Sakis, Again, and Imam

Friday, May 08, 2009

Today, we went looking for Sakis, who made us such a nice bathroom window, to look at the available options for sliding glass doors and windows. The ones we have are single-paned and the weather-stripping is so old it’s practically non-existent. In winter, the wind blows right through them. So we walked into Sakis’ shop.

He wasn’t there. Kostas, his assistant, told us he didn’t know where Sakis had gone or when he would be back, but we were welcome to wait.

We declined, saying we had other errands to run. (We were puzzled, too, because we knew Sakis has a cell phone…)

Next stop, supermarket, or what passes for one here. We had reached the supermarket door when Sakis came into view, heading in the opposite direction, toward his shop. That makes the second time in three days Sakis has just appeared when we needed him. Does he make a habit of this, or something?

So, back to his shop we all three went. He has some good-looking sliding doors and windows (or rather, small samples), for he custom makes each order), insulated, double-paned, with the option of bright brass grids between the two sheets of glass.

He will call us with an estimate. We probably can’t afford new windows and doors this trip, but we can at least get an idea what it will cost when we are ready.

Then, back to the supermarket for a few things only it carries, and from there to Nikoletta’s grocery store, where we bought everything else and she kindly repeated to me her recipe, which she had given me a couple of years ago, for Imam. It’s an eggplant casserole sort of a thing that the local Turkish ruler here was known to enjoy; hence it is named after him. Here’s how to prepare it.

In a large skillet, put ground beef, tomatoes, garlic, and onions. Chop off the top and bottom of the eggplants; with a potato peeler, take off stripes of the skin. Cut each eggplant almost in two and lay it, face down and open, on top of the sautéing meat mixture. By the time the meat is done, the eggplant should be soft. (You can also fry the eggplant in a separate skillet until it’s soft, but Nikoletta says that means you use olive oil and that will make the meal “heavy”.

Stuff each eggplant with the meat/tomato sauce mixture and lay it, open-faced, in a baking pan. Sprinkle parsley over it. Cover with very thin slices of tomato to keep things from drying out. Bake until – well, it wasn’t clear how long.

Neither are the amounts of anything clear. One must experiment to get it to ones own taste, I suppose. Or use common sense, or pretend it’s spaghetti sauce.