Askolymbri, the crunchy roots of the common golden thistle (Scolymus hispanicus,  or Spanish oyster thistle) braised with lamb and finished with an airy avgolemono (egg and lemon sauce), was probably one of the most unusual and rare delicacies we sampled during this year’s marvelous Worlds of Flavor Conferenceat Greystone, in Napa. Chef Yiannis Tsivourakis from Crete, representing the local organization that promotes the products, healthy traditional diet, and sustainable development of the island, decided to cook this foraged and peculiar plant from Crete. The praise was unanimous, but the common golden thistle was certainly uncommon to most participants – it is hardly known, let alone available, anywhere else in Greece, and certainly not in the US or anyplace else in the world.

But scolymus has been with us since antiquity. Theophrastus, the 4^th c. BC philosopher and botanist, and Dioscorides, the first c. AD author of a 5-volume encyclopedia about herbal medicine, both praise scolymus’flavor and its health-promoting properties. Dioscorides advises the reader to “roast scolymus as we do asparagus,” and no doubt it will taste heavenly! The thorny plant with the bright yellow flowers is quite common in the Mediterranean countryside, but it is difficult to gather and to peel, to preserve the integrity of the fleshy root and some of its young shoots. How widespread is the common golden thistle? According toWikipedia, scolymus is “very popular in almost every province of Spain, where it’s usually eaten in stews during spring time. It is also used in salads, soups and with scrambled eggs in Andalusia where it is called ‘tagarnina’. In the sixteenth century in Salamanca the washed young plants used to be eaten with their root, either raw or in stews with meat.” But, looking at the pictures that accompany the Wiki entry, it seems to me that the Spanish scolymus is quite different from the one of Crete, and a distinction must be made. (more…)

Read More

This year’s olive oil from our trees is emerald green, quite peppery, and very aromatic!

We pressed it early with the help of our October KEArtisanal guests. As it trickled from the olive press, still warm and hazy, it tasted heavenly on slices of fresh bread, just out of the oven for the occasion.

olive-oi-2011-spoon-table-1-bg

8-olive-pie-2

7-rolledpi

7-olive-oil-label

6-olive-close-small-1

5-olive-pressing-sarah-ed-stathi

4-olive-pressing-stathi

3-olive-harvest-team

1-2-olives-oil

We did not have a large production. Olive trees tend to have a good yield every second year, villagers say. Often pruned as they are harvested, olive trees need time for the new shoots to grow and fill with fruit. We drastically pruned our trees last year, as they had grown large and heavy. We were not expecting to gather many olives, but having purchased our home olive press the year before, we were more than eager to use it again, and share the joy with our guests. (more…)

Read More

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…)

Read More

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.

We call our crop of heirloom tomatoes ‘delightful freaks’ because they are far from perfect-looking, but they are so incredibly sweet and delicious!

Our tomato plants usually start to blossom late May or early June.

Costas ties the tomato shoots, expanding the frame of canes vertically or horizontally, as the plants grow.

The local so-called ‘Kea or Santorini variety’ of tomatoes are the first to ripen.

Unfortunately they are not the best-tasting, hardly compared to the black, juicy Tula.

While still green, the large Tula look perfect.

Then, as they turn red and swell, they often crack, and are attacked by the terrible stink bug–Nezara viridula.

Nezara viridula is our tomatoes worst enemy as it propagates fast, and sucks their juicy flesh.

As the tomatoes start to turn red, our anticipation grows.

Next year we will certainly plant more, as they seem to thrive in our island garden

Costas and I debate if we should salvage more tomatoes, cutting them while firm, and half-green, and letting them ripen in the room.

Fortunately the stink bugs hardly touch our delicious black plums.

Our friend David Snyder from Santa Fe sent us the heirloom seeds for those black plums, which are as delicious to eat as they are to look at.

We never refrigerate our tomatoes, leaving them in a bowl or basket that brightens our table!

I use over-ripe cherry tomatoes of any shape to make my tomato and purslane relish.

The fresh-tasting tomato and purslane relish is an ideal accompaniment for grilled fish.

We devour copious amounts of tomatoes every day, simply dressed just with fruity olive oil and a sprinkling of dry oregano; onion rings and home-made capers are some favorite embellishments.

All in all, despite the pests, we managed to have a good crop of tomatoes this year. We hope some of the plants will continue to produce well into the fall…

  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…)

Read More