Odyssey Picnics on Poros

On 30 May 2020
In Blog
By Katerina Sakelliou
0 Comments

This year Odyssey celebrates 25 years of laughter and happiness, hard work and joy, hugs and kisses, as a happy and busy family. During all those years we have had the luck to meet wonderful guests and get to know nice and interesting people. We loved doing things with them, like organise parties, heavenly dinners, outdoor excursions, cooking classes, wine tastings, Greek language classes and dance lessons. Something we look back on with great pleasure are the Odyssey picnics on Poros!

Food and wine

Now that we have been isolating for a while, we reminisce over the times that we celebrated life, were close to each other and enjoyed those picnics together in the beautiful and interesting spots that our island has to offer. We gathered food and wine and asked our guests if they would like to come and have a picnic with us. Usually everyone came and we had a fantastic time.

The Odyssey picnic convoy

For some picnics we even rented a boat and went to a beach or to a small island like Daskalio. Other moments we went with bikes and motorbikes, which was funny as sometimes our motorbikes were making a convoy: The Odyssey picnic convoy. This way we drove to, for example, Stavros; the beautiful, small, white washed church at the south end of the harbour approaches to Poros-town.

It offers a wonderful view over Poros, and the boats pass by so near that sometimes people on the boats ask for a glass of wine or appear jealous of our happy gatherings. The clock tower, which is an iconic landmark of Poros, offers a beautiful and quiet place for a picnic. One of my favourite picnic places is the Milos area and the church of Agios Athanasios that is so beautiful that we often stay there for hours and hours.

Odyssey-style picnic baskets

Naturally at Odyssey we have our Odyssey style picnic baskets; beautiful baskets with nice glasses, local wines and drinks, thus creating our own picnic adventure style. Quite often we would first cook together with the guests and then take everything from the kitchen with us, still hot in the cooking tray. Sometimes we were lazy; On those occasions we just took pre-made Odyssey food with us.

Photo: John van Helvert

Picnic chaos

Of course all was organised by me, and I am not the most organised person in the world, I have to admit. Very often I would be soooo excited that I would forget things or change the place of the picnic at the last minute. Sometimes my dear Michelle or Roula would have to bring us the picnic baskets on their motorbikes to the “spur of the moment” picnic site. Or Stella would have to try and find everybody to tell them where we would be! It’s a good thing that we only have the nicest people as guests and nobody ever got angry or upset.

Some of the recipes that we used for our picnics on Poros I have already written about on Katerina’s Kouzina. My favourites are the tzatziki of course and the eggplant salad (Melizanosalata), the Greek salad, the spinach pie, the olive bread and the olives with feta cheese. All easy to take with us and easy to eat. Together with some lovely wine nothing else is needed; What else do you need when you are in a nice place with fantastic views, can enjoy nice food with a cool glass of wine or beer and find yourself with some of the best company in the world?

That’s it my friends. Picnic in paradise or should I say paradise in a picnic; you choose.

Katerina's Kouzina - Authentic Greek Recipes and more