Sophia from Crete went down to the harbor to imagine her future. She knew that soon she would wear her wedding dress, would step on the boat and leave the island. She tried to picture the place that was calling for her.
Her new home .... her husband.
She wore her wedding gown and traveled for weeks. She met her husband and her new home with the electric refrigerator...All went well, but today she has promised Cretan sun dried tomatoes to her grandchildren. So, she went to the port and begged the sun coming from the East to fetch the sun-dried tomatoes from the garden of her mother.
These will surely be the most delicious Cretan, sundried tomatoes. Sun dried and bathed in sea salt.
She crossed the ocean... the sea brought her far away from home in an other land with different scents and colors.
But one day her homeland came to her in a letter she found inside the mailbox.
Her garden here in America suddenly started smelling of thyme. And Anna sensed it. She opened the envelope and heard the sound of the bells from her village church. And she felt blessed that even though she is so far away, she is still the beloved, so close to her people's hearts
Fifty years here in America, the same beautiful Karagouna, Penelope, reflects in the mirror.
Her granddaughter combs her hair, adorns it — and she, still the same beautiful, young Karagouna... through her mirror.
No, she is not the same. All these years... it is the Karagounas — her daughters and granddaughters — who have looked into that mirror over these fifty years.
It was the same image of her people that was passed down from generation to generation.
Because that mirror was given to her by her mother, to take with her — precisely so the Karagounas would not be lost in foreign lands.
From the trees on her island mastiha flows out in rivers.
She put some of the magical liquid in a ceramic pot, to carry with her, when she left Chios.
Euridice put the mastiha in a straw basket, along with a headscarf, an icon with Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, a twig of basil from the pot on the window sill and a little from the sea that bathes her island.
After many years went by, all the well kept ingredients merged in one. All the memories, the scents, the blessings turned the sea water into holy water that smelled of mastiha and sea salt.
From this blessed water, yiayia Euridice put droplets on the foreheads of her children and grandchildren, to keep them safe and protected.
They say that when Rea from Episkopi looks at the rain from her window, her cheeks become meadows watered by her eyes.
It looks like she’s been crying…maybe she has.
She waits, looking out of the window.
She doesn’t believe that she left her land forever,…she is certain she'll go back sometime…and she waters the meadow of her cheeks, with eyes looking at the rain outside the window
When Ismene was a little girl, she would often climb the mountain.
There, a lake awaited her, welcoming her into its waters, completely bare.
She would swim for hours, until the mountain began to take on its gray wildness at dusk.
It was there, by the lake, that she loved and was loved in return.
And she promised to follow her love to foreign lands.
All she asked before leaving was to swim in her lake one last time.
She climbed the mountain, took off her clothes, and dove into the water.
She didn’t realize that when she emerged, her eyes had turned blue.
In those blue eyes, her grandchildren saw Ismene’s lake —
the lake of Prespa.
Classical beauty, she is, Olympia from Macedonia. She lends her beautiful shape and looks to her daughter and grand daughter, so that they will never forget where they come from, no matter how far they are. They are all Olympians, like Olympia.
She loved, she traveled, she longed, she rejoiced, she wept, she mourned —
But all in measure, for she is a Maniot.
Everything in measure, without grand sacrifices...
Simply because she is a Spartan woman.
Lydia’s life resembles lace... all beauty and detail.
From a young age, she carefully crafted her surroundings.
White embroidery on the tabletops, little glass jars with spoon sweets always awaited a guest — ready to offer sweetness as a welcome.
Even in distant America, far from Naoussa,
the visitor still tastes the sweetness of Greek hospitality —
through the spoon sweet in the glass jar, resting on the white-embroidered tablecloth in Lydia’s home.
Dimitra from Thessaloniki left with her brother for America, when she was fourteen years old. Her mother hadn't managed to teach her how to cook and be a good hostess in her home. She carried all the recipees in her bloodline, however. And she became famous in Astoria for her five star meals and her festivities, like a real hostess from Thessaloniki
