Last Monday was Clean Monday for us Orthodox Christians. That signals the beginning of a fifty days’ Lent from now until Easter Saturday, which this year is on 18th of April. This particular Lent is a very strict one, having everyone who follows it, to refrain from anything that comes from animals i.e. meat and...
Demeter is the goddess of the harvest and presides over grains and the fertility of the earth. Although she was most often referred to as the goddess of the harvest, she was also goddess of sacred law and the cycle of life and death. Demeter was the daughter of Cronos and Rhea. She was the...
Once upon a time, there was once in the northeastern part of Greece, Thrace, a beautiful princess called Phyllís. One day, a ship, returning from the Trojan war, dropped anchor where she lived. The ship’s captain and owner was Dimophóntas the son of Theseus. The two youngsters fell in love and eventually got married. For...
Being a working mother and wife is, sometimes, a real challenging job. Having to work all day and then come home to a hungry teenager and a husband who comes also late at night makes the dinner choice quite a feat. Most of the times, I am really tired and all I want is a...
Happy New Year my friends! May 2018 be the year of accomplishment of all our unfulfilled dreams and goals! On Christmas Eve we went out with my mother in law for dinner and we had an amazing sweet potato soup. Apart from that, we did nothing else as my son got a terrible cold which...
Carob tree is an evergreen tree that grows in Mediterranean countries and the Middle East. Its crop looks like a hard, flat bean and has dark brown color. For many years carobs were used to feed animals, but during and after World War II and while Germans occupied Greece, carob was an essential food for...
In Greek orthodox religion Mary mother of Jesus plays a very important role and is worshiped with great honors. According to several written sources, Mary learned from God that she was going to die and thus went to the Mount of Olives which was located east of the old city of Jerusalem in order to...
Diogenes was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Also known as Diogenes the Cynic, he was born in Sinope (modern-day Sinope, Turkey), an Ionian colony on the Black Sea, in 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC. Diogenes was a controversial figure. His father minted coins...
The Copts are one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Although integrated in the larger Egyptian nation state, the Copts have survived as a distinct religious community forming around 10 to 20 percent of the population though estimates vary. They pride themselves on the apostolicity of the Egyptian Church whose founder was...
Although Greek kitchen is very rich in savory dishes with high nutritional value, this does not apply for desserts. Why is that? I don’t really know. Perhaps the fact that from 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans and consequently the whole of Greece, until 1821 when we started our fight for liberation, we...
