Northern coast of Crete

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/travel/around-the-mediterranean-true-home-cooking-greek-style.html?sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=all

IT was a driving trek of heroic proportions up the dirt road from Rethimno, the historic seaside fort city on the northern coast of Crete, to the tiny village of Potamous, on one of those dusty Greek-island dirt roads that are less daunting than they seem, but nonetheless make every passenger but the driver look like they just stepped off a cyclone. On a friend's recommendation, I was heading, with my husband, Vassili Stenos, to this practically unpopulated village about an hour's drive into the mountains to eat.

The village square was dead this early November day but for a few cats and the distant cackle of free roaming chickens out for their evening constitutional. Kaliope Kehadiadaki, known as Popi, waited for us in the doorway, wrapped in a well-worn apron, We had called to let her know we were coming, a common practice with these tiny, family-run restaurants in remote villages.

We sat down under a hovering old sycamore and soon were treated to one of the best meals I've had in Greece: Crisp, fried zucchini blossoms with a creamy garlic sauce; incredibly flavored runner beans, lightly stewed with whole, fresh plum tomatoes and mint; pan-fried wild goat; rabbit casserole; local cured pork cooked with eggs; snails seared with vinegar and rosemary; a wild greens omelet called sfouggato; and local wine by the carafe. Cont........