Across the Sea

I think it was in 1971 that I drove, with one of my father’s students, from Cairo to Alexandria. We were taking my family’s VW minivan to Alexandria to load on a boat for the journey to Greece. The plan was for me to accompany the van to Greece while the rest of my family flew to Athens. I’ve no idea why I was going with the van, and in a recent conversation, neither do my parents. Apparently it seemed like a good thing to do at the time.

We do remember that the student was with me to handle language issues (I didn’t speak Arabic, a notoriously difficult language for Westerners) and probably also to keep me from doing anything terminally stupid. At any rate, we apparently arrived in Alexandria and got the van loaded without incident. I don’t particularly recall the drive so I was either stoned (not likely), sleeping, or being a stupid mindless teenager. The latter gets my vote. But I do remember the boat journey.

The sun was already hot in June, but the breeze was cool, the smell of the sea innervating, and the water a blue so intense it made your teeth hurt.

The boat hauled freight, passengers were very much a sideline. I had a berth in steerage. It was a cabin about nine feet wide with six bunks in it, three per side. That was it. The head was down a passageway and was the sort of place one visited only when one’s bowels were near the bursting point. There was no toilet, only a hole in the deck one squatted or stood over. Hitting the hole was apparently optional.

Steerage was not a pleasant place. Especially once we were out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and some folks started getting sea-sick.

I was lucky, I had a few qualms the first day but nothing serious and was fine thereafter. And the weather was magnificent (more luck) so I stayed on the top deck. The sun was already hot in June, but the breeze was cool, the smell of the sea innervating, and the water a blue so intense it made your teeth hurt.

A half dozen or so of us quickly formed a clique and played cards, mainly Spades, for most of the trip. There was a middle-aged Greek guy with a quick smile and no teeth, a couple of young Danes traveling together who shared my berth, and a couple of others I don’t recall except as splashes of color. We’d sit in the mess playing cards, drinking beer, and smoking. When someone got tired they’d wander outside to stretch and breath and someone else would take their place.

And so we proceeded for three days from Alexandria, Egypt to Piraeus, Greece where I met my family and we offloaded the van.

We had dinner in Piraeus and to begin ordered a plate of fried calamari, the first I’d ever had and they were extraordinarily good, like eating candy. We polished off a huge platter and ordered a second one.

The next day we did the tourist thing and stopped in a taverna for lunch where I ate my first gyro — another amazing food experience and one I’ve tried on occasion to recreate here at home. Last week I came very close, close enough that I’m willing to publish the recipe, an honor none of my previous efforts earned. The texture isn’t quite right, but that’s a minor issue.

Gyros
Serves 4.

Meat mixture:
1 lb ground lamb
1/4 c minced red onion
2 cloves garlic — minced
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
Tzaztiki:
1 c Greek-style yogurt
2 cloves garlic — crushed
1 8-inch cucumber — peeled, seeded, and finely diced
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
Sandwich:
4 rounds of flat bread or pita.
lettuce
tomato — seeded and diced

Tzaziki:
If you can’t find Greek yogurt, use ordinary yogurt but remove excess liquid from it by dumping it in a sieve lined with cheesecloth and letting it drain over a bowl for 4 hours.

Add remaining tzatziki ingredients, mix, and chill for an hour or so.

Meat mixture:
Thoroughly combine all ingredients in a bowl. Divide into four equal portions and shape into oblong patties about 3″ wide, 6″ long, 1/2″ thick. Refrigerate for an hour.

Sandwich:
Grill patties over a hot fire for 3 – 4 minutes per side. Spread tzatziki sauce down the center of a flat bread round, add a lettuce leaf, add some diced tomato. Add the patty, fold the bread over the lamb, and enjoy. Note: wrapping in foil helps hold things together.

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