panels so that surviving family members can leave pictures, personal items, packs of cigarettes, or refill the little olive oil lamps inside them.

The graves all face East, so sunlight reflects off of the white marble with an unnatural brilliance in the morning.  In the evening, the marble reflects the pink glow of the setting sun; and at night, there are only the tiny flickering pinpoints of candle light to punctuate the cool darkness.  It is a very quiet and peaceful place.

The chapel



Inside the ossuary

 

Sunday “Barbeque” in Vourliotes

 

There is a little family-run restaurant-taverna-café, just up the street,  where every Sunday, the owner spits half dozen chickens or so, then lets them roll over an open charcoal pit for about 3 hours. The birds are basted liberally, and often, with a mixture of olive oil, mustard, lemon, salt, pepper, and oregano.  He calls it “barbeque.”

 As the evening sea breeze cools the village and the aroma of roasting chicken begins to fill the narrow street, the neighbors, wearied by two hours of church services and refreshed by an afternoon siesta, begin to appear.  The chickens are removed from the spit as they are ordered, the remainders are wrapped in aluminum foil, and the spit is raised to the top notches of the roasting rack to keep them warm.  Full fare price for two Americans to eat:  Half a chicken, bread, taziki, tomato, fried potatoes, a small carafe’ of red wine and a complimentary dessert, 10.50 €.

 

photos by Newell

 

Better Homes and Alleys

There is an alley that runs beside our house.   It connects the road into the lower village with the street we face.  It also serves as a shortcut to the bakery in the morning and as a thoroughfare for cats at night.  The village is old, but the alley way looks positively ancient, with hand forged iron hitching rings still imbedded in the plastered stone walls, where people once tethered horses and donkeys.

Kathy has been on a mission to ‘landscape’ it with ornamental plants, cooking herbs, and a small table and chairs, so we could have a little outdoor space where we could cook out, eat, play cards, or watch television downloads from the laptop in the evening.  After a tedious day of home improvement shopping, lugging plants and potting soil up from the parking lot, and arranging everything ‘just so’ in the alley, a nicely dressed man passing by in the street offered Kathy a polite, “Callie sperra.”  When he reached the alley, he surveyed the improvements, and exclaimed an enthusiastic, “Bravo!”

Mission accomplished.

Yesterday in Karlovasi, I bought a little charcoal grill, then headed to the butcher shop for chicken leg quarters and sausage.  I grilled it all in the alley with some zucchini for dinner, then we walked about 40 yards to the store for ice cream, and back home for our evening fix of American television.  As Tony Soprano emerged from the Holland Tunnel and rolled through the toll gate, music for the lead-in trailer comes up, and as Tony drives past the gritty landscape of the Jersey Turnpike, I do a little mental arithmetic and figure it’s about 3:00 PM back in Mayport.  Tony glides through his neighborhood and rolls up into his driveway, exactly the way Homer Simpson does it, and everyone it seems, is at home.  I imagine our cat lolling in the shade of the pergola, or the dog sprawled out on the cool tiled floor of Jessica’s house. Tony Soprano is standing in his kitchen in Elizabeth New Jersey, Homer Simpson is slumped back on his couch in Springfield, God is in his Heaven, and everything on Planet Earth is exactly as it should be.  We are at home in Vourliotes, and life is sweet!

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

photos by Newell

 

 

Singing Sopranos' Praises

American café blogger, at it

Until a week before we boarded the plane for Athens, and a full six years after the final episode had aired, Kathy and I had never seen a single episode of the Sopranos.  By the time we had touched down in Greece, and after viewing several episodes of it during the flight, we realized that we had acquired a three episode a day habit, and had already burned through almost four seasons of it.

Yesterday we had walked up to the Blue Chairs Restaurant to have a frappe' and to use their Wye-Fie connection.  I had to do a little long distance paperwork for the State of Florida and Kathy had tagged along to download more episodes to her laptop.  As I logged on, the home page popped up with news of actor James Gandolfini’s sudden death while on vacation with his girlfriend in Italy.  In the famous words of Kathy Skaggs, “Shocker!”


A special note to Matt:  They sell Boston Mackerel in the grocery stores here, and they are very proud of it.   I don’t know the Greek name for them, but they are the same fish we use in Mayport for Grouper bait.  They sell a single whole smoked fish in a clear plastic package for 3.60 to 4.00 Euros or about $4.50 to $5.00 US.  They also sell it steaked (and brined?) in olive oil from ceramic crocks in the deli case for 26.00 Euros per Kilo or about $15.84 a pound, expensive drunk food.

photos by Newell and Skaggs