The Easter Feed

Sunday, April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday
Chania, Crete, Greece

What a feed!

The hotel we are staying at offers a traditional Easter lunch of roast lamb and all the trimming, so we signed ourselves up for it. We were told “lunch is at 2:00 or whenever the lamb is done.” What that means, of course, is that at 2:00 you show up and start drinking wine and visiting with the other guests and wait for the lamb to finish cooking. We were in town earlier in the day for Mass, and walked past a lot of restaurants on the waterfront, all of which were offering roast lamb. The smells were sensational. Each restaurant has its own hook to get you to sit down – free Raki (grape brandy), free wine, beautifully decorated tables, etc. We just enjoyed walking along looking at everything. The lambs on their spits were especially interesting. You know, in the States we have a very sanitized idea of where our food comes from. Here, there is no mistaking that this little fellow was frolicking in the countryside yesterday and today he’s cooking on the spit. His eyes are still in his head, and his tongue is hanging out the side of his mouth getting roasted right along with everything else. Pretty repulsive. Almost enough to make a girl become a vegetarian if it didn’t smell and taste so darn good.

I’m not sure what time we started eating, but I’ve just come from the patio, and it’s nearly 7:00 pm. I am full to the brim and have soaked up more sunshine in this one afternoon than I would get in an entire Minnesota winter. Picture this… sitting on the side terrace of our hotel… lamb roasting… sun shining… light bouncing off the whitewashed walls of the buildings. Snowcapped mountains before me; azure Mediterranean behind me. Clear blue sky. Opa! It’s time to eat. The lamb is succulent; the pork kebobs are tender, seasoned with fresh lemon and oregano. I am shoveling tzatziki onto my bread as high as I can pile it. It is ripe with cucumber – the yogurt is cool and creamy and the shredded cucumber has permeated the flavor of the entire bowl. I think I may drown myself in it. The olives are salty and the tomatoes filled with the flavor of the sun. I have gone back for seconds and then thirds of the tzatziki. We are washing it all down with cold beer and homemade wine. I will either need to nap or take a walk along the beach. Life is distilled to the basics here… sun, water, food. What more do we need?