Man with a Cleaver

As many of you know, Andrea and I cook our own dinner here in Astypalaia.  Cooking dinner usually involves shopping for food at three or four stores. They include the fruit and veggie store, the super market, the butcher and the bakery. Usually we shop after 6 pm, as stores close each day from 2-6 pm.  However, on our day off we sometimes shop in the morning.

We decided to visit the butcher shop early in the day in the hopes of buying some of his exceedingly tasty handmade sausages.  We had purchased some the day before and they were the best thing that we had tasted to date in Astypalaia.

When we arrived at the butcher shop a crowd was forming inside the establishment.  It is a small place, with standing room for seven or eight people.  It is hot in the butcher shop, the meat case is refrigerated, but not the store.  Since a local woman was questioning the butcher in detail about the meat and taking her sweet time deciding what to buy, I decided to wait outside in the 90 degree heat for my turn in line.  It was cooler outside.

Anyhow, now the place is really filling up with locals and tourists alike.  We know at least one of the other patrons, a French man who has been visiting the island for decades.  Now we are all crammed into the shop again, sweating profusely.

Well by now the butcher's patience is running low with this woman who is taking up so much of his time.  She doesn't want to pay for the bones in some of the meat and is trying to direct him exactly how to make his cuts.  The butcher is starting to raise his voice, he's speaking in animated Greek, and he is starting to gesture with his cleaver.  Immediately the French man is worried, and he is wondering aloud why this woman is willing to agitate a man with a cleaver.  Then he starts to worry that the butcher will become so distracted that he will cut his own hand off.  Andrea and I start to giggle with the man, but the three of us are pressed up against the far wall of the shop in case anything goes awry.  It seems like a scene out of a movie.

Finally, as the woman is directing the butcher on how to cut a leg of lamb, he brings the cleaver down with a great swing and it cuts through the bone and the knife is left sticking out of the butcher's block. Andrea, our French friend and I all jump in unison at the sound.  It is at this point that the woman wraps up her purchases.  The butcher asks who is next in line.  It is my turn.  I quickly order some chicken breast filleted thin, an easy order with no fuss.

The moral of the story is, don't aggravate the man with the cleaver.  It might not end well.

The photo is of the butcher paper that our meat is wrapped in.  The writing at the top translates to Greek Meats.  The animals pictured are the most common meats sold in Greece.

More soon.