Eating cheese pie under the orange trees

by Barbara

We spent a lovely afternoon with George’s aunt Mercine and his dad’s cousin Kiki and her husband Spiro. 

Mercine making the glyko with mastic.

Mercine is visiting from Wellington and although Kiki and Spiro live in the main town of Mytilene, they holiday in the house that used to belong to George’s grandmother and great uncle. You can see the house in an earlier post here.

Mercine, Kiki, Jay, Ella, Sophia, Barb
having afternoon tea under the orange trees.

George and I stayed in this house for three weeks when we visited the island in 1993. It’s set amongst orange trees and is very traditional. We remember having to light the boiler in the basement for our hot water!

Thea Mercine, and George’s dad John, came to the island as children and lived in the house for a year with their parents and brother and sister. We loved listening to Mercine’s stories about spending time with her grandparents and what it was like going to school in the village.

Here we are having afternoon tea with Mercine and Kiki under the orange trees. We had a traditional glyko (sweet) made with mastic gum from the island of Chios and Kiki had made a beautiful tiropita (cheese pie).

We left very full, and Kiki gave us fig jam, pears, grapes and a bottle of homemade wine to take with us!