HARLOT'S SAUCE:

A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss 

and Greece

 "Harlot's sauce" is a spicy, thick, Italian tomato sauce traditionally made with anchovies and olives, but has been adapted in many parts of the world to include pork and beef.  On menus at Italian restaurants it is listed as 'salsa puttanesca.'  Legend has it that harlots in southern Italy made this sauce "between clients," because it was quick and inexpensive to prepare, but also quite delicious.  

Our five contest winners guessed that the title of Patricia's memoir was the translation into English of salsa puttanesca and they had their own original and creative ideas how it might apply....

Congratulations!

Read about our contest winners and new contest to the left and more fun excerpts from the memoir

below:

 ...The water was so clean that I could see the rocks and the algae, deep below. Tiny black fish swam past, unperturbed, but quickly scattered if I raised my foot......A smattering of black shadows were stuck out of the underwater rocks: spiky sea urchins. They were a metaphor for my first holiday with my Greek lover of two months. Enjoy the unusual and the beautiful on offer, but.... be careful where you step.

....an uninitiated tourist on a short holiday didn’t know these same men 'worked the beaches' all summer, in persistent pursuit of new plunder. It was these fishermen who had the most chance of going home with an unwary octopus, hit well, softened up and dangling from a string, ready to be fried....After observing kamakia (fishermen) that first summer and every visit to a Greek beach since, the best advice I can give to all unattached women travelling to Greece is this - everything there in moderation, especially the sun, the ouzo and the men. They’re great in small doses, but too much and you might get a bellyache later.

...Gregori told me, "You know why some of the islanders we've met are pleased to learn that your father is Italian? It’s because the Italians who came to conquer the island during World II were benevolent. They did so much to improve Rhodes. Do you see the mosaic patterns of the pathways? They’re made by the Italians from individual black and white stones. Before the Italians came, the island was overrun with snakes, but they got rid of this problem for us by bringing in the deer.”

....Then, I heard Gregori's voice. "You know,"  he mused, "everything’s gone wrong since Patricia got here. I wonder if her grandmother put ‘the evil eye’ on us. She didn’t want Patricia to come."

"God forbid. Light a candle at the church before you leave, just in case. You don’t want that on you, especially while you‘re on the plane," cautioned the aunt.

We left for Athens the next day and three days later, we were back in New York.

“I was twelve years old when it happened. We didn’t have a television back then and there was no news of the overthrow in the newspapers. We tried to find information on the radio, but they’d stopped all broadcasts. Just like that, the radio went dead. We ran downstairs to my grandparents’ apartment, because their radio could get the BBC. While the adults listened to the BBC broadcast, my brother and I had to keep watch for anybody who might tell the police we were listening to foreign radio. People were being taken away to prison for less. They even arrested Mikis Theodorakis.”

Mikis Theodorakis is known throughout the world for his music scores to films like Serpico and Zorba the Greek, but he was also the leader of a liberal youth movement in Greece. He'd vehemently opposed the junta...

No matter what bad thing happened to me, Greece was not going to let it happen on a less than splendid day....

Gregori’s mother was known for her tasty moussaka, a merit of which she was proud. The detail that two of her four dinner guests “would not, could not,” eat cheese, “could not, would not” deter her from presenting her best recipe, the scent of which unambiguously wafted through the communal hallway of the building.

"I smell cheese," pronounced my father the moment we stepped in.

He looked at me like I was Brutus. "Jee-zus Christ, Patricia! Don’t tell me they don’t know I hate cheese!"

"I told them, I swear!" I whispered desperately.

My grandmother wailed, "It stinks in this hall! Oh, my God, what are they trying to feed us!?"

"Shhh! Be quiet!' my mother hissed. 'Somebody’s coming! They’ll hear you. Don’t make a scene, I‘m warning you all!"

...If luck came my way, the soccer match was taped from an Italian station and the local

station would air with it, a short clip of an Italian children’s show, which featured a puppet mouse, Topo Gigio. Oh, my gosh, he was cute. I’ll never forget the Sunday evening in 1963 when my dad called to me, "Patricia, look who’s on The Ed Sullivan Show."

It was Topo Gigio! I didn’t know my beloved puppet mouse could speak English, too.....

.....Everyone in the north was angry with the NATO involvement. Even though the British were part of that offensive, the killing of the young man in Cyprus during the protest against the Turks, stirred up unresolved hostilities the Greeks held for the Americans. The Greeks support the Cypriots in their desire to get the Turks out of Cyprus, but Turkey is an ally of the United States. This resentment was fueled by the Kurdish leader, Ocalon’s capture and the suspicion that the United States was involved. As a result, Americans up north were being harassed and the United States government was evacuating the American Embassy there for the time being.

*** ***

Likely, this was why the immigration police had come to my door. There was a family of Albanian refugees who lived in one of the flats in the block. As I sat on the floor, leaning against the inside of our apartment door, I heard the policeman knock at their door, too. I was still sitting in the same spot an hour later, when I heard that whole family, in harried whispers, empty their flat and take off into the night....

I was accustomed to seeing Nonnie dress cheerfully and I had no idea she was the pioneer of bright-coloured clothing for the middle-class, senior woman. Most of her clothing she made herself, which explained how she’d gotten the shades she wanted. She wore matching costume jewellery and matching accessories, too. If she had a red jacket, white blouse and a white skirt, she wanted red enamel earrings, red shoes and a red handbag. To enhance her ensembles, every week, my grandmother had her hair ‘done.’  ‘Done,’ meant the salon would tease up her pure white hair, smooth it back down and spray it from a bottle labelled, Old-Biddy Hair Gum, until Nonnie’s hair was literally unbendable. What they did next was unclear. They called it, “toning.“  And… I think… they’d say magic words over it, so that the stiff whiteness that was once a head of human hair, tinged blue or purple.  Nonnie‘s ‘done’  hair looked and felt  like blueberry-flavour candy floss.

The match we went to see was the New York Cosmos against the Greek National Team, at Giants Stadium. It was July 1, 1981 and there were over 42,000 spectators in the stands, a sizeable attendance for a soccer match taking place in the United States. It was quite a treat for Gregori that the Greek National Team would not only be in the United States competing, but against one of the best teams The U.S. had to offer.Gregori had planned well. But as with all ‘best laid plans,’ things went awry. As soon as we sat down, it started drizzling.  But cold damp was not to be the primary discomforts of the outing.

“Why are we sitting here?” demanded my father. “We’re with the Greek team fans.”

It wasn’t too difficult for him to work that out. We were surrounded by hundreds of people, all speaking Greek, wearing blue and white, waving Greek flags and shouting, “Ellas! Ole Ellas!” which means, simply enough, “Greece! Olé Greece!”

I spoke so only my dad could hear. “Dad, be nice. Please.” I implored.

Though I’d kept my voice down, Dad saw no reason to do the same." I thought we were sitting in the Cosmos section. I’m a Cosmos fan!"

 __________

...The ceremony was moving for both of us, with our family and friends there to share it. The setting for the reception at The Swan Club was glorious, the food and the music spectacular. Despite the rocky start, it all went off without a hitch.

Okay, there might have been…one or two tiny ones.

The first transpired at the church as my father and I were about to walk down the aisle.

 Dad’s glance went to the altar where Gregori and Louie, the bridesmaids and ushers all waited. He sighed deeply. Then he looked at me and said softly, “Patricia, this is our last chance. Say the word and I’ll take you out of here right now.” He had his hand on my arm in a tight grasp, like a pet owner gripping an untrained puppy’s leash....

....I hadn’t had a chance to spend much time with Papa Elias and his wife, Popi. when they came over for the wedding. Though Gregori assured me that his uncle and aunt were not at all like what one might expect a priest and his wife to be, my anxieties only increased when, upon our arrival, we were met by an assemblage of four, very formidable-looking priests. Not one was smiling. All wore long, black robes with tight sleeves. Three had white beards down to their waists and because they were out in the blinding sun, all wore dark sunglasses.

Were they priests, or ZZ Top?

“Gregori,” I whispered in bemusement, “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered back.

Then Papa Elias boomed from the balcony, “EER-THAH-NEH! (“They’re here!) .......

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