Greek interlopers in little Macedonia

Yesterday we had breakfast in Macedonia!

Well,we had breakfast in King Street Place which is a section of King Street, Rockdale which has recently been made into an attractive, popular little mall by our council and into a little piece of the Balkans by the local Macedonian population.

It has a very European feel with old men clustering on benches and in cafes to (as my dad used to say) 'chew the fat'. Presumably, politics, national, international and familial, their latest gripes and grumbles and their latest get rich quick scheme. The old women cluster on other benches - after they've shopped at the green grocers and delis. Freshly scrubbed fathers and sons in shorts and scuffs breakfast together over Borek and strong coffee and families with "four wheel drive" prams and beautifully dressed children tumble over each other like multi-generational litters of puppies.

When I first came to work for Telstra I was a rookie field technician very out of her depth. I was put under the wing of a crew of pit and pipe workers who'd come out to Oz in the sixties from Greece, Macedonia and Serbia. I was adopted as an honorary 'wog' and was privileged to enjoy the high point of each morning which was a sumptuous morning tea of fresh Macedonian bread sliced lengthways and crammed with cold meats and home grown tomatoes and cucumbers all eaten off the back tray of the compressor truck by the side of the road. It all struck a very earthy, ethnic proletarian note in an otherwise twee Anglo-Celtic Balmain (mind you I do love Balmain passionately!)

There was a, mostly but not always, harmless rivalry between the Greek and Macedonians in those days which I believed had historic and traditional roots. So it was both gratifying to revisit the culture yesterday and enjoy its difference and its familiarity but also amusing to think I had joined the other side in marrying Alexx, a Greek-Australian.

We had Borek, which is a light flaky pastry "pie" filled, in our case, with spinach and cheese. Not as substantial as Greek spanakoppita but very delicious and a great accompaniment to good coffee. Under our cafe umbrella I let it wash all over me while outside rain washed the morning and the mall fresh and clean. Our cafe was called the "Balkan Oven". It came to me then that my dad, who was a great lover of both European culture and "chewing the fat' would have really enjoyed all this. Alas, my dad and me seemed to have always been a couple of laps apart in life and never quite managed to be in the same place at the same time.

Here is my very own European man at the Balkan cafe: