Greek Specialties

So I love that fact that there are bakeries here and meat stores and flower shops separate from the supermarkets. Don’t get me wrong, many people do all their shopping in the grocery stores but the individual stores are really cute. For instance, they don’t have a lot of grocery store floral departments so people buy their plants and flowers on the street at the open market, from gypsies driving the street with pickups overgrown with house plants, and from these beautiful shops. They are everywhere. They look like exotic greenhouses in the middle of the concrete jungle of Athens. They have palm trees, potted plants, and freshly cut flowers in every color. From the street you can see in the glass windows with plants overflowing onto the sidewalk outside. Inside you are surrounded by greenery in every shape and size and flowers that look like flowers are supposed to look, not like in the grocery store. I love going inside because it is like an arboretum.

I can't comment too much on the meat shops quality but I can comment on the shock value of these little stores. They have the regular things, pork chops, chicken breasts, ground beef. Then they have pigs feet, whole lambs with the hair still remaining on the end of their tails hanging upside down lifelessly, and whole chickens with their clawed feet still on. Ewwwwww...

But the bakeries here are awesome to say the least. People buy bread at the grocery store also but mostly they shop at the bakeries on every block. Its nice to have specialized stores because the quality is so much better. The bread is SO yummy and it is so cheap, like 60 cents for a loaf of fresh bread made that morning. They have all different kinds so I just point at something over all the short Greek women around me and they wrap it up for me. Then they have all different kinds of pretzels, crackers, cookies, and things to dip in coffee. They have them in baskets all over the bakery and they sell them by the kilo very cheap. Then they have deserts and they are exquisite. I literally walk into one of these places with my mouth open in awe (and drooling). If I have to pick something out I never know what to choose because everything looks so good. They have éclairs and chocolate mousse, rice puddings and fruit tarts, huge chocolate cakes decorated with strawberries and whipped cream, caramel and shaved white chocolate, or crystallized oranges and cherries. The things are almost too pretty to eat… almost. They’ll have ten, twenty different kinds of “sweets” which are small, individual treats usually made with chocolate. People buy “sweets” for their name day or birthday and bring them to practice, work, whatever. People buy “sweets” for every occasion. Last week my trainer brought “sweets” for everyone because he passed his drivers test! Any excuse for chocolate.

The name day is a big deal in Greece. Almost every Greek person is named after a Saint and every Saint has a special day. There is usually a girl name and a guy name for each one. Like Stella/ Stelios, Nikos/Niki, Stavros/Stavrula, Pangiotes/Pangiota, Demitrius/Demitria. On your name day you bring sweets and get some presents, phone calls, and lots of kisses. Every time I bring sweets to practice from America I claim it is my name day. Next week is my birthday and I am super excited to go to a bakery and pick out beautiful sweets to take to practice. I wonder what I'll pick out! It’s the simple things in life…