© ANNA MARIA KAMBOURAKIS
LOCAL PERSPECTIVE
ANNA MARIA, HUSBAND, VASILI, AND GUESTS
A TASTE OF THE SIMPLE LIFE By Anna Maria Kambourakis
How one woman’s passion for a Greek island inspired her to make a life-changing move and share farm-fresh cuisine with others
“Y
ou mean, I can just eat it off the tree?” “Would you prefer if I put it on a styrofoam tray and wrap it in plastic?” I respond.
I’m not surprised when I get questions like this from guests to our property. I had asked the same ones nearly 30 years ago when I first came to my family’s village in Crete. Bemused and often sarcastic responses were a constant from my cousins who couldn’t understand that, while I was a blood relative, I knew so little about food and life on Crete. 4 0 | B O N V I VA N T 2 0 2 1
At age 9, I ate my first fruit directly from a tree — an apricot, plucked from a branch while standing on a donkey to reach a ripe one. “Check for worms,” my cousin reminded me as I opened the fruit along the seam. The furry skin of the apricot tickled my lips and tongue. That first bite was an explosion of flavour. This is what food is supposed to taste like. The apricot was sweet and tart and like nothing I had before. Every meal that summer was better than the next. Potatoes fried on an open flame in thick golden olive oil and topped
