Award-winning cookbook author, television personality, consulting chef, teacher, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on Greek cuisine, Diane Kochilas launches her latest cooking show My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas, premiering October 4 on public television stations across the country (check local listings). With 13 amazing episodes, the series takes viewers to the source, as Kochilas introduces the stunning vistas, fabulous food, easy, nutritious recipes, and the unmatched hospitality Greece is known for worldwide. To celebrate the launch of the television series, St. Martin’s Press will re-release her first book, The Food and Wine of Greece.
“Greek cuisine is healthy, delicious and extremely varied. It goes way beyond baklava and gyros,” said Kochilas. “With My Greek Table, I want to reveal a country and a culinary point of view that feeds my soul and has shaped me into the person and chef that I am today.”
She told The National Herald, “It is a huge project for the Greek community and for Greece, in terms of mainstreaming all that’s beautiful about the country.”
My Greek Table showcases her easy to follow instructions, provocative techniques, must-try recipes, and stimulating commentary that ranks her among the top culinary authorities on Greek and Mediterranean cuisine.
Kochilas, celebrity chef, TV cooking show host, cookbook author, and cooking school owner, has been at the forefront of bringing healthy, delicious Greek cuisine to a wide international audience for many years. A born teacher, every summer since 2003 Kochilas, together with her husband, Vasilis Stenos, has run the Glorious Greek Cooking School on her native island, Ikaria, a Blue Zone, renowned for the longevity of its inhabitants.
Kochilas is an award-winning author of over 10 books on Greek and Mediterranean cuisine, including Ikaria: Food, Life and Longevity from the Island where People Forget to Die (Rodale, Fall 2014), which recently won the 2015 Books for a Better Life award by the MS Society and the prestigious IACP Best Cookbook award. The book was also long-listed for an Art of Eating Award.
The book before Ikaria, Country Cooking of Greece (Chronicle, 2012), was hailed by the New York Times as one of the 100 best books of 2012 and by virtual gourmet, John Mariani, as Diane’s “masterpiece.” Another tome, Glorious Foods of Greece (William Morrow), won the prestigious IACP Jane Grigson prize for excellence in research. Her next book, the companion book to My Greek Table, will be published in Fall 2018 by St. Martin’s Press. As consulting chef, Kochilas has helped open many of the top Greek restaurants in North America, including Pylos in New York and Volos in Toronto.
She has worked with Molyvos in New York City and is currently consulting chef at Committee, a meze-concept in Boston and one of the city’s few Greek-inspired restaurants. Kochilas has also consulted for Harvard University Dining Services, establishing a roster of healthy menu options for student and retail dining. She works regularly with UMass, Amherst, too, designing Greek dishes for the campus’ student dining menu. In Greece, she was host of Greece’s most popular TV cooking show, “What Are We Going to Eat Today, Mom?” (in Greek) and was a columnist and restaurant critic for 20 years at the country’s largest circulation daily paper, Ta Nea. Kochilas has appeared on many major American television shows including Throwdown with Bobby Flay, The Today Show, Martha Stewart, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, and more. Kochilas divides her time between New York City, the Greek island of Ikaria, and Athens.
Source: tornosnews.gr