So picture middle class North America suburbia circa 1990. When you are a kid and lunch time finally arrives you open your lunch box and peer into it to see what your mother has packed you. (Well to be honest we did this at recess, but sometimes you hoped that your sandwich would have metamorphisized into a gigantic hamburger over social studies).
Thereafter all those who were dissatisfied with what they were given entered the lunch time barter system, which was sort of like wall street bond trading but with kids sporting only less facial hair and higher maturity levels.
Anyway, I remember my sister and I often had a great deal of bargaining power as a result of mom's Greek goodies. Home made tiropitas, flaounas, spinach pies and olive bread - all of which which we carried into school on a daily basis. And all of which none of my fellow classmates had never seen, smelled or tasted. But when they did it blew the socks of their soggy balogni sandwiches. In fact, I think I remember some of their soggy balogni sandwiches actually having socks.
Anyway, this was probably in retrospect my mom's worst nightmare - in an attempt to shelter us from all sorts of nasty processed crap food, her little brat kids were trading their gold-standard elopitas (aka olive bread) for patrick's peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Anyway it happened. It wasn't my proudest moment.* My only point being that elopitas were vetted and approved by many, many kids as being especially yummy.
I finally learned how to make how to make elopitas from my mom last year. I can now say that if I have an inkling that my children are trading these little goodies at school for cheese dips I will personally come down to school during lunchtime and hit them over the head with their cheese dips. Elopitas are difficult to make but worth the effort. They freeze well too so you can bring these guys out when you are expecting guests or simply packing lunches for kiddies, hubbies, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, part-time lovers, ummmmm or your beautiful selves!
*(That would be when I got two fruit roll ups and a pack of Oreos for two cheese pies. High school high five. OK major nerd alert. Kids, don't try this at home. Or at school. ... I mean the food trading, or the lame blog jokes.)
Anyway, the recipe is extremely complicated. If you want it, drop me a message and I can email it across. It's slightly different to your run-of-the mill Cypriot bakery elopita, but very good ... Here are some pictures of how to make it:
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