The Right Kind of Madness

“We made friends instantly—he cultivates visitors with tremendous warmth and, in the age-old Greek manner, plies them with food and waters them with fiery tsipouro, before he even knows your name. Over a snack of salted cucumbers, sliced tomatoes, and baked potato all doused with olive oil (but only fizzy water for me), he told me his story.” Diana Farr Louis

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

KIFISSIA Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—6/24/2013—Last June, I met a madman. You might say there’s nothing unusual in that, Greece is full of them. In fact, the first word in Greek our half-German granddaughter learned was trelokomeío (madhouse), having heard it so often on the exasperated lips of her mother and grandfather. But what made this man different was that he declared himself, from almost the first moment we met, in the shade of his gardener’s shack on a side street in Kifissia, the Athenian suburb where I live.

“You’d have to be mad to do what I did here,” said Barba (“Uncle”) Petros, a pensioner with a cloud of white hair, smiley face, and a mania for growing vegetables. The garden itself—an ebullience of tomatoes, potatoes, zukes, cukes, and eggplant—could rival Findhorn. And it is all the more surprising in this affluent residential area, where lawns are prized as a status symbol.

We made friends instantly—he cultivates visitors with tremendous warmth and, in the age-old Greek manner, plies them with food and waters them with fiery tsipouro, before he even knows your name. Over a snack of salted cucumbers, sliced tomatoes, and baked potato all doused with olive oil (but only fizzy water for me), he told me his story.

We established that he’s been to my country three times, to see a relative in Pennsylvania; to Hong Kong maybe 50 times on business; that his daughter is an architect, his son tests computer games; and that he has another vegetable garden in Halandri, the suburb where he lives, about 20 minutes closer to Athens. And that, since retirement, his passion for growing vegetables keeps growing.

When I dropped in on him again this June, he told me that he’d started another garden on the slopes of Pendeli, at least another 20 minutes from his home. His energy seems boundless, but he’s finding it hard to squeeze money for the water bill and high-priced gas from his shrinking pension. He confessed that he’s even stooped to tapping into Kyria Despina’s pension.

“That gets my wife’s goat,” he said. “She tells me, spend all you want of your own money, but leave mine out of it.”

This is how Petros got started on his mad venture.

Because he loved giving his crops away as much as he loves tending them. And because his garden always produces more than his family can use, he used to distribute its bounty to friends and establishments in his neighborhood.

“Besides the kiosk newstand, I’d take vegetables to the kafeneíon. One day two years ago, I happened to go by with some cucumbers—you know how well they go with ouzo—and I offered them to a paréa (group of buddies) sitting at a table outside. One of the men got really excited, sat me down, and started asking me about my garden.

“Several ouzos later, we were in his car driving up here to see whether we could make this abandoned property of his into a baxés.” Petros uses the common Turkish word meaning vegetable garden, rather than the more formal Greek perivóli, and then mentions that his surname is Baxevanis, or gardener. What could be more appropriate!

“He’d said there was water, but we had a devil of a time finding it. First, we had to empty the plot of all the rubbish, junk, weeds, and dead branches. That took 15 truckloads. And when we finally found the borehole, it had run dry from lack of use. ‘Never mind.’ I said, ‘We’ll use mains water and think about the bills later.’

“Didn’t I tell you I was mad?”

As soon as his efforts began to bear fruit, they started attracting attention. The garden has been written up in the local Kifissia newpaper, the mayor has been to visit, and people like me drop in daily, sometimes in groups. Mothers bring their children, who squeal with excitement when they see potatoes appearing like magic from under the soil or spy a watermelon ballooning under a vine.

Surrounding the table where he surveys his realm are stacks of boxes with green string handles ready to be filled with cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers. One of the pleasures of becoming a customer is picking your own veg.

Last year, he told me that some of the vegetables go to the Municipality’s social services for needy families; others go to a home for handicapped children. This year, he’s worried he may not be able to continue through the winter.

“I need to have some steady customers. People who will come by every week and leave, say, 10 euros for a box of vegetables, raised the old-fashioned way, without fertilizers, pesticides, or hormones. I like to call them home grown, rather than organic—I’m not always convinced by that claim. Of course, they may be more expensive than the farmers’ market, what do you think? I can’t put a price on them. I just say, ‘Pay what you think they’re worth. Not, whatever you want.’ Do you see the difference?”

Besides being a passionate gardener, Petros has dreams. How many pensioners do you know who still want to change the world or at least their corner of it?

One dream is to work with schools and help them set up vegetable gardens. Two days after we met this month, I joined him at the new baxés on Pendeli, where he was hosting a nursery school, two mini-vans crammed with tots. He was upset because he’d prepared for 20 kids and 40 turned up. But in the end they all got something to take home, along with a note for their parents about the garden.

“Maybe a few will become friends and customers; one or two may even take the message further and encourage their older children’s schools to start a garden.

“Now, with so many people going hungry, the schools could produce food for families. But I’ll be happy if only one or two children develop a love of growing things and continue doing that when they’re older.”

Petros also dreams of convincing the owners of the big, lawn-covered properties in Kifissia to convert a piece of their thirsty greenery into a vegetable patch. He will offer hands-on advice to anyone who wants to make the change.

“I put in a lawn myself when I built my house in Halandri, but slowly, slowly I dug it up and put in vegetables. Now the only grass that’s left is the paths that divide them. They’ll probably think I’m mad, but it’s worth a try.”

As I got up to leave, Petros gave me a box with a green string handle. It already had some beautiful just-dug potatoes, a tiny head of garlic, a bunch of finger-sized carrots, and a fat lemon from his tree in Halandri.

“Let’s fill it up; you can take it to Andros.”

We walked slowly to the gate, Petros bobbing down to grab some cucumbers—three different kinds; some peppers; and a branch of basil. Embarrassed at so much generosity, I tried to slip Petros a 10-euro note, but he brushed it away. That’s a problem when people do what they do for love not money.

Instead, he sent me off with a final dream. “I want to grow a tomato that tastes like the ones my mother grew in Kavala in the early 50s. But for now, I’m just happy watching each plant get a little bigger every day. Kyria Despina says I’m neglecting our home garden, but I can’t help myself. I told you, eho mia trella—I’m just a little bit mad.”

After I wrote this column, I looked up baxés in my Greek-English dictionary. Besides “garden,” there is another definition. To say that someone is baxes means his “heart is in the right place.”

Recipe 

Cucumber Salad

When a surfeit of cucumbers presents itself, I love this simple salad. I can’t begin to tell you amounts.

At least 2 long cucumbers or 6 from a garden like Barba Petros’s

1 medium red or Vidalia onion

Coarse salt

White wine or rice wine vinegar

Chinese sesame oil

Hot pepper flakes

Peel the cucumbers and slice them as finely as possible. Ditto the onion. Place in a colander and toss with the salt. Leave for at least an hour, the longer the better, even a whole day. Rinse off the salt, squeeze out the liquid with a dish towel, and place them in a bowl with the vinegar, sesame oil, and hot pepper flakes. If you don’t like hot pepper, add chopped mint or coriander.

This is wonderful with fish or just about anything else.

Note: Barba Petros’s garden is located at Ionias 23 in Kifissia, between Harilaou Trikoupi and Kifissias Avenue near the Erythrea stop light, at the level of A/B supermarket. He’s there every day except Sunday between 8 a.m. and 12:30. His cell phone is 6955657167. If you stop by or send a friend, tell him Diana sent you.