Taste the Music: The Aromatic Cuisine of the Asian Minor Greeks

In Greece, they say you can learn to cook, but you're born to grill. For sure, cooking over fire is one of the most ancient ways to enjoy a whole variety of meats, fish, even vegetables. Today, we're focusing on the traditions of grilling in Greece, a hero's feast, so to speak. Even battle-hardened warriors savored the succulent smoky flavors of grilled meats to celebrate victory. In this episode, Diane visits one of the best-known Greek grill chefs to learn the secrets of cooking over fire.

Greek food is by nature the ultimate comfort food thanks to the wealth of rustic home cooking that defines the cuisine. In this episode, Diane explores specialties from the Ionian island of Zakynthos to the Aegean island of Tinos, adding her own twist with some modern comforts, too. Back in the kitchen, she makes a juicy chicken casserole, a vegetarian moussaka, whips up feta mashed potatoes, and waxes poetic about the ultimate grilled cheese -- it's Greek, of course! Zakynthos Chicken Sartsa; Artichoke Moussaka; Feta Mashed Potatoes; Spanakopita Grilled Cheese.

At a seaside tavern along the Attica Coast, Diane is enjoying a typical summer meal: an array of vibrant, robust mezedes and the wine most appropriate to pair with them, retsina. Greece's most famous wine has evolved from the piney, overwhelming quaff of yore to a sleek, contemporary, light, aromatic white wine made from the Savatiano grape. Diane follows the last resin tapper in Attica to the Kouvara pine forest to see how the resin that gives retsina its characteristic flavor is extracted, and delves into the ancient history of this fascinating wine.

In this love song to her adopted city, Diane explores the hip side of Athens, which tourists seldom get to see, and invites a friend and local foodie into her kitchen for a taste and talk of fascinating Athens. Under Diane's insightful guidance, we catch an insider's glimpse of everything from street art to street food, galleries to hipster bars, and life the way the locals live it in this city on the cusp of reinventing itself as one of the most exciting capitals in Europe.

Every region of Greece has its own unique character and cuisine, and today Diane visits Nemea and Argos, in the Eastern Peloponnese, home to some of Greece's most famous wines as well as some of its most delectable dishes. Together with a village cook in the town square, she learns to make an amazing homemade local pasta dish and an irresistible cheesy skillet pie. Back in the kitchen, she prepares an easy sauteed spinach and orange recipe, tender braised pork with cabbage, and special cookies made with olive oil.