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As a single woman, I never was much of a cook when I lived in California's Silicon Valley. But when I moved to Spetses, a small Greek island in the Saronic Gulf eighteen months ago, it seemed a good idea to learn. It's hard for Americans to find work here, especially in the winter when the tourist economy suffers, so I figured if I could learn to prepare my own meals I could save a few drachmas and eat more often. Also, options for fast food are a little limited. Actually, we don't have any. My friends have all been real good about letting me come over and watch them cook. Most families' mothers start cooking in the morning for the main, mid-day meal. So I can go over for a coffee in the morning, pinch their leftovers from the hot meals they cooked the day before (one friend has a microwave!), and sit at their kitchen tables while their kids are in school, sipping my coffee with my chin in my hand while I watch them work.

After about a year of this careful process of thoughtful observation, I decided to try it myself. My first dinner would be baked chicken with fresh, homemade olive oil, lemon, garlic, onions, and potatoes. I think the whole meal cost me about 2500 GRD (about $6 US). My friend, Margaret, showed me how to do it, even miming the parts I didn't understand.  She made it look pretty easy, but then, with a Greek/British family of five and 20 years on this island, she's got some experience on me. Her instructions sounded pretty simple. Pour in some olive oil, dump in all the stuff, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, and have a glass of wine or two (or three) while the whole thing cooks. "Well, hell, a monkey could do that with one arm tied behind its back," I told her, and set off toward home with all the ingredients, cocky with my new-found determination. 

Everything went off without a hitch. I hummed, I sang, I drank my wine, I chopped those onions, pared those potatoes, artfully arranged the chicken pieces in the dish, and slid the pan in to cook. I was proudly sipping my second glass of wine, congratulating myself on my resourcefulness -- having managed to live 45 years without ever cooking what I could call a legitimate meal -- when I detected a strange odor coming from the kitchen down the hall. At first, I dismissed it. Maybe that's what Greek chicken smells like. But after an hour or so, I thought I'd better investigate.
 

A word about this nonuser friendly oven. Most kitchens on Spetses don't have the generous sized ovens we're used to in America. You know, the kind with the big old burners on top, which are great for heating soup and making Jiffy Pop. Then they have a cavernous area which I think you use for baking cookies and roasting things. All I know is, they're hell to clean. And I only know that because every time I moved to a new apartment, I had to clean one. Of course one cleaning was all they usually needed during my tenure, because those frozen pizzas don¹t make much of a mess. But I digress. I cautiously tip-toed into the kitchen with my nose leading the way. My little oven, which is about the size of an overgrown toaster oven, has three burners on the top and sits on a little wooden table.  I opened the door, and saw through the steam and glorious smells, my gourmet chicken  dinner cooking and crackling just as Margaret had promised it would.  But what's this? A stream of smoke was coming from beneath the oven, and the odor was definitely stronger now. Glancing over my shoulder, I realized the kitchen was full of smoke. I leaned closer to the oven for a sniff. My eyes began to water. This is the strange odor I'd smelled earlier, but it didn't seem to be coming from the food. More curious than scared, now, I carefully lifted a corner of the oven and looked beneath to find the source.

The entire center of the table top -- now, I realize, made of particle board -- was a gaping, smoking, smoldering hole. Ye Gods! Do we have a fire department on Spetses? 911? Mom? Anybody? 

I thought of dashing upstairs to ask my neighbor for help, but we're not on speaking terms since I declined to take her advice on how tightly I fastened my cats' flea collars. My landlord speaks no English and lives in Athens. Besides, he always blames me for things that get broken (HA!) so that didn't seem like a helpful option, either. I decided to call Margaret. It was all her fault, anyway.
 

"Well, the first thing you do," she instructed in her drill sergeant mode, "is you cut off the power to the kitchen. Do you know how to do that?" "Uh .... no," I replied.  "You know where your fuse box is?" she asked.  "Would that be the box on the wall where I flip the switch for hot water when I want to take a shower?" I asked. "Bravo! Yes, that's it!" she replied, now more like a caring sister than a drill sergeant. "Flip the switches in that box until you find the one that turns off the power to the oven."

I'm writing this down madly. "OK," I mumble, as she continues, speaking very clearly.

"The next thing is, get that oven off the table and put the table outside," now more like the drill sergeant.

"But what about my dinner?" I whined, thinking of all my hard work. 

"I think your dinner is probably done," she replied, rather smugly, I thought.

That Margaret thinks she's so smart. Why cut the power  to the oven when all I have to do is unplug the stupid thing? I found the cord to the oven and yanked it hard, but it wouldn't give. I was thinking about bracing one foot against the wall and heaving with all my might when discretion got the better of me. I got down on my hands and knees and followed the trail of the cord from the oven to the wall and was amazed to see that the cord was hard-wired into the tile wall! No plug, no socket, nothing. In fact, nothing left at all to do, now, but follow Margaret's instructions. Thinks she's so smart.

I easily located the switch that cut the power. Then, gritting my teeth, I heaved the oven onto the marble countertop. Not much of a feat, really, as the countertops in my kitchen would more easily suit a person of half my height. My three cats backed away from the conflagration. I opened the 
windows and stepped back to survey the damage.

It seems the oven had been placed directly on the wooden table, without adequate space beneath for the heat to circulate. This would account for the fact that my table now looks more like a scaffolding structure than anything that would hold an appliance. I hauled the table outside in the darkness and was horrified to see that it still glowed with burning embers. I wheeled around and skidded into the kitchen to fill up a bottle with water, then doused the thing nine ways 'til Sunday. Then, crisis averted, I went back inside to enjoy my meal. And I really did enjoy it (once the smoke had cleared)!

When my landlord saw the charred table a few days later, he chastised me for cooking with oil. "Just one spatter can cause a fire," he admonished. I tried to explain what had happened, that it wasn't really my fault at all, but he wasn't buying it. He just shook his head and told me to get some bricks to raise the oven off the surface of the table. "Stupid American," I could hear him saying to himself. Thinks he's so smart.

They're working on a house right up the hill from where I live, so I snuck up there today in the afternoon, when everyone was asleep, and I pinched four fat, new bricks to prop up my oven. And I'm proud to say, tonight's baked imam (eggplant) came out fine. Tomorrow: Moussaka!