a tribute to Souvlakis

If I were Greek, I’d want to lounge around, drinking Retsina, consuming baklava all day...eating juicy black olives, watching the fishing boats in the bay...and having a good time. 

I'd eat souvlakis every day, with that Grecian delight, feta cheese...which sounds kind of stinky, I know, but you have to name cheese like it smells. Goat cheese smells like sweaty feet, so “feta” is a great name. And nothing smells more Greek than a salad or souvlaki with grilled lamb and lots of feta. 

I was introduced to souvlakis and all things Greek during my undergrad years in a town with a noticeable Greek immigrant community. The center of that world was an uptown restaurant simply known as "Souvlakis."

Mama P, co-owner of Souvlaki's, introduced me to gyros and super beef hoagy. She had such a way with stuffing the pita, it made you drool. Tzatziki, fresh tomatoes, onions, olive oil, lettuce- Mama’s souvlakis were almost as amazing as the Central Gyros Girl.

Now, I looked far and wide for the Central Gyros girl, but never found her, or I would have married her on the spot. She was the perfect blonde, with the perfect smile, holding a tempting gyros in her perfect hands. She was my favorite pinup girl, even if she was plastered on the wall of a run-down looking restaurant.

Anyway, Mama had a partner, Mister P. His name was something like “Vasilios.” It sounded more like “Vaseline” to me. He wasn't a slick character though unless Mama had her head turned away from him while he was "cutting" the baklava. 

We college boys often studied the smile of the Central Gyros Girl as we waited for our food. She provided more than a few minutes of useless questions, intense daydreaming, and an occasional search for more clues on the poster about her whereabouts.

Alternatively, Mister P provided interesting entertainment. In between “Opa!” and the sound of a knife on a cutting board, he could string together more run-on sentences than a twelve-year-old Grammar student having a meltdown in English class. Inevitably, whatever he said would irritate Mama P, who carried her own cutting knife, which she flashed in defiance of the five-foot-tall tyrant in the Greek fishing hat. 

Strangely enough, they had a small, old style TV set hanging from the corner of the place near the front door. Every time I was there, they seemed to have old sitcoms or reruns of game shows. With all that went on in the restaurant, it was a slow night when we found ourselves watching a program.

The food was good, but usually a bit salty. I used to purposely interrupt the two when they argued, to ask Mama P for more “Pepsi.” I could never ask for Mountain Dew or Coke or anything else because Mama didn’t know any other word for "pop" or "soda pop" in English. She would smile when she served me, probably because she did not understand half of what I said. 

And now, many years later, Mama P and Papa P have passed on, their children have moved on to other ventures, and the Central Gyros girl no longer smiles from the walls of any Greek restaurant I frequent. But I still wolf down the gyros, eat olives like candy, and enjoy all the things that Mama P introduced to me back when I was a hungry college student.