The family taverna, reaching it by passing a narrow alley inside the market near the port, Irene (pronounced Ee-re-ne-ya, which I understand in Greek means peace), the owner sat me down at the table with hot water to start and announced the special for the day. Ydra, Greece is surrounded by the Aegean Sea and its landscape is Mediterranean-dry up to the hills, but rocks and limestones interspersed there is a wild habitat for mountain sage, beautiful oregano and the piquant flowers of dill. It was fall of 2016. The fisherman's soup was a traditional that season, a recipe of pureed rice, lemon, potatoes and herbs, served with homemade loaf bread. I was early and the only one at that time when the restaurant opened (I came in after my hike to the orthodox blue-and-white monastery up the hill), and Irene joined me at my table. I learned that the soup was particular to the commemoration of a passing of a loved one, a yearly memorial, as all the relatives gather around at home to pray and remember, before eating and drinking to heart. I returned to the taverna a few more times during my stay in Ydra, and my last night there I brought Irene a little white lilies and herb leaves bouquet set in an earthenware bowl. She had been hospitably nice to me every time I was at the taverna and over wine and salad we would frankly converse politics and poetry and friends, touching upon those topics from a point of view as amusements in life, and how travel and food draw the world closer to us. Ydra is rustic and ancient; no cars are allowed on the island save mules, like the one approaching Irene's taverna, saddling yokes of local groceries delivered here and there (see picture inset). I was there for a special reason (a tradition I do, alone, around that time of the year, in November, for the past 20 years, and each year at a different "world" to travel through. Meeting Irene was like meeting my mother again. She didn't know that the first time I came to her taverna was my mother's death anniversary, and the soup on offer was nothing short of a perfect memorial for her. We became friends, Irene and I, and she had wished my return to Ydra someday again. She had treated me, with food and love, like nothing short of her son... Looking back, I could replicate the lemon rice soup in my kitchen anytime, but what I couldn't is the notion that nothing good could last forever, except maybe only in memory. So, so many years have gone by of her missing in my life, but so, so many years, at last, of good memories. In peace, this is for Irene.
❤️💛
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