a cookbook with traditional Cretan dishes, has many accidentally vegan recipes, the one for Gigantes for example. i picked up the main ingredient: giant white beans at a random supermarket.
dried herbs. unfortunately the walking through hills and picking my own fresh herbs-resolution didn’t really work out.
and some awesome olive oil from Mochos was brought to my door steps. well, my desk at the office, anyways.
so, greece, right? my one week work-cation on Crete was so much nicer than expected: the people were great, genuinely helpful and friendly, big hearts and big portions when it came to the food. the truly vegan-friendly food, i should add.
the first half of the week was spent in a little village by the ocean in the SW of Crete, Kalamaki. i had almost all of my meals at a small taverna called Athivoles, after a few days also known as my home away from home.
my first meal in the taverna was glorious:
grilled garlic bread
fried zucchini (in the back you see pastichio, a greek lasagna dish i plan on veganizing one of these days)
and a big plate of horta with steamed zucchini and boiled potatoes
all ingredients were fresh and whenever i listed the things i didn’t eat, i only met smiles and the best improvised dishes, not once did i get a “why?” or strange look.
after meals we usually had greek coffee, metrio (a little sugar) and fresh fruit. i don’t think i paid for more than a third of the coffees i consumed, the fruit platters were always free.
there were numerous greek salads (hold the feta, please), hearty vegetable stews w/ green beans, potatoes and carrots and a great grilled tomato stuffed with rice
and accidentally vegan halva, a cake made with millet and sugar, olive oil and orange zest
i even found a healthfood/ organic produce store in the next small town over that not only had the freshest and cheapest organic produce ever but also helped me out on the breakfast front:
i found vegan margarine and chocolate rice milk
after quaint friendly Kalamaki, we moved on to the 5** conference hotel where food was buffet style and uninspiring but filling. i ate many soggy vegetables and really missed my little taverna!
Crete is great and if you stay away from the loud touristy beach towns you get to meet some of the friendliest people that will dig through their kitchens to feed you a great nutritious vegan meal and tell you stories in a mix of greek, german and english and you get to hang out with cute beach bums:
