City Pleasures Country Treasures (Athens and Arcadia with a look at Nafplio)

Kalo mina! Good month! There goes September — it just flew by on Hermes’ winged sandals (or Mercury if you prefer).

September is the month that people say is best to take vacation, and yes, admittedly the crowds leave, the sea stays fairly warm, the cicadas continue their summer song, and usually the north meltemi wind (see previous blog) dies down, though it can even increase in intensity in September as it did this year.

As I get ready to publish this however, the sun is hot, the wind is calm and there’s hardly a ripple on the sea. Near the end of August, people used to wish you “kalo heimona” (good winter).  With the heat and the blue skies, this greeting always seemed to belong to maybe Norway, certainly not Greece. Saying “kalo fthinoporo” (good fall/autumn) makes more sense. Let’s get out of the summer gradually…

In spite of the generally sunny September days, your mind feels it’s time to return, to plant your feet on your own soil. Just think of the feeling when everyone’s left the party and you’re waiting for your ride to take you home. Maybe that comes from all the years of going back to work at this time but whatever, psychologically you’re not really in vacation mode any more. And there’s so much going on in Athens! Outdoor theaters blossom again with plays and concerts. Our municipal public library hosts a one-week festival in the library garden of music, poetry, books and film.

The garden is lovely, but never big enough to hold the crowds that appear. After an August siesta, the ancient theater of Herod Atticus, under the Acropolis, (Herodion) theater opens again, with well-known Greek and international performers.

If you can’t get tickets inside, don’t despair. Join the crowd outside the theater in the huge terrace. The acoustics are great. Get a beer at the bar and you can take a seat on a bench, steps, various ledges, even ancient columns and listen.

And while you listen, you can watch the “show” outside: a parade of visitors, of dog walkers, of toddlers taking their first steps. Point your phone up to the Parthenon and take a video. As wonderful as it is being inside this unique theater, I enjoy this alternative experience too. If you do have seats in the upper tier of the theater, forget your heels; wear sensible shoes and be in good shape for the steep marble stairs. And you can’t be in a hurry to get out of the theater — it can take a good 20 minutes. Tickets in the lower tier cost a bit more but of course you’re so much closer to the action on stage.

A much beloved event every September for the past five years is the four Nights of Classical music by students and professors from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. It’s held at Cotsden Hall, which is part of the Gennadius Library, at the American School of Classical Studies, a little oasis in the heart of the city! This is one of the few indoor events, so it is not open to the vagaries of the weather. The Library, built in the 1920’s, looks a bit austere with its huge white columns and red stucco and its manicured hedges, but don’t let it intimidate you; go head and open that imposing door and enter the library! There, you’ll find many rare books on Greek civilization, as well as all sorts of other objects like Lord Byron memorabilia, personal papers of various poets, many original artworks, etc.

Looking for a good book? Try the Athens Publishers book fair, the 48th this year, held at the Zappeion with publishers and their new books, everything from classics (I hear a representative trying earnestly to sell a 3 volume set of Dostoevsky for only 35 euros) to new & popular books on bestseller lists to cookbooks to children’s books. During the event, you can also attend book presentations and listen to musical events. While the book fair was outside, inside the building another popular annual event was being held for several days, Art Athina, which features new art by Greek and foreign artists.

We do manage to pull ourselves away from all the festivals and concerts, and leave for a few days to the Peloponnese. First stop, Nafplio, everyone’s favorite town and only a two hour drive from Athens. Under the Venetian fortress looking up at Palamidi with its nearly 99 steps up to the top, we have a heavenly swim at the Arvanitia beach, water like glass.

Nafplio was the first capital of Greece after it became a state in 1829, before the capital was moved in 1834 to Athens, then just an Ottoman backwater village, but with those glorious ruins of the past. Nafplio has a romantic aura about it and many consider it the most beautiful town in the Peloponnese.  Across the pedestrian walkway is Bourtzi, along with Palamidi, the other landmark of the town. It was originally Venetian, but the Turkish name “bourtzi” was adopted, which means “island fortress.” You can admire it from the shore or take a little boat there, but it’s currently under some kind of renovation.

We usually eat at Vassilis’ two blocks up from the promenade. Simple but delicious taverna food. You’ll definitely want to stroll around in the streets and browse in the shop windows. Note the unique “kouboloi” (worry bead) workshop and museum.

One shop made me question my dull-looking throw pillows.  Time for a change! How about the face of Gandhi, Che Guevara or Frieda Kahlo? Or maybe an ancient Greek motif.

A very good national road system links Athens with most cities in the Peloponnese (see map) but we take the old road toward Tripoli with dramatic views of the sea as we drive, climbing up and gradually become encircled with high dry cliffs and mountains. The air changes, we feel a chill, clouds, a few raindrops as we hit the national road and keep going to Megalopoli, with its unmistakable symbol, as you’re driving in from the north, the smoke of the coal-burning chimneys as they produce electricity. Megalopolis (big city) is certainly an ironic name -–nothing but the usual small provincial town where everything is centered around a huge plateia with a plane tree giving shade, and lots of cafeterias where every hour of the day people are sitting and drinking coffee or maybe ouzo. Now we’re driving up up up to the village near the patriko where my father-in-law was born.

On the way up the mountain, sheep and goats might block the road here and there, as you pass through several tiny villages, usually a cafeneion with a couple of men sitting outside playing backgammon, but not much else, mostly endless trees and green, even after the dry summer.  This area is where the Greek revolution of 1821 began and there are reminders all over. The house is in a roundabout with the name “plateia of the heroes of Kolokotroni” (the leader of the revolution). There’s a plaque in the main plateia, referring to an ancestor Stefanos Paganos who fought in the war of 1821 and died bravely); the plaque has a poem of lament, a miroloi sung by a mother for her sons killed in battle.  

From the front of the house your view is of the village houses with the familiar red ceramic roofs, but in the back you can watch the endless valley and the mountains.  You strain your ears to hear sounds like you’re used to, but all you hear is the wind and the tinkling of the sheep bells.

My in -laws bought the land and house more than 30 years ago from a man who used his horse to visit all the land. For years my father-in-law would put on his large rubber boots, carry a stick in case of snakes and go down to the mysterious rema (ravine) where he grew grapes to make wine every fall, as most of the villagers did, sharing or holding back secrets on what they added and when. If only I could get used to that taste; to me it ranged from one year’s near vinegar to another year’s drinkable…but barely. He was very clever with building things, and soon before he died he had made an enormous Rube Goldberg-like contraption for pressing the wine. For some reason it always made me think of that hilarious “I Love Lucy” episode where she’s stomping on the grapes.

His cleverness in building things showed itself in many “inventions.” The dearest of all was a wooden horse that he attached to a muria, one of the characteristic trees of the Peloponnese, with even a “tail” made of tulle. My kids could spend hours of delight riding on it. I wonder if a wooden horse today could entertain kids that much. Note: the horse and the tree are both gone…

Those were the years…. well, let’s visit the land today. Delicious juicy grapes, both green & purple varieties, still grow wild and unpicked, but close to the house. The other product still growing there are karydia (walnuts) from one solitary walnut tree. Picking them is actually the main reason we’ve come, but we’re a bit early and they’re still very green on the trees. We gather what we can and spread them on the balcony to dry in the sun. The village is full of wild walnut trees; if you wait till the beginning of October and take a walk around, you can fill many bags of walnuts, both from the tree and from the ground carpeted with them. If you’re big walnut eaters like we are, the supply can last a few months.

We also gather another full bag of walnuts from our tree in Salamina a few weeks later, so they’re fuller and closer to being ready. (Salamina, closest of the Argosaronic islands to Athens and famous for the battle of Salamis when the Greeks defeated the Persians in 480 B.C., often unfairly gets a bad rap — more on Salamina another time.)

Walnuts are harvested mostly the end of September, a little after the beautiful blessed figs. This year might be an off year though with fig trees — they’re mostly small and still green in September in the areas near Athens, but in the village we find a tree that’s bursting with large ripe purple figs.

What should we do with all the figs we wonder, and decide to make chicken with figs and sweet red peppers in a balsamic and dijon mustard sauce. Elias proves once again his culinary abilities!

Back in Athens, it’s the grape harvest for wine. In the Attika valley, you see trucks piled high with grapes, bringing them to what are called patitiria, literally “stepping,” the name in use from the time before machines were used.

If you want to make your own wine but you don’t harvest your own grapes, you can go and buy the moustos, the grape must, from the pressed grapes for the fermentation. This is what our friend Nick does. He’s been making wine for many years. He takes exquisite care with each step of the process, as he was kind enough to share with me photos step-by-step. And I can attest that his wine is full-bodied, fruity and delicious.

Besides used in wine, the must is popularly used in the fall for making cookies and pudding.

Walnuts, figs and grapes. What other vegetables are at their peak?  Tomatoes of course. But how much tomato sauce can you make for spaghetti and other vegetables? One solution is yemista, tomatoes and green peppers stuffed with either rice, quinoa or bulgur, with lots of fresh dill, parsley, basil and mint. A classic summer dish, baked with potatoes stuffed in the crevices, olive oil poured over it.

And what vegetable is still in high season? The eggplant! This is a very old vegetable native to India and southeast Asia, and one of the most popular Greek summer vegetables (think moussaka, although it can be made with potatoes in the winter when eggplant is out of season). I was wondering at the derivation of this curious and rather ugly word ‘eggplant’ for a vegetable that has nothing to do with eggs. Apparently, back in the 1700s, when varieties were smaller and yellow or white in color, to Europeans, they looked a bit like goose or hen’s eggs, hence the name “eggplant.” Aubergine is a much more beautiful word, as is the Greek word melitzana , same as the Italian melanzana, whose derivation I couldn’t find.

In Greece there are two main varieties, the long thin with purple & white called tsakona and the flaska the round purple one, of various sizes, but you can also find white flaska melitzanes from the Cycladic islands in early September at the laiki, the street market.

So what can we make that we haven’t already? Enough with imam byaldi, enough of eggplants sliced & baked in the oven with tomato topped with mozzarella or cooked on the stove with tomato sauce or grilled in the oven, too much work to make papoutsakia meaning little shoes, stuffed with ground meat and topped with béchamel, or chicken with eggplant or melitzanosalata – eggplant salad, collapsing eggplant in the oven and scooping out the interior.  I find the white variety is great for this as it has very few seeds.  Scouring through some old clipped recipes, I find “melanzana caprese (from Capri) with tomato, mozarella and basil.” Perfect! It’s like mille feuille with little towers of eggplant slices, alternating with slices of tomato and with mozzarella. Eccolo! Buon appetito...

There’s one more vegetable that hits its peak the end of the summer, bamiyes (okra) which I never had before I came to Greece.  It’s a much-loved vegetable in the southern U.S. as well as here.  I know that it repels at lot of people because of the sliminess, but you can eliminate it if you rub each one with a towel, put them in a shallow dish, pour wine vinegar and salt over them and sit them in the sun or a warm place for a couple of hours, then rinse off. Another vegetable that goes great with chicken…

The best place to buy produce is the laiki agora, literally the people’s market. These are the neighborhood street markets, that also sell fish, eggs, plants and some sell clothes, shoes and household items. They meet once a week — now, end of summer prices are as low as 50 cents a kilo for tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, also zucchini, cucumbers. In my neighborhood Aghia Paraskevi, I I buy my vegetables from Kostas and Thanassis who have wonderful produce from Marathonas.

And the fruit!  Nearing the end of the season for karpouzi (watermelon — another beautiful word) also peponi (melon),  nectarines, peaches, pears.  And time for apples of course, one of the great fall pleasures biting into a crisp apple.  Slice them up and eat with honey, a traditional custom for the Jewish new year, this year in late September, early October. Best wishes for a sweet healthy year… 

So, after the grape, fig and walnut harvest, what’s next? Lemons and above all olives, the most important and sacred product all over Greece. Stay tuned for more in the next blog… (Also coming up, Roman Athens and Roman Rome! More on that later…)

As I see, this post was mostly about the bounty of the land, which I’ve really come to appreciate, though I believe I’m still a city person at heart …a toast for the new harvest and strength for the year ahead of us!

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Sherri Moshman Paganos is a writer and former educator, inspired by her life in Athens, where she and her husband are happily retired and enjoying their travels in Greece and abroad. You can check out her writing — fiction, non-fiction, poetry and articles here.