Hectic Host: Greece is the Word: Easy Easter Entertaining.

I was pondering Easter Sunday lunch when the phone range. ‘Well hello my dear!” it was my best friend, the impeccably named Michele D’Amore, live from Manhattan. ‘So what are you doing for Easter?’ she asked finishing the sentence as only New Yorkers do on an upbeat. ‘Is it going to be traditional?’

‘Traditional?’ I repeated stalling for time.

I cast my mind back across the decades. The only Easter related ritual I had was sneaking into the living room after school where the family’s Easter egg offerings would be lined up for weeks beforehand. Skillfully I would remove an egg from its cardboard housing, unwrap the foil, split the chocolate in two, secrete the wrapped contents in my blazer pocket and reassemble the whole thing within a matter of seconds. Come Easter Sunday I would act out horror as it was discovered that all the eggs were empty. To this day my Father unjustly believes Cadburys is the most shoddily inefficient company in existence.

Then I remembered a glorious Easter Michele and I spent in Greece. 

‘Thank goodness you phoned. Yes, this year it will be traditional.’

Having only just recovered from watching my mother get Christmas lunch for twelve on the table the last thing I wanted was to go through that entire turkey-and-the-trimmings trauma again so soon. A mellow Greek Easter was the way forward. 

Take 12 medium sized potatoes peel and cut into halves. In a bowl mix together the juice of one orange, 2 tablespoons of mustard, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a few pinches of oregano and salt and pepper. Coat the potatoes with mixture and place in a roasting pan. Stab a large leg of organic lamb from William Rose on Lordship Lane repeatedly and stuff the holes with slices of garlic. Lay the lamb on the potatoes and pour over any remaining liquid. Roast, uncovered, in a preheated oven (190 degrees) until the potatoes are done and lamb is medium, around 90 minutes or longer if a large leg. Check for when the juices run clear. Serve with a green salad and spanakopita from Andreas Delicatessen on Lordship Lane. Don’t carve your joint, just put the whole dish on the table and let everyone tuck in. Babis is your uncle!

If like me you spend most of Sunday afternoon trying to get red wine out of white tablecloths – white wine vinegar works wonders – pop into Roullier White and pick up some of our splendid stem-less wineglasses by Riedel, perfect for entertaining. These lead-free crystal tumblers have a low centre of gravity and are virtually impossible to knock over. Of course there are no stems to break off, but more to the point they fit in the dishwasher! Always use a gel or liquid in your dishwasher as powder or tablets effectively sandblast your glasses which is why they go milky after a while.

Green and Blue Wines on Lordship Lane has a delicious 2005 Hatzidakis from the cosmopolitan island of Santorini, one of the ‘new Greek’ wines. 

Yamass!