First Food

So I've decided to record my numerous food exploits for whoever wishes to read about them.

I have alot of food experiences, as most people should - minimum three per day.

Sometimes I might have five of so, but that's not often because as much as I'd like to think I could eat what I wish as many times as I like - I'm very health concious so everything in moderation.

Speaking of moderation or lack there of, yesterday was Christmas and that is the one day moderation flies spectacularly out of the window and smashes its jaw on the ground - only to be rushed to the hospital and nursed until the next day when it may/may not return to those who cast it away.

Yesterday I ate a lot and being Greek it can't be helped. You've heard it all before.

So the day basically started with a light meal in preparation for the two feasts i'd be consuming later on.

I had my usual green tea, some panatone and also some french toast with just a small helping of jam.

I've never usually had jam on my french toast, but while I was in Japan a friend of mine made it for me that way, and it was pretty darn delicious. Egg and Jam who would have thought such a marriage would work?

The panatone was quite good too - it's pretty stock standard in our house around christmas because my Dad's italian co worker always gives it to the coffee gang. This year there was uproar apparently because they all agreed not to get eachother anything. But of course the panatone still graced our kitchen. Oh people are funny - especially wogs, they never listen.

Do you want more meat?

No No I'm fine thanks.

*puts more meat on your plate*

I'll get you a panatone for christmas!

Oh no no please don't, we're not doing that this year...

Okay *gets panatone*

I'm not complaining though.

Anyway so we headed down to Frankston to my Godparents house and awaited the lamb.

They had an assortment of nibbles; dips, cheeses, salmon which was just amazing and other things. Please note the photos below.

Oh and the tzatsiki deserves a special mention because it was just so damn good. You basically can't go wrong with garlic, yoghurt, cucumber and other ingredients. I don't know who made it - but it was damn fine. Better than the store bought shit - by miles!

Anyway, so the lamb cooked and everything else came out - basically roasted vegetables, prawns, teropita (cheese pastries), tomato salad, lettuce salad and potato salad. It was perfect. Good harmonies happening. ASIDE from the prawn - they looked lovely, but seriously we had a fucking lamb - 2 kg of prawn is TOTALLY unneeded. I just don't mix seafood and lamb. But that's just me.

After all that we had some intermission before dessert - I don't know how I tried one of everything but I'm like that with dessert especially. You can't just not have some of the desserts - you need to sample everything even if its just a sample. For the day I made a yule log which turned out fairly well and was all gone by the end - which for me means success - especially when it hasn't been mashed around on people's plates to make it look like it's been eaten.

There was cheesecake (AMAZING), my yule log (delicate but rich), trifle (ACE), and assorted greek sweets which were all good and made by assorted grandparents.

After trying each one of these I had that feeling that I'd possibly over eaten - I thought, wow this might be the Christmas I actually die from a ruptured stomach/intestine. It didn't happen, I just shat for a while later on.

ANYWAY so I thought i'd kind of finished eating for the day, but no no that's silly. I still had my other Grandparents to visit in the evening in Moonee Ponds.

We all toyed with the idea that my yiayia would bring out her usual plate of cheeses, home made mayonaise, salads, potatos, some kind of meat and bread and god knows what else.

So we got there slightly recovered from the overeating that had taken place before.

AND she did it, she brought out everything we joked she would and more. So what did we do?

We ate it.

She also surprised us with oysters, prawns, chicken (the meat), pumpkin, grilled capsicum, and grilled eggplant.

It was all great. It really was. what I can say about this grandmother is that she is a mad woman, possibly a genius - she has her moments of brilliance in cooking (mayonaise, capsicum, eggplant) BUT she also has her moments of disaster. A truly good cook I think. Though my mother would disagree.

I also want to give special mention to her pickles (toursi), she just did coliflower this time, but it was good. really good, has that nice pickly tartness - but still delicate.

The headstone cheese she found was also really beautiful. Headstone cheese is the english name for the cheese that greek people eat quite often - it has a distinct saltiness to it similar to feta, but its quite dry. You should all go try it.

So yeah we ate alot, it was all good, and of course we had dessert again.

I had fridge finikia directly below and a piece of halva which was very good but quite syrupy so i found it a bit much after all the eating I'd done. Basically fridge finikia are like a biscuit which is soaked in milk and kept in the fridge and coated in coconut. They are different from the finikia soaked in syrup and coated with ground walnut.

That was my Christmas, I ate alot, I ate too much, but I don't regret it because it was all glorious food.

Don't expect posts this long with this much food aside from on easter and christmas.