Paros - Sept 17

We spent Wednesday morning just hanging out; I went for a run, we had breakfast, chatting with some of the other guests. We did not move from the hotel until close to noon. At 3pm we were supposed to be having a cooking course with Eddy along the south side of the island in Alyki.

We got in our cheap little rental car and headed south just to see what we could see. Alyki is a small town on a little bay. The water is clear and blue and there are many boats in the harbor, mainly fishing boats. There are restaurants and stores along the bay. We decided to have a light bite to eat before the cooking lesson. We chose a restaurant with seating right on the water. As Pam pointed out, in the US you would have needed a railing, but instead the table was directly on the water’s edge and we sat inches from the edge where falling off and into the water would not have been difficult. Looking into the water we could see Sea Urchins and another couple threw some hunks of bread into the water which got the fish (good sized fish) all churning, it was a little like looking into an aquarium. There was also someone snorkeling who it turns out was spear fishing he actually got a nice sized octopus.

At around 2:30 I called Eddy to tell him where we were and that we were not going to be where he expected us. He had mentioned that he was in Alyki, so I thought it would be easier from him to meet us there. He drove down and met us and we followed him to a place where we parked our car and then he drove us to his house. His house is near the top of the mountain behind Alyki. The road there is narrow and dirt and at points drops precipitously. Eddy and Louise (Louisa), are from Amsterdam. They live about half the year on Paros and half in Amsterdam. Eddy used to be a developer but his company downsized and from what I can gather he took early retirement. Not that Eddy appears that old. I would be surprised if he was 60. They rent the house from a Greek family that actually lives on an island further north and east of Paros. They pay a little rent and take care of the property and make some improvements.

Eddy enjoys the creative process of cooking and has learned most of what he knows by doing. I will not go into the details of everything that we cooked, but there are definitely things that we made that Pam and I will cook with later. There was one meat dish and one dish that had a little bacon and there was a lot of potatoes (3 dishes of potatoes) and an extraordinary amount of garlic and olive oil. We very much enjoyed the cooking part of the evening and you can see that Eddy loves cooking for people also. Many times Eddy will have groups of up to 17 people for dinner (he prepares the food for large groups) or will have a group of people for the cooking class, but on this evening it was Pam and I. For dinner though, their friends Bruce and Brian joined us. Bruce and Brian are Brits and have lived in Paros for 4 years. They never intended on living here full time, but they wound up renting their place in Devon to a couple and then selling it when the market was good and the only place they had to live was the house they had purchased on Paros.

We wound up staying there until about 11:30 (we think….can’t be sure) chatting and eating. We had a really nice time and are glad that we had the experience. There is also the chanc,e that come this winter we will spend a weekend in Amsterdam and visit with Eddy and Louisa.