CIC Times - May 2012 imes - May 2012

CIC Organically Excursions Cooked - Boureki•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••© Maria VerivakiThe First Boureki of theSeason (Μπουρέκι)Now that the garden is in fullswing, we are eating mainlywhat we grow, which is highlycost-effective for us: the risingcost of living is burning holesin our pocket. I dare not usethe car these days for fear ofemptying the gas tank. At thesupermarket the other day, aDanish tourist was horrified torealise that what she wantedto buy would cost her morethan 20 euro (2 bottles of localwine and some cold cuts wereamong the few things she hadin her basket), which in hercountry, she explained to me,would have cost half the price.“Look what I’m buying,” I told her, “and see what I’m paying for it” - 3 half kilo loaves of bread, 6 breadrolls, 1 kilo of mizithra and a packet of ladies sanitary towels (the Queen has yet again changed brands):16 euro and 26 cents.“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, “that’s exorbitant.”Having a garden is not cost-free, but it is certainly cheaper than buying everything whenever you needit. We can’t eat everything as it grows, so the deep freeze is working overtime as of late.I’ve already posted about courgette-potato bake,which we call boureki in Crete, but you simply can’tpost enough about it. I made two on Thursday,neither of which we ate: they both went straightinto the deep freeze, in their freshest form possible.Making boureki is simply a question of assembly:it takes about half an hour to prepare it, so youwonder why it needs three hours to cook - and 20minutes to devour it. It’s all to do with chemistry:whether it’s the juices from the potatoes and/orthe courgettes, or the galactic acids of the mizithra,in combination with the other ingredients, I haveno idea, but it’s somewhere in there that makesboureki time consuming to cook.33 May 2012