Or at least it was, just a little while ago, as my family and I sat with our best friends, wonderful enough, as always, to have invited us out to dinner at what was a great restaurant. The name was hardly the result of someone having been up all night thinking of the title - The Greek Tavern - pure & simple, it was more than enough to amply suggest what lay inside - sumptuous food and plenty of it, done extremely well.
It had been a good while since I had eaten Greek food, in so much as going-out to a restaurant to do so.....the last time would have been in Cairns, oddly enough, and almost certainly 1998 (or whichever was the year that 'Saving Private Ryan' was released here at the movies.)
I know this with great certainty & enough precision: just as music, movies or other things we surround ourselves with can so often enable us to accurately timeline our lives, this was a fine enough example of same.
I was married at that time to a previous partner - she was then expecting our daughter, now a whole 12 yrs old.
We had dined at this large Greek place in Cairns, staying there on one of the many weekends we would spend, driving-up from Innisfail, our home at the time, and checking-in to one of our favourite hotels.
At this particular Greek place, I recall quite well that we had baby char-grilled octopus and mussels in a tomato & wine sauce, with plenty of great bread for mopping-up, amongst other fineries & trimmings.
After what was a delicious meal, we went to see the newly released SPR at the movies - we were no more than 15 minutes into the film.....and as anyone having seen the movie will well-know, it's that first 30 minutes or so that are particularly intense, with very harrowing stuff as the marines stormed the beachhead - gut-wrenching & still hard to watch........it was so intense that particular evening, with the Dolby Digital doing it's thing so well and all, that my wife of the time could not, stay a moment longer.
It had deeply upset her, had Private Ryan, and she was worrying such a lot about how the explosions and noise, along with her own physical & emotional upset was being 'felt' by our then unborn daughter. As many a mother to be would, and quite understandably, really, she went into foetal protection mode.......this badly chosen movie, well, it was all too much, and we simply had to leave the theatre, something I could fully understand, as much as I had been hanging-out to see the film on the Big Screen. Pregnancy can cause all manner of upset, on many levels, and this degree of audio-visual onslaught to the senses was just too emotionally overwhelming for her - it even messed with my own head and emotions quite a bit, and I'm a man who's seen several men's share of blood, snot & gore via my 'bloody, gory & snotty' profession.
Perfectly time-stamped, then was this life-event - and I can report that the daughter seems none the worse for wear for what little exposure she did have to SPR that evening, and is already a Black Belt in Taikwondo as if to prove as much (or possibly as a response?).
But I have digressed somewhat - this evenings meal was something to behold, and as well that we had brought along with us what was a very reasonable appetite.
The 'specials' that my good friends had ordered were just that.....very special.....with dips as fresh as it's possible to be, followed by all manner of goodness......marinated pickled octopus, giant beans in sauce, beans in Giant's sauce, calamari, sausages sliced and grilled to perfection.......and then came the meat.......2 huge platters of lamb, chicken, meatballs......accompanied by, naturally, the very finest Greek salad, a type of fried haloumi cheese (the exact name of which I forget), but all of it superb, superb, superb..........we loved it to bits.
It was my wife & daughter's first foray into Greek dining, and I'm very sure it won't be their last, since they enjoyed it so much. I only hope we can find one locally that does things as well up in the Far North, which might be a big ask - I will, though, no doubt, be attempting to build a little more Greek technique into my cooking repertoire, and we'll simply have to see how that one goes.
Right now though, it's back to the packing.
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