Psiri was never a polished neighbourhood. It was workshops, tanners, marble cutters and narrow lanes that smelled of coffee at dawn. Somewhere among them, a small glykopoleio opened its shutters and began boiling syrup.
The recipes did not arrive from a book. They came from mothers and grandmothers, from hands that knew when the syrup was ready by the sound it made, from the patience of waiting for phyllo to cool before it could be cut.
Nothing here is made in a hurry. The kataifi is combed by hand, the galaktoboureko is baked in the morning and finished before the evening. The oranges for the portokalopita are zested with the peel still cold.
