A warm welcome back!

NICE surprise today, opened windows on the house upstairs overlooking Hersonissos and there was a more than welcome visitor to our Crete shores - the Swifts are back.
  It certainly seems long time since they were here after their flight at the end of last summer, but we are sure that they are back earlier than usual - a sign of warmer days ahead, whatever the reason it's nice to see them swooping around the village in search of the nest they have made over the years.

A little pasta masterclass

WE were taught how to make Crete Pasta today. To give it the correct name it is Skiouficha, made from two kinds of flour, a little olive oil and hand-formed into small pieces.
   These are then dredged in flour and then, when partially dry, immersed in hot water until they rise to the top, and then served with cheese and or tomato sauce. Rather like Italian Gnocci.
  Pasta has always been part-and-parcel with the Greek kitchen cabinet. Though popular belief maintains that Marco Polo returned to Italy from his travels in China bearing pasta, experts now surmise that the food may not have come from any one place but from several, including Ancient Greece.
  Many scholars argue that the Greeks had a kind of primitive pasta in the form of a grilled batter that they called "laganum." The word may be the etymological root of what the Italians call lasagna. Furthermore, the word for macaroni most likely has Greek origins, given that the food closely resembles makaria, an ancient Greek funerary dish. The Ancients asserted that sweetened, wheat-based foods were highly symbolic of rebirth and regeneration, and would therefore serve such foods in an effort to honour the dead.
  It was the ladies of our social group KAPI who held the demonstration, making more than enough to serve everybody, as well as then turning the dough into triangles and deep frying it, serving it with either sugar or honey.

Let the festivals begin

ALL over Greece it's Festival time. The build up to Easter, the really big event of the year, bigger even than Christmas, is celebrated with events, festivities and parades.
  From large cities right through to smaller villages they all hold their festivals. The nearest village to us to stage event was Agriana, and we went along to catch up with the fun. It's another big social event, people you do not know still come up wishing you well, shaking your hand, sharing a glass of wine as the activities unfold.
  For the families it's a chance to dress up their children in best party outfits, they line the streets waiting to catch a glimpse perhaps of somebody they know. The events are usually on the Saturday/Sunday and then on Monday it is "Clean Monday" at which the majority stop eating meat and dairy products, and another chance to party.
  The biggest one to us is at Sissi along the coast, staged around the pretty harbour. Yesterday in Agriana the sun shone, today started wet, got wetter before the sun poked through late in the day. For the organisers of the party it was a nightmare. They place out hundred of tables and chairs, bowls of special bean soup are produced along with taramasalata, fava, salads and halva. They provide drinks also free of change, and then the music starts and dancing takes over. Despite the rain, people still came out, albeit later.