Saturday, April 22/2023

  Market day. Well actually in Athens every day except Sunday is market day and we’re a short walk from Athens Central Market. Our chief difficulty is to not overbuy. The market will still be there on Monday. Strawberry season will not be over. Buy like European city dwellers in the days before refrigeration - enough for today - maybe tomorrow. So four red peppers, three large mushrooms, three tomatoes, a small basket of strawberries….Six onions - well, there’s no such thing as too many onions. Romany women scattered here and there selling heads of garlic. Should keep the vampires away. Make a second foray later in the day - after noting how inferior and more expensive the supermarket offerings are.

Stop at the meat market, which is enormous with dozens of stalls with expert butchers wielding their cleavers with deadly accuracy. Actually, the animals have already been dispatched but they’re pretty fast at giving you the portions you want. And really we can’t begin to do justice to a market that includes free-range quail, partridge, pheasant, rabbit, wild boar and deer. To say nothing of the largest fresh fish market in Europe, handling five to ten tons of fresh fish daily.

We also go back to the shops across the road for thick, creamy Greek yoghurt, cheese and smoked meat. Should see us through the weekend, and if it didn’t we live in the midst of dozens of restaurants and street cafés and have been craving spanakopita. Have already sampled the sesame studded koulouri - having remembered not to use the Turkish “simit”.