A Blog from Greece – Life at The Lemon Tree on Crete
It still amazes us that here we are in the depths of mid-winter up a Greek mountain, often with winds howling, rain battering against the house and mists descending upon us and hey presto as if by magic hundreds of lemons just seems to appear on the tees bursting with ripeness and loveliness and just waiting to drop into our laps or be pulled off (or with the high wins up here and incredible storms to be blown off more than likely).

And so the year begins in its lemon like fashion and all things being lemon are now upon us as we decide what to do with this bounty we are feasting our eyes on. Lemon cake becomes a lunch box favourite and pots of lemon marmalade will soon be on the stove. And a little nifty way of making the old favourite lemon curd will be undertaken.

The rituals of making the Lemon Tree Liquor will begin and we will embark on a couple of new projects of preserving lemons and making lemon sorbet. All these and more will feature on the blog over the coming weeks.

We are kind of used to most of the Greek traditions and routines of the year, although we still raised a little smile at all the adverts that appear on television for Christmas toys longer after Christmas is over and all the Santa and Christmas type films that still on the screen until early January; with new year being a big event here in say, Christmas day kind of terms, it kind of explains it. And in truth it is quite nice to have the festivities spread over a couple of weeks as it takes the emergency out of the moment and means it is still okay to be snuggled in pyjamas eating Christmas cakes, cookies and chocolates with a hot cup of coffee mid morning.

If the weather is good you are as likely to find a Greek family out picking olives on Christmas day as you are seated around the table eating dinner together. Most people have a holiday from work and as most families seems to have olive trees that need harvesting, if the job has not been undertaken yet it is an ideal time for family members to gather together and the vans to be piled with their nets, buckets and other tools ready to go off olive picking for the day. On a recent weekend Mark joined some neighbours to pick some olives and will be posting his article about this on our next blog.

Where have we been? Apart from drowning in lemons – just lost in the rituals of Christmas holidays, family life and battling winter and all its associations. Charlie is back at school; the Christmas holidays extend here until after Epiphany, when the priests throw the cross in the water and all the men jump in and try and get the cross, trying not to freeze. We saw that some events this year were marked by protests at the general situation in the country whilst high winds at sea left some of the festivities in chaos.  

The woodpile is slowly decreasing as the wood burner keeps us warm through these cold winter nights. The guttering is back up after being blown off in the storms and the weather has been kind enough on some of these days to allow us to get on with some of the routine outside jobs.

Sunny afternoons are spent out doors when the winds are not too high but the cold comes in sharp late afternoon so we are all snug indoors before the cold creeps in. The children usually manage an hour or two whizzing about on their trikes on some such like.

With Christmas firmly behind us we are about to enter the carnival season in Greece which happens before Lent and seems the last chance to go crazy before mmm…. the next chance to go crazy!

Our emphasis in these blogs from Crete is on food because that is what we do at The Lemon Tree, but we aim in these little blogs from Crete to also give a reflection of life in a Greek Village on Crete. Simply put, we live here; have a family here and a business. Thus we encounter daily both the joys and tribulations of life in a Greek village, some of which are familiar to the whole of Crete and Greece, some of which are unique to village life; some which villagers alike share or  are experienced by us as settlers in this land. Alongside these writings you will find recipes and ideas about food.

For previous blog articles please click on the link at the bottom of the ‘blog page’ and if you are searching for a particular food recipe such as curry  – then type in the keyword in the search box on the website and Hey Presto! This will bring up the recipes that contain this ingredient.

We write the blogs together; mostly the food stuff is Mark and some of the other bits are Anita or what we come to through general chat (or heated discussion, depending on the day….) Mark is dyslexic - he writes a first draft, hands     it over to Anita (who puts on her old English teacher’s hat) to redraft and develop, adding a bit here and there; this seems to work!

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