Red Rain!

There’s been a bit of a gap in the blogging, not for want of things to say, just time to say them!  We’ve been back to Northern Europe for a month – lots of snow in Hamburg, and very cold.  Here we’ve had some dramatic weather – 140km/h wind gusts recorded, but we are still here!  Now wind back to late February:

The front of the house has taken on a two tone look! 

They call it Kokkino Vrechi – “red rain”.  It comes from the Sahara on a hot South wind, strong enough last year to strip off a gutter and 15 tiles!  On the night of 21^st Feb, we just such an experience.  Luckily this time, no house damage, but plenty out in the garden.  

We lost a large pithoi out on the swimming pool terrace, despite several attempts by John to wire it up (again) to the railings.

Our terrace chairs had been fighting up on the East balcony, and the cypresses look like they’ve had one too many raki. 

The car had been neatly camouflaged out on the parking area.
 

There’s plenty of window cleaning to be done, Oh, and whoops!  The concrete mixer has 

 

been blown over – Yes blown over!

The Monday Market

Monday Market - note shopping trolley in full flight!

We've got into a routine of going to a street market in Chania, to buy all our fruit and veg, yoghurt and cheeses.  Its on a Monday in a narrow street, just up from Elefteria Square.
Its a real experience, and we've got to know some of the stall holders, and talk a bit in whatever - "with hands and feet" as Yasmin would say, a bit of Greek, English, German, and lots of hand waving, and smiling!

Maria with her Honeys

One of our favorites is Maria, the Honey!  Her honeys come from their hives in Falassana, on the western most tip of Crete, and very unusually for Crete, she sells a whole series of separate flavours.  There's the usual thyme honey - like you can get all over the island, aromatic and intense; heather reputed to be the most beneficial with minerals and vitamins.  There's pine honey, dark, spicy and piquant; and our favorite, orange blossom, with the most gorgeous delicate citrus flavours.

The Orange Man!

Clementines, oranges, mandarins...

Then there's the orange man, very important for us with our daily fresh orange juice!  He's a gem, so generous, always friendly and cheerful, and always insisting on giving us extra fruit, mandarins, clementines, eating oranges.

Mastorakis, the Dairy stall

Mastorakis is the dairy, based in Tsitsifes, a mountain village nearby Xiliomoudou.  They have the best yoghurt in the area  we believe - its tangy and sharp, with a firm texture.  What's unique about it, in our experience is that it does not produce any whey over time - so many of the other yoghurts are half liquid after a few days.  Another of our favorites, is their low fat goats milk cheese - beautiful texture, and delicate taste.  They also have fresh goat and sheep milk, but we need to be there early as they often sell out.

Fresh Herbs and Sal

There's a stall selling virtually only herbs - heaps of vivid green parsley, dill, mint, sometimes coriander and fennel.  Its strange that the Cretans don't deal with more herbs, and their cooking reflects a conservative approach - thyme, oregano, parsley, dill and mint - but we love to grow and use other herbs.

All the serious shoppers have a shopping trolley - partly so you can thrust your way thru the crowd, running over feet not quick enough to get out of the way!, but also to carry the massive amounts of fresh produce - 10 kilos of oranges; apples, pears, bananas; broccoli, courgettes, red peppers; herbs & spring onions; potatoes, onions, carrots; oak leaf & lollo biondi lettuce, rucola, and the local greens: stamnagathi & others.

Olives preserved in Lemon, in Vinegar, in Salt, in Pergamo

The olive man did not want his picture taken - maybe its his religion, maybe he's shy, or maybe its the tax man?!  But his olives are great, we particularly like the ones preserved with pergamon - bitter orange.  We asked him why each of the olives is sliced, "its what we always do" he said!

Kalamaton Olives

Then its back home again for a huge unpacking session, filling fridge, washing and prepping herbs, stocking up the store cupboard.

Into the New Year

Its 2013, just, and we are revived from a few days off.

Windbreak - first trees!

When the weather has allowed, we've been busy in the garden.  We've planted 3m cypresses, pine trees and ficus in an embankment of rocks at the North edge of the plot which we had constructed.  We've had to make up our own soil - adding peat, sand & fertilizer, as the native stuff is so full of clay its almost impossible to work.  And each tree has to be staked and secured with stays in three directions to stop the winds blowing them over.  Every morning when we wake up we check to make sure they haven't been blown over during the night!

Inside we've been experimenting with bread making, and have now got a super and reliable country loaf - good texture and crumb, crisp brown crust, and the most wonderful smell of baking when we get up in the morning!  Added to that the aroma of hand crafted coffee - each round individually ground and filtered from beans which we unashamedly say are one of 8 varieties we get from Starbucks (my do they do good beans!), and we hope you are already yearning to be here!

Recipes which have made it include pork loin wrapped in pancetta tray baked over apples with a sauce of dried figs and apricots, poached in concentrated local grape juice, flamed in tsikoudia (the local spirit, made from the remainders of winemaking), spiced with anise, cinnamon and cloves.  Continuing the winter theme, duck on quince slices cooked in a local pomegranate liqueur, with copious saffron.  The cooked duck meat fried in duck fat with raisins & prunes in Amoroso sherry, and the juice of a fresh orange.  Wow, it was lovely, tho I have to say we did drink a splendid full fruity Santa Alicia Cab Sauv from Chile - can't always stretch to Cretan wines!

Over the past month or so, the outside works are virtually complete - a crazy paving driveway up the hill, circling the huge fig tree in an oval island; a splendid pool terrace, linking the basement reception room to the pool, all on the level.

New Pool Terrace, almost finished

The website continues to be embellished - we've now got a small slideshow of pictures of the accommodation on both floors, and have made some contacts with others offering information or activities in the area - more to be added to the website in due course.