Field Trip (via the Time Machine)

The Greek Festival

Every Labor Day weekend,the Church of the Holy Cross, in nearby Belmont, CA,  hosts a Greek Festival.  I've always thought it sounded fun but intimidating, since we don't know much about the Greek culture.  Well, this blog is really taking us out of our comfort level - in a good way! 

The Greek Festival was FUN!!  

Here are a few pics of what you can expect at a Greek festival.....

Lots of great food!  We had to order the combo platter of pastries because, well, we had to try them all!  We also had the gyros and some marinated olives and feta but were tempted by the souvlakia (marinated meat on a skewer), kalamari (whole baby squid deep fried- ok maybe we weren't tempted by these) and the pastitsio (Greek Lasagna), spanakopita (spinach & cheese phyllo triangles) and dolmades (rice and meat stuffed in grape leaves). I just wish we had more time in the day (and money in the wallet) to try then all!

There are interesting things to buy in the marketplace.  One of the big items were fancy hip belts made with silver dangling coins- if I were thinner I might consider these!! Of course, if I eat all that food mentioned above that dream isn't gonna happen anytime soon :)  There was a lot of pottery and traditonal Greek items but my son was dragging me towards the kid rides so I didn't get to browse long!

Another MUST at a Greek festival is the dancing!  How fun to watch the different dances and see the dancers in their traditional costumes.  The groups ranged from the youngest who looked nervous to the adults were having a great time and bringing audience members into the line.  We hid in the back, I'm not willing to get that much out of my comfort zone yet (at least not without a few shots of Ouzo first)!!

We had fun and the people were very nice and understanding when we asked questions about everything.  I think we found a fun new activity for Labor Day weekends!!  OPA!!!



 

On the Menu: Greek Food pt. 2

 Language and lunch!

It's your lucky day!  Not only do you get a lesson in Greek but a yummy recipe as well. 

The Greek language has been spoken for over 3000 years making it one of the oldest languages in Europe (and probably the world).  Since Greece was such an influence on the ancient world, many of the words in other languages have come from the Greek language.  The English language can thank Greek for anywhere between 13% to 25% of it's words.  I know that's a big range but every article I read had a different number!  Irregardless, that's a big influence.  The Greeks had such a large vocabulary and many words are composites - hippopotamus = hippo (river) potamus (horse). 
Here are a few other words we've borrowed and made our own: alphabet, demon, echo,arithmetic, empathy, baptism.  The list could go on and on but we don't have time for all that.

 Let's learn a few Greek words and phrases as they are spoken in Greece!  They are written in the English alphabet but the Greeks have their own alphabet too!



Yes - ne      No - ohi      Thank you - efharisto    Please - parakalo
Hello - yassou    Goodbye - yassas   Good Morning - kalimera
Good Evening - kalispera    I love you - S'agapo

1- ena       2- thio      3- tria       4- tesera       5- pente
6- pente    7- efta      8- ohto     9- enaia       10- theka

Ok, so now we can use our good manners when we order our lunch- "Gyro parakalo"

Gyro meat is usually made from pieces of meat that are marinated and then layered on a spike and cooked on a rotating spit.  Once it's cooked the chef slices off pieces of the meat - YUM!  Sure, we could do that at home, but, I don't have a spit and I don't need to feed 50 people (thank goodness)!  So we found a recipe on Food.com for Ground Beef Gyros.  BTW, it's pronounced "Yee-row"

Ground Beef Gyros with Tzatsiki sauce

For the recipe you will need:

• 1 lb lean ground beef (or turkey)
• 1 tsp dried oregano - the recipe was written with 1 1/2 tsp but I thought it tasted to much like oregano!
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 ground pepper
• pita breads or flatbread
• shredded lettuce
• chopped tomatoes
• chopped onions
• tzatsiki sauce (recipe to follow)

1.  Combine ground beef and seasonings.  Mix well.
2.  Shape into 4 patties and grill, broil, or fry until cooked through.
3.  Cut patties into thin slices and put on pita with tomatoes, onions,lettuce and tsatsiki sauce. Enjoy!!!

Tzatsiki Sauce

• 1 8oz container of plain yogurt (Greek, of course)
• 1/3 cup chopped and seeded cucumber
• 2 Tbsp finely chopped onions
• 1 garlic clove - finely minced
• 1 tsp sugar

1. Combine and enjoy.  I love this sauce :)


Ok, normally my kids love Gyro meat but I think I made mine with a little too much oregano.  I cut the oregano for the posted recipe and hopefully it helped.  They still ate the flatbreads and they loved the feta cheese and kalamata olives we had on the side.  The rest of the family enjoyed them - oregano and all.  If you can get real Gyro meat it is better, but this was a pretty tasty substitute.  I think I could put that sauce on everything!!! 


 We had some appetizers from Trader Joe's too - Spanakopita (spinach and cheese wrapped it phyllo dough) and Mini Gyro Bites. They were ok if you're craving a quick Greek bite!

 

   

Architecture and an art project

The Parthenon-

One of the most enduring images of Ancient Greece is the Parthenon.  High atop the acropolis of Athens (acropolis - acro= high area + polis= city), the beautiful ruins of the temple define the skyline.  It is considered one of the most perfect Doric temples ever built and even though it is partially in ruins, it is still amazing.  The temple was built in 447 BC - 438 BC and was built to honor the patron goddess of Athens, Athena. 

 What makes the temple so amazing are the subtle optical illusions used in order to make the temple appear perfect from every angle.  When you normally look up at a huge column, the top of the column appears smaller because it is further away, well the architects of the Parthenon made the tops of the columns wider than the bottoms to counteract this- pretty smart!!  I said before it was an example of "Doric" architecture and tried to sound like I knew what that meant :)  Well, I had to look it up and it mostly relates to the types of columns used.  Doric columns sit directly on the floor with no base, have 20 fluted grooves running the length, and have a large, square cap on the top.  Other columns, such as Ionic and Corinthian have different features.  Anyway, these "Doric" columns that surround the temple are still standing some 2,400 years later.  That's impressive, especially considering the wars, battles, and earthquakes it has seen!


The columns (Doric, you know) also held up some amazing artwork that was carved into the pediments (triangular ends of the roof) on both the west and east sides.  These were carved with stories depicting Athena, who was the goddess of many things, including wisdom, courage, law and war to name a few.  The East pediment tells the story of her birth.  It seems Zeus, her father, swallowed her mother (!) after he had made her pregnant because it was told that her children would be more powerful than their father.  He thought that was that, until one day he got a terrible headache.  He asked Hephaestus (god of fire and forging) to hit him on the head with his blacksmith hammer to take away the pain - guess he never heard of Tylenol!!  Anyway, when he got whacked in the head it split open and out popped Athena in full armor and all grown up.  Not sure what became of her poor mother.  And I thought delivering my kids was painful :)

The West pediment told the story that I mentioned in the intro to Greece post, the competition between Poseidon and Athena to see who could give the city the best gift.  Spoiler alert - Athena won by giving the people of Athens the olive tree.  Both of these pediments are destroyed unfortunately so we will never be able to see what was supposed to be some of the best sculptures of the period.

The Parthenon is old, the poor thing has been through a lot! In 1687, while it was being used as a mosque and an ammunition warehouse by the Ottoman Empire, it had a huge explosion that partially destroyed it.  These days, the toxic pollution levels in the air are eating away at the stone.  Restoration is ongoing to keep this amazing temple around for thousands of years to come. 

We love to build things.  Blocks are big in this house, so of course, we had to make our own little version of the Parthenon. We had to tweak the plans a little bit and, well, it's made of cardboard boxes and toilet paper tubes, but I think it turned out almost as impressive.

The Parthenon project (or Temple of TP)

For the project you will need:

• empty toilet paper, paper towel or wrapping paper tubes.
• boxes (shirt boxes worked great)
• cardboard
• white paint (I used spray paint because I don't have the patience to wait for things to dry)

1.  Put your largest shirt box down as base. 
2. Arrange the tp tubes around the base.  If you want to be truly Doric you will need some squares on top of the columns - we didn't go that extreme.
3. Put another shirt box on top of columns this is the roof. 
4. Bend a rectangular piece of flat cardboard in half lengthwise to make the peak of the roof and to hold the triangular pediments that go on the smaller sides of the temple.
5. Now take it all apart again and paint it white.  I didn't have you paint it white first because this way you'll know exactly what needs to be painted and you won't waste your time painting 20 tp tubes!
6. Let paint dry and then reconstruct.  I didn't use any glue or anything so that the kid could redesign the temple or use the boxes for different things
(my kids love boxes)
7.  My daughter wanted to make it a bit more colorful so she decorated it with stickers.  I especially love the pediments!  Polly Pocket and Iron Man played around as tourists for awhile and at the moment it is being used to play Angry Birds in Greece. 

I hope one day I can see the real Parthenon but until then I'll just have to settle for ours.  Hope you like it!!

On the menu: Greek food Pt. 1

A little chicken soup - Greek style

We're off and running on our Greek Week- we made soup, tried to say some new words in Greek and made an awesome art project - we'll post those tomorrow.  First, let's talk about our soup.  If you've never had it before, let me assure you that Greek food is delicious.  There are a lot of healthy ingredients and simple flavors made with age old techniques that bring out the best in them.  I will make one or two different recipes this week.  The first one we made was comfort food - chicken soup.  I think every culture has a version of chicken soup, the Greek version is called Avgolemono and is thickened with egg and has a beautiful lemony flavor.  This would be the perfect soup for cold and flu season!  I'm putting some in the freezer for "just in case".  Here's the recipe-

Avgolemono Soup-

For the recipe you will need:

• 3 lbs chicken. I used a whole chicken with most of the fat (and the gross bits) removed
• 8 cups water
• 1/2 bunch parsley.  I only had freeze-dried so I used 1/3 cup
• 1 medium onion - very finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt (or more to taste)
• 1/2 cup long grain rice.  I wish I used a little more, maybe 3/4 c
• 1 large carrot- very finely chopped.  Mine were already shredded so it made them so much easier to chop.
• 1 stalk celery.  I didn't have celery and didn't want to go to the store.  I thought about using some spinach so it's in the picture but I was afraid it would change the taste too much and I chickened out :)
• 2 lemons- use the juice and zest
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

1.  Put chicken, water, onion, parsley and salt in large pot and bring to boil.  Simmer 45 minutes.
2. Remove chicken and parsley.  My parsley had pretty much dissolved, but if you used the larger parsley discard it.
3. Add rice, carrot and celery to broth and cook for about 20 minutes. 
4. When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove from the bones and chop into small pieces.  Set aside.
5. Add lemon juice and zest to soup when rice is cooked.
6. Beat the eggs and cornstarch together in bowl.
7. While whisking eggs, slowly dribble in a ladleful of the hot broth to temper the eggs.  Continue whisking and adding hot broth until 2 ladlefuls have been added.
8. Slowly add the egg mixture to the soup and stir well.  Add chicken back in and season with salt and pepper if needed.

This was really tasty!  My son ate a few spoonfuls and enjoyed it until he got some chicken (for some reason he doesn't eat chicken anymore) and my daughter, of course, wouldn't even try it.  My husband, brother and I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to leftovers!!

Week 24: Greece

 

Greece- the birthplace of everything (well, almost)

While reading all the websites to find the interesting tidbits of info I need to be able to understand a country, I found that Greece has really given us A LOT!! This small country (about the size of Alabama) is considered the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympics, political science, most of the major principals of mathematics, Western literature, and pretty much any word that has "ph" in it.  I probably missed a few other things and I am sorry but, WOW!  Good job Greece!!  It's no wonder that the Greek people are so proud of their heritage. 

This is going to be a busy week I think.  There is so much we can talk about- Greek mythology, the ruins of ancient Greece, the language and how we derived many of our own words from it, the food (oh, the food is good!!) and on and on. 

But first here are some fun and interesting (I hope) facts -


- 80% of Greece is mountains - and the whole country used to be underwater until a huge earthquake pushed the area above the water.  There are still many earthquakes.


- There is mainland Greece and also 2,000 islands that make up the country.  Only about 200 are inhabited.

- The capital, Athens, is named after the goddess Athena.  She was reportedly given the honor when she won a contest against Poseidon as to who would give the city the best gift.  Athena gave the olive tree and Poseidon gave water.  The gods picked the olive tree.  I love olives too.  Some of the country's olive trees were planted in the 13th century and are still producing olives!

-No point in the country is more than 85 miles from the sea and the Greeks have always had a very strong connection to the water and boats. 

 

- They also love to dance and have over 63 folk dances.  I have a few friends who are Greek and as children they were taught the dances and competed in dance competitions in full costume.  If you've ever watched the dancing I bet you were tempted to join in - it looks like so much fun!!

-The Greek language has been spoken for almost 3,000 years making it one of the oldest languages in Europe.  Thousands of words in the English language have their origin in Greece- academy, marathon, alphabet to name just a few.

-The original Olympic games were held in Greece in 776 B.C. and were for men only.  Married women could be punished by death just for even watching them. 

- A person's Name Day is more important then their birthday.  In the Greek Orthodox religion, each Saint has an appointed day to celebrate them and most people are named after the saints in one way or another. On your Saint's name day you celebrate with cake and visitors :)  I wonder what my Name Day is??

-One of the iconic images of Greece is the white buildings with the bright blue roofs and doors.  I always just assumed it was to match the sky - wrong.  That shade of bright, turquoise blue, called Kyanos in Greece, is believe to keep away evil spirits, so it is painted on windowsills, doors and the roofs of churches.

Beautiful isn't it?? I don't think there's any more to say!