All handmade

In the summers, the women of the neighbourhood would gather to drink coffee, discuss their news while making barley pasta. My grandmother would treat them her famous spoon sweets along with water from the pitcher ('stamna') that was collected from the so called 'kopano', the nearby spring.  The dough for the barley pasta was made by fresh ingredients each woman would bring on her own.  Some would bring eggs from their chicken coops, others would bring milk from the local shepherds and others freshly ground flour from the neighbourhood bakery. It was a process that could last a week but all of them would take part with joy and passion.  The dough was cut into large pans and left to air dry before being collected. All that could be heard was the women's laughters while collecting for storage the left over ingredients for a delicious juveccia in the winter. The same process was followed with the trahana.  

So many aromas and so many flavors! Lots of memories! All handmade with love and laughter.

Photo by George Seretis

The handmade soaps, the cheeses in the baskets, the olives and the pickles in the jars, the salted sardines on the pans and the smell of the freshly made bread. All made with passion and love ready to be consumed before they even go stale, by the family.

There were countless times where we picked the figs and dried them to have delicacies to eat in the winter. We collected the walnuts and the almonds and separated the bitter ones from the regular ones. Grandma kept them to make baklava, saragli and placenta at Christmas (traditional desserts with layers of nuts, pastry and honey). So many aromas, flavours and laughter! The only thing that stays with us all along the way are our memories of our childhood, the countless tastes, the laughter and the bliss of our ancestors in the place where we grew up!