Blog
Many of us are familiar with Vasilopita, the “lucky” New Year’s bread with the coin inside, or with tsoureki, the braided Greek Easter bread. Both are delicious, but also symbolic. They are the rock stars of Greek bread traditions, the most famous; there is a whole littany of other festive breads, handmade by artisan home […]
Four Greek Cheeses and the Greek Wines to Pair with Them It used to be that what most non-Greeks knew about Greek cheese and wine was defined by a robust but limited duo: feta and retsina, the briny cheese and piney wine, respectively. Thankfully, those days are long gone. The variety of Greek regional cheeses […]
“Mom, can you make a lemon cake?” this is a refrain I hear pretty often in our house, as my son, 14 and hungry just about every 20 minutes, has had a sweet tooth since he first tasted ice cream, still in the stroller, around the age of 1. I never aimed to curb it. […]
Greek pancakes? It seems like a stretch, but truth be told, pancakes exist in many regional variations in the Greek kitchen and are very old, traditional Greek recipes. As a working mom I’ve used these traditional Greek recipes to offer up quick, nutritious meals to my own kids. Greek-style pancakes offer up a relatively healthy […]
“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 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 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: 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 […]
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 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 […]