Beyond Flavor: Herbs as Medicine on Ikaria
“Sage tea with garlic and honey was our penicillin,” explains my friend Yiorgos Stenos, 84, in a conversation about the role that herbs play in the legendary longevity of people on Ikaria. Indeed, one of the great longevity secrets of the Ikarians has to do with the way they use the dozens of herbs that […]
Baking a Cake for a Saint
BAKING A CAKE FOR A SAINT One of the most endearing aspects of Greek cooking is the tradition of food as symbolism or as an offering, specific dishes prepared to commemorate specific holidays or saints. We bake Christopsomo, or “Christ’s Bread” on Christmas, St Basil’s bread, Vassilopita, on New Year’s Day, the name day of […]
Three End-of-Summer Stuffed Tomato Dishes
THREE EASY END-OF-SUMMER STUFFED TOMATO DISHES Long before we left for Ikaria, way back in late April, when it was unseasonably cold and wet here, I went to a local nursery to pick up seedlings for the garden we’d need to plant. Our garden is an integral part of the summer experience for us, and […]
Ikaria Longevity Secret: Grape Molasses-Petimezi, an Ancient, Natural Sweetener
Ikaria Longevity Secret: Petimezi, an Ancient, Natural SweetenerI took this picture a few years ago, while pressing grapes the old-fashioned way in a neighbor’s yard. Almost everyone on Ikaria makes their own wine and many people live in old houses that are still outfitted with a large stone basin with a spout, in which they […]
Ikarian Longevity Garden Tales: Potato Love
The tomatoes are high and climbing, their stiff, tannic leaves silvery under a light but necessary dusting of sulphur, which helps keep the tomato fly at bay. The fruit is a jumble of green and red, smooth or creased, round or oval, depending on the variety. We’ve planted several kinds, including a few thick-skinned, older […]
A Radicalized Greek Mother’s Apology to Her Kids
A RADICALIZED GREEK MOTHER’S APOLOGY TO HER KIDS Dear Kyveli & Yiorgo (my kids), I am so sorry. I write to you from our beloved family home on Ikaria, in the village your grandparents were born in, the village that has known hardship and poverty, saw Occupation, but also is fortunate to have villagers whose […]
Traveling to Athens: Great Food Hides Inside the Stoas
The Parthenon not withstanding, Athens is a city whose charms are often hiding in plain site. This is as true for locals as it is for anyone visiting Athens or traveling to Greece and making the must-see stopover to the Acropolis and other ancient Greek sites in the capital. In the hands of tour guides […]
Traveling to Athens? Here’s Where to Find Great Sandwiches
Who remembers “tost?” If you are traveling to Athens and have a penchant for street food, read on! Some of my best food memories of Greece, from 20 and 30 years ago, beyond of course all the foodie cliché waxing poetic about amazing tomatoes, honey-sweet watermelon, fat, fragrant peaches, etc., etc., are memories of something […]
Ikaria Longevity Tip_An Onion a Day….
IKARIA LONGEVITY TIP: THE HUMBLE ONION IS FILLED WITH GOOD NUTRITION There is almost no savory Greek dish, from starters to main courses, that don’t contain onions. One of the most basic ingredients in the Greek Diet, onions and all their relatives (leeks, scallions, chives, ramps, and shallots among them) are also among the healthiest […]
A Wild Asparagus Hunt on Ikaria Yields More than Meets the Eye
LOOKING FOR WILD ASPARAGUS ON IKARIA You have to learn how to look. That’s what my friend Lefteris, a fount of knowledge about Ikaria’s flora, told me as soon as we stepped out of the car in Cambo, the island’s largest flat plain, not too far from Evdilos, the port town in the center of […]
What is the History of Rice in Greece?
FROM ALEXANDER THE GREAT TO THE MARSHALL PLAN, GREEK RICE HISTORY. I am getting ready to head up to the New England Food Show, and then to San Francisco, all in the name of rice! Greek rice, which I’ll be cooking as part of a program called Agreeno to promote it. Stuffed vegetables, aromatic pilafs, […]
Ouzo: Out of the Glass and Into the Kitchen
Ouzo: Out of the Glass and Into the Kitchen Every chef and good home cook has a few favorite ingredients, the flavors of which insinuate themselves again and again in the dishes he or she creates. Sometimes those flavors are subtle and meant to be so. Mushroom powder and cocoa in tomato and red wine […]