by Gretchen Hanson

“Business or pleasure?”

My customs agent eyes me up and down and perfunctorily questions the purpose of my journey as he must do a thousand times a day. He is young and could easily be one of the carved marble sculptures on the frieze above the Parthenon. You can tell his interest in my answer is only relevant to his job. I smile sadly, and tell him nothing even close to the truth. “Pleasure.” I smile to give credence to the lie and exit into the blue Athenian sky.

I am alone and middle aged. If it weren’t for my height, strangely colored eyes and auburn hair (now from a bottle), I would be completely forgettable. I stopped traffic when I was younger, now I am lucky if I can stop a cab. Fortunately, I have my hired tour guide, Georgi, to take care of my transportation needs for the next three days. For one hundred and fifty Euros he belongs to me: heart, body and Mercedes. He stands to the side with a small sign.

Hanson: middle aged and lonely, party of one.

Ok, I made that part up, but it could have been true.

I have rented a studio apartment that turns out to be remarkably inconvenient given the location of the airport, the Acropolis, and the center of the city. The city was much smaller in my memory from decades before. Georgi drives me to the wealthy suburb on the far edge of the city, miles out of the way. After a while of his running monologue, he realizes that I am not holding up my end of the conversation. I don’t tell him what I do. I don’t tell him why I am here. I definitely am not going to tell him why I am alone.

Fifty Euros a day may buy a smooth ride, but definitely not his silence. He tells ‘slice of life’ stories to fills the gaping holes in the conversation. Most of his narratives have no beginning and less of a point. He winds down, realizing I haven’t answered even one of his questions. 

Pause.

“Are you hungry?” He has landed on the one thing I still care about.

“Yes… always.”

He pulls into the traffic median, causing an abrupt squeal of brakes and a loud horn staccatos. Voices and fists are raised and Georgi shouts back cheerfully, while climbing into a tree’s embrace and emerging with a shirt full of fruit.

“Bitter oranges” he says proudly. “In Greece we are never hungry.”

If only it were so simple, Georgi.

I didn’t remember the wild figs. They hold the rocks in place and creep and crawl over the dusty roads as you wind your way from one part of the city to another. Every rubbish heap is a riot of figs and flowers from the seeds that sprout in the refuse. Every now and then, a random poppy or tomato will pop up with a bright splash of carmine, like a lipstick gash in the dust. 

The next morning I made the obligatory Acropolis climb, wending my way around the mountain of tourists wielding selfie sticks. Then I climbed to the Shrine of the Muses, on the opposite hill, where no one ever goes. I was hot and sweaty and sat on a 3,000-year-old marble curb, feeling the sun warm my face. You were there with me, rubbing my wet shoulders. Even the plants were a tease. Everything was from our childhood and I could even smell the wild sage tickling my nose like it used to in our first kitchen together. Without thinking, I reach out to hold your hand. Of course, it isn’t there. The sun is setting by the time I climb down the hill. Georgi had a pile of cigarette butts by the car and a huge look of relief as I finally emerged from the scrub.

The next morning Georgi was perturbed that I expressed no interest in the changing of the guards at the palace or in seeing the Olympic stadium. He explained carefully that I wasn’t fully grasping Athens. I quickly countered that at this point in my life I only had room for my two remaining loves: food and art. On second thought, I amended; I sometimes also flirt with my crushes: history and words. He quizzed me earnestly on Greek historical trivia to make sure I was not a dilettante slacker. When I gave him the correct story about the frieze marbles (stolen by the Lord Elgin, the thieving bastard), Socrates’ untimely end (put to death by hemlock for corrupting Athenian youth), the length of an Odyssey (ten years), and the ingredients of baklava (pistachios or walnuts, honey, butter and phyllo) he was suitably relieved at my well rounded education and allowed me go to the market. 

Oh, what a market! I naturally gravitate toward the countries nearest the equator and I have not returned to this one for decades. Flocks of birdlike women dart in with brightly colored plumage and sing-song voices to do the morning shop before the sun has reached its zenith. I stand to the side and watch as they fill baskets with produce, cheeses, breads and olives. It is Easter week and the eggs are died in magenta and violet. The smell of bitter orange portokalopita is so redolent it makes me swoon.

The markets are an amalgamation of the cultures whose peoples have drifted onto these shores since time immemorial and recently in floods of displaced and unwelcome refugees. Each culture had their culinary ingredients to hand in every stage of readiness. From Zaatar to Fattoush, each stand was a sensory overload. Feta that melted in your mouth, briny olives of dozens of varieties, salty pickles made from every ingredient you can imagine, and strawberries so sweet that they melted like cotton candy. Interspersed with the stands were junk shops that towered three stories high with careening piles of items with no functional or practical purpose; the remnants of hundreds of years of past civilizations that washed up on these shores. I breathe deep. This is what Greece has always smelled like to me; dust and brine mingled with swagger and longing.

I’m trying to process the emotions that I have been experiencing since I’ve been here. I can feel the pulse of the city’s heartbeat as my own, and it is filling me with anxiety even more profound than my personal grief. Athens is so clearly a city on the verge of 21st-century dystopia.  Poverty and homelessness are not the only desperation you see. Graffiti is everywhere, with a voice of anger and darkness consuming every wall less than twenty foot high in waves of Technicolor rage. It pours over the crumbling foundations of grandly sweeping architecture, stolen lives and tragic history. The despair has taken over like an inexorable florid tide and consumed everything in front of it. 

In the midst of catastrophic economic conditions and a refugee crisis spiraling out of control, people continue to live and claw their way through skyrocketing unemployment rates and crime. You can see it in the young on every street corner; a blaze of eye and a gait that states quite clearly, “I will live my own life, not this city’s doomed history. I didn’t create this mess. It was not my fault.” They frantically try to show that they are not bogged down in past, while the Acropolis towers in mute rebuke above the city. The young form tribes that congregate in the corners: cardboard houses in the midst of marble; chaos in the midst of classic architecture.

At the edges of the market there are legions of beggars with physical deformities that are so severe I simply don’t know how to set my facial expression. I am throttled by American political correctness from showing real emotion. I walk past the butcher building where entire carcasses of every species are strung from the rafters. The smell of blood is overwhelming. Between the stench and the tragedy of broken bodies clinging to existence without hope of ever having enough to eat, I cannot breathe. When I finally fill my lungs, what is released in the exhale sounds like keening. I never used to cry and now I cannot seem to stop.

I duck into a junk shop, like hundreds of others in the city—people are selling the refuse of their lives in an attempt to survive the austere economic conditions. I wander around the musty interior and pick up the singular pieces. A jumble of saints medallions emit such pathos my eyes sting. A clay vessel holds longing in its cool hollows. I hold it in my hands and I feel a pulse, as if it is alive. A spatula wafts kitchen smells that cannot possibly be in the air: nutmeg, cinnamon, eggplant, garlic… it is like a shimmery, olfactory veneer. Peel it back and you are crushed by the inexorable pulse of human misery. All I can think of is the moussaka I used to make you just like your nonna’s. God, you could eat. A whole entire city is suffering outside these doors, and all I can keep in my head is how much nutmeg to put in a béchamel sauce. I sit on a musty rug in corner cupboard that I doubt has been visited in weeks and let the tears stream down my cheeks. Tears for you, tears for this city, tears because I cannot even remember what I cooked for you the last time. Did you know that everything I cooked was an expression of how much I loved you? Did you at least know that?

I am going to leave and head to Santorini. The sadness here is engulfing. At least my sadness is mine alone.

This belongs to a whole country.

When Georgi and I part the next morning at the terminal he gives me a bootlegged copy of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It makes me laugh at the irony and I tip him far better than I would have.

The ferry takes me to the island, arriving in the early afternoon. I am dropped at the far end, escaping the tourist crush of the donkey taxis or cable cars. Fishermen are docking working boats in the small azure shoal and a cluster of houses are flung against the cliff as if from the hand of an angry God. I take a bus to my villa, perched on the edge of the sea, and wander the cobblestoned streets filled with detours around buildings far older than anything in my country.

Every corner is a new vista of volcanic ash, whitewash and small children who should definitely be in school. I find a lovely little bar with great beer and charming service from a bartender who probably just came off one of the fishing boats. He is extraordinarily tall with black eyes like olives and an easy smile. I realize with surprise that I don’t care what he thinks of me watching him. I drink on a patio looking over the cliffs. Eating feta wrapped in phyllo and drenched in too much honey, I lick every sticky crumb from my fingers. I could have bad table manners and be too loud and let my hair go gray. I could fall in love again, maybe with the man with the olive eyes or maybe just with becoming Greek. I could end my personal Odyssey here, far from home, and stay in my tiny whitewashed cottage perched on the edge of forever– squinting into the sunsets that crash into the Aegean Sea. 

Feta Purses

10 ounces Greek feta or vegan feta

4 phyllo sheets

4 TB teaspoons honey or agave

4 teaspoon of sesame seeds

3 tablespoon of olive oil for brushing

 

Vegan Feta

2 blocks firm organic tofu packed in water and frozen over night

½ cup yellow miso

½ cup unfiltered apple cider vinegar

1 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp white pepper

½ tsp herbamare

Put tofu in package into freezer overnight. Thaw tofu and cut into ½ inch squares. Put in pot of water and bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for five minutes. Drain thoroughly. Whisk remaining ingredients and pour over tofu. Chill overnight to allow flavors to meld. Keeps for at least a week in refrigerator.

Preheat oven at 325 degrees

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan over low heat till fragrant. Open one phyllo sheet carefully and brush with olive oil. Put 2.5-3 ounces feta at bottom middle third. Fold both sides in and roll like a package Bake 15 – 20 minutes.

Remove from oven, drizzle with honey, and sprinkle the sesame seeds over it.

Moussaka 

 

Eggplant layer:

6 large eggplants

Extra virgin olive oil

 

Mushroom layer:

2 lbs creminis mushrooms, sliced

6 TB olive oil

1-2  sweet yellow onion in a ½ inch dice

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

1/4 of a cup white wine

1 can 15 oz Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp oregano leaves

Dash of liquid smoke

1 tsp Herbal sea salt

½ tsp White pepper

¼ tsp cinnamon

 

For the béchamel sauce:

4 cups non dairy unsweetened milk or cream

½ cup earth balance

½ cup flour (can use gluten free)

½ cup Daiya mozzarella shreds

½ tsp sea salt

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp cayenne

Cut eggplants about 1 inch thick and rinse in water. This gets rid of any bitterness. Place eggplants on a cookie sheet (with an edge) and brush olive oil liberally over top. Bake in 375 degree oven. After about ten minutes turn eggplants and brush the other side with oil. Eggplants are little sponges and if they look dry and wrinkly they will taste dry and wrinkly. Use a good quality oil and don’t be afraid to add it liberally.

In a heavy sauce pan heat 2 TB olive oil at a time and cook the mushrooms in two separate batches of one pound each. Cook as hot and as fast as you can to release the water and sear. Sprinkle with liquid smoke and set aside. To the same pan add another 2 TB olive oil and lower heat. Cooked diced onion and garlic until it is browning about the color of weak tea, then add in the cooked mushrooms, canned tomatoes, oregano, cinnamon, sugar, salt, pepper and wine. Turn up heat down and simmer for about 15 minutes until most of the juices have evaporated.

In a new saucepan melt the earth balance and whisk in the flour over medium heat. Let bubble and begin to brown and then whisk in the milk and spices. Whisk continuously to avoid clumping or burning. Whisk in Daiya cheese when sauce is thick and turn off heat. Lightly oil a deep lasagna dish and layer eggplant and mushrooms till all used up. Top with sauce. Bake 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly and browning.

Portokalopita

 

Cake

Small container (8oz) plain soy yogurt or unflavored Greek yogurt

1 ½  cup earth balance oil

1 ½  cup evaporated cane juice sugar

1 ½  cup orange juice

2 TB  baking powder

zest of an orange

2 tsp vanilla extract

20 oz pack phyllo dough

¼ cup ground flax meal  

 

For the syrup

2 cup water

2 cup sugar

zest of 1 orange

1 cinnamon stick

Unwrap the phyllo dough and lay sheets separately on the counter so they will dry out.

Put syrup ingredients in pot of water and bring to a boil. Reduce by one third. Set aside to cool.

For yogurt cake, put softened earth balance oil into a large bowl, add the sugar and whisk. Add the yogurt, the orange juice, the orange zest and the vanilla extract and whisk well. Whisk in baking powder and flax meal until the ingredients combine and the mixture is smooth. Tear the sheets of the phyllo dough into small pieces, and add into the mixture.  Oil an 8 x 12 pan and pour in the mixture. Bake in preheated oven at 325 for 40-50 minutes until deep umber colored and cooked through. Knife inserted in the center should come out clean.

After removing cake from oven pour syrup over the hot cake SLOWLY allowing each bit to absorb before adding more. This might take a while. Don’t get impatient. Refrigerate cake for several hours till thoroughly chilled before slicing.

---

Executive Chef Gretchen Hanson is an award winning chef who coincidentally happens to be vegan. She is currently taking a gap year to travel and spend time with her daughters. Follow her culinary adventures at www.chefgretchenhanson.com or on Facebook. Her cookbook When It’s done: The Making of a Chef will be released this year. Contact her at chefgretchen (at) gmail (dot) com for lectures, teaching, cooking engagements, or just to send airfare.