It's Greek to me

When I was a kid my dad would take us to a small Greek grocery store called Calamata's. Mr. Calamata was always friendly and would ask how school was doing. He and my dad would talk about current affairs while we looked around at all the strange items on the shelves. After a little while we would say good-bye and walk out with our precious cargo wrapped in brown paper.

My dad would always buy a big bag of pistachios. They weren't that easy to find in those days and Mr. Calamata carried nuts that had been grown in an exotic placed called Iran. They also turned our fingertips red. Better yet, dad always bought, at least when Mrs. Calamata had made enough so they weren't sold out, a tin of baklava and a smaller tin of delicious moist cookies.

I've had other baklava since but they don't compare to Mrs. Calamata's.* Each layer of phyllo was saturated with syrup and the chopped nuts provided just enough crunch. I can still taste it now.

The cookies, I later learned, were called melomakarona. They were somewhat spicy, the color of dark brown sugar with some chopped walnuts on top and would crumble in my mouth when I bit into them.

After a number of years, Mr. Calamata decided to sell the store and retire. That, of course, made my whole family sad. That's when we learned that Calamata was just the name of his store and he was actually Mr. Zisimos. For a while his wife would still make the baklava and send us some, but after a year or so, they moved and we lost track.


*A few years later my mom found a baklava recipe that tasted pretty much the same and she still makes it for special occasions. I've had no luck finding a comparable melomakarona recipe, though.