Afternoons in Ithaka Read online

  Georgia’s spanakopita (spinach pie)

  Makes 2 family-sized pies

  Septuagenarian Theia Georgia and her husband still live in Collingwood. Walking down the narrow path alongside her single-fronted weatherboard, I am transported back to my own childhood home just streets away. In Theia’s garden, there is a chaotic array of pumpkins, silverbeet, herbs, spring onions and beetroot, just as there was in ours all those years ago. And her hugs are just as heartfelt, her lollies just as sweet.

  When I asked her to show me how to make her famous spanakopita – all buttery, flaky, spinachy goodness – she quickly obliged. The beauty of this recipe is that you can replace the spinach with almost anything else that is in season: leek, silverbeet, wild greens or pumpkin, for example.

  The recipe comes with a warning: the pastry needs to be elastic, and rolled and pulled until it is papery thin. Suffice to say, this takes practice. Do not be dejected if this does not happen the first or second time you try; I had to ring Theia Georgia for advice the first time I attempted it on my own. If it all sounds too much, there is no shame in purchasing some of the traditional filo pastry now available in supermarkets and Greek delicatessens.

  Ingredients

  For the dough

  1 kilogram plain flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 cup vegetable oil

  2 cups lukewarm water

  200 grams unsalted butter, melted

  For the filling

  1 bunch spinach, finely chopped

  4 or 5 stalks silverbeet, finely chopped

  1 leek, pale part only, finely chopped

  ½ bunch spring onions, finely chopped

  1 handful of fresh herbs (eg dill, mint, thyme and/or oregano), finely chopped

  2 eggs

  150 grams feta cheese

  300 grams ricotta cheese

  Salt and pepper to taste

  Method

  Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

  Put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Make a hole in the middle and pour in the oil and water.

  Using your hands, gradually combine the flour with the wet ingredients. When they have come together, lay the mound on a clean, floured surface and knead gently until you have a smooth, silky dough. Cut this into 4 portions and cover them with a damp tea towel.

  Place the chopped vegetables and herbs into a large bowl. Scatter half a teaspoon of salt over the top and mix well. After 10 minutes, squeeze out any excess liquid.

  In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs. Crumble in the feta, then add the ricotta, salt and pepper. Add this mixture to the greens and mix well.

  Use a rolling pin to roll out 1 portion of the pastry. When it is the size of a large pizza, drizzle a few tablespoons of melted butter onto it.

  Slide both hands under the pastry and gently stretch it evenly, until it is at least 60 or 70 centimetres square and translucent. Cut the pastry into 15-centimetre squares. Place the most irregular of these squares, buttered side down, onto your work surface. Add another square, buttered side down, and continue until you have used up all the 15-centimetre squares. Round the edges by patting them with your hands, then put the stack aside under a damp tea towel while you repeat the process with the other 3 portions of pastry.

  Have ready 2 round baking trays, about 30 centimetres in diameter. Roll 1 stack of pastry out to the size of the base of the baking tray, and then lift it into the tray. Edge the pastry 2 centimetres up the side of the tray.

  Spread half of the filling onto the pastry. Roll out another stack of pastry and place it over the top of the filling. Pinch the sides shut, using a little water if the pastry is too dry. Brush a generous amount of melted butter over the top and gently score the pastry in a criss-cross fashion. Repeat the steps with the remaining pastry to make the second pie. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden and flaky.

  Heidelberg hiatus

  Show me the teacher and I will show you the student

  Greek proverb

  I stick my finger into the solidified fat. It intrigues me. How can such a dark, bubbling mass of oil cool into a solid block of yellow overnight? My finger leaves a dent. I wipe my hand on the tall stacks of butcher’s paper on the counter. I quietly open the till and take out a small handful of twenty-cent coins. Dad won’t notice. He’s been so busy since we moved from Collingwood to West Heidelberg in Melbourne’s east, where my parents now run a fish and chip shop. Dad’s out the back, loading a sack of potatoes into a machine that looks like a cement mixer. I hear him press the switch and it starts whirring, grinding the skin off the potatoes. When it’s done, he transfers the great vats of peeled potatoes into another machine, which spits them out as chips. The familiar starchy smell rises up. I carefully step across the wet floor to get to our living area out the back of the shop.

  I walk through Mum and Dad’s bedroom. Mum’s sewing machine is crammed into one corner of the room. If I’m lucky, she’ll let me use it again tonight. I have learnt to sew small dresses for my dolls, spinning the wheel by hand without turning the electricity on. I walk past the lounge room, where the TV is blaring already and Dennis is sitting bleary-eyed on the couch, eating Corn Flakes. I go to the kitchen, where Mum is cooking spanakorizo, spinach and rice casserole, for tonight’s dinner.

  ‘I’m just going to the newsagent’s next door to look around.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  The newsagency has a big poster in the window with multiple images of a topless woman. In each frame, she wears stickers on her breasts, with tassels hanging from her nipples. I lean my head in for a closer look at the glitzy diamantes. I wonder how they stay on. I can’t imagine my own mother wearing such things. I know not to ask her what they are for.

  But I have no time to waste – there are more exciting things to be found, and it will be time to go to school soon. I make my way past the rows of notebooks, coloured paper, ballpoint pens and textas. Past little jars of glitter and gold and silver stars. Past the towering boxes of dolls that crawl and cry, which are far beyond my means. I find what I am looking for: the new book of paper dolls with fancy dresses and matching handbags and shoes. The dolls have big eyes and sweet mouths, rouged cheeks and tiny feet. I check my stack of change. I think I have enough. The man at the counter raises an eyebrow when I pay with two fistfuls of coins, but doesn’t say anything. Outside, I put the book under my jumper and round the corner to the back of our shop. I open the gate, clamber around the boxes of drinks and over the rubbish bins to my room, where I carefully start to take the dolls out of the book. I dress them in different outfits, take them to dances and to the park, make them have conversations and kiss each other goodbye as they go back to their homes.

  ‘Come and have breakfast, Spirithoula. It’s nearly time to go.’

  I hide my booty under the bed and start getting ready for school.

  The school ground here in West Heidelberg is so much bigger than our intimate little patch of bitumen at Victoria Park Primary School. Tall gums dot the playground. There’s bark on the ground and oversized tyres to play on. I look for Eva. When I find her, her nose is wet with snot as usual. Anna joins us, chewing at the wet tail-end of her dark hair. We Greek girls stick together, like scared rabbits.

  I’m still worried that the petite, blonde-haired Sarah will get me back for what I did last week. She tried to push in when we were waiting to go on the gym equipment; when I protested, she punched me in the stomach and I told the teacher. Since then, every time she passes me, she taunts me: Lagger, you wait and see, I’ll get you. But today she is nowhere to be seen. Her friends tell me she has had to leave the school and it’s all my fault.

  In class, our teacher asks us to write about a part of our body that we can’t do without. She says that she can’t do without her hand. With it she writes on the blackboard, teaching us important things. I think she’s very clever. So clever in fact that I copy her: my hand is the most important part of my body, too. I’m not confident e
nough to come up with my own body part.

  In the afternoon, a kind teacher comes around and takes Eva and me out of class. I am proud to be made a fuss of, love the special attention, but ashamed, too. I can’t read as well as the others. I have to go to special classes to catch up. The only books we have at home are my Greek school readers and a copy of Dot and the Kangaroo, in which cartoon characters have adventures in the bush. This was given to my brother by his godparents. I look at the pictures over and over, fascinated, but the words are a little too hard for me to understand. We don’t speak English at home like most of the other kids. I envy the others, the way English slips from their mouths so naturally.

  Back at home, I am bored.

  ‘Mum, why can’t I work in the shop?’

  ‘You’re too young. It’s no place for a child.’

  ‘But I’m bored.’

  ‘Then go and do your homework, so you don’t end up like them.’ She points her chin to the young people on the other side of the counter, who are more often than not swearing and drunk. She is careful not to look them in the eye, for fear that they will turn on her. I am fascinated by these youths who play for hours on the pinball machine in the shop. They can’t afford the minimum chips – Come on, Peter, can’t we buy a half serve? We’ve only got ten cents! – but they constantly feed the machine with coins. They don’t seem to go to school. And they threaten to get violent when Dad tries to close the shop at night. Oorrrhhh, come on, just a few more minutes.

  Dad always gives in. He calls then ‘bodgies’, but I know he’s got a soft spot for them. Mum keeps telling him, They’ll eat you alive. How are we ever going to get ahead?

  When I was little, we lived for a few years in Narrandera; my parents worked in a fish and chip shop with my mother’s sister and her husband. Bikies took over the town for days on end, fights broke out in the shop – I was only four, but I knew even then that Dad wasn’t cut out for it. Mum says his hands were made for working at a desk, not frying chips. I wonder what we are doing back in a fish and chip shop again.

  I go to visit Nicki, whose family runs the milk bar a few doors down. Her house is more interesting than ours; it has two levels. Upstairs, she and her three sisters share a large bedroom. We play jacks on her bed and dress her dolls. She has real Barbies with elbows and knees that bend, not like the hollow stiffs I’ve got. She gets the blondes; I get the brunettes. When we sing in front of the mirror, she is always ABBA’s beautiful Agnetha while I am the plainer Frida. But it’s her house, and I’m grateful she lets me play with her.

  A bit later, Mum sings out from downstairs, ‘Come home, Spirithoula, your nouno and his family are here.’ My godparents. I run home – I can’t wait to see my godsister, who is a few years older than me, and her brothers. Our parents eat spankorizo and we kids have fish and chips, eaten straight out of the paper parcel. Mum and Dad take it in turns to serve in the shop when the bell tinkles, while we talk and laugh and play Murder in the Dark well into the night as the adult conversation drones in the background …

  ‘The cost of potatoes has gone up from two dollars a sack a few years ago to ten dollars now. How are we supposed to make a living?’

  They talk about the long hours they work, the drunken youths my father is struggling to control. Should they stay or go?

  We check on the house in Collingwood every now and then. My parents have rented it out to a Vietnamese family, who do most of their living in the front room. The windows are covered with sheets. We are taken aback at how they have made our home theirs. Dennis and I miss Collingwood, miss the neighbours and the familiar streets. I think my parents do too.

  Two years after we moved to Heidelberg, it’s time to load the removal truck up again and return to Collingwood. I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s nice to be home.

  Chrysoula’s tyganites patates (potato chips)

  Serves 3 to 4

  According to my mother, the secret to making the best chips ever is to cut the potatoes thick, salt them well and make sure the oil is plentiful and very hot. Vegetable oil is fine, but if you want to splash out, use olive oil.

  Ingredients

  6 large potatoes

  1 teaspoon salt

  4 cups vegetable or olive oil

  Method

  Peel the potatoes and cut them longways into thick wedges. Place them in a colander and rinse them to wash off the starch. Allow them to drain, then mix through the salt with your fingers.

  Heat the oil in a heavy pot or deep pan over very high heat. To test it, drop one chip into the oil. If it sizzles instantly, the oil is ready. Cook the chips in batches, a handful at a time; they should be just covered by the oil.

  Agitate the pot occasionally so that the chips don’t stick to the bottom. When they are golden, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them onto a napkin-lined plate. Serve immediately to waiting guests or hungry children.

  Sweetbreads and other tidbits

  We don’t have bread, yet we ask for cheese

  Greek proverb

  He always smiles widely, even though he holds a bloodied cleaver in his hand.

  ‘What will it be today, Chrysoula?’

  Mum looks at the gleaming pig’s head with its hairy snout, the oversized calf livers, the ox tongues and lamb’s brains.

  She points. ‘One kilo these please.’ Lamb sweetbreads. The round, identical pieces of the thymus gland are like a tray of tiny, perfectly formed clouds.

  ‘And half kilo these too.’ Chicken hearts.

  She turns to the main counter, where the more conventional cuts of meat are displayed.

  ‘The chops, they are very expensive today.’

  Our butcher shrugs and smiles again.

  ‘For you, Chrysoula, I will take fifty cents off.’ Winks. I look down to the sawdust on the floor, sensing Mum’s embarrassment. But she’s got her bargain, and that’s the main thing.

  He wraps it all up for us. We leave the shop and walk home down Hoddle Street. There’s a steady stream of people heading to the Victoria Park football stadium. It’s going to be packed today. Collingwood versus Carlton. In the road outside our house, Dad has set two chairs and balanced a plank between them, staking his claim to our parking spot. Our street is fast filling up with cars.

  Mum opens each of the packages. Some of the meat will go in the freezer. We’ll have the sweetbreads for lunch today. I’m excited. I love their soft texture in my mouth, their delicate flavour. Dad loves them, too; they are usually eaten as a meze, a snack with ouzo. It’s very much a man’s food. It’s my job to remove the little hairs. Mum boils them briefly to firm them up and to get rid of any impurities. Before long they are sizzling in the pan with wine and oil. I start to get a salad ready.

  Dad gets back from the market and plants three boxes of fruit and vegetables onto the kitchen floor.

  ‘The potatoes were cheap. I got a box.’

  ‘Good. I’ll give half to Sophia this afternoon.’ Mum’s sister is always cooking fried potatoes and sausages, going through at least a box of potatoes a week.

  ‘Mum, are we going to visit Theia?’ First we had sweetbreads, and now we’re visiting my aunty and cousins’ house. It’s turning out to be a good day.

  ‘Yes, we will get there quicker if you wash the dishes.’

  After lunch, we pack the boot of the Valiant with half of everything Dad brought home.

  ‘Be careful. Don’t scratch the car,’ Dad cautions.

  Dad’s proud of the new car, even though it’s second-hand. He bought it off our family friend Theodore, or Psomas, ‘The Bread Man’. In a former life, the Valiant carted bread. Now it carts potatoes.

  We drive to Northcote. My cousins surround us like excited puppy dogs, and everyone helps bring things into the house. Our mothers stay in the kitchen, packing the food away. My uncle and father go out into the back yard and crack open beers. There’s not much room to play in the house.

  ‘We’re going to the park. Can we have some money to get an i
cy pole from the milk bar?’

  ‘Be careful how you cross the road. And don’t speak to any strangers.’ They hand over the requisite coins. It’s turning out to be a very good day.

  The bell on the door of the shop tinkles when we go in. The sweet milk-bar aroma rolls over us: milkbottles, musks and liquorice allsorts; Four’N Twenty pies; tobacco. We take forever to decide what we want. Will it be a raspberry icy pole or a packet of candy cigarettes? Smith’s crisps or a Paddlepop? Mixed lollies or a Freddo Frog? Once we’ve made the all-important decisions, we head to the park. We don’t leave until our mothers round the corner and tell us it’s time to go home.

  That night, Dad and I sit on the green vinyl couch to watch TV. Bill Collins is introducing True Grit with John Wayne. Mums says it’s late, that I should go to bed, but Dad winks and says I can stay up. He smokes during the commercials. I think he’s a bit like John Wayne, except he doesn’t own an eye patch and his nose is bigger.

  The next day is boring. I wander around the house, turn the TV on, turn it back off. There’s a stack of Greek records in the stereo cabinet, but only one record in English: I put it on and start dancing to ‘Skinny Girls’. It’s not as much fun as dancing with my cousins; together, we hitch our dresses up, writhe around the lounge room and have dance competitions like on Young Talent Time. After a while, I turn my attention to my homework, trying to wrap my head around long division. Dad shows me how he did it in his day and gets frustrated that I need to write my workings down – Can’t you just do it in your head? Then it’s time to do my Greek homework. When I make yet another simple grammatical error, Dad scowls and calls me ‘Skippy the bush kangaroo’. Even though I do very well at Greek school, I can’t do well enough for Dad. Dennis falls even further short of his expectations. Dad finally gives up on us and goes outside for a smoke.

  I’m glad when Monday comes around and I can see my friends. But first, there is the torturous run around the Victoria Park football oval. The grass is muddy from Saturday’s game. The circumference of the ground seems an impossible distance. I envy my classmates their long running strides, their easy relationships with their bodies. My body is chunky, the back of my thighs dimpled. I already have my mother’s generous bottom. Sure enough, I am among the last to struggle across the finish line. For our troubles, we stragglers are made to do twenty pushups. The looming bleachers seem to mock my incompetence as I stare at the feet of those more athletic than me. One … two …