The sight of an old man lazily pulling his donkey on the beach is not as common these days as it used to be.  With his obedient donkey and some weathered baskets, the old man brings the bathers a few treasures, the man’s frugal summer crop: freshly cracked almonds, and perfectly ripe figs! Chubby green, reddish or purple, usually small and far from picture-perfect, these figs are deliciously sweet and fragrant!

SEE also my latest adventures with Fig Jams!

The fig is the final fruit of our summer, abundant yet very short lived, and like everything precious well worth the wait.  Visitors from the north of Europe are impressed with the sinuous shape of the Mediterranean fig trees, which to us are the most common and natural sight.  They usually grow wild, dotting and shaping the rocky hills, often near the sea, the drier the better. (more…)

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Unfortunately the late May Kea Artisanal group didn’t have the chance to taste our tomatoes. We had a prolonged spring with lots of rain, so until mid-June our tomatoes were tiny and green. Some of them, especially the Black Tula, were not quite ready even for our late June visitors, and the Yellow Pear, which we planted later, have no ripe fruits yet. We love our tomatoes, grown naturally, just with manure.

  Slide Show: TOMATOES revisited!

Manure is a scarce commodity on Kea, and everyone in our neighborhood is well informed of our purchase moves, keeping track of when we bought and from whom –as one neighbor wisely puts it “you can’t hide from God or from your neighbor.” This year, we had to import a huge truckload from the mainland. Everyone watched in sarcastic awe as it was being unloaded by a small crane from the big truck to a smaller one, that would then empty it to its proper place, at the far eastern corner of the garden. To our neighbors such an extravagance seemed plain nuts, as it probably made our vegetables more expensive than the supermarket’s! To us, though, it is essential to have our own produce, one of the reasons we left the city after all… So, we pretend not to hear nasty remarques like “my, and this manure is so fresh, it steams…” Our soil is sandy and very poor, so lots of dung is needed for anything to sprout up. We learned that the hard way when we first started our vegetable garden, some nine years ago. (more…)

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“The cooking, long meals, wine, weather, settings, adventures around the island were stellar. But what made our time with you stand out was the true hospitality that both of you exude,” wrote Beth—a guest in our late June program– in a warm and enthusiastic note she sent far from Kea, back in her South Carolina home.

  Slide Show: Keartisanal Summer 2011

Renee, another participant, amazed us with the royal treatment on her blog, where she devoted not just one but four wonderfully detailed presentations to our activities. In our May group we were greatly surprised to welcome two ladies who joined us literally from the other side of the world: Danica, from Hawaii, and Chris from Rarotonga, Cook Islands, the tiny spots of land – not unlike Kea – at the exact opposite side of the globe from Greece. Guests from diverse backgrounds — from Canada, India, the U.K. and of course the U.S. — once more joined the conviviality of our outdoor table as we enjoyed the foods we prepared together, listening to the song of the cicadas. (more…)

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The eighth stage of drunkenness according to the ancient comic poet Eubulus “is the policeman’s, the ninth belongs to vomiting, and the tenth to madness and hurling of furniture,” the very stately professor, Oswyn Murray, informed the lecture hall in his brilliant paper at the closing plenary session of this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. During the mostly sunny weekend gathering of 230 scholars and food-lovers from England, the US, and all over the world a fair amount of wine—from Italy, Spain, Germany and Greece— was consumed, but of course participants never approached even the fourth stage of inebriation that “belongs to insults,” but there were hints of the fifth “that [belongs] to uproar.”

Cathy Kaufman during the Shaun Hill dinner.

Shaun Hill’s seared monkfish with mustard and cucumber sauce.

Roast rack of lamb with summer vegetables by Shaun Hill of Walnut Tree restaurant

Lamb shoulder stew with vegetables, by Shaun Hill

Italian Risorgimento lunch

Chicken with rosemary and wine from the Italian Risorgimento lunch

Claudia Roden (far right) presides over Alicia Rios’ (second from right) and volunteers’ performance “Organoleptic Deconstruction in Three Movements”

M.F.K. Fisher exerted a strong influence on Auden’s idea of celebration, argued Seth Rosenbaum.

Chef Tim Kelsey, of St.Catz College was instrumental in the preparation of all the wonderful Celebratory meals.

Ominous Day-of –the-Dead Mexican candies.

Jake Tilson designed the exquisite menus; here the one for the dinner inspired from the Mexican Day of the Dead.

The Lenten Greek Kathari Deftera (Clean Monday) meze-lunch.

Taramosalata, marinated octopus and baked giant beans at the Lenten Greek meze-lunch.

The Lenten Greek Kathari Deftera (Clean Monday) meze-lunch.

Jane Kramer, of New Yorker magazine, and Cypriot diplomat Marilena Raouna at the Greek meze-lunch.

  Slide Show: CELEBRATING in Oxford!

Long forgotten are the ancient symposia, the drinking parties of men reclined on couches sharing “the ancient Greek conception of the highest form of pleasure. They called it ‘euphrosyne’, a sense of well-being or happiness based on purely physical sensations, those of eating, drinking, music, and sex.” Citing Homer, professor Murray went on to explain that in a pre-PC (Politically Incorrect, not Personal Computer!) era, in the classical symposia “euphrosyne seems to express the general feeling, the social consequence of the pleasures of the feast.” Thus euphrosyne could, I think, describe our shared experience during this year’s 30th anniversary of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, the theme of which, appropriately, was ‘Celebrations.’ (more…)

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Every year in April, well before Easter, Costas starts the long process of searching and ordering the cheeses that will be included in the Kea Artisanal cheese-tastings. He calls up shepherds and artisanal producers from various Aegean islands and Crete, but also people in the north of Mainland Greece. After discussing the year’s production, he orders a variety of cheeses, hard and soft. Then we impatiently wait for the Styrofoam boxes that arrive by messenger from Naxos, Tinos, Macedonia, and Crete. After an initial tasting, we decide which ones will be included in the 12-15 samples we serve each year on our cheese-tasting board.

  Slide Show: Gathering Cheeses

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that roughly every Greek village has its own cheese variety. These shepherd’s cheeses are seasonal, and are made mostly with a combination of goat and sheep milk. They seldom travel farther than the boundaries of the communities that create them. Shepherds traditionally use milk from the whole herd, as goats and sheep have slightly different milking seasons. On the islands the animals are semi-feral, wandering throughout the hilly landscape. Once or twice a day they are gathered and milked. The taste of the cheeses produced is directly related to the quality of the milk, which in turn is closely related to the kind of greens the animals feed on. The ratio of sheep to goat milk in the blend is never the same, and so the flavors of these cheeses vary considerably from one year to the next, and even within each annual batch; the distinctions are as fine as those that can be made among good wines. (more…)

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