By Donna Cornelius
Journal features writer
John and Ottavia Krontiras know a good thing when they see it.
They still live in the Lakeshore Drive house they bought in 1975. In 1993, they bought Nabeel’s and expanded the Homewood specialty market by adding a thriving restaurant.
But it’s likely both would say they made their smartest decision in 1965.
The year before, John, a native of southern Greece, and Ottavia, whose roots are in northern Italy, met at a wedding in New Jersey.
“A friend asked me to be his best man,” John said. “Everybody was saying how beautiful the maid of honor was. A year later, I married her.”
The couple came south in 1972 when Birmingham-based EBSCO Industries bought the publishing company where John worked. He became vice president of marketing and information technology at EBSCO, a job he held until 1991.
Ottavia said she and her husband were living in an apartment when she noticed that a ranch-style house on Lakeshore Drive was for sale.
“I thought it was beautiful,” she said. “I fell in love with it the first time I walked in.”
When they bought the house, the family included two children, son Anthony and daughter Helen. Anthony and his wife, Monica, now own Nabeel’s Café and Market and have two daughters, Mary and Katherine. Dr. Helen Krontiras is a surgeon at UAB Hospital and is co-director of the UAB Breast Health Center. She and her husband, Dr. Toren Anderson, a pediatrician, have a son, Ian, and daughter, Alina.
John and Ottavia’s younger daughter, Madeline Krontiras Bader, and her husband, Noah, live in Atlanta. Both are attorneys who graduated from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law.
Anthony, Helen and Madeline all attended Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School and John Carroll High School, their parents said.
Although the Krontiras children are now grown with homes of their own, the Lakeshore Drive house has welcomed other family members. Ottavia’s mother, Maddalena Mastropasqua, came to live with her daughter and son-in-law three years ago.
“She makes dinner for us every night,” Ottavia said about her 91-year-old mom.
Another valued member of the household is Koko, a 13-year-old Boykin spaniel.
When John and Ottavia bought their Lakeshore Drive house, they made changes to accommodate their growing clan. They added a bedroom and sunroom, enlarged the patio and put in a pool, which they said is a favorite spot for their grandchildren during the summer.
“The only thing we didn’t do that we meant to do is put in a circular driveway,” John said.
Their house, which was built in 1950, is a real family home, filled with items accumulated over the years and ranging from the old to the new. Ottavia prizes a china cup, displayed on a fireplace mantel, which belonged to one of her ancestors, while John likes showing off a football signed by members of the University of Alabama’s 2009 national championship football team.
Photos and paintings show the couple’s strong family ties. In the living room is a portrait of John’s mother, Helen, who died in 1944. The picture shows a lovely young woman dressed in a pale yellow suit.
“She’s standing in back of our family home in Patras,” John said. “The fort in the background is real. It was built in the 1600s, and you could see it from the back of our house.”
A companion portrait of John’s father, Anthony, also hangs in the living room. John said his father would come to Birmingham and visit his son’s family for several months at a time before his death in 1993.
A third portrait, which hangs in the foyer, is of John’s great-great-grandfather, a colorful fellow who in the picture wears a traditional foustanela, or pleated skirt.
Artist Barbara Moon did all three paintings, John said.
A watercolor picture in the dining room dated 8-8-48 was painted by a different—and very young–artist.
“I painted this when I was 11 of a scene I copied from a postcard,” John said.
His interest in art didn’t resurface until recently.
“About four years ago, it clicked again,” he said. “I work in oils now.”
John set up an easel in the house’s cheerful sunroom and is now painting of a landscape of a scene in Myconos, Greece.
A photo mural that covers one wall of the kitchen has sentimental significance.
“My father put it up,” Ottavia said.
Outside in the back garden is a Carrera marble-topped table that the couple had sent from Italy in 1985. It arrived on the same shipment as the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. that’s now in downtown Birmingham, John said.
Ottavia said John is the gardener in the family.
“I planted some Italian cypress trees to give a little Greek-Italian flair,” John said.
The living room is brightened by warm golden walls—daughter Helen’s idea, her parents said—and natural light from a large picture window.
“This is the room where we open presents at Christmas,” Ottavia said. “The tree goes in the window.”
The couple said holidays are festive occasions at their house.
“We incorporate Italian and Greek dishes into our menu,” John said. “We have pasta and lamb with potatoes.”
For Sunday meals, Ottavia said, her mother prepares her special meatballs and pasta—and there’s a Greek salad, too.
“There’s not an Italian family who doesn’t have spaghetti and meatballs for lunch on Sunday,” John said.
While food is an important part of Krontiras family celebrations, it became central to their professional lives, too, when they bought Nabeel’s. John had parted ways with EBSCO when the opportunity for a new venture arose.
“My wife shopped at Nabeel’s,” John said. “She was there one day, and the owner said he had heard that her husband had lost his job. He said, ‘I’ve got this place for sale,’ half-kidding. She came home, and we talked about it.
“We went from outside the counter to inside it.”
Although neither had formal experience in the food service industry, John said he was able to put the business skills he’d learned over the years to work.
“Actually, my son and I worked,” Ottavia said, laughing. “John supervised.”
They kept the existing market and added a café.
“We served dishes that we knew about,” Ottavia said. “Both my husband and son are good cooks.”
When they bought the business, Nabeel’s was a one-room enterprise that sold sandwiches and salads in addition to the goods available at the market, Ottavia said. They eventually bought a neighboring business that had been a beauty salon.
While their restaurant and market thrived, another undertaking didn’t go quite so well.
“Butler’s Flower Shop, which opened in the 1940s, was next door,” John said. “They didn’t want to move, but we made an offer and bought it. We lost our rear ends for a couple of years.”
Then one day, he said, a stranger came in and asked about buying the shop.
“I asked, ‘Did God send you?’” John said with a smile. “They moved the business to another location, and we moved our market to that area.”
Anthony Krontiras bought the restaurant from his parents 12 years ago, but both John and Ottavia are still involved in the business, they said.
John’s newest project is hot off the press. He’s written a cookbook called “Beloved Family Recipes: Family Recipes and Experiences from Travels around the World.” It’s filled with Greek and Italian recipes and with tips, such as the kind of feta cheese he prefers and how to tell when the oil is hot enough to cook fresh smelts or anchovies.
Among the recipes are memories, too. There’s the story of how John’s father, while visiting in Birmingham, would roam the Lakeshore Drive neighborhood in search of wild dandelions to serve with grilled trout. Readers will also learn that a recipe for chicken wings and potatoes is popular in Molfetta, Italy, where his mother-in-law moved after her family’s house in Trieste was damaged during World War II.
The book is a “plethora of things, including family history,” John said.
He’ll be a special guest at this month’s Homewood Historical Society meeting set for 10 a.m. Oct. 19 at the Homewood Public Library. Krontiras will talk about his book, and copies will be available for purchase and signing. The event is free.
Greek and Italian Good Eats
John Krontiras said one reason he wrote his new cookbook, “Beloved Family Recipes: Family Recipes and Experiences from Travels around the World,” was because people asked him to share his recipes. He was happy to share a few with Over the Mountain Journal readers, too.
Avgolemono Soup
Serves 6-8
John says in his cookbook that his mother made this famous Greek soup for “all the holidays with no exception.”
1 whole chicken, about 3 ½ lbs. with excess fat trimmed and breast skin removed
12 cups water
2 carrots, cut in half
2 celery stalks, cut in half
1 large onion, peeled and cut in half
2 bay leaves
5 whole black peppercorns
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup orzo pasta, or rice
3 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
Juice of two lemons, strained
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Add first 8 ingredients to a large stockpot. Bring the water to a rapid boil, lower heat to medium low and simmer partially covered for approximately an hour to an hour and a half. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a bowl and carefully strain the broth through a fine sieve into a large bowl.
Return the strained broth to the stockpot and bring to a boil. Add the orzo pasta and cook, uncovered, for approximately 10-12 minutes until tender.
While the pasta is cooking, prepare the egg-lemon mixture. Using a whisk, beat the eggs until nice and frothy. Add the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a steady stream while continuing to whisk.
When the pasta has finished cooking, turn off the heat. Ladle about two cups of broth into a bowl or large measuring cup. Slowly add the hot broth to the egg-lemon mixture while continuing to whisk. This will temper the eggs and prevent them from curdling once they are added to the hot broth.
Stir the egg-lemon mixture into the pot and heat over very low heat for approximately 5-10 minutes until heated through. Be careful not to boil the soup once the eggs have been added.
Adjust your seasoning for salt and pepper and add more as desired.
Chicken Wings and Potatoes
Ale di Polo con Patate
Serves 4
John says this is a “special, very easy and inexpensive Italian favorite.”
1 onion, half sliced in rounds and the other half coarsely chopped
2 large potatoes cut in rounds
4 lbs. chicken wings and thighs
2 pinches of oregano
4 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, chopped
¼ cup water
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Grated Parmesan cheese
Lightly oil the bottom of a pan. Place line of potatoes, then place all of the chicken wings and legs on top of the potatoes. Place the onions over the potatoes and the wings. Sprinkle the parsley over the wings and potatoes. Place another line of potatoes and chopped onions. Add the oil and water. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Cover the pan with aluminum foil and cook at 375 degrees for about 1 ½ hours. Remove the foil at about 1 hour of cooking and continue cooking for another ½ hour and check that potatoes are done. Serve with crusty bread.
Sugar (or Wedding) Cookies
Make 2 ½ dozen cookies
John’s cookbook includes several tempting sweet treats, such as baklava, custard pie with phyllo and honey cookies and doughnuts. These sugar cookies are “a Greek celebration cookie,” he writes. “While they’re most popular at Christmas, you also see them at weddings, Easter and other holidays as well.” When the cookies are served at Christmas, it’s traditional to stick a whole clove in the top of each to represent the Wise Men’s gift of spices, he says.
¾ cup almonds
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon brandy
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 teaspoons orange water (available at most Mediterranean food stores)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toast the almonds until golden brown and fragrant, about 6 minutes. Let cool, then chop about half of the nuts (you should have about ½ cup chopped). Pulse the remaining nuts in the processor until finely ground (about ¼ cup ground).
Stir the flour, baking powder, salt and nuts together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
In another medium bowl, beat the butter, sugar, egg yolks, brandy and vanilla extract together with a mixer on medium-high speed until the mixture gets light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. At low speed, stir in the nut mixture to make a crumbly dough. Cover the bowl and set dough aside at room temperature for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or coat with nonstick spray. With a tablespoon, scoop out 1-inch pieces of dough and roll into balls between the palms of your hands. Pinch the ends of the balls to make football shapes.
Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies set and start to brown, about 18 minutes.
Remove cookies from the oven and immediately sprinkle them lightly with the orange water. Put some confectioner’s sugar in a bag and add 5 or 6 of the warm cookies. Very gently toss the cookies to coat with sugar. Remove them from the bag and cool cookies on a rack. Repeat with remaining cookies.
