Spring always feels like a gift to me. It always brightens up my spirit and makes me do things I regularly do not do. Like cut on meat. I am a devoted carnivore you see. Give me a good grilled portion of lamp chops, and put next to them pizza, cheese, rich pasta, fresh baked bread, french fries, you name it, I will still choose the chops.

But when Spring enters, I turn semi-vegeterian.

I crave fresh pasta with fresh sauce. Like last night. I destroyed my little basil plants Im afraid. I got back home and looked at the salmon fillets I had taken out of the freezer to defrost for dinner, and put them back to the fridge. I took all the basil from my little plant, a banch of parsley, a bunch of mint, and a handful of leaves from my oreganon plant (fresh oregano is unbeatable...you really have to try it), put them on the blender with 3 big ripe tomatoes, and a clove of garlic, made my sauce, boiled some wholewheat penne, poured the sauce on them, and tada...dinner!

I like huge salads for dinner. With rye rusks cut in small pieces in them. And olive oil. Ah we Greeks and olive oil. You know, when our mother's exchange recipes among themselves, and give portions, they count the olive oil in water glasses. "You need 1 1/2 water glass of olive oil, 3onions, etc..." We buy our olive oil in metal vessels that have around 18 to 20 lt of olive in them. And the normal yearly consumption of a family of 4 is 6 of those. Angelos and I use a bit less than 2. 36 lt of olive oil in 11 months (cos Im not counting august, since we are always away for 3 week holidays).

We dont actually call it olive oil. We generally refer to it as oil, since we rarely use any other kind of vegetable oil. Olive oil is used everywhere. In frying too. And if you have a horrific ear infection, you will warm a tad of olive oil, take a qtip, and put it in your ear. It soothes the pain. When you get a splinter, you will put some olive oil and it will go out. When your hair gets too dry, you will put olive oil and a warm towel, and you will have baby smooth hair in an hour. When we do our red eggs for easter we will rub them with a towel soaked in olive oil to polish them and make them glow. When we were teenagers and wanted to go out for a heavy drinking night, we would eat a Tsp of olive oil and we would not get that drunk.

I dunno what caused this ode to olive oil now.

I have been very busy this week. We had our press conference about our big project yesterday. The minister of culture gave it for us. But we organised the whole thing. Smashing success. We were celebrating all day yesterday at work! 200 people, all media, photographers, cameras, glamour, I tell you. And even more responsibility now. When you have your minister of culture announce your 1.5 million project to the press it means a thing and one thing only. Everything must be perfect. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g!

And I had a therapy session yesterday too. Had not have one for 3 weeks. Still resisting. Still in obstinacy I'm afraid. And I am not looking forward to the marathon this weekend.But I will go...

I cannot add everyone in flickr. Just the people I know. And to add you, you need to make a flickr account of your own, and then give me your details and I will add you. Its not that I am hiding my face from the people I do not know who might read this blog but never comment. It is not that. But in most of my pictures there are other people too. And I feel more comfortable sharing them with the folks I have some relationship with. Which is most of you of course :)

Right, a post about olive oil, with no title and coherence. happy Friday!