I remember when I was 8 years old and my grandfather called from Crete and said he had sent our olive oil to Athens –where I was born and raised- and it would be delivered tomorrow afternoon. I was there to receive “our “ freshly harvested olive oil and discovered that 150 litres of the “green gold” was our yearly consumption for a family of 5.

My brothers and I were 8, 10, and 12 years old at the time. My dad’s 5 siblings all had families of similar size or bigger and also received their share of “our “ olive oil as grandpa called it. I was pretty good with Math from an early age so from my calculations I concluded that my grandpa sent to Athens a ton of olive oil and obviously kept some for his household.