Diane Kochilas

Diane Kochilas Diane Kochilas is one of the world’s foremost experts on Greek and Mediterranean cuisine. The series is in its third season.
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TAG ME @ She is the host, creator, and co-producer of My Greek Table, the award-winning 13-episode per season cooking-travel show about Greece that airs nationally on Public Television. Diane hails from the Blue Zone G

reek island of Ikaria and New York City and brings a combination of innate Blue-Zone wellness and result-oriented NYC spirit to everything she does. She is an award-winning author of more than 18 books on Greek-Mediterranean Cuisine and runs the Glorious Greek Kitchen on Ikaria Cooking School every spring and fall on the island. Diane also organizes culinary excursions and walking tours in Greece and cooking classes throughout the United States. She has been at the forefront of bringing healthy Greek and Mediterranean cuisine to an American audience for more than 25 years. Diane has been consulting chef for many of the top Greek restaurants in the United States and for years has worked with university dining services at Harvard, Yale, and UMass Amherst to bring healthy Mediterranean cooking to student dining halls. She is a frequent speaker at the CIA and other major culinary institutions.

04/09/2026

Your Labor Day grill just got a Greek upgrade 🇬🇷🔥

Forget bottled BBQ sauce — this Greek-style tomato-olive barbecue sauce (yes, olive paste + ouzo + honey) is about to become your new grilling obsession.

Crispy skin-on chicken legs, basted in a sweet-tangy-savory sauce that's part Mediterranean, part cookout classic. Broil or grill, wrap in warm pita, and you've got the easiest weeknight (or long-weekend) dinner that tastes like it took way more effort than it did.

🍗 Full recipe on my site (link in bio - https://www.dianekochilas.com/grilled-chicken-legs-with-tomato-olive-barbecue-sauce/)
🇬🇷 Save this for Labor Day weekend
🔥 Tag someone who's grilling this weekend

What's YOUR go-to Labor Day cookout dish — team classic BBQ or ready to switch it up Greek-style? Tell me below! 👇

02/09/2026

Smoky eggplant meets miso and grape molasses — the dip that bridges summer into fall 🍆🍂

This isn't your classic melitzanosalata — and that's the point.
Smoky roasted eggplant, blended silky with tahini and miso, finished with a swirl of petimezi (Greek grape molasses). It's the same broiler-charred eggplant we’'ve been making all summer, but the flavors lean into something warmer, deeper, more umami — exactly where late summer starts to feel like it's leaning toward fall.

ℹ️This one's from My Greek Table Season 5: Flavors of Longevity, episode "Hospitality on the Plate" — and it's also in my book Athens: Food, Stories, Love. It's exactly the kind of dish that captures how food cultures grow richer when ideas cross tables and borders, because the best meze are the ones meant to be shared, revisited, and talked over. Make it ahead, keep it in the fridge for days, and let it anchor your last long weekend of the season.

🍆 Full recipe on my site (link in bio)
🇬🇷 Save this — it only gets better after a day in the fridge
🍂 Tag someone who needs a new meze in rotation

Are you still deep in tomato-and-eggplant season, or already craving the deeper, cozier flavors of fall? Tell me where your palate is at 👇

31/08/2026

The last stop on our upcoming October journey is always my favorite kind of ending. ✨
This summer I went back to Selçuk and Ephesus — tasting, scouting, making sure every detail is right for you next October.📅

ℹ️Ephesus is staggering: marble streets, the Library of Celsus, a 25,000-seat amphitheater — layers of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman history stacked on top of each other. After two weeks moving through the Acropolis, the stone villages of Epirus, Meteora, Mt. Olympus, Thessaloniki and Istanbul's bazaars, Ephesus and Selcuk are the perfect place to land. The most apt culmination of this trip across cultures and cuisines.

The food is stupendous, too! Kebabs done a dozen smoky, tender ways – my favorite were, surprisingly, the delicate lamb’s liver skewers! – and meze spreads that turn lunch into a two-hour affair — smoky eggplant, tangy yogurt, warm bread, herbs I'm still tasting on my palate.😍

I also spent an afternoon at a carpet cooperative — women hand-knotting wool and silk dyed the old way, silkworms and cocoons on full display. I checked out the markets, too, of course, and sipped some chilled, refreshing pomegranate tea.🫖❤️

And then, there is Levent, our guide for this leg, and one of the most generous, knowledgeable people I've traveled with in years.

Two weeks of crossing cultures, cuisines, and centuries — ending somewhere that holds all of it at once.

👉️Link in bio to join us next year on Ancient Athens to Enchanting Istanbul/Ephesus. Spaces are limited.🔗

2️⃣ months off between classes, and this is exactly how I spend every one of them.👇Summer is winding down, but I can’t c...
28/08/2026

2️⃣ months off between classes, and this is exactly how I spend every one of them.👇

Summer is winding down, but I can’t complain. I always take a full two months off between classes to enjoy the island and time with family and friends. We all need a little reset.☀️🍉

My nonroutine routine is pretty simple. Wake up, garden a little before it gets too hot, then find a quiet spot around the property to ruminate — contemplate, meditate, whatever you want to call it. I’m lucky to have a treehouse to escape to for this. I try to read in the morning (this summer: Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey — I won’t get to Nolan’s film before mid-October at the earliest). Then a long walk, something simple for lunch, mostly from the garden, and the beach mid to late afternoon for a swim.🌻💙

They say salt water has memory, that it takes everything in and carries it away, and I can feel that whether I’m swimming laps or just treading water. There’s science in it too — seawater delivers electrolytes like magnesium that ease muscle tension. And spiritually, salt has been used across cultures to cleanse a space, or a person, of negative energy.🥰

Ikarian summers run on two daily cycles, and I love them both. Early evening is for vegging out — this summer I got hooked on a Spanish Netflix series, of all things. Dinner happens, or it doesn’t. Some nights I saunter up to Christos, or there’s music somewhere on the island, sometimes theater, a bazaar (usually earlier in the season, before the 15th), a panigyri — and none of it really starts until after 10, more often 11. We old folks call it a night around 2am, right about when my kids are finally getting ready to go out.🌟😁

These last two weeks are the slow-down, gear-up stretch, as I get ready for classes starting September 6th.🎉🥳

✅ Want to know more about life on the island? Join us next year for a little Ikaria magic.

❓What does your summer reset look like?

Link in bio for 2027 Ikaria class dates — no rush, just an open door.🔗❤️

26/08/2026

There's a Greek cake you're not supposed to taste until you've given a piece away first.🥰

ℹ️It's called Fanouropita, and it's made every August 27th for the feast of St. Fanourios — the revealing saint people pray to when something is lost, both literally and metaphorically. His name comes from the Greek word fanerono, "to reveal."

✔️We actually know very little else about him. The only real trace of his life is an icon discovered around 1500 on the island of Rhodes, found perfectly preserved among ruins.

Traditional recipes for the cake call for 7 or 9 ingredients, representing either the 7 days of Creation or the sacred mysteries of the Church. Others say 9, for the choirs of angels. Mine comes out to nine.

👉️The tradition says you bake it the day before the feast, bring it to Vespers or morning liturgy to be blessed, then share it with everyone at church. When serving and before biting into it, you’re supposed to ask that his mother’s soul be forgiven for her sins, as she died a pagan. I love this tradition – so humbling and Greek, where the point is giving not eating (although the cake is delish!).

Fanouropita is, indeed, a wonderful vegan spice cake — no eggs, no dairy, made with olive oil, orange juice, walnuts, and raisins, spiced with cinnamon and clove. I make it well beyond August 27th. It's dense, moist, keeps for days, and honestly makes a lovely breakfast cake any time of year.❤️🇬🇷

Fanouropita (Vegan Greek Spice Cake — 9 Ingredients)
Serves 8 · Prep 20 min · Bake 40–50 min

Ingredients:
▪️4½ cups self-rising flour
▪️1 tsp ground cinnamon
▪️½ tsp ground cloves
▪️1½ cups extra virgin Greek olive oil
▪️1½ cups sugar
▪️1 scant tsp baking soda
▪️1¾ cups fresh orange juice
▪️1 cup seedless dark raisins
▪️1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
▪️Confectioner's sugar, for garnish

👉️See the instructions at the link in bio.

If you make it, share a piece with someone. That's really the whole tradition.😍

✔️Save this one for August 27th — or just make it because it's a good cake. Full library of Greek recipes at the link in bio.🔗

25/08/2026

Eggplant Rolls with Walnut "Meat" 🍆🌰 — the Aegean's answer to plant-based comfort food.

Smoky charred eggplant, wrapped around a herby walnut "meat" filling spiced with cumin, coriander, fennel and smoked paprika, finished with pomegranate, mint and pink peppercorns. It's from my My Greek Table, season 5, The Foods of Longevity and it's one of those recipes that makes you forget you’re eating a delicious vegan meal.

This is Ikaria on a plate — Blue Zone food that's rich in plant protein, omega-3s and antioxidants, and just gorgeous to look at.

🍆 Full recipe (link in bio + comments): [RX link] 📩 Get my recipes + longevity tips every week → link in bio to subscribe 🇬🇷 Want to cook with me in person? My Ikaria cooking classes are open → link in bio

23/08/2026

This isn't really a cooking video — it's a love letter.

Every clip in here is a moment from recent past classes: cooking together, sipping wine, dancing, but mostly laughing around a table where we started as strangers and ended as friends.

And the voices you hear are people who got on a plane, showed up on this tiny island, and let it change them for a week.
(Hopefully more!)

I started running my classes 24 years ago, long before Ikaria was on anyone’s radar screen. I wanted people to understand that Ikaria isn't a diet or a "blue zone" headline — it's a rhythm. A way of moving through a day. Somewhere along the way, my guests are the real story. I’ve met so many amazing people and so many of you are now genuinely my friends. Many of you come back. You bring your siblings, your spouses, your grown kids, your friends.

My September classes start in just a few days — Sept 6 — and honestly, closing out this series right as a new group is about to arrive is kind of the whole point. The circle keeps going.

We're already booking 2027. If Ikaria has been sitting on your list, this is your sign.

To everyone who has ever spent a week with us — thank you. The island, the life here, the table in my garden — they’re all better because you were here. 🇬🇷❤️

18/08/2026

Fasolakia Yiahni — Greek Green Beans in Tomato Sauce | My Greek Table Season 2

This is the dish Greeks make when they want something that tastes like home. 🫘🍅

Fasolakia yiahni is one of those dishes that doesn't announce itself. No fancy technique, no showstopping presentation — just fresh green beans simmered slowly in olive oil with tomatoes, potatoes, onion, and a little heat from a whole chili pepper (optional), until everything turns soft and comforting.🥰

It's a classic of Greek summer, when the beans are at their best. I am fortunate to grow them in my garden. It's the kind of dish my mother made, that her mother made, the kind that shows up on tables all over Greece all summer long, together with a slab of tangy Greek feta ad good bread for sopping up all those yummy tomatoey olive oil-rich juices. That's the whole meal.

This one's from My Greek Table Season 2 — full episode and full recipe are on my YouTube channel.📺️

Watch the full video and get the complete recipe on YouTube — link in bio.
Written recipe also on my website — link in bio.
Do you make yours with potatoes in it, or keep it just beans and tomato? 👇

📍Greece



Full video + recipe on YouTube — link in bio 🫒

15/08/2026

Today is the height of Greek summer, and one of the holiest days of the year — August 15th, Dekapentavgoustos, the Dormition of the Virgin Maria or, as we call it colloqually, “tis Panagias.”🤍🇬🇷

Across the whole of Greece there are church services and festivals, called panigyria. Ikaria claims the largest one in the whole Aegean, at Langada, one of the oldest settlements on the island. It wasn’t always so…

I still like to go to the Monastery of Mounde in Raches for the liturgy and loukoumades, a local tradition that reunites us and strengthens our bonds as fellow villagers. From there, maybe a swim (oddly, the sea is almost always calm this day and the sky ever so slightly overcast, something I have observed for many years in a row)… As the afternoon progresses, it’s party time and I usually end up at more than one panygiri.🎉

When I was young we'd pile onto the backs of pickup trucks to get there, dance until the sky turned pale, as there was no electricity, then walk it all off — from Langada down to Kouniadous for the evening feast, and from there to Nas for an early swim and finally to Armenistis for breakfast at Ririkas, long gone now but never forgotten.

Things have changed. More and more people find the island every year, and some of that old innocence has slipped away with them. But I still love it fiercely, and I feel blessed to call myself a daughter of Ikaria.🥰

Wherever you are today, Greek or not, enjoy these last days of summer and count your blessings, too 🙂

To every Panagiota, Panagiotis, Despina, Maria, Marianna, Marilena, Marios, Mary, Theotoki and Theotokis celebrating your nameday today — chronia polla! 🇬🇷🌊

11/08/2026

Greece's most iconic dish wasn't born out of tradition. It was born out of a loophole. 🍅🧀
The Real Story Behind Greece's Most Iconic Salad — Horiatiki | From My Book, Athens: Food, Stories, Love❤️

Everyone assumes horiatiki — the "village salad" — is centuries old. It isn't. It's a 1960s invention, and the real reason it exists has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with taverna owners outsmarting the government.

ℹ️Back then, the classic summer salad in Athens was simple: tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers. No feta. And because it was considered a basic, everyday dish, the price was regulated by the state — tavernas couldn't charge whatever they wanted for it. As tourism grew, that became a problem for restaurant owners hoping to cash in.

So someone had the idea to add a slab of feta on top. That one addition legally turned it into a completely different dish — one with no price cap. And just like that, horiatiki as we know it was born, not in a village at all, but in the tavernas of Plaka, right under the Acropolis.

And the tomato at the center of it all has its own origin story. It didn't even exist in Greek cooking until 1818, when a monk planted tomato seeds he'd brought back from abroad — not to eat, but purely as decoration, in a monastery garden on one of the oldest streets in the world. It took years before anyone realized you could actually eat the thing.🍅

I tell this whole story — the salad, the loophole, the monk, the tomato — in my book Athens: Food, Stories, Love, because it's one of my favorite examples of how so much of what we think is "Greek tradition" is really a much more recent, much more human story of people adapting, improvising, and occasionally gaming the system.

Next time you order a Greek salad, you're eating a piece of 1960s Athenian economics. 🇬🇷

Grab a signed copy of Athens: Food, Stories, Love — link in bio.🔗
Did you know horiatiki was a modern invention, or did you assume it went back centuries? 👇

Get your signed copy of Athens: Food, Stories, Love — link in bio 🫒

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