Food/Routine (General)

General post about food. Our entire apartment enjoys cooking. First few weeks I’d come home late so I’d miss most of the cooking. Now I usually come home around 7/7:30 so I get to cook- yummy. All of us are really into cooking/food. I feel like I’m actually the least experienced because at home we cook deliciousness but don’t use the proper technique/precise recipes. Marj LOVES Top Chef. We tend to do very well for ourselves in terms of cooking. It’s hard to find a lot of fresh ingredients (and have them stay fresh) so we do lots of grocery runs.

Mornings: I usually have cereal (sometimes greek yogurt with granola or fruit/honey). I set my alarm for 7:30, a second alarm at 7:45, make a cup of tea or coffee (depending on my need for caffeine), get cereal, and then eat my cereal/drink tea/coffee while facebooking/emailing/skyping/general internet time wasting. Then I change- they said dress code was business formal but here women are super casual. But all I have are the formal business clothes- so oh well, at least it’s easy to get dressed. It's extremely upsetting- our fridge was too cold so we tried to change the temperature but our knob is broken and it got stuck on not being cold at all. So our milk went bad before maintenance came to fix it meaning I haven't had cereal for breakfast the past few days...I smuggled out creamer from work though for my tea because not having tea would just be unacceptable.

Back to food- so I go to work, get home, change, start cooking. Notable meals: we had a great unknown fish with veggies and rice. A large variety of pasta (chicken, pesto, primavera, scampi). Also had a lot of yummy fried rices (including a delightful shrimp, spinach, Portobello, lime, garlic, ginger, sweet chili). Also one day when we were tired/had random left overs we made mac and cheese (courtesy of mama berman) with hot dogs chopped in and broccoli- flavored mine with black pepper and chili flakes of course. We also do really well with ground turkey in burgers, meatballs, and stuffed peppers (pictures to be uploaded). We did stuffed peppers with rice/spinach/tomatoes/turkey. We flavor the turkey amazingly (our home grilling paid off). We put in lots of garlic, bell peppers, tomato, onion, curry powder, cumin powder, salt, pepper, chili, and banana peppers. Delicious. I’m the designated turkey cooker esp for hamburgers (we do this at home a lot where I’m the sous chef). Marj is fantastic with cooking chicken. We also tend to use frozen veggies just because they’re easier. I want to do a mussel pasta soon- I think it would be delicious. It's very sad we haven't cooked recently- things are getting very eventful around here. We only cooked once last week and will probably only cook once or twice this week. Most weeks we cook everyday.

For grocery stores there’s a huge Carrefour by marj that she sometimes goes to. There’s an AB which is pretty big but closes at 9. OK (I’ve gotten everyone on our trip to call it OK GO) isn’t as big/doesn’t have much fresh stuff but is open till 10. There’s also a nice Chinese lady who has a store just a few blocks down and she sells onions, garlic, ginger, and the sweet chili sauce.

We all cook together and talk, play music, joke around- it’s nice. Then we eat in the living room (which is in my ridiculously messy room- pictures to come). Again more chatting- often a conversation will start with did you read that article in the nyt which is hilarious. We also have pretty long email chains at work about random things/what we’re going to cook that night.Then clean up (ewww), make another cup of tea, and people go their respective rooms for facebook/skype/email/tv show catching up/showering. I’ve recently gotten into royal pains which is really good. Also make it or break it came back and it’s been ok.

So we all love glee. The night after the glee finale (when it’s on hulu- we’ve been using yale vpn to get hulu) we made spaghetti and meatballs (with our delish ground turkey). Grated up some parmesan. And we watched glee/had some nice wine/spaghetti. It was quite fun.Sometimes after dinner we walk around (just to walk, groceries, or desert). Marj LOVES baklava and is on a bit of a hunt for the best baklava- so we sometimes make trips out for that. After dinner walks are nice. We live in Pagrati- which is a residential neighborhood that’s really not touristy. It’s nice though because it’s very near the center of town. The big central area is Syntagma (about a 15 minute walk away). That’s where parliament/the big riots are. Acropolis is 2 or 3 metro stops down. Gazi- the student /younger partying area with lots of bars is also 3 or 4 metro stops down. Glyfada is another big party area it’s on the coast 1-1.5 hours away by tram. You can easily get to some nice beaches in Athens within the hour.