Easter On Andros, The Louis Version

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

“Meanwhile, before sunset, the men take down the beast and lay it on plastic sheets on top of our big marble table. They do unspeakable things to it that include skewering, rubbing it with lemon inside and out, piercing it with garlic and rosemary, and stitching the abdominal cavity with string.” Diana Farr Louis

ANDROS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—5/13/2013—You know you’ve been away too long when the chairs in your second guest room are as moss-and- lichen-speckled as a weathered tree trunk and the grouting on the slate floor has crystals of white mold as thick as the frost on an old-fashioned freezer.

You know you’ve had it when, three days later, after you’ve swept away the gecko poop (think mouse droppings) and spider webs and got the room looking (and smelling) habitable, the ceiling starts giving birth to hundreds of winged ants.

We gritted our teeth, dragged the furniture, pillows, and mattress back outside, closed the windows and, I confess, zapped the room with Baygon bug bomb. This happened not once but three times, the last on the morning of Holy (or in Greek Megalo, or Big) Saturday, just before the room’s prospective occupants were due to arrive.

By then, we had already decided to give them our own room, but even we did not fancy winged ants for bedfellows. Friends who had experienced such infestations said they came in waves of three so, hoping this was true, I sprayed the cracks in the ceiling yet again and spent an hour spreading putty over them with my forefinger.

There was so much else I should have been doing.

We’d already spruced up the main part of the house, easy because unlike the downstairs room it’s watertight, and our first guests had been in residence since Big Tuesday. Easter falling so late this year, on May 5^th, the government had decreed that Labor Day, on the 1st, should not be observed during Holy Week but would be shifted to the Tuesday after Easter. But, as my husband, “Joy of the People,” had predicted, this month would have two Labor Days. The ever-rebellious unions ignored the proclamation and declared a strike instead. With all boats cancelled, Easter travel plans for thousands had to be rearranged, so our guests arrived a day early.

I greeted them with a tasty chickpea curry spoiled by recalcitrant peas that would not soften. They greeted us with a bag containing 41 home-grown artichokes, countless more bags of garden produce—lettuces, spring onions, broad beans, marmalade, lemons larger than most grapefruit—and two boxes of (quite decent) Chateau Cardboard for the Easter fest.

The next days passed pleasantly with barely a nod to tradition or ritual. We did dye our eggs red on Big Thursday but, although we took the precaution of boiling them with a dishcloth, a third of them cracked. We ate artichokes, of course—with the broad beans and a lemony sauce, grilled, and finely sliced raw with slivers of Parmesan. But while we did abstain from meat, as prescribed by The Church, we gobbled cheese and yogurt with abandon, poured olive oil on every dish, and wet our whistles with so much wine we would have been excommunicated in an earlier age, given the Lenten ban on these substances. Especially during Holy Week.

Even Good Friday came and went almost unobserved. The church bells tolled mournfully in the distance and we cooked a lentil soup, as tradition demands, but we could not muster the enthusiasm to attend the evening service. Besides lacking any religious conviction, I suppose we are jaded. The Epitaphios (funeral) procession in our corner of Andros seems drab, prosaic, in contrast to those I’ve witnessed on Spetses, Poros, Kythera, and in Heraklion, and Athens (Plaka), or those I’ve read about on Corfu and Patmos.

Or even in Andros’s capital, Hora, more than an hour’s drive from us. Every year we (women) hint wistfully about the glorious flower-covered biers, the congregation’s solemn candle-lit shuffle through narrow white-washed streets, the magnificent hymn, the spiritual atmosphere of other places. The men pretend they don’t hear and roll the dice on the backgammon board.

As for attending the midnight service on Easter Eve, no one we know even considers that a possibility any more. All over Greece, it has been hijacked by boys from six to 60, who take tremendous delight in setting off not firecrackers but increasingly powerful IEDs, whose blasts rock the surrounding area and deafen, sometimes even injure and maim, anyone unlucky enough to be too close. This year, we learned of a new device resembling a land mine, planted just under the surface of church courtyards and timed to go off at the stroke of twelve.

So, for us, an Andros Easter is about . . . the lamb.

Every year, our neighbor gives us one from his flock that has been grazing next door. Luckily, he never introduces us. It arrives, freshly slaughtered, wrapped in black plastic, and our faithful partners, F & E, take charge, hanging it in the storeroom upside down over a bucket for the blood to drain. F heroically gropes for the innards—if, like this year, they have not been handed over separately—and cleans some of the intestine to make the traditional Greek Easter soup, mageiritsa. She is fearless and not at all squeamish. She does all the difficult work, chopping up all the meats, and creates a delicate, delicious soup. I merely turn it into avgolemono; binding/flavoring it with egg and lemon when we are ready to eat (heretically, well before midnight).

Meanwhile, before sunset, the men take down the beast and lay it on plastic sheets on top of our big marble table. They do unspeakable things to it that include skewering, rubbing it with lemon inside and out, piercing it with garlic and rosemary, and stitching the abdominal cavity with string. I make sure I am busy doing something else.

Easter Day starts slowly. With a custom-built barbecue, an electric motor, and aluminum foil lining the bed of charcoal, the roasting process that used to take six to seven hours and several hands to turn the spit has been reduced to three hours max. Old timers might say some of the fun has gone out of it, but our team opt for convenience. The guys still hang around the fire; we girls kibitz in the kitchen, making salads, dips, roast potatoes, crudités, lemon-laced oil for basting, and answering the phone.

At around 1 p.m., our guests arrive, bearing desserts—apple crumble with figs and shaved almonds and tahini cheesecake with strawberries and lemon marzipan “kisses”—plus more wine, for we have sent out word that our supply of Chateau Cardboard may not last the day. The lamb comes off at about 2:30 and most of us attack it with our knives, like savages, since cold lamb on a plate is not what Easter is about. Afterwards, we do sit in a civilized manner and celebrate, if not the Resurrection, then at least the fact that we have again managed a marvelous party with lots of help from our dear friends.

The next morning, one guest calls to say thank you. “I know it’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.”

I do wonder how long it will be before we give in and go to a taverna like so many of our community here. But, for now, I’ll just wish us all, “Kai tou chronou,” or, “See you again next year.”

RECIPE

Kid with Artichokes in Egg-Lemon Sauce/Katsikaki Avgolemono me Anginares  

This dish is a spring classic, eaten all over Greece, especially delectable when the chokes are as soft as lamb’s wool. This recipe comes from my book,  Feasting and Fasting in Crete.

1 kg (2 lbs) boneless kid (or baby lamb), cut in large cubes

120 ml (1/2 cup) olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

60 ml (1/4 cup) lemon juice

6 artichokes, cleaned (and halved or quartered, depending on size and left to soak in acidulated water)

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

1 bunch green onions, chopped

salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

For the egg-lemon sauce:

60 ml (1/4 cup) lemon juice to taste

2-3 eggs, at room temperature

Heat the oil in a large stew pot and brown the meat on all sides, a few pieces at a time. Remove them to a platter, lower the heat and saute the onion gently until very soft, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon so it doesn’t burn. Add 240 ml (1 cup) water and the lemon juice, scraping up any bits stuck on the bottom, and return the meat to the pot. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, until the meat is half cooked, about 30 minutes. Add the artichokes, dill, spring onions and seasonings, and simmer till tender. Pour in a little more water if necessary.

Make the egg-lemon sauce at the last minute. Beat the eggs and lemon together until frothy. Slowly add several tablespoonfuls of broth from the stew to the mixture, whisking while you pour to prevent the eggs from curdling. Stir the contents back into the stew pot, off the heat. Mix thoroughly, reheat very gently to avoid scrambling, and serve at once. Serves 4-6.