mansion-house rodialos - Crete

No one goes to Greece for the tucker. After a few days, even the idyllic taverna begins to pall and most Brits start griping about the lack of variety before going off in search of pizza or curry.    Historically, unless you stayed with a Greek family, the best local food was virtually a dosed shop. But last year, a former TV producer called Mary Fragaki began running a series of cookery courses in Crete with her childhood friend, Jenny Vassi-1 Lakis, a professional cook.
    You couldn't imagine a more dramatic location than the Rodialos - a Minoan-style mansion sitting like a mini-Knossos on its own patch of rocky shore near the village of Panormo. Below the house, weird rock formations provide ideal sunbathing platforms.    "Today's Greek kitchen is quick, a bit like the Chinese" said Mary. The freshest ingredients are essential. If it is windy, the boats won't go out, so we won't have fish the next day as it will be too old."
    As it happened, we were in luck - our first meal was a tasty baked sea bream with okra, followed by some simple trachanas soup: milled barley cooked with lemon and parsley and served with yogurt and more lemon.

Jenny had also made lamb stew with asklovia (fennel) and onion. The olive oil came from the Fragakis' own trees, and the salad was scattered with pomegranate from the tree growing in the courtyard ("Rodialos" itself means pomegranate tree of the sea).
    The herb garden supplies aromatic plants and wild greenery. Basil, peppers and rocket grow beside stamnagathi (coastal chicory, a small tasty leaf which the Minoans used to serveup with oil and vinegar) and sweet milkwort, agalatsida (also served in salads or boiled with tomato).
    Each day started with a lively talk about Cretan food, then a hands-on preparation of the day's meal. Some days we would squeeze into the car with Mary and head for the port to choose fish or collect provisions. Once home, we would barely get into cutting and chopping before the tsipouro (a fiery Greek grappa) was being poured, and toasts were being made.
    The workshop culminates in what Mary calls a "grand repas": five courses and wines, with music and dancing. And on the final day, the students cook for the teachers. Throughout, the menus relied less on meat than most taverna meals, and more on vegetables, pulses, pasta and bread.

Our first production was a leek, potato and carrot bake, flavoured with dill, lemon, white wine and raki. But my favourite meal was the glikokolokithopita, a sweet pumpkin pie with feta cheese and filo pastry.
Side dishes included wonderful delicacies such as a bright pink pickled cabbage with honey; pickled green tomatoes; preserved organic aubergines and seaweed; Cretan cheeses including mizithra, kefalotiri and graviera; and paximathia - twice-baked cinnamon - flavoured rusks smothered with chopped tomatoes, oil and coriander.
Evenings at Rodialos are supposed to be free time but somehow always seemed to turn into a party, with friends dropping in to see how things were going.

Mary and her son Vassills regaled us with impromptu duets of traditional Greek songs, dirges from Epirus and mantinades from Crete. Everyone danced at one stage or another.
The most memorable meal away from Rodialos was at the Eden.on the beach road just outside Chania (three courses and wine, £10 each), where the town's old tannery warehouses have been converted into chic nightspots (check out Gasoline). The best excursion is to hire a car and head up to the remote hamlet of Zymbragos where Manolis Psillakis produces some of the purest oil in Greece. The nearby general store sells everything from a cup of coffee to boxes of soap powder, and keeps locals supplied with moon shine while they sit about the price of oil - olive oil that is.

June Field