Pots and pans

I am returning to Cyprus tomorrow, after another very long absense! To celebrate the occasion - and to remember how my house is - here is a picture of my collection of moulds and copper pans. I got most of them in America. I love copper kitchen utensils!

I also love cast iron utensils! Decorative as well as of use. I had bought a set of heavy cast iron frying pans, which have become completely non stick with the use and care. Last week, while in Athens, I made spinach pie and since I could not find the oven dish, I decided to bake it in the large cast iron frying pan. It came out excellent! I will be using it to bake pies from now on.

The lavender in the picture is from my lavender plant.

The other plant is fried "sword grass" (spathohorto), as we call it. In English it is called St. John's wort; scientific name Hypericum Perforatum. Have I ever told you about this? We have been using it in our family as long as I remember... It is actually a small bush, which produces yellow flowers around this time of the year. We put the branches with the flowers and leaves (fresh or dried) in olive oil and leave it in the sun. The oil becomes orange colour - we call it "sword oil" (spatholado). We then keep it in bottles and use it on wounds. It has very strong healing properties! My grandmother and my great aunt (her sister) prepared it every year; my mother and my aunt (her cousin) still do it. I recently learned that one can use it on the face, as a moisturizer. I tried it and it does leave the skin really soft. I never asked myself where the name came from, but I recently was told that it probably comes from the old times, when people used it on wounds by swords.