The taste of a Greek summer lingers as the evenings close in

Picture-postcard images of Greek islands on the shelves of Lidl this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

I’m back from Greece for little more than a week, but already I am missing Greek food – the fresh fruit available every morning in the local supermarket in Platanes on the eastern edges of Rethymnon, the freshly-baked bread and pastries from the bakery downstairs, the taste of real Greek yoghurt and real Greek feta, the fresh figs and fleshy olives, the pomegranates, the aubergines, the peppers, the grapes growing on the vines …

There was Lidl supermarket behind Julia Apartments, where I was staying for the week, and I even joked about whether they had regular Irish weeks, just like Lidl stores in Dublin have regular Greek weeks.

But this evening, I was glad to live so close to a Lidl supermarket.

It’s Greek Week once again there … the first they have had since last May.

Being homesick for Greek food was aggravated last night as I stayed up late watching the Greek election results coming in on television news channels.

This evening, on the way home from work, I stopped off in my local Lidl for stuffed peppers, baklava, halva, cheese pies, Greek yoghurt (not Greek-style yoghurt), tzatziki, feta, broad beans … even a few bars of olive soap, all from the Eridanous range, all decorated in the Blue and White national colours, and often with images of sun-kissed Santorini, with blue domes and roofs over white-washed churches and houses.

Although they had bottles of ouzo and anessia, they had no Greek wines however.

But as the evenings close in and the nights become longer than the days, meaning autumn is soon going to show signs of turning to winter, the taste of Greece is going to linger a little longer, and promises and hopes of returning to Crete are kept alive.

Tastes of Greece that help to keep alive autumn hopes of returning next summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)