Maria

It was midsummer  when she told me that she would be travelling to Thessaloniki and since it's near my home, we agreed that we would meet. It was a must, since we'd been blog friends for about a year. I was anxious to meet her as I find her an inspiration. She's an amazing writer and I find myself consumed by her posts. I prefer to read them in the morning as I sip my coffee since they're usually entertaining, informative and as I've already said, inspiring. 
I've tried her recipes and many of them have become favorites and staples on my table. I join her in solidarity as a mother of young children and an expat that's trying to teach our good eating habits by offering healthy choices and homemade meals on a daily basis. I've learned so much about the natural foods available at my footsteps, foods l probably would have never considered eating as I thought they were only weeds that I needed to get rid of. She's someone I can send an email that consists of a mere sentence or less...and she knows exactly what I'm talking about. She's funny, intelligent, thoughtful and adorable. She's Maria Verivaki, the Mediterranean Kiwi of Organically Cooked. 

Maria on my balcony.

Early in September, Maria and her family embarked on a vacation that was quite different for them. They  took a ferry boat from Crete to mainland Greece so that they would have the opportunity to explore the hidden treasures of Greece at their own pace. We expected her to be in our area the during first weekend of September. The two of us explored different places to meet and we had originally settled on meeting at the mall in our area. On the day that we had planned our visit, she and her family were set out for Halkidiki. So, I thought about it a little more and then I thought about the children. Sure, we could meet someplace neutral it would be nice, but what about he kids? If we were to meet at the mall my kids would start wandering off or begging for something 10 minutes after we had arrived, it's inevitable. Then, I thought about her kids. They have been in a car off and on for a few days and were probably tired. So, I decided to invite them to our home for coffee as it's on the way back to the city, where they were staying. After I made my suggestion, she agreed that it would be a nice change.

I met Maria and her family in the center of my town since it's usually much easier for us to have first-time visitors follow us to our home, given we don't have an address. Naturally, I recognized her immediately. She was standing beside her car so I parked behind hers, hopped out and gave her a great big hug. Next, I was introduced to her husband Dimitri and then her children. The children were having a spat in the backseat of the car and she looked at me and asked, "would you mind taking the kids in your car"?  Of course I didn't mind and besides, I knew they'd love to watch a little bit of a movie on the DVD player. They were thrilled with DVD player but it's such a short drive to my home that they only got to watch the previews before the actual movie began. Nevertheless, they were instantly happy.

When we arrived at my home Gigi greeted the family at our gate and then our kids, followed by Kosta. Our kids were so excited to have visitors because they rarely have others to play with at home since we virtually have no neighbors. Well we do, but most of them are chickens and dogs.
So, the children became acquainted quickly and off they went. We didn't see or hear much of them for the entire evening. Our husbands sat together on the balcony and discussed...well...who knows what- for hours. Everyone got along so well, it was wonderful.
 Over coffee we  had so much to talk about, it seemed as if we'd known each other for much more than only a year. We laughed a lot and every now and then we would stop our conversation because we'd hear something drop upstairs. We'd stop talking long enough to make sure that the kids were fine and then continue right where we left off.

Maria enjoys Gigi's  & Alexandra's company...

I had a peek in Foti's room from the balcony and found two young warriors...

The children exhausted after playing for hours. They watched a movie to wind down. 



Maria's husband, Dimitri, with Kosta

All of us had such a nice time but then it started to get late and everyone, especially the children seemed to be pretty tired. It was bittersweet to see them leave, we wished that they could have stayed for days! We've already discussed what we'll do the next time we meet here, unless we end up in Crete first, you never know!

Here's a nice photo of myself with Maria...


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Maria's Gigandes

The aroma of gigandes baking is enticing...


I've been making gigandes for years and they were good. All of my friends in the U.S. loved when I made them and my sister used request that I make them. I used to make gigandes based on a recipe from one of my favorite cook books and although they were good, for me, they were never quite right.
Since I love Maria's recipes I decided to try her version of gigandes.  What she adds in hers, that I had never put in mine, is tomato paste. I had never used it in mine and it makes a huge difference in the consistency of the sauce by adding richness and more flavor.  Also, she adds sausages to her beans. So far, I haven't used sausages but I can imagine that the beans with the sausages combined are delicious. But my family loves her recipe! I make these at least once every few weeks. Thank you Maria!

Maria's Gigandes Recipe is here .


-More favorite recipes from Organically Cooked-


Avgolemono
Fasolada
Falsolakia
Lemon cake

...well... just to name a few .There are so many!

Visit Maria's other marvelous blog :
One Day in Hania

Over the last week we've had a few visitors from back home. First, we had Foti's Nona (Godmother) visit on Saturday. He was very excited and couldn't wait to show her everything about his new house. That visit was short and hopefully we'll be able to visit her in her family's village before she leaves Greece.

Our next visitor was Pete. Pete has been a friend of ours for the better part of our marriage. He's visiting southern Greece for a few weeks and we were lucky enough to have him travel up north so that he could spend a few days with us before he was on to his island hopping and family visits. It was great to have a friend from home here for a few days. He brought me a Hershey's Symphony bar and Jalapeno seeds for my garden. The kids were thrilled because he gifted them with fruit snacks and Fruit Roll-ups.

It seems that he arrived just in time for the summer heat to turn up and we all suffered together. I kept joking about how shiny we all were and how Greece has given us such a healthy glow...he'd roll his eyes.

Pete was also lucky enough to meet our little owl. It ventured down the fireplace to have a peek at us earlier in the day and then at around 2:00 am as we were enjoying a conversation it decided to join us. Pete was more than happy to help me lead the owl out of the house. It flew into a window, bump into walls and finally ended up behind the TV. The little guy seemed exhausted. Pete wrapped it in a towel and took it to the window so that it could fly out and that's exactly what it did. It took a minute to assess the situation before it actually took off. I'm very surprised at how calm the owl was when Pete picked him up. It didn't seem alarmed at all. That was really cool.

The next day we took Pete into the city. We actually did a tour of the city by car because it was so hot. He also suggested that he'd prefer it that way! It was just so hot!

So we drove around and stopped for something to eat. On our way out of the city we stopped at some landmarks at the sea front. We got out of the car to take a few pictures and buy some water.

The kids enjoyed running around the statue of Alexander the Great.

And then they just ran around the park area. They had a blast.

When we were walking back to the car we noticed police officers ticketing cars that were illegally parked and one was even equipped with a power drill/screw driver. As they ticketed vehicles for being parked illegally they were also removing license plates. I can't say that our timing couldn't have been more perfect as our car was next in line for the punishment. We won't be stopping there for a quick picture again without looking at all of the signs. It didn't seem like an illegal parking spot as we waited for the spot when we were parking and there were cars parked all the way down the street. But then again we're in Greece and anything goes. We've got to be more careful. It would have really stunk if we had to go to retrieve our plates at the police station...we know because we've already done it! That's another story...

So Pete left yesterday afternoon and now I'm trying to catch up with everything that I've neglected over the last few days. Until my next post...