A Return from the Greek Isles

Yes, it's been a while. In general I go through phases of unfocus or maybe narrow focus. I go through each day doing the basics: eat, sleep, work, repeat. This causes everything to be neglected. Blog posts most of all. However this time I do have a real excuse. At about the time of my last post I was on my way to Montreal to fly from there to Athens Greece. We returned a couple weeks ago but I am only now getting my head back in the game.

It's so disorienting to be away for long enough to settle into a different community and pace of life and then come back here. Now Burlington is pretty chilled out when compared to other "cities" but the Greeks have the market cornered on chilled out. Even in a busy city like Athens where there are tons of cars and bikes on each street just sit down to a meal and everything just slows right down.

My husband's parents live on the little island of Ithaki (I'll have to add some links as I find them) in the Ionian Sea. My pictures so far are of the food from our favorite restaurant Polyphemus. Set in a garden so you are completely surrounded by olive and lemon trees, herbs and some vegetables and just lots of beautiful green and splashes of color in flowers.

The Greek version of hummus, this is fava. Made from yellow split peas, olive oil, garlic, red onion. On top drizzle some bright green olive oil and a sprinkling of oregano. I've tried to make this a couple times but haven't quite got the taste right. I'll post a recipe when I figure it out.

Another favorite of ours (we ate it nearly everyday in one form or another), Melitzanosalata. This is an eggplant salad made from roasted eggplant, garlic and olive oil primarily. Depending on which restaurant you are at it's always different. This has been left a little chunky and has a healthy dose of garlic and drizzling of that gorgeous olive oil. I am closer to a recipe on this one.
This is simply a fried pita. I haven't seen this offered at any other restaurant we visited but damn this just makes eating those dips heaven.
And no meal is complete without the classic Greek salad, without the feta of course. The vegetables were always just so perfect here. Tomatoes just so big and juicy. Olives a plenty. The greenest olive oil I have ever seen and probably ever will see.