The Tribal Tomato

The gift from Mum's Cypriot watchmaker

Mum continues to bring joy to so many despite the challenges she faces.  Feeling very blessed.

This is an article published recently in SBS Voices. 

The gift from Mum's Cypriot watchmaker

Mum's 'tselemente' story in SBS Voices...

Thanking SBS Voices for supporting diverse voices and stories.

Here is a piece they published about my Mum's tselemente, the cookbook she bought to Australia in the 1970's...

Mum's tselemente...

My mother

My mother is a bit of a legend.

She’s generous.

She’s funny.

She laughs a lot.

She makes you feel as if you are the only one who is important in her life, though you know she makes everyone in her orbit feel this way. You know this because your childhood home was always filled with people, relatives and friends and random strangers too. You know this because when she had her stroke five years ago, people spilled out of her hospital room waiting to see her each day. Her phone still rings constantly, and people check in on her all the time.

Mum has inspired me to write a few stories of late. I’m aware that she is getting older, that her body and her mind are not what they used to be. While I know this is how nature works, and that time spares no one, it fills me with sadness. And sadness makes me write.

I know Mum feels sad about getting older too, especially since her stroke robbed her of her words. It’s meant that she is unable to say what she wants to say in the same way that she once could. For such a social being as Mum, words are the gold with which she makes her everyday transactions, connecting with people, reassuring them, offering earthy wisdom. She talks about the stroke often, this terrible thing that happened to her.

But most of the time, she is stoic, philosophical. She doesn’t avoid the topic of death. She explains she is not really worried about it. What pre-occupies her is becoming dependant as she ages, and about her loved ones having to care for her, but she doesn’t worry about dying. As usual, her concerns are for others, not herself.

‘I’ve lived a good life,’ she often says. ‘Now, let me show you the dress I want you to bury me in…’

And despite ourselves, we laugh. My mother, who is a bit of legend, always makes me laugh.

Some recent articles about Mum on SBS Voices

Going through my parent’s possessions reminded me of the sacrifices they made

Cooking for my mother now that she can no longer do it for herself

Weathering the storm

Dusting off Parlour Games for Modern Families

These are strange days with the global crisis around COVID-19 and I’ve been feeling compelled to write it out (as I ride it out).

This is what I’m worried about as we go into lockdown:

• The elderly and vulnerable in our midst getting sick and dying, the health care professionals getting burnt out and ill, and the health system totally collapsing.
• People having to shut down businesses, losing their livelihoods, and becoming vulnerable and destitute.
• People stripping the supermarket shelves and being arseholes to each other because of (an admittedly understandable) fear.
• Getting bored and grumpy and restless and anxious and slightly purposeless as the social isolation measures kick in. This is at least something I can control. Trying to look at the positives, set up rituals, and give myself a stern talking to when I catch myself spiralling down. About to dust of Parlour Games for Modern Families; planning to watch more cheesy movies with the fam that involve 70's music, daggy dancing and bad acting; hope to read lots of books; to keep writing that novel I’ve been talking about for a decade; cook lots of improvised meals from what I have to hand…oh, and keep working remotely and finding ways to be kind to my fellow human beings!

What I’m not worried about:

• Toilet paper – if all else fails, there are leaves, newspaper, soap and water and even rocks (yes, my dad said he used to wipe his bum with rocks out in the fields). I think we will manage if the soft stuff runs out. Amazing what we are choosing to focus on in times of uncertainty…
• Running out of food – been cooking a little extra, shopping a little extra and stocking up slowly and surely for a month or more now – felt a bit strange at first, but now feels like it was the right thing to do. Avoided the big supermarkets and shopped at the smaller providers. Bought staples like beans, canned tomatoes and some rice/pasta. Been cooking up all the odds and sods of vegetables into stocks. Lots of prepared beans in the freezer. Slow and steady.  Hope that by thinking laterally and improvising and sharing and maybe even bartering if all else fails we will be good. If my grandparents survived wars and a depression, surely we can survive a few months (fingers crossed) of adapting.
• Losing touch - phone and internet means we can still talk to the people we love - not the same, but hopefully it will do for the short term.
• Staying active – put the gym membership on hold and enjoying lots of brisk walks by myself and with various members of the family (with smiles and nods to people as we pass each other at a good distance on the street).  Sun and air and movement critical to a strong mind, body and spirit. This one's not negotiable in my book.
• Getting sick – don’t want to be flippant about this but feel strangely resigned that if this happens, my family and I will try and weather the storm. We are doing our best to avoid it, as well as do all the right and sensible things to stop spreading infection but if it happens, it happens...

As I write, I’m reminded of what 4^th Century philosopher Heraclitus wrote, “There is nothing permanent except change”.

And what my beautiful late friend Katerina used to say when she encountered difficulties – “This too shall pass”.

Sending best to all to find ways to weather the storm.

Memoir writing workshop - 16 Feb 2020, Melbourne

My one-day intensive 'Write your life' workshop plus traditional wood-fired oven lunch is back.

It's designed for budding and emerging writers who want to start or progress a life writing project. 

It promises to be yummy!

More information in the flyer below.

Download Life writing flyer February 2020

Some great coverage of my Ikaria experience...

Some great recent coverage by SBS in Australia and Meditteranean Living in the U.S. of my Ikaria experience.

Being interviewed for, and writing such articles reminds me what a pivotal experience going to Ikaria was - and how it helped me create some sustainable and healthy changes to my life.

Mission impossible

The shop is filled with oversized wine barrels and old fashioned wicker baskets; strange-looking sausage casings and sharp-bladed slicers; and all manner of equipment to make and bottle your own sauce. My husband chanced on this place on the dusty outskirts of suburbia a few weeks back. I’m out here to sus out the tomato situation. We're going to make passata.

This place would have once been rocking at this time of year as older Italians and Greeks stocked up on its wares to preserve their late summer produce. An elderly shopkeeper is chatting in Greek with a bloke at the front of the shop, but otherwise, the shop is empty. She gives me a cursory glance, doesn’t bother asking if I need help. I’m sure she's sized me up as a tourist to the art of mass home preserving. I’m about 30 years too young.

When the gent leaves, I approach her.

'How much are your sauce tomatoes out the front?' I ask in Greek.

She raises an eyebrow. Maybe she might make a sale after all. 

'$22 a box.'

Too much, I think. I’m becoming my mother.

'Will you still have some in a few weeks?'

'I can’t promise. If we do, they’ll be more expensive. It hasn’t been a good season for tomatoes.'

I nod. I don’t believe her. She wants to offload several boxes right now. I’m not quite ready, haven’t yet mobilised the family to sit over the ruby red orbs for a whole day making sauce. And I can probably get them cheaper if I wait.

A few weeks later, a date is set, the family booked in to make sauce. It’s Friday, and the long weekend looms seductively ahead. I make my way to Oakleigh, where I know there are several greengrocers. I’m there by 8 in the morning. Apart from a few groups of old men playing cards and smoking, the cafes are quiet on the main drag. I turn into one of the smaller streets to try my regular greengrocer.

'I’m after sauce tomatoes. Do you have any?' I ask an older bloke who's making a tower of eggplants.

'We ran out early this morning. The phone has been ringing hot and I’ve stopped answering it. It’s a long weekend. Everyone wants them.' He shrugs. 'You could come back next week...'

'Oh. Will I find some anywhere else?'

'I don't think so but you could try down the road. But make sure they don’t sell you romas, which growers cut off the vine too early and are green in the middle. Useless. You want the rounder, small sauce tomatoes that are red all the way through. And make sure you run the skins two or three times through the press. That makes the thickest sauce...''

I don't dare tell him we process the tomatoes through a food processor that we bought at the school fete a few years back, and that it always splutters to a stop about halfway through the day. It's not exactly the most professional of methods.

‘’Do you make sauce?' I ask him.

'Nah. My Italian friends used to make it. But they’re all dead now.' He laughs. 'That’s what happens when you have grappa with coffee in the morning, wine with lunch, and beer and scotch with dinner.'

We talk some more, but in the end stories aren’t going to get me my tomatoes. I had better get a move on.

At the next greengrocer, I can’t see any on the shop floor. I ask the guy in charge if they have any out the back. He tells me there should be a shipment in an hour. $25 a box he says. Yes, they’re expensive. Don’t I know it’s been 50 degrees in Echuca and Shepparton this year, burning the vines? Horrible year for tomatoes. I tell him I might be back later. It's going to be a long morning.

I try greengrocer number three, where I paw through a box of overripe romas. They’re cheap, but rotten on the outside, and green on the inside. A middle-aged woman stands beside me, looking the way I feel. Forlorn.

'Mmm, they’re not very good…' I say.

'No.' She sighs. 'I should have done this a few weeks ago. I might try the place down the road…' We walk together, two strangers on a shared mission.

'I don’t know why I make passata. It's so much work. Every year, I threaten to stop, but my kids won’t let me. They love it, the ritual of it. As it happens, now they've got other things to do and it looks like I’m on my own with it…' I make sympathetic sounds.

When we get to our last resort greengrocer, it's the same story. No tomatoes. They ran out last week.  I suggest we go back to the greengrocer who is expecting a delivery but we both know it’s not looking good. She says she might try Dandenong Market. I wonder if it's not too late to trek across town to Preston Market. As we walk, I take out my phone and we google an out of the way place she knows. It’s just a shed at the back of a house in an outer suburb I’ve never heard of. An Italian bloke. She can’t remember his name. He’s been selling tomatoes and wine grapes for decades. When we enter the scant details she knows, a boutique winery comes up but no Italian bloke in a shed. I hope he's not dead.

Back at greengrocer number two, we’re in luck. A shipment is being unloaded downstairs. A few sample boxes have been bought up. My fellow searcher thinks she’ll be able to find cheaper – she’s going to drive out to her Italian bloke. I’m not taking the risk. The shop owner assures me I'll be happy - he gives these very same tomatoes to his family. I pay at the till and am told to take my car down to a dark loading bay where men in high vis vests are doing secret fruit business. A beefy bloke loads my car with several boxes of tomatoes. I keep my distance. It feels like the set of The Sopranos, where dead bodies may well be kept in cold storage. When he’s done, I furtively snap a pic and send it to my husband with the heady words of success: Mission accomplished!

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Images George Mifsud

Life writing workshop Sunday 24 February 2019

My one-day intensive 'Write your life' workshop plus traditional wood-fired oven lunch is back by popular demand.

It's designed for budding and experienced writers who want to start or progress a life writing project. 

It promises to be yummy!

More information in the flyer below.

Download Life writing flyer February 2019

Memoir-writing workshop, 8 July 2018

So you want to write about your life, but you’re not sure where to start? Maybe you have a few ideas, a bunch of notes, or perhaps even a few chapters? Now is the time to get the skills under your belt to finally write that memoir or life writing piece.

This one-day intensive workshop will include practical writing exercises to release memories and get words on the page.

Help the creative juices flowing with a traditional Greek wood-fired lunch.

For more information, Download Life writing flyer July 2018.

Rizogalo for the soul

It’s been a month since the launch of my new memoir My Ikaria. The celebrations started with the book’s Melbourne launch, closely followed by the Sydney launch. There’s been some fabulous media interest, which is terribly affirming when you’ve been working on a bookish project for some years and have absolutely no idea what the reception will be when you release your little baby into the world.

Even more encouraging has been the wonderful response from readers. I’m loving the enlightening discussions the book has sparked about what it means to live well – these have affirmed for me yet again how small lifestyle changes can reap big rewards. Top points for enthusiasm goes to 60-year-old grandmother Mrs Poulos from Sydney. She wrote to me to say that My Ikaria inspired her to clear out her pantry post-Easter, helping her avoid eating all those leftover chocolate eggs. It also made her realise that her crazy, people-filled life was totally normal (and actually good for her). When she finished the book, she wrote:

Spiri, thank you for your beautiful book. Experiencing Ikaria through your words felt very real to me. You managed to capture the true heart of the Greek spirit and have given me many things think about to have a fulfilling life, to live and not to just exist.

 

Of course, life doesn't stop just because I’ve released a book, with family activities going at top speed as per usual, and my writing and teaching projects becoming even more plentiful. Despite the quickening pace, I have managed to keep up my Ikarian-inspired lessons: I’ve kept my task lists focused on the important stuff; I’ve still been connecting meaningfully with those close to me; I’ve managed to keep moving lots as part of my daily routines; and I’ve tried not to sacrifice sleep. Thus, I have been successfully juggling the balls. But this girl needs more than just to juggle balls. She needs to cook. And not just cobble-together-cook. I mean large-and-in-charge-comfort-for-the-soul-cook.

For some weeks now, my kids have been asking for rizogalo (rice pudding). Perhaps it’s the onset of the cooler weather at nights. Or the smell of lemon peel and vanilla that wafts through the kitchen when I cook it. Or perhaps the comforting starchiness of the rice, the creaminess of the milk. Whatever it is, they wanted it. Years ago, I discovered (and have since adapted) a recipe from a delightful book called Mamma’s Kitchen. And so, I made a big batch for our family, and another for my mother and brother. Judging by the fact that neither lasted more than a few hours in either household, I'd say it was a hit yet again.

Lately, I've been hankering for another Greek comfort recipe – Gigandes (baked lima beans). Thankfully I had a packet of these little dried white beauties in the pantry. I promptly boiled them and mixed the cooked and strained beans in with a cobbled-together sauce of vegetables, some herbs from the garden, a few cans of chopped tomatoes and a generous glug of olive oil – straight into the oven it all went. Teamed with crusty homemade bread, it’s the ultimate vegan feast. A glass of wine and I couldn’t wish for more.

Hubby George hasn’t been idle in the big batch cooking caper either – he’s been picking, baking and freezing quinces for a few weeks, making great big meat and vegetable stews for us and his parents, and bringing out the last of his homemade bread (he made 16 loaves for the book launch!) from the freezer.

All I can say is that while it’s been fun being on a bookish high this past month, it’s even more fun coming back down to Earth.

Download Marias-rizogalo (rice pudding) recipe adapted from Mama’s Kitchen: Recipes and Stories.

Read a Better Reading excerpt or buy My Ikaria.