A Taste of Greece 🇬🇷

Getting Ready for Summer

Author

Sara Hamdan
June 17, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Happy Eid Al Adha! I hope you are spending time with family, friends and loved ones. We didn’t travel, but opted to stay in Dubai to soak up the festivities. I miss my family, who are in Greece…

I grew up in Athens and my parents still live there. We aren’t visiting this summer either and I already miss the whitewashed houses, the taste of an ice cold Nescafe Frappe sipped by the sea, reading a book in the shade of a tree with my toes tracing shapes in the sand…

So the next best thing to visiting Greece is writing about it - and I have at least 15 people who have asked for recommendations about islands to visit (Poros and Crete!), places to eat (Dionysos and O Kostas!) and what to do with kids (visit farms!). Here’s a little more Greek flavor so we can all get in a summery mood and remember that the world can, sometimes, be beautiful and peaceful.

Read: Greek Flavour

I urge you to read Greek authors, who love to feature a strong sense of place and raunchy nights with lovers (Hello, Homer). You can’t go wrong with Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek - the man has won the Nobel Prize for Literature an eyebrow-raising 9 times.

If you’re looking for a more contemporary read during the Eid break, here are 5 titles that caught my eye, either written by a Greek, about Greece, or inspired by the mythology and rich culture of the beautiful country I called home for 10 years.

Why I Killed My Best Friend by Amanda Michalopoulou

I know - the title threw me off, especially when paired with this Barbie pink cover. But this searing novel is a witty and honest look at friendship struggles spanning 30 years. Maria is uprooted from Africa back to her native Greece, only to realize she can’t stand anything about her new home. Fans of Elena Ferrante will love this one!

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop

I’ve been a Hislop fan since her first Greek-y books came out (The Island and Cartes Postales from Greece), so I was looking forward to her latest addition. This book is over 500 pages long, but don’t be put off by that - it’s a well-researched, heartwarming story of a young woman who inherits her grandparents apartment in Athens and learns all about love and loss the hard way.

Sometimes, you really just need a quick, easy beach read (the equivalent of trash TV?). This one ticked the boxes for me because it featured all the usual romantic tropes - girl and guy who have simmering tension, but can’t put each other first (he’s flirting with someone, she’s a photographer who travels too much) - all set against the stunning backdrop of Santorini. I read this in two days on the beach last summer and the pages still have sand caked in them.

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop

This novel gives The White Lotus vibes: Rachel loves the attention she gets from a man when she’s a carefree young woman on a Greek island… but the book has a dual timeline with her as an adult revisiting haunting, difficult memories of her time there that reach an unnerving climax.

Murder in Mykonos by Jeffrey Siger

To me, Mykonos = white cobblestone streets, drunken revelers and beaches thumping with house music… not murder. That’s what made my ears perk up when I heard about this novel - we’ve got a moody detective who feels like he’s been demoted with a sleepy post in the capital of hedonism, who then discovers a woman’s dead body in a remote mountain church. Enjoy!

I have a handful of other novels on my TBR list that seem very popular online, including Madeline Miller’s Circe and Stephen Fry’s Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold. Let me know if you’ve read and loved (or hated) either of them!

Write: Focus on the Senses

I have spent decades writing for travel magazines. There’s something magical to me about revisiting a place through words - through my memory of how it felt to be in a new (or frequently visited) place.

One simple tip I have is to appeal to the senses. Not all at once. Just a few standout, surprising elements. What did the restaurant smell like when you walked in (smoke, stale beer, garlic)? How did the leather of a sofa feel to touch (leathery, torn)? What stood out about the architecture, colors or design (nouveau riche, country, Selling Sunset vibes)?

A nice example is my latest Tripadvisor article on the 10 Must-Try Greek Dishes - a Greek salad is a Greek salad anywhere, but to elevate the writing I focused on visceral details (like the fat block of feta cheese, olive oil so rich it soaks very slowly into pita bread). Making small details come alive makes writing memorable - and more fun.

Try it the next time you’re writing an Instagram caption - or you want a creative OOO message for your work email 🫠 

Inspire: Iced Coffee

Forget the caramel-frappacino-vanillashot-Starbucks monstrosities (forget Starbucks in general, am I right?!)… the gold standard for iced coffee for me will forever be a classic 2 euro Nescafe Frappe in Greece. Ideally by the beach.

Since having children, I have a single cup of coffee every morning and I genuinely believe it’s the reason I was able to handle kids, work and writing a novel. I got a second lease on life when I included this magical drink into my routine - and now I fully understand Lorelai’s obsession in Gilmore Girls. It’s the ultimate source of inspiration.

I normally prefer to savor my cup of coffee hot, but I discovered one place in Dubai that does a decent cold Nescafe Frappe: Coffee Island in Nakheel Mall. Know any others? Until then, I’ll stick to my flat white with coconut milk.

Random entertaining things from the weird, wonderful world wide web:

Countdown to My Novel’s Publication Day:

Timer from emailcountdowntimer.com

Thanks for reading! Happy Eid and see you next week!

With kindness,

Sara