Food Memories - good bread, a bottle of wine, and a bathing suit (sort of)

So, you are asking yourself what a bottle of wine, a good crusty loaf of bread, and a bathing suit have in common. More than you might think if you are hosteling in Corfu Greece, and swimming in the Mediterranean.

Check out the recipe from this story here.

Many moons ago, while waiting at the port in Brindisi Italy for a ferry to Corfu with my new, very British travel friend Sophie, someone dropped a flyer for a hostel into our laps. Having absolutely no idea where would sleep when we arrived, we took this as a sign. After an especially rough, 11 hour ferry crossing, the cheapest passage being on the open top deck, across the Ionian Sea, that was made tolerable only by the bottles of local Italian wine we had in our backpacks, we stepped off of the ferry and onto the docks in Greece, bleary eyed, stinky, stomachs growling and a little hung over. While Sophie and I both spoke French and Sophie was fluent in Italian, neither of us spoke Greek. This would be the first point in my travels that I was entirely unable to communicate with spoken language-a little scary but we had faith. With our wine stained hostel advertisement in hand, we sought directional guidance with a series of polite gestures, some pointing and lots of smiles. We were on our way!

After a short hike through town, a bus ride and a rather strenuous hike up to the top of a steeply terraced olive grove, we stopped, dropped our packs at our feet and realized we had arrived. A collection of low, one story, stucco buildings surrounding a small pool and outlined by the most delightful gardens, was waiting there, just for us. After registering at a long, well-worn wooden farm table, we were handed a small glass (or two) of the local anise flavored ouzo as part of our welcome. Weeee! Properly initiated, we were shown the beds that would be ours during our stay. I say beds because we were not actually in a room. We were on the roof top of one of the buildings overlooking the pool, with immense billowing white linen canopies for shade. With tired, bleary eyes, we surveyed this idyllic scene and promptly decided that we were never leaving.

Now…on to the bread, the wine and the bathing suit. About three days into our stay, along with our new and very handsome Spanish and Greek friends, we made our way down to the beach for a day of swimming, eating and drinking. As I mentioned, we had a substantial hike up to our perfect hostel in the sun. In order to reach the ocean and pebbled beaches below, it was a steep and rocky trip the other way. Undeterred, we headed down and arrived to find our very own private beach. We spread out towels and unloaded our backpacks of all of the accoutrements for a fabulous day of food, wine and sun. Just writing about this makes me smile. I’m smiling right now. Really.

Our swimming took us out to some rocks not far from shore with a series of flat ledges that were just below the water line. As we swam around the nooks and crannies of these Mediterranean shelves, we noticed they were covered with mussels. I mean mussels everywhere! Oh joy! We began harvesting as many of these beautiful little creatures as we could hold. With hands full and held high over our heads, we kicked our way through the water back to shore. We ate some raw (not a good idea by the way) and cooked the rest over a fire right on the beach. To this day, these are the best mussels I have ever had. Heaven! So, all of this to say that I am sharing with you my much enhanced version of this lunch of mussels and wine. My Mediterranean fish stew evokes for me, all of the sun, salt, and discovery of that day, on a very small beach with a very fabulous group of people and not much in the way of bathing suits 😊 Cheers!