Souvlaki Night

Friday, September 14, 2007
Posted by chelsea

Fridays are my favorite day of my nanny week. This, of course, isn't counting Sunday since it's my official day off each week, so it would obviously win if it were in the running. Fridays, though, are the most cherished day of my working week because they contain the much anticipated "Souvlaki Night."

After the kids are sleeping soundly in the back room (usually around 10-10:30pm), Natasha and I "suggest" to John that maybe we should order some souvlaki to eat while we watch tv and relax. The mere suggestion is enough to get John on board with the idea and the next ten to fifteen minutes are then spent figuring out what we will order and which souvlaki place to order it from.

Picking the souvlaki place is actually the more tricky part of this endeavor, as you have to consider all of the variables involved when doing so. First off, once you decide what to order, you must rule out certain places depending on what item is their weak point. This seems easy enough, but with three people ordering a variety of selections, this can really make things a bit more complicated and require someone to make a compromise after deciding on the second factor. The second factor, of course, is whether or not a place delivers to our area if no one wants to drive to go get it.

Once all of the details of the order are worked out and the souvlaki place is finally settled upon, we either call in the order (if it's delivery) or send the chosen driver out to pick it up. The next 30-45 minutes are spent in heated anticipation for that steaming bag of goodness containing lamb and pork on sticks and wrapped in soft melt-in-your-mouth pitas surrounded by globs of tzatziki, chunks of bright red tomatoes and spicy onion slices.

Most of the time, we include a double order of potatoes (you call them fries) as well. Now, these aren't your ordinary, skinny, overcooked, fast-food, freeze-dried "French" fries. These are thick, fresh, made from real potatoes and are cooked to a pleasantly soft (yet strangely firm) perfection that allows the potato "innards" to ooze forth from the thin and flavorful outer skin (lightly dusted with oregano) when you take that first mouthwatering bite. These are the kind of potatoes that are so good that you not only feel no guilt for having consumed them after 10pm, but would willingly do so again even if, as s direct result, the scale read an extra five pounds the next morning.

When the souvlaki finally arrives, the meal itself is eaten in an almost holy, quiet bliss...up until the fourth or fifth bite, which is usually about the time the baby monitor blinks to life and sends me tumbling back into the reality that not even Souvlaki Night is immune to the constant call of duty as a live-in nanny.

Regardless, I will continue to live my week gauged by how close or far away Souvlaki Night is. Because if there's one thing that can motivate me to "just make it through the week," it's most definitely a night dedicated to my favorite Greek treat.

1 comment:

BW said...

Think you could mail some to Searcy???