January 2024
Many exciting things are happening this month. The first, which always happens on the first day of the new year, is David’s birthday, which is also his Name Day in the Greek Orthodox Church. When you are baptized in the Greek Orthodox church, you are given the name of a Saint (like Demetrios, John, Mary, etc) or the name of a biblical event (such as the Annunciation or Resurrection). My paternal Grandfathers name was Vasileos (William or Basil), and St. Basil’s name day is January 1st. Coincidence? Doubtful. So David chose St. Basil as his baptismal/Patron Saint name.
For David’s birthday, I made a special “manly” meal of reverse seared ribeye, crispy smashed potatoes, mixed veggies and horiatiki salata. Happy Birthday my Love!
So now to the next step of pain….. my oath report will be sent to the municipality of Rhodes where my name will be registered, and then we can finish the process in Greece. That would mean a taftotita and Greek passport. Last step in this country (USA) is for David to apply for the digital nomad visa allowing him to stay in Greece for 12 months, giving us time to complete the final process. Without the visa, David would only be able to stay in Greece for 3 months, and his long-term residency permit has to be preceded by an existing visa. We’ll see how that goes….
Homemade tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwich. It turned out great and not as hard as I thought! For the grilled cheese, I used homemade bread covered with a light mayo on the outside, and whatever cheese I had available on the inside. Cooked on the stovetop with a little salted kerrygold butter.
The tomato soup was way easier than I thought. The recipe I used was to roast the veggies in the oven first. Place 3 1/2 lbs of cherry tomatoes (or really any), 2 medium red onions, a whole head of garlic, red peppers, rosemary, thyme, salt & pepper in a roasting pan. Add olive oil to coat and roast at 375 degrees for 50-60 min.
Saute 1-2 white onions in butter in a fairly large pot then add a tablespoon of tomato paste. Dump the roasted veggies into the pot, add 2 3/4 cups vegetable stock, some worcestershire, balsamic vinegar, smoked paprika, cayenne (if you want some heat. I added red pepper flakes instead), fresh basil, salt & pepper. Let it simmer for 8-10 minutes, then take it off the stove, blend it all together and put back in the pot. At that point you can add some cream, or not. It’s optional. I added about 1/2 cup of half and half to mine.
March – Spring Training
Baseball has finally arrived which means my depression has ended! Since we’re still in Florida, we took in a couple games. My two favorite teams are the Cardinals and the Astros. Lucky for me, they both play within minutes from here. We invited my sister and Nikoleta to join us at the Astros-Cardinals game on March 1st. It was Nikoleta’s first time seeing a baseball game. My sister had quite the challenge explaining how the game is play to Nikoleta….in Greek. I have to say, her Greek is far better than mine! We had great seats and an added plus – John Mozeliak, the Cardinals President of Operations was sitting just a few rows from us.
As the days are ticking down, my sister and I decided to do some baking. Eirene has our mother’s old cook book from way back when we were kids. We followed the recipe as best we could, complete with our mother’s creative use of the english language lol!
Finikia, otherwise known as Melomakarona
Digital Nomad VISA
The day finally arrived! I won’t bore you with all the details and drama that it took to get David’s digital nomad visa, but of course, there were issues in an otherwise perfectly normal easy process (Like it took close to two months for a mostly cut and dry process). So! It’s time to load up the truck and move to Greece!
Farewell Tour
Since we had even more stuff to put in our storage unit, we decided to drive to Austin and leave from there for Greece. First stop to visit the National Treasure at her new digs in Orange City, FL. My Thea planned some meals and we spent some quality time together.
Next Stop – Houston, where we stayed with Andrea/Ty and attended St. John the Theologian Greek Orthodox Church where I was choir director and church administrator for a number of years.
When we weren’t trying to play Tetris with the storage unit, we spent time together at our favorite taco place, soaking up the Tex Mex cuisine – Cabo Bob’s
Photo shoot with Cassandra’s doggies and the bluebonnets. Other than Luna not wanting to pose, it was great weather for photos.
Our last act in Austin was to have lunch with our good friends Jack & Pat. After church, we headed over to the original Chuy’s restaurant for our last taste of Tex-Mex. We had a most wonderful time!!
Next stop – a break of doom morning call with Delta Airlines…..