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clockwise from top: Michael’s mother’s family, the Karropouloses, Kalamata, Greece, 1954; Costas Psilakis, right, bicycling in Athens; Costas Psilakis, right; Costas Psilakis, front, in Athens, 1952

Introduction

It is with great joy and an open heart that I invite you into my kitchen, into my home. Food has always been an integral part of my family life and of my culture. You could even say that food was the tie that bound us all together while, as new immigrants, my parents and their respective families adjusted to the ways of a new country, language, and culture. Food and cooking were an integral part of our lives, not just for nourishment, but also for the lessons taught and lessons learned between generations. Nothing happened in our homes and in our lives—no one was born, no one died, no accomplishment was celebrated, and no occasion was marked—that didn’t involve food and drink.

It was never specifically my dream to write a cookbook. My passion is for the kitchen and I love sharing this passion for food and my Greek culture with other people. Being in the kitchen cooking, creating, and feeding people in body and soul has always sated me. But in 2007, as my father’s health declined and I spent hours and long nights with him sitting in his hospital room and revisiting the wonderful life I was fortunate to share with him, the idea for this book was born. Telling these stories, the pictures of my childhood, and coupling them with the food of my youth would be a way to honor my father.

My parents were emigrants from Greece. They left the country, the people, the culture, the food, and the language they loved behind not because they wanted to, but because they had to in order to survive—in order not to starve. Like many places in Europe after World War II, my father’s native Crete was hit hard and many of the people were impoverished. My father was among them. Like many other emigrants, he left all he knew and came to America with minimal education and, literally, the shirt on his back and the seeds in his pocket—nothing else. He came because he wanted to do more than just survive; he wanted a better life for his family.

While my father’s Greek national pride was undeniable, the pride he had for being Cretan was paramount. Cretan men are known to be strong, stoic, and self-sacrificing—men among men. Even among the Greeks (and that’s saying something), Cretans are thought to be opinionated, stubborn, and unbending in their convictions. My father met every aspect of this description. As children, we knew that my father had his own set of rules and principles to live by, and in his house you just didn’t break them.

My father gave up everything and worked himself to the bone to give me and each of my three siblings a better life. But I was his heir. As the firstborn son in a Greek family, I was expected to stand in my father’s stead, to uphold his name, and to provide for our family should that need arise. From birth, I was groomed to be the next man of the family, the next patriarch, the way my father was for our nuclear family and also for our extended family. He taught me how to hunt, garden, fish, and how to kill and skin a goat—how to provide for a family in the ways he knew.

I spent my entire life trying to make him proud of me and doing things he would admire. But no matter how much I achieve, no matter how much I accomplish, I know that he sacrificed so much to give me a head start that I’d be proud to be one tenth the man he was.

My early childhood was the stuff of fairy tales. Every day of the week I was surrounded by people who loved and nurtured me. Whether it was one of our birthday dinners that brought us together or my mother and theias (aunts) cooking for days to prepare for a party in honor of my father’s name day, we were always together. But growing up as the son of Greek immigrants in a middle-class suburban Long Island neighborhood wasn’t always seamless. It was when I entered school that I had the first glimmer of a life different