The Narrative Within

Buying cheese at the farmers’ market

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Art for Housewives

Often, on my way back from the beach at Livadia, I stop at the farmer’s market. Well, more than a market, it’s a row of produce stands behind the chapel near the port. Local farmers sit there in the shade displaying their produce—tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, onions, potatoes, horta and whatever else is in season. Some sell salted capers, basil plants, wine and souma. Only local products. Last year we would often buy from a woman who would come twice a week from Naxos to sell cheese made by her family. Since we rarely felt like buying a whole wheel, she would cut off a piece then wrap it in waxed paper—never wrap cheese in plastic, she said. So I bought a big piece of gauze, washed it and bleached it in the sun and now use only that to wrap our cheese. It’s ecological, economical and projects a sense of aesthetics.

This year there’s one elderly farmer I like to buy from because of his attitude. Plus he always gives me something extra like a cucumber or a head of garlic. The other day he gave me a lemon but insisted that first I smell it which I did. Wow, what a perfume! My nose was instantly addicted. He sells cheese, too. Before letting me buy, he took out his pocket knife and cut off a piece so I could taste it then asked: “kalo?” (“good?”). The whole gesture was very poetic. And the cheese was definitely “kalo.”
Obviously, the first thing I did when I got home was put the cheese in its cloth.

Related links: cheesecloth +Bread and Cheese on a Parian Farm video + Cheese Making on Paros + Tastes of Paros’ Cuisine

Posted in Recipes & Food | Tagged cheese, Cheese cloth, Farmer's market, Paros | 7 Comments

A Book of Errors

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Art for Housewives

On Market Street in Parikia, there’s a tiny little shop, PAWS, that raises money to feed stray animals by selling donated items. That’s where I bought “The Unknown Errors of Our Lives” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. (Divakaruni is better known for “The Mistress of Spices”.)

“The Unknown Errors of Our Lives” is a collection of 9 short stories evolving around Indians transplanted in the States—the inbetween of East meets West. Divakaruni is, undoubtedly, a good writer and easy to read. However, there is a sadness in her stories that, for my own reasons, I would like to avoid. Phrases like, when speaking of old people, “… their smiles took a long time to form, and then strayed on their faces forever, until the children couldn’t tell them apart from their wrinkles” are poetic but incompatible with the direction I’ve taken this summer. However, as I said, it’s easy reading and I finished it quickly.

The story that shares the book’s title, “The Unknown Errors of Our Lives,” talks about Ruchira and her upcoming marriage. While packing, she comes across one of her old notebooks, her “Book of Errors” where, as a teen, she’d write down the errors made. More specifically, the mistakes one makes without realizing it. And maybe it was this early realization as to how many and how easy errors can be made that permits her to accept an uncomfortable truth regarding her fiance’s past.

The “Book of Errors” made me think of Slam Books that were so popular when I was in middle school.

A Slam Book was basically a looseleaf notebook filled with pages proposing various questions about various subjects meant to collect a variety of opinions from a variety of people—a primitive form of Facebook. Unfortunately, it often turned out to be a collection of “slams” thus prohibited by our teachers and confiscated if found. The need to make them, maybe, had alot to do with the age. Middle school is a transitional period where hormones are pushing you from childhood into adulthood. It is a time when we are forming our new identity and often do so based on peer pressure and the status quo.

Adolescence is a time when dendrites become a jungle and, trapped inside, you struggle to find your way out.

Other notebooks of interest:

Nick Cave’s handwritten dictionary via A Peek Inside the Notebooks of Famous Authors, Artists and Visionaries

Found in a Junk Shop: Secrets of an Undiscovered Visionary Artist

Sharon Etgar’s thread drawings

Stitched Boro Book

The Textile Books of Louise Bourgeois

Excerpts. From Diary Pages 1994-1995

Related links: Excerpt from The Unknown Errors + Grown Up Slam Book? + The Notebook Project

More notebooks: Katrien de Blauwer—if you have alot of time, check out Cinoh’s Tumblr for many notebooks such as Lunch Poems + THIS.

Yummy altered books.

Posted in Books, Drawings & Paintings | Tagged “The Unknown Errors of Our Lives”, book review, Books, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Errors, Handwritten, notebooks, Slam book | Leave a comment

Bob Marley and the Tamarisk Tree

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Art for Housewives

On my way to the beach at Livadia, Bob Marley was singing to me “Could you be loved?” and I was bouncing my head up and down like a dancing Topo Gigio. Of course I could be loved! But the minute I answered Bob and said “Yes,” my iPod lost its charge. Was this some kind of omen? Then I remembered the insistent ringing of the church bells that morning and how all the cafes along the seafront were full and realized it must be a holiday which meant that the beaches would be crowded which meant that it would be difficult to find an unoccupied tamarisk tree and enjoy the shelter of its shade. But luck was loving and had a tree waiting there just for me.

Tamarisks have exceeding long tap roots allowing them to go way down into the ground and exploit natural water resources. And this is probably the reason they are able to live so close to the salty sea. They are also able to absorb the night’s moisture. If you’re underneath a tamarisk during the morning, you will feel how extremely cool its shade is and, looking up, you will see shiny droplets of water on its skinny branches. By noon, the droplets will have evaporated away.

Tamarisks not only offer shade but they serve as windreakers, too. Unfortunately, they have the drawback of increasing the soil’s salinity and are invasive. But China is taking this latter negative characteristic and making it positive by using the tamarisk in their anti-desertificaton programs.

Tamarisks are mentioned in the Bible. For example, in Genesis 21:33, Abraham planted one in Beersheba and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God. Some scholars believe that the sap from the tamarisk could be considered a kind of manna in that it’s waxy, sweet, aromatic and yellowishy like the manna described in the Bible. Manna or not, its sap is used to make nougat candies called gaz.

Bunny Manna, from BEBINA BUNNY future publication

More links related to Paros HERE + Sunset at Livadia foto + More fotos.

Posted in Plants & Gardening | Tagged Bebina Bunny, Bob Marley, Livadia Beach, Paros, Tamarisk tree | 5 Comments

Spicy Dreams on Paros

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Art for Housewives

On my way to and from the beach at Livadia, I pass near a spice shop, με τη σεσουλα (“with the scoop”), which sells many spices and herbs predominately from the island. And, having a weakness for spices, I try to be very disciplined and walk by without going in but am not always successful. So, on one of my non-successful days, I walked in and bought a bag of dried St. John’s Wort as well as some dried wormwood. Wow.

με τη σεσουλα (across from The Ancient Cemetery)

I’ve already written about how much more I dream while on Paros (HERE) and that was before The Wort. Now, if you go on internet and look-up St. John’s Wort, you will find that it is often used as an anti-depressant. Luckily, I’ve never had the problem of chronic depression. But I must admit that in the past 3 years, I have had much anxiety in terms of the future. And it’s not psychological as much as it is just Common Sense. The world is getting spOOKier and spOOKier every day with or without my participaton. Of course I worry about myself, but my main consideration is for my kids—will they be able, in the future, to have an income and will they be able to have water. In other words, will they be able to survive. So, with this in mind, I bought these dried leaves and made myself a tea. That night I had a dream so intense that I still remember it. This caused me to go back to the net and look up The Wort in terms of dreams to understand what had animated my animation. And apparently, St. John’s Wort stimulates Vivid Dreams. Many people are into Lucid Dreaming, the awareness that you are dreaming. Not me. When I go to bed at night, all I ask for is a good night’s rest and not something else to think about. Many years ago, I did some dream analyzing where I had to wake up every morning and immediately write down my dreams before I forgot them. What a stress! But one dream in particular gave me needed information. And another time a dream told me where to look for a pair of lost earrings and I found them. But what the real purpose of dreams is we will probably never know.

Dreams are thoughts in disguise.

Walking to Livadia for my swim, I also pass by the Ancient Cemetery (above fotos) which faces the sea. Excavations there revealed some of the most important Aegean funerary monuments dating from the 8th cen. BC until the 3rd century AD.