She would rise from bed most nights and sneak into the moonlit living room where she would sit in mediation trying to remember who she was. She’d wind her arms above her head and remember herself the sexy belly dancer that Gus had first been attracted to. She had been carefree and sexually adventurous when they first met. But she’d been feeling herself shrink, feeling her sexual power leave her, feeling less than she wanted. At night, alone, she would stand and extend a slender arm out, rotate her hips in a generous figure eight, then undulate her soft belly and shimmy her glowing shoulders. She felt her power return, even if only for those brief moments when she was alone and fully herself.
During the day she tried to be a good mother, to meet Gus’s expectations of a good Greek wife, and fought against her own instincts to run free. During the day she tried to be everything that she didn’t know how to be. But at night she danced.
Manny shoved his fist into his mouth and squealed, startling Callie. She ran her fingers through his red curls and said, “I don’t think we can make mac and cheese today, Manny. Today it has to be Greek.”
Callie swung the cart to a stop and wandered over to a pile of spinach where she picked up a bunch in each hand. It suddenly made her think of Popeye the Sailor Man, standing with his feet planted firmly on the ground and making a mighty muscle after eating his can of spinach. “This will be fine. I think it will be fine. Will it?” she said.
Callie wandered down the aisle looking for a plastic bag, and when she returned she noticed a woman a few feet away talking to Manny. The woman turned her dark intense eyes away from Manny to look in Callie’s direction. Callie couldn’t quite tell what her expression was. The woman wiped her eyes, pursed her pillowy lips, and seemed as if she was going to say something. Instead she pulled her long, wavy brown hair back and quickly plaited it into a braid. Even though she was wearing shapeless drab clothes, Callie could see that the woman’s body was soft and curvy. She’s beautiful in a way that people might not notice, thought Callie, surprising herself with a sudden desire to speak to the woman. But before Callie could decide on something friendly to say, the woman spoke.
“You can’t buy that spinach.”
“What?” Callie asked, still clutching a bunch in each hand.
“The spinach. It’s all wrong.”
“Why?”
“Well. Look at it. It’s limp. It has no life.” The woman took the spinach from Callie and shook it, causing the flaccid leaves to droop even further.
“But that’s all they have,” Callie protested. She was both mildly offended and curious about this stranger who was telling her what she could buy.
“What are you making?” the woman asked.
“Spanakopita?” Callie replied as if she was no longer sure.
“Spanakopita?” the woman laughed. “Why?”
Callie shifted her weight, trying to stand a bit taller. “I wanted to surprise my partner. He’s Greek. And he’s always talking about his mother’s cooking. Always. Especially after he’s eaten something I’ve made. No matter what I’ve made.” Callie found herself speeding up like a car with no brakes. “I just think that if I could make something Greek for him he could see me. He could see me as someone. He could see me and not be thinking about his mother. You know? And now his mother is coming to visit in, like, six weeks, and I have to cook for both of them!” She realized that she’d said too much, letting her internal thoughts spill out all over the supermarket floor. She heard a little chuckle.
“Are you telling me that you are trying to please a Greek man? No, wait. You want to rival his mother’s cooking?” The woman laughed.
Callie started to flush. It was one thing to feel inadequate in the privacy of her own thoughts and quite another for a beautiful yet bossy stranger to laugh at her.
“It’s not funny. Don’t laugh at me,” Callie said quietly and realized her eyes were becoming wet.
The woman became quiet. “Okay. I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“What?” Callie asked.
“What did you say you want to make? Spanakopita?”
“Yes,” Callie sniffed.
“Okay, let me show you a few things, all right?” The woman put the spinach bunches back onto the pile.
“What can you show me? You don’t know me,” Callie said, straightening up.
“I don’t know you. But I know spanakopita.” The woman turned her attention to Manny and playfully pinched his chubby thigh. “You look good enough to eat!” Callie’s eyes brightened as she watched the woman play little games with Manny.
The woman led Callie through the supermarket and showed her how to pick the best ingredients to make a spectacular spanakopita. In the organic produce section they found fresh, vigorous spinach and bunches of savory herbs. From the dairy section she selected salty feta cheese, fresh farm eggs, and plenty of creamy butter, explaining along the way what to do with each ingredient, how to mix the filling, and layer the filo. Manny sat and listened attentively from his position in the cart, mesmerized by the woman and her stories.
Callie noticed how the woman’s hands lingered over the fresh produce until she found just the right bunch of spinach, how she closed her eyes as she brought the feathery dill to her nose and inhaled deeply. She gently squeezed the cheese to test its firmness, and checked each peachy brown egg for cracks. She never selected the item from the top of the display, instead searching the pile until she found the choicest ingredients.
“How do you know all this?” Callie asked. “Are you a chef?”
“No. Not a chef,” the woman smiled.
“Well, what do you do?” Callie asked.
“Oh, I have odd jobs. My main one is to house-sit. I have one main family I work for in exchange for an in-law unit and a little cash each month to take care of their house and garden.”
Callie looked into the woman’s dark eyes and felt as if she were drowning in a pool of melted dark chocolate.
“Sometimes I cook, and sometimes I teach private cooking lessons. Sometimes I take care of babies. I’d be happy to take care of this little guy.” The woman smiled at Manny.
There was something familiar about the woman, the color of her hair, the texture of her skin, the way she cocked her head when she said yes.
“Did you say you teach people how to cook?” Callie asked, forming an idea as the words left her lips.
“Well, yes. But only Greek food,” she replied.
“Do you know how to cook a lot of Greek dishes?” Callie asked.
“I know how to cook all of the Greek dishes,” she replied. “I’m a Greek woman!” and she laughed.
Suddenly Callie realized why the woman seemed familiar. She could be a long lost cousin of Gus’s, with her dark hair and eyes and olive skin. “Of course. You’re Greek . . .” There was something more about the woman that Callie couldn’t put her finger on, but wanted to. She felt tempted to reach out and touch the woman’s arm, to feel the muscles below her skin as she grasped the handle of the grocery cart.
“I know this might seem kind of strange since we just met and everything. But I have a feeling about you. Maybe you can show me some things.” Callie looked at the baby still sucking his fist in the shopping cart. “What do you think, Manny? Should we ask our new friend to help us?”
The woman wrinkled her nose at the words “new friend.”
“Would you consider taking on one more odd job? Would you teach me how to be a good Greek woman?” Callie backtracked, flustered. “I mean, how to cook good Greek food?”
The woman looked at Callie for a moment and then shifted her gaze to the baby in the shopping cart. He was sitting pedaling his chubby legs and happily tugging at his mother’s sleeve, which lifted higher, barely showing the edges of a tattoo.
“Oh, I’m not sure. I’ve been doing more babysitting lately.”
“I can pay you for cooking lessons! Of course I’ll pay you. How about if I pay you fifty dollars if you teach me how to make spanakopita today?”
“Xeni. I’m Xeni.” She smiled.
“Xeni. I’m so glad to meet you,” said Callie as she reached out and put her right hand on Xeni’s arm, revealing a luminous tattoo of an olive-skinned Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.
Xeni froze at Callie’s touch, her eyes trained on Callie’s tattoo.
“Won’t you please teach me to cook?” Callie put her hands together in prayer, begging Xeni to say yes with her oceanic blue eyes. “I think it was a sign that we would meet here today, don’t you?”
Xeni rubbed her arm as if Callie’s fingers had burned a mark on the muscles below, her eyes still wide at the sight of the tattoo. “Well, yes I suppose it was.” Then she turned to Manny, grabbed his chubby leg and said, “Tha se faw!”
Tha Se Faw!
I follow her home in my truck. There is plenty of room in the truck for a whole lamb, crates of strawberries, or whatever good thing I find while I’m out. They live up in the Oakland hills, surrounded by trees, and I’m wondering if there is good mushroom hunting on the forest floor. I roll down the windows and inhale deeply. Maybe I can smell them. Maybe not.
Their house is perched on stilts, two flights of stairs up. She hitches the baby onto her back and picks up a bag of groceries. I grab the rest and trudge up behind her. The baby’s legs are crammed through the carrier holes, and I can see the soles of his feet. Pink and creased. Padded fat, fat, fat. He must like to eat to have such plump, delicious thighs, perfect for roasting. One per person would be plenty. Boiled new potatoes with fresh herbs, garlic, and butter. And maybe a little bitter green, like dandelion, to balance the sweetness of his flesh.
I almost trip because I’m so distracted. Not a good idea to go tumbling. I like my legs very much. They take me through orchards and markets, carry me closer to hot ovens and frigid lakes full of fish.
We stand side by side in her kitchen arranging the ingredients on her counter, and I feel a strange prickling sensation making its way up my spine when our hands accidentally touch. She laughs a little, puts her arm around my shoulders, and presses me closer to her body, just for a moment.
“Xeni, thank you for agreeing to teach me to make spanakopita. This is the most comfortable I have ever felt standing in my own kitchen.” She smiles at me, and I look away.
I begin by showing her how to wash the spinach in a big bowl to get all the grit out, the way the women in Greek villages do. I tell her stories about women rolling out filo by hand into sheets thin enough to see through. I tell her how my aunt slaughters roosters, slitting their throats and throwing them into the brambles to drain their blood. A wood-fired oven makes the best roast chicken, freshly killed. I look at the baby and wink. Tha se faw! Tha se faw!
“Wait! What does that mean? Tha se faw? Is that how you say it?”
“It’s a common Greek endearment expressed to babies.” I pause to tickle under Manny’s chubby chin. “It means, I’m going to eat you!” She smiles, and it feels as if the sun has flooded the room.
“You know, I love him so much, sometimes I do want to eat him up.” Manny laughs as she grabs his foot and puts his fat little toes into her mouth. “My sweet tasty baby!”
I can see that she really loves her baby, so I decide she’s okay even though she was dumb enough to marry a Greek guy. Now she has to learn everything I learned growing up. How to cook Greek food, clean house, serve your husband, the proper hierarchy of serving guests hors d’oeuvres and cocktails—male guests first by order of age and importance, Greek husband next, women guests next, etc., etc. Children last. How Greek babies get so fat is a wonder. I sigh.
The butter is sizzling in the pot, ready to be spread on the filo. The filling is ready, emerald green and fresh smelling, studded with good chunks of feta. The hard part has arrived: handling the filo. I show her how to work quickly, gently releasing one thin sheet from the fragile pile of filo and covering the rest with a damp towel. I show her how to brush just enough butter on the filo so that it bakes up crispy and rich, instead of brittle and tasteless or soggy and dense. She looks a bit panicked and with good reason. But the secret to filo is that if the inside layers are somewhat messy, you can always cover them up with one perfect sheet on the outside, and it disguises so many flaws. “Right, baby!?” I click my teeth at him, like I’m chewing. This makes her laugh.
The baking spanakopita fills the kitchen with the smell of a hundred Greek grandmothers. As it cooks, it rises, spreading out the filo layers into a golden crisp puff. She is so excited she’s squealing, and in that moment her eyes remind me of an abundant cerulean ocean fertile with fish.
“I can’t wait to show Gus!” she exclaims.
She can’t wait to serve her husband. Oh brother. I give the baby a squeeze on the calf before I head out the door.
SPANAKOPITA
“The secret to filo is that if the inside layers are somewhat messy, you can always cover them up with one perfect sheet.”
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2 pounds fresh baby spinach, washed to remove all grit and chopped
1 tablespoon chopped dill
1 tablespoon minced mint
10 ounces sheep’s milk feta cheese, crumbled
2 eggs, beaten
1 pound filo dough
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
FOR THE FILLING:
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot. Add the chopped green onions and sauté until they become soft. Add the chopped spinach, and cover with a lid, stirring occasionally until the spinach is wilted. Transfer the greens into a colander and let cool. Use your hands to squeeze out any excess moisture from the spinach and transfer it into a large bowl. Add the dill, mint and the crumbled feta cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the beaten eggs and stir to distribute evenly.
PREPARE THE FILO:
Create a filo pattern for your 9-by-13-inch pan. Put a piece of wax paper in your pan. Press it into the bottom and corners and fold it over the edges of the pan, creating creases on the outside perimeter. Remove the wax paper and cut around the creased edge to create a pattern.
Lay a large piece of wax paper down on a flat work surface. Unroll the filo onto the wax paper. Cover it with another piece of wax paper and top it with a damp cotton dish towel. Do not let the damp towel directly touch the filo, and always keep your filo covered. Using the pattern you created, cut ten sheets of filo to size. When you are done, place the filo back under the wax paper and damp towel.
ASSEMBLE YOUR SPANAKOPITA:
Melt the butter and olive oil in a small pot. Remove one sheet of filo and place it flat on your work surface. Make sure to cover the remaining filo. Using your pastry brush, lightly coat the entire sheet of filo on your work surface with the butter and oil. Take another sheet of filo and place it on top. Brush it with the butter and oil, and repeat this pattern until you have used all of the precut filo. Place it in the pan so it nicely covers the bottom and sides. Pour the spinach mixture into the pan of filo and spread evenly.
Cut the remaining sheets of filo in half width-wise. Using the same method, create a layered stack of buttered filo, and when the last filo has been buttered lay it over the top of the spinach. Roll the edges of the lower crust over twice onto the top crust creating a seal. Brush butter and oil on the rolled edge. Using a sharp knife, score the top layers of filo into 12 pieces. Take care not to puncture the filo all the way down to the filling.
Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 45 minutes or until golden.
Inhale deeply and enjoy the delicious scent of your Spanakopita.
Beep!
Beep!
“Constantino, I’m coming
in thirty days. Last time I was there the bed was too hard. If I wanted to sleep on the floor, I’d go back to my village home and sleep stromatsatha on a pile of hay on the floor with all of my brothers and sisters. We didn’t have a choice back then. But you live in America. Macy’s has a good mattress department.”
Beep!
“Constantino, you still have plenty of time. Don’t forget that I love those cookies they sell in the shopping mall. The kind with walnuts. Don’t forget.”
Beep!
“Constantino! Christos na me filai! Christ protect me! The airline put me in a middle seat. I don’t want to be trapped in my seat like a sardine between all those people. Call them and get me an aisle seat, close to the bathroom, but not too close.”
Beep!
“Constantino, I want to go to church and see my grandson baptized while I am in America. Just because you are living in sin doesn’t mean that he can’t go to heaven. He is just an innocent child. He didn’t do anything.”
Beep!
“Constantino, remember that even though you are a big man and I don’t like many things you do, you are still my little baby and I love you.”
Beep!
The Feasting Virgin Page 4