Taking a Stroll Down Memory Lane - 0001

For awhile I was whining that because I was running out of matches, I wouldn't be able to grill. My wife and I looked everywhere for the stash of matches but all of our efforts were to no avail. This morning though, while I was sitting around threatening that "without matches I cannot grill," my wife found a bag full of them. Apparently and for some strange reason we collected about 100 books of matches over the years. We went through each one and we literally took a stroll down memory lane.

This blog entry has nothing to do with food and cooking but I have to write about it because it will help me/us heal.

It was the fall of 1982. It was a good year and a bad one too. We made an unsuccessful attempt to move to Greece. As we were flying back to the US, Eileen and I had a conversation about our future. The jobs we had at the time were taking us nowhere and we decided that I had to go to college so I could get a real job afterwards. We talked about it with Miles, my brother-in-law, and he strongly recommended that I attend Erie County Community College because Kodak and IBM were recruiting from that school every year. So the decision was made to move to Buffalo, New York.

In 1982, in Buffalo the unemployment was in the 15% area. Plants: Chevy and Bethlehem Steel, were laying off people left and right and jobs were hard to come by. Since I only knew the restaurant business I started looking for a job. Finally I landed a job at Salvatore's Italian Gardens. I worked there two to three nights a week. The tips were great and the staff was very friendly. Russ, the owner, only fired me once because I failed to come to the restaurant mid-week to check the schedule and I missed going to work one very busy night. He recanted his decision and let me work there again.

My Dad's Gioulbasi - Γκιούλμπασι

In the early seventies my father made a couple of times a dish called Gioulbasi. The name seems Turkish but I am not sure. My father used to compare this dish to λουκούμι, Turkish delight, because the meat was so tender. My dad would make several slits in the meat and insert a garlic clove in each. Then he would wrap a whole leg of lamb in several layers of wax paper and finally wrap that package using newspapers. He would cook it for 2 1/2 hours in the oven. This dish was mostly used as μεζέ, snack when friends and relatives would visit us.

There are several different meats you can use for this and I chose to use a combination of pork and round cubes.
I removed the wrapping material, washed and dried the pork. I used a sharp knife to cut the meat into small pieces.

The round was already cut into small pieces.

This was exciting because I was going to use my Dutch oven. Yes!

Here is my locally grown garlic.

Here is the list of ingredients (left to right):

Stuffed Vegetables - A Hellenic Favourite

I was just a young lad living in Nea Smirni, Hellas being pampered by my mom, enjoying being a... mammoni. I don't know why my mom spoiled her kids so much but it's just history now. My mom would cook all these delicious foods, yelling at me that I was "all skin and bones." I was a 30 waist then. Ahhhhhh the good old days.

This is momma Toula's stuffed vegetable recipe. Keep reading.

The ingredients are as follows:

• 1 1/2 lbs of lean ground beef. 
• four tomatoes (large but not huge, soft but not falling apart)
• three carrots (I added them because they are so sweet and tasty)
• five peppers
• five small-ish potatoes
• 1 cup rice
• one cup of chicken stock
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• some additional olive to be drizzled into the vegetables
• some additional olive to be drizzled into the pan(s)
• ground pepper
• (you could add salt but I don't due to my high blood pressure)
• some feta cheese

The tools for the job are:

• food mill
• vegetable peeler
• a small ice cream scoop or a sharp spoon (I had neither)
• one or two pans to fit all of the ingredients

Also, what in the world is that glass full of beer doing in this picture? Some day I will rant about all the pretentious youngster that surround me that know nothing about beer and the American blue collar worker.

Weekly Menu - Solved by Mathematical Induction

I am sick and tired of asking/answering the age-old question, "What are we eating tonight?" I don't know about other households but in ours we ask this question seven times a week.

I will try to change this by creating some structure around this chaotic sequence of random decisions. In essence it is a problem of mathematical induction (Ref 1, 2, 3, 4) where a natural number n holds for all values of n. The case of mathematical induction holds true in my kitchen too because if I plan to cook good food the first week, say W, then the next week, W+1, the planning of good food will also be true too. But I digress.

Here is how it will work. Every Friday I will create a weekly menu. The "week" will start on Wednesday and will end on Tuesday. Why this weird configuration one might ask. It all stems from the fact that ShopRite holds its senior citizen discount every Tuesday and Adams holds its customer appreciation day on Wednesday and I am frugal (cheap according to some relatives of mine).

The menu items will not be listed specifically by day because I would not want everyone to know that, for instance, on Tuesday evening I will not be home but instead it will list seven lunches and seven dinners to confuse the local thieves.

Perfection!

The Meatball Competition - 2013

My daughter Diane and I have been trying to settle a long standing dispute dealing with each other's meatball recipe. My claim is that my meatball recipe is the best in the whole wide world and I believe that her's is just a meatball recipe. In this blog entry I will describe the infamous meatball competition and I will introduce several new html9 version tags. The tags are identified by the < and > characters.

I believe that competing is partly psychological and for this reason I have established a strategy that is based on trash talking. I tried to intimidate her by saying the following:
<trashtalk>

• It will be like a walk in the park;
• It will be like taking candy from a baby;
• I will have one hand tied behind my back;
• It will be like shooting fish in a barrel;
• Like falling off a log;
• It will be easy as pie; 

</trashtalk>

She and I had been talking about it for several months and finally my wife and I visited Diane in Seattle. We set the date for the main event as well as the date to go food shopping for the ingredients. Needless to say, I was at a disadvantage because I didn't have my precision cooking tools and instruments and not to mention: 
<whine>

• the difference in climate; 
• the three hours differential between east and west coast;
• the increased humidity due to the proximity of the sea;
• the distracting siren sound from the nearby firehouse; 
• my daughter's vicious cat;
• and the fact that because we didn't rent a car we walked a lot and I was always tired.

</whine>

Clearly I was at a disadvantage BUT I had to go on with the competition.

Let me start by revealing the secrets behind my recipe that make it so yummy-yummy-down-my-tummy. The primary secrets are: 

• the way I incorporate the onions in the meatballs and the sauce;
• AND the fact that I use mint in the meatballs and the sauce.

The big secrets are finally revealed here! <secret>Typical recipes incorporate the onion in either diced or minced form but I find this distracting when eating the meatballs. I incorporate the onion by grating it. This way you have the onion in a form that it is equally incorporated into the meatballs and the sauce. As you grate the onion you get the meat of the onion AND the juice that is produced by it. I love using mint in the meatballs because mint has such a nice flavor and aroma. My mom always used fresh mint in the meatballs and she got it from our garden.</secret>

Visiting Friends

Recently my wife and I were invited to have pizza made outdoors in a wood fired oven. SWEET! having my own outdoor oven is a dream of mine. I was going to see a real pizza oven in person. I was excited.

Once we arrived at their house the oven was already lit for a three hours and the temperature inside the oven was about 700 °F. They had built the oven themselves!

The oven structure had three parts: the exterior decorative brick, the interior made with fire brick, and in-between those two they placed a steel drum. This way the heat generated inside the oven wouldn't escape easily. They also cut a window (to insert the food etc.) and they also made a door to prevent the heat from escaping.

The whole oven structure was vary impressive and I kept wiping my mouth because I was drooling from envy. 

The logs had become charcoal and the temperature was high.

English Speaking People are Word Thieves!

As I go food shopping I see many products with Hellenic/Greek names and I feel obligated to explain the origin of these names. I took a few pictures at the supermarket and I post them here with a terse explanation about the origin of their name.

Here they sell balsamic vinegar. I remember by grandfather, Ioannis Panagiotopoulos, who would drink certain teas as a balsam (βάλσαμο). Balsam is a substance that you get from a tree or plant. 

Tzatziki Sauce - Τζατζίκι

So many times people tell me that they make the best tzatziki in the world but in reality their recipe spells disaster.

The yogurt and cucumber MUST be strained because they contain a lot of extra liquid that makes a soggy tzatziki sauce and has a strange feeling when you eat it. Pay attention and continue reading.

This recipe is authentic and easily made.

May I whine a little? Who was the ad wizard that created all these "Greek" yogurt products? They have NOTHING TO DO WITH GREECE AND GREEK YOGURT. These products taste terrible and they have nothing to do with Greek yogurt.

There is one problem with tzatziki sauce, though. It has garlic and I strongly suggest to stay away from it if you are planning on a hot date later on that day or meeting you boss for the first time after eating it.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
• one medium cucumber
• ONE medium garlic clove - if you are planing on a hot date (good luck)
• or TWO medium garlic cloves if you just don't give a hoot
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup of dill. 

Feel free to multiply these ingredients if you are planning for several side dishes.

Start with the plain yogurt...

Important: Strain the yogurt for 30 minutes...

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Foil Wrapped Vegetables

For dinner tonight I prepared a beautiful grilled pork tenderloin with a generous side of grilled vegetables wrapped in a pocket made of aluminum foil.

I had cooked pork tenderloin on the grill before and that was neither the challenge nor the inspiration for this entry. It was the vegetables that I wanted to cook them differently. I had these mind numbing thoughts of grilled vegetables and I just could not solidify them to a normal state of recipe execution. I had to do a lot of improvisation.

I went to the supermarket and purchased a variety of vegetables for this event: broccoli, asparagus, and onions.

I am getting ahead of myself.

First I had to prepare the pork. I took it out of the package, washed it and then trimmed as much as I could of the fat.

I drizzled some olive oil and...time for the mustard! I rubbed about three tablespoons of mustard on the pork.

Then, I mixed the rub ingredients together

• 1 tablespoon garlic powder,
• 1 tablespoon onion powder,
• 1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper, 
• 1/2 tablespoon ground cumin 

and sprinkled them on the pork. Of course, the olive oil and the mustard helps and the rub sticks on the pork.  Here is the pork tenderloin next to the rub waiting to be processed.

Choose a Name Wisely

That's right. Naming a dish cannot be taken lightly. This concept is true in many areas. Giving a blog entry a title, for instance. I could have named the entry "Dandelions," or "Cooking Dandelions," but instead I named it "Hey Man, I am Cooking Weed." Just the word "weed" caught the readers' attention. The entry drew the second highest traffic the blog ever had. Of course most visitors were looking for a different type of content and they left immediately but nonetheless they came to the site. I tried.



Recently I went to a favorite sandwich shop, The Village Market and Cafe located in Gardiner, NY for a quick bite. Well, what can I tell you. I love meatloaf and I can't have enough of it. They have a nice sandwich that they call Workin' Manwich Sam-ich. They serve the meatloaf topped with caramelized onion, cheddar (love it!), and horseradish mayo. Never has one sentence contained so many favorite words of mine. But I digress. Since this is my favorite sandwich I want to see it do well and become a favorite of many customers. But then it hit me. Perhaps, and only perhaps, a female would not order this sandwich because its name is...too masculine. I can only picture heavyset, bearded men, order this sandwich.

Sure. They have other sandwiches like: Yes Dear, BLT, and Tofunito. I can see a lumberjack or a young female order a BLT, but, no way, no how, would a teenage girl order a Workin' Manwich! They also have brownies there too and they call them...brownies! If they called them Girly-Whirlies instead would a lumberjack order one? Would a police office go up to the counter and order a Girly-Whirly?

So, I explained to the person behind the counter my issue and the message was relayed to the manager/owner. But the message was received with bridled enthusiasm and a nervous smile.

Why can't they name this sandwich: Best Meatloaf Ever, or Hot-to-Trot 'loaf, or even better, Yummy-Yummy-Down-my-Tummy Meatloaf, or...The Grilling Greek's Meatloaf.

I beg any local readers of this blog to go to The Village Market and Cafe and tell the owner(s) about this issue and urge them to change the name of this sandwich. It will make me soooooooo happy.

Oven Baked Beans - Fasolada sto Fourno - Φασολια Πλακι στο Φουρνο

A few years ago the family went to Hellas for a month long vacation. While there, we visited a beautiful island, Syros. Every day we would go to a different beach where we would stay there for several hours, swim, sunbathe, have lunch, sunbathe, swim, take a nap, swim, and go back to the hotel. Rough life I tell ya. Rough!

There was one restaurant there that cooked oven baked beans, fasolada, that was to die for. They had the beans in a huge pan, 20" x 50" that would only fit in an industrial oven. The beans were about 2" high and they were in a thick tomato sauce. Yum! I remember staring at the pan, salivating like Pavlov's dog.

In Hellas they use giant beans for this dish but I am having great difficulty finding these beans in the USA. So, like the versatile Odysseus that I am, I improvised and bought the beans that you see below. I followed the directions listed on the package to prepare the beans. HOWEVER, since in the end I wanted to bake the beans I followed the recipe to the final point where it stated that I should cook the beans in a pot for 1.5 - 2 hours. I cooked the beans (against their recommendation) for 1 hour only.

 This recipe has three steps:

1. Prepare the beans,
2. Prepare the sauce,
3. Put the beans and sauce together and bake.

STEP 1

Here are the beans soaking in water for one hour. This was the first step as I read it on the package.

Hey man, I am Cooking Weed

I had to buy two pounds of dandelions to complement our dinner last night, I just could not resist the temptation. In Hellas when you go to a restaurant to eat you always order a plate of weed. Yum! When I saw dandelions at the supermarket I bought two bunches of it.

You will need to cut the bottom of the weed about two inches high. Here I am using my middle finger to point because my index finger has...a Hanzaplast.

After I cut each bottom I add the weed in a bowl because you need to wash the leaves very well. There is a lot of dust and dirt that needs to wash away.

I used the dish drainer to set the clean weed to dry. 

Χόρτα βραστά με λεμόνι - Boiled Grass With Lemon

This recipe is included in my Spaghetti Alla Pouttanesca entry but I would like to re-blog it here for search engine reasons. This is a GREAT side dish that you will love. It is very simple to make and you can find this type of grass just about everywhere. If you choose to pick your own grass you must go to a virgin field and not your back yard or a field or a property where people will have added fertilizer or weed killer.

About 23 years ago my parents were visiting from Hellas. My wife and and I had just purchased a nice house in NY and we were trying to make it our home. It was summertime and my wife and I were outside working in the backyard, pulling weeds and putting them in garbage bags. Sometime later I turned and looked towards the house and I saw my parents standing behind the sliding door knocking on the glass trying to get my attention. I knew something was wrong and I ran towards the house to see what was wrong. As soon as I opened the door my parents yelled at me because they couldn't understand why I was pulling the grass from the ground and putting it in plastic garbage bags. To make the long story short, they told me that I was throwing away good food.

Fast forward many years to...yesterday, May 26, 2013, at the farmers' market in Rhinebeck, NY, I purchased two bunches of grass, a.k.a. χόρτα or ραδίκια. From now on I will refer to them as "grass" because it is just a generalization.

Here are the two bunches of grass I purchased. This grass MUST be washed thoroughly because it is just full of dirt.

The Meatball Competition - The Very Best Meatball Recipe

I have this fantastic recipe for meatballs. It is original and it is mine but I cannot share it with you yet because sometime in July there will be meatball competition between my daughter and yours truly.

I have two "secret" ingredients that will surely catapult me to the very top of the meatball hall of fame.

I will come back here after the competition is over, and after I have been crowned the King of Meatballs, to share my recipe with you.

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Κοτοπουλο Κοκκινιστο - Chicken in Tomato Sauce

This dish comes from Hellas and is a very common one there. The only modification that I have made is that I used canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones. My mom used to make it and I would grab a loaf of bread and use it for dipping purposes. Ahhhh, the good old days when I was thin and my metabolism (metabolism is a Hellenic word, μεταβολή, and means change) worked like a Swiss clock.

Here are the ingredients for this recipe:

• one whole chicken, cut up, 
• two tablespoons of olive oil,
• two medium onions,
• garlic to taste, I used six cloves,
• three small zucchini, 
• two bell peppers, 
• one 28 oz can on diced tomatoes,
• two tablespoons tomato paste, 
• one cup of red wine, 
• oregano to taste.

In the image below I mistakenly included cinnamon instead of oregano. Oops.

Whore's Style Spaghetti - Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca

Leave it to the Italian prostitutes to come up with a crazy recipe name, Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, which literally means Whore's Style Spaghetti. Some say it refers to the spicy aroma produced by its ingredients that enticed passing customers. Others claim that this dish was the easiest thing they could prepare between customers. We cook it today because it has a remarkable flavor, is easy, and is made of ingredients easily kept on hand.

I had heard about this recipe many years ago when I lived in Hellas and this is a modified Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca. You could also read more about the origin and history of this recipe from the web or wikipedia.

I had everything in the butler's pantry needed to make this dish:

• spaghetti in this case I used angel hair pasta because my wife and I love them, 
• about 20 olives, 
• 1/4 cup olive oil,
• 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes,
• 1/2 a can of 6oz tomato paste,
• I also added two tomatoes grated that if I didn't use them, I would have to throw them out the next day, 
• a handful of capers (I used a 3oz bottle), washed with cold water,
• about 10-12 anchovies,
• six cloves of garlic,
• oregano

I grabbed a small container of anchovies and washed them in the sink under cold running water. They are too oily and salty and by washing them you remove the oil and most of the salt. This time I used a garlic press to cream them and I set them aside. 

Chicken Stock - The Basics

Stock (beef, chicken, fish) is a flavored water preparation which forms the basis of many dishes, and in this case...I am making the base for chicken soup. When I make any stock at home I don't just make it on the spur of the moment. I plan for it for days or even weeks ahead of it. Every time I cook I save any vegetable or chicken parts. I don't save chicken liver, heart, and gizzards and I do throw them out. I do save the wings, back, and neck. I freeze them and take them out a few hours prior to using them.

This time, though, I didn't have any saved chicken parts and I went to our favorite supermarket, Adams Fairacre Farms, in Newburgh, NY and I bought two packages of chicken parts.

I have a plastic bag that I save the vegetable parts that I will use in my stock. For example, the top part of the leeks is a perfect example. Please think before throwing a piece of food in the garbage.

We do go to the supermarket twice a week and I always pay attention to the area in the vegetable section because they have an rack where they drastically reduce vegetables to get rid of them. So, I go there and grab whatever I can use, but always I have to use these vegetables the same day or the next.

Here are the ingredients:

• two table spoons of olive oil
• two medium onions
• tops from two leeks
• 3-4 carrots
• one pepper
• one zucchini
• parley
• three bay leaves

I also add:

• fresh ground pepper

The list is separated in two parts because after the first full boil you should skim the top of the pot and if you do that you will remove most of the pepper. For this reason I add the pepper after I skim the top.

Russian Salad - Potato Salad - Carle Olivier Salad

I remember my mom's Russian salad that she used to make back when I lived in Hellas. It was just a great dish. You may say that it was a modified potato salad. It had diced potatoes, carrots, whole eggs, capers, and A LOT of mayonnaise. Here in the US, when I visit supermarkets I always look around at their deli case to see what they have and what ingredients they incorporate in their dishes. A few days ago, I was examining/spying their potato salads and this is what I have to say to them: easy with the mayonnaise. All salads are swimming in mayonnaise.

Please check the Wikipedia page to learn about the history of the Russian salad. The history of this salad is truly riveting.

Fast forward to today in our kitchen here in New York where I was going to make a modified Russian salad.

I got the ingredients for the Russian salad together and I was also going to make bbq beans and a salad with Romain lettuce.

Before starting I sharpened my knife. Always before staring to cook I sharpen my knife(s). Get used to it too and it will always be a pleasure to use your knifes.

Ingredients for the Russian salad.

• five small-ish potatoes.
• three carrots
• three hard-boiled eggs (I used six eggs because I saved three of them to use them at a later date)
• one small container of capers, drained and washed
• one small can of peas, drained and washed
• leftover rotisserie chicken or ham or turkey
• one large Granny Smith apple
• four spears, kosher dill pickles, diced
• 3/4 cup of mayonnaise 
• 1/4 tablespoon mustard
• one large mango, if available, or orange

 

Ingredients for the salad.

• Romain lettuce
• one anise bulb
• two peppers
• one cucumber
• one tomato

Ingredients for the beans.

• one large can of kidney beans, drained and washed
• two small onions
• two cups of my modified Neeley bbq sauce
• four cloves of garlic

For the salad I was going to mix in anise, which is sweet and very aromatic. I already had used the top of the anise in a soup that I had made earlier and now I had the bulb only to use. I sliced the bulb and then diced it and placed it in a sieve for washing. I didn't use any type of onion because I didn't want it to clash with the anise.

 Wash, wash wash...and put aside.

Place the eggs in a pot and cover them with cold water. Bring the water to a boil and cover the pot with the lid. Remove the pot from the heat source and let them stand for 12 minutes. I set the timer and this way I don't forget. After the 12 minutes, I run cold water in the pot and this way I stop the cooking and I let them sit for some more time. After that I peel the cooled-down eggs and set them aside.

In a pot filled with cold water I add the potatoes and carrots (both washed previously well). As you can see I had to cut the carrots in half for them to better fit in the pot. I didn't peel the skin from either to enhance their natural flavors.

It takes about 15 minutes for the potatoes and carrots to cook but you should check if they are done with a fork. If the fork goes in with ease, they are ready.

For the salad you just have to chop the ingredients. Make sure you discard any parts that you wouldn't eat otherwise you will have whining diners.

Take a look at the romaine lettuce that is a little brown. You should cut and discard that part if you want the diners to be satisfied.

Here are the two peppers and tomato ready to be processed. As you can see I chose two different peppers to have a nice mix of colors.

At the same time I check the blog stats. Nice! I do get a lot of visitors every day and this is because the content is fresh and also because I use the correct keywords and titles for every blog entry. So far today I have 47 page views. Sweet!

Here is the chicken I will add to the salad. If you use ham or turkey you will have to cut the pieces small and of uniform size. I used chicken because that is what I have in the refrigerator. 

Of course I had to give Raspy a nice portion of the chicken because she wouldn't leave me alone. She got her little tummy full and then she left me alone. Isn't she a beauty? Look at her. look at her, I tell ya.

For the bbq beans I added two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and got it nice and hot. Then I added the two small onions and the four diced cloves of garlic. I stirred that for three minutes and then added the beans and the bbq sauce. I set the range timer to 60 minutes and I made sure to check the pot every 10 minutes and gave it a good stir.

I diced and peeled the apple...

and also diced the potatoes and carrots. Once the potatoes and carrots were ready I removed them from the heat source cooled them down by running cold water on them and started to process them. Each carrot was sliced in half and then each piece was sliced in thirds, this way each carrot was sliced in sixths. After that I diced the carrot slices. The carrot pieces must be small. The potato can be cut in a little larger pieces but not too large.

I used a large glass bowl and added the cut potatoes, carrots, apple, mayonnaise, mustard, and capers. I mixed all of them well and then I added the peas and I mixed those too.

Here is the salad with all the ingredients.

I cut the three eggs in thirds, and added the sliced mango. It looks scrumptious. The mango was sooooo sweet!

 I added diced chicken on the salad too. You will have to gauge the amount of chicken by the number of diners. In my case I had just two people.

For the regular salad I made a basic thousand island dressing with:

• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• grated three kosher dill pickles
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

Here is the table as I had set it...

A small portion of the salad was on the plate, the beans were nice and warm and the Russian salad was ready to be devoured. My wife and I thought that the Russian salad was excellent. The amount of each ingredient was perfect and the bbq beans complemented the Russian salad very well. I also added two containers with our favorite olives to complement the salad.

 
Good day and good luck.

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Random Images - Clearing my Phone's Image Folder

Apple Wood

Recently I realized that I was running low on apple wood. So, this past weekend as we were on our way to Cafe Mio in Gardiner, NY, I stopped at Right's Farm to check out their apple wood. I purchased apple wood from them when I first started grilling but this time I was going to buy apple wood that required less work to cut into chunks.

This is what I actually bought. The wood looks like it came from wooden crates because some pieces still had rusted nails. Of course, I will remove the nails before using the wood for smoking the meat.

Cafe Mio

Cafe Mio is our favorite restaurant. The food and service there it's just great. Every time we go there the experience is amazing. The always have new options to choose from. This past weekend my wife and I went there to have lunch with two friends. The friends were going to bike there and they were going to be a little late because the winds were blowing from the south. Of course we were there on time because we used an automobile and the winds did not affect our time of arrival.

This is what we ordered to share and had it as an appetizer. I think it was called Shrimp Roll.

Thruway Market

Recently, Thruway Market, located at the foot of Oak street in Walden, NY, was selling their entire inventory at 50% off. They sold the business to a supermarket chain and they had to get rid of everything in the store. My wife and I went there several times and the first time we bought a few useful things, the second time we bought things that we might use, the third time we bought crap that no one else would buy and the last time we went there I bought two bottles of gefilte fish. Oy vey.

Here are two other pieces of crap things that I bought during this crazy sale.

Usually a crock pot is used by busy people that work. They slow cook food during the day and they eat it in the evening when they get home. Now, I am neither working nor I am busy, and that doesn't explain what pushed me to buy this crock pot.

This box has a metal divider and it holds the charcoals in place. As if the charcoals will grow legs and walk away.Another great purchase.

Greek Bank

In Greece going to the bank is an experience. The personal check concept does not exist and people go to their bank in order to access their money. Wait times range from a few minutes to an hour or more, depending of the day of the week and month. The first few days of every month all banks are swarmed by retirees that want to cash their checks.

Here is a picture from a National Bank of Greece branch. Pay attention to the digital counter in the back of the room. When you enter a Greek bank you immediately take a number from a machine, similar to those that supermarkets have at the deli counter. The day I took the picture I had 503 and waited over one hour before seeing the pissed-off cashier.

Full Moon Farm

We visited the farm recently to buy meat and to feed the piglets. We saw at the supermarket a table with vegetables that with drastically reduced prices because they wanted to get rid of them. So, we bought a variety of vegetables and went to the farm to feed the piglets.

This is the left view as you approach the entrance of the farm.

On the right side of the entrance you see the pigpen, clearly a messy place.

This picture shows the entrance (white door) of the meat store.

This is a random picture taken inside the meat store. 

 This shows other buildings located near the entrance.

This is the bag with the veggies that the piglets ate.  Yummy. At some point my wife complaint that I should place the veggies neatly on the ground. My reply was, "they are pigs, for crying out loud!"

Rasputin

If you haven't read any entries yet, Rasputin, or Raspy, is the owner of our house. She tolerates our existence and we are privileged to live in the same house as she.

Here she is resting on her Cats Love it mat.

That's it. I cleared my phone's picture folder and I have nothing else to share with you.

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