The Way to My Heart

“Alexis Ladas, my first Athenian, was born in 1920, a whole generation before I came into this world on a different continent. By the time he was 24, my age when we met, he’d sailed to Crete in a dinghy with Lawrence Durrell, been arrested as a spy and condemned to death, courted romance in war-time Cairo, captained a fishing caïque that tracked German convoys through the eastern Aegean, and saved a seal from drowning.” Diana Farr Louis

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

Note: A sequel to Louis’s previous essay, “A Fateful Invitation,” this column describes how the author ended up as her friend’s “Auntie.”

ANDROS, Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—8/5/2013—He was tall, dark and very handsome. The first meal he fed me was caviar and pheasant under glass—something that had caught my imagination—in what was then the most elegant Russian restaurant in Paris. He also ordered champagne. And then proceeded to swizzle the bubbles away.

Eight months later, we were married.

I’d been doing my year in Europe—summer in Greece, winter in Paris—after graduation from college, and the year was drifting into a second when I met Alexis again. The first time had been on that beach on Spetses 14 months earlier. But after that fateful dinner I decided to move back home to New York. Where he lived.

Actually, that’s the drastically expurgated version and pheasant under glass turned out to be a rather boring dish. But the stories that went with that meal and every subsequent one could have filled many books. I hung on Alexis’s every word and fancied myself Desdemona to his Othello. Which was rather appropriate, since the noted historian Sir Steven Runciman had traced his lineage back to the Moor of Venice—while maintaining that the Moor was not Black at all but simply a Mr. Mavros, which means black in Greek. He alleged that Mr. Mavros had married a Miss Cordatou, originating the distinguished Mavrocordatos line, to which Alexis’s grandmother belonged. As the Italians would say, “se non è vero, è ben trovato.”

Alexis Ladas, my first Athenian, was born in 1920, a whole generation before I came into this world on a different continent. By the time he was 24, my age when we met, he’d sailed to Crete in a dinghy with Lawrence Durrell, been arrested as a spy and condemned to death, courted romance in war-time Cairo, captained a fishing caïque that tracked German convoys through the eastern Aegean, and saved a seal from drowning.

Just for starters. How could I not be enthralled? When he could a tale unfold in an English better than my own. Some of his experiences had made it into print, in beautifully woven short stories published in Harpers. One had even evolved into a charming children’s book, called The Seal That Couldn’t Swim.

But that was all. In November, 1964, after we drank some more bubble-less champagne to celebrate the appearance of “Before the Firing Squad” in Harpers and my first (and only) travel piece in the IHT, Alexis succumbed to an incurable case of writer’s cramp. Even more infuriating, he eluded every inducement our son, many, many, years later, devised to get him to tell his stories into a hidden tape recorder.

In 2010, eleven years after his death, he finally came out with a novel. It’s the reworking of a screenplay he’d written before we met—full of action, suspense, love and rivalry, nautical lore, and youthful idealism. Called Falconera, it’s the fictionalized account of various missions undertaken by the schooner flotilla he joined after escaping from prison on the day the Italians capitulated to the Allies in September 1943.

Finally released from writer’s cramp in his 70s, Alexis poured memories and imagination into the manuscript, which he left with an old friend and publisher. After a concatenation of events that conspired to delay printing, the editing process began. I offered to help and found myself listening to his voice again—the same vignettes, ideas, observations, and adventures that had captivated me so long ago resounded in my ear in the very turns of phrase he’d used back then.

It was uncanny.

I should add that our marriage lasted a mere five years. Put simply, Alexis was happier living in the past, in his amazingly eventful 20s, than he was being a dutiful husband and father. However, he changed my life in more ways than one. Besides giving me my wonderful son, he also cemented my love for Greece, its food and food in general.

While in Paris, I’d spent three months at Cordon Bleu, learning how to chop onions, make curdle-proof mayonnaise and deglaze a pan. That wasn’t long enough to become a superb cook, but it did teach me how to eat. Living with Alexis was like graduate school in the philosophy of taste.

First, he was an incomparable cook. He introduced me to skewered squabs and exquisite thin-cut french fries (always plunging them into the oil a second time to get them really crisp); steaks with marchand du vin sauce; and soft-shell crabs, first fried in oil and then sautéed in butter. He would scour the fish markets of Manhattan for whole fresh shrimp—how could you make a bisque without the heads? Our butcher on 89^th and 1^st thought Alexis ran a restaurant he ordered so much meat. And the Fire Department arrived more than once as smoke gushed from the hibachis on our 6^th floor balcony.

But he also initiated me into the ways of Greek hospitality. Enraged and embarrassed when I’d ordered only eight huge lamb chops for four people, he became vegetarian for the evening so the others could have the possibility of seconds. “Always serve more than you could possibly eat. You must never appear stingy,” he scolded. And though he really was more carnivore than herbivore, Alexis adored the lentil and bean soups Greeks consume by the gallon in winter, pouring in olive oil till it was an inch thick on top, where masses of onions and garlic floated.

Of course, we ate out often at favorite places such as Gino’s, Le Veau d’Or, P.J. Clarke’s, in Manhattan, or Prunier, Maxim’s, and a local bistro when in Paris.

But whenever Alexis needed a Greek fix, we’d head to the Pantheon on 49^th and 8^th Avenue. It was a classic taverna, with a mural of the Acropolis on the wall, that could have been transported bodily from Athens. We’d order more than we could possibly eat, of course: taramosalata, dolmadakia, kid with lemon sauce, giant baked beans, kalamarakia, moussaka . . . all the classics, even retsina served in those copper-colored cylindrical pitchers.

“This is Soul Food,” Alexis would say, “A taste of the patrida, the homeland.”

Tasting those quintessential Greek dishes would transport us both to a blue wooden table by the wine-dark sea on a sun-drenched island with gulls mewing in the sky, cats mewing by our feet, and a feeling of utmost contentment penetrating every cell.

For me, Soul Food had nothing to do with collard greens, corn pone and chittlins; nothing to do with the Sunday roasts of my childhood, either.

Alexis gave me his patrida, and when we separated, I went home . . . to Greece.

RECIPE 

Sautéed Shrimp with Garlic, Mushrooms, and Rice

Note: This recipe was written by our son, Petros Ladas, another whiz cook.

Alexis’s friend Susan’s father was a shrimper in the Gulf who would occasionally send her five-pound ziplock backs of wonderful fresh frozen Louisiana shrimp. These were fairly large, I guess number 1s. Susan was not much of a cook so the arrangement was that the bag would live in his freezer and she had to be invited every so often to partake of Alexis’s shrimp creations. He did his best. One of my favorites is sautéed shrimp with garlic, mushrooms, and rice.

We would peel the shrimp while they were still partially frozen which made it easier and then we would make a broth with the shrimp shells and heads. Back in those days we did not know about brining but today I would brine them for ten or 20 minutes in a medium strong solution before cutting the shrimp into four equal morsels. We had a super abundance of shrimp so we calculated about five or six per person. At the same time we’d clean the mushrooms (we always used plain white mushrooms, probably because that’s all you could get in the 80s) and slice them thin. Then we’d peel the garlic and chop finely and we’d also finely chop a large handful of parsley which would be split in two.

The rice (Uncle Ben’s in those days, half a cup per serving) would be sautéed in butter until it had soaked it up. Half a cup of white wine would be added and boiled off and then the shrimp broth would be poured in. Since the rice is to cook uncovered and unstirred at medium high the ratio was 3 to 1 with extra liquid toward the end if it seemed to be sticking. If we did not have enough shrimp broth we’d top it up with chicken broth. Today, I would use Basmati and somewhat reduce the ratio.

The shrimp were quickly sautéed in butter (taking care not to burn it) and removed when they had acquired color but before they cooked through, a minute or two. Then the mushrooms, garlic, and half the parsley were added to the same pan, with extra butter if necessary, and cooked until the mushrooms had released all their liquid and we beginning to color, taking care not to burn the garlic. At this point a splash of wine was added and boiled off, then the shrimp were returned to the pan with a cup of cream and stirred until a thick sauce formed.

We then made a ring of rice in the serving platter, filled the hole with the shrimp, and sprinkled the remaining parsley on top.

Note: For more on Falconera, please visit the publisher’s website, www.lycabettus.com.