Tagged: greece

Recipe: Greek Tzatziki

On a recent trip to Crete, I went to a cooking lesson (!!) where I learnt how to make tzatziki, a popular local dip which is usually eaten with crudités. It’s widely available in other countries – in England, you can buy it at any supermarket – but it’s always nicer to make it fresh. The best thing about the lesson was that the chef was called ‘Ares’ (after the god of War)… Best. Name. Ever. Anyway, I am by no means a Michelin star-deserving chef, but even I am capable of making this, which demonstrates how simple it is.

1. Grate one medium cucumber

2. Strain the grated cucumber (very important, otherwise the dip is too watery)

3. Stir the cucumber into 1kg of full-fat Greek yogurt

4. Soak some crushed garlic in a small bowl full of olive oil, and then add this to the mix

5. Add salt and pepper to taste

6. Add vinegar

7. Leave in the refrigerator for 2 and a half hours

8. Serve with chopped up celery, pepper and cucumber

I want to live in Ancient Greece

I really hope that, before I’m too old, someone invents a time machine. I don’t want to go into the future, I want to go to the past. The very-far-back past. More specifically, I want to go to Ancient Greek times, about 200 BC. This is for numerous reasons.  If you think about it, it’s insane how much the Greeks were able to find out just by ‘observing’ stuff/life/nature. The things they found out about science and maths in particular are amazing, considering they were using just their eyes – none of these fancy telescopes or advanced computers our scientists use today.

I mean, what’s not to love about Ancient Greece? They lived right on the Med, they ate tzatziki every day, they were all geniuses, they wore togas… Compare this to modern-day England. We live by the Channel, we eat fish & chips, most of us aren’t geniuses and we don’t wear togas. Need I say more?

European of the Week #2 – Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel is tomorrow morning landing in Greece for crisis talks with Karolos Papoulias and the Greek government. Karolos Papoulias – the president of the country – and Merkel will be trying to sort out a deal to stabilize the Eurozone.

All of Europe hopes that a deal can be done – otherwise there is a risk that Greece may have to leave the Eurozone, creating enormous uncertainty for the whole of  the continent AND BEYOND. Fingers crossed.

Word of the Week #7 – kamel leopard – Ancient Greek

Okay so to be fair to me, this can’t really be transliterated. But it’s a super cool word: the Ancient Greeks didn’t have a name for what we call the giraffe. So they named them kamel leopards – they thought giraffes were a cross between a camel and a leopard. Not that stupid, actually…

   

PS – another interesting fact: when you type “camel leopard” into Google, the first thing that comes up is the Wikipedia page for the giraffe (don’t ask me how I know this)