A Taste of Called to Greece
Yasou!
If you know me personally, then you probably have tasted my tiropita at one point or another. What you may not know is how far that little cheese pie has traveled with me, from my mother’s kitchen when I was eight, all the way to a taverna menu on a Greek island.
The specialty Greek food that I made most of my life was tiropita, which is cheese pie, from tiro, meaning cheese and pita, meaning pie. My mother taught me how to make it when I was just 8 years old. She sat me down and showed me how to mash feta cheese and cream cheese together for the filling, then slather filo dough with melted butter with a pastry brush, put a spoonful on a length of filo dough, then fold it like a flag into little triangles. When they came out of the oven, they were light and flaky and very tasty. I felt like a real traditional Greek girl and was oh so proud of it!
Little did I know that tiropita would be a part of my world that summer of 1997 in Greece. On the second night when I hung out with Manuel in the bars of Plomari dancing and drinking, we stayed out until the sun was just peeking out over the horizon. As we stepped out of the bar named 7-11, he asked,
“Do you want to go get something to eat?”
“Sure” I replied.
We drove over to the bakery in town which was just opening and bought fresh out of the oven warm tiropita. When we got back to my hotel named Hotel Sapho I asked, “Why don’t we go sit somewhere and eat?” We found a bench by the beach and sat eating our yummy tiropita. As we ate, I asked Manuel, “Do you dance with a lot of women that way?”
Manuel replied, “Yes.”
Shocked, I asked “Do you like me?”
“Only as a friend, nothing more.”
Rather confused, I said “I must have misunderstood but that’s fine.” But really, I was completely perplexed by this guy.
Of course, the very next night was the first time Manuel kissed me, which only added to my confusion, since he’d just told me I was merely his “friend”.
As the summer progressed, Manuel and I were inseparable. I spent a lot of time at his family’s taverna and one day decided to make some tiropita in the kitchen. Unlike at home, there were many types of filo to choose from here. In the US, we use butter but in Greece most use olive oil so my tiropita came out uniquely different. When it was ready, I put the couple of trays in the oven to bake so that many people could taste it. Leonne watched with curiosity. Once it was golden brown and removed from the oven everyone in the family tasted it and loved it! But they explained to me that these were actually tiropitakia (little tiropita). We handed them out to customers as well. And from that day forward, they added Katerina’s Tiropitakia to the menu.
More stories like this one are coming as Called to Greece makes its way into the world.
Thank you for following along,
Katina