For many Greek Australians, the past month has been our busiest time of year. We have just finished celebrating Easter for 2013, and can now relax. We have spent the past month observing religious traditions, fasting and then feasting, being with family, remembering family past and taking part in Greek cultural festivities.
For Kathy Tsaples, Easter is all this, but for the past four years, it’s been so much more. And it’s that something, that sparked determination, that spawned not only her debut cookbook Sweet Greek, but added to the fitting cover of the ever symbolic dyed red Easter eggs.
Kathy was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in April 2009 and not on any Thursday, on Holy Thursday. Telling your loved ones is never easy, but for Kathy it was made even harder as she walked into the house that day, to find her mother dyeing the traditional red eggs as she had done every year of her life.
“When I walked in the door, my mother was there and she was dyeing our eggs red,” Kathy starts.
“She had baskets on the table, and during the day, she had baked the koulourakia and I walked in the house and I could smell the koulourakia, and I could see the eggs, and she was happy and I thought how am I going to tell her what I’ve just been told.”
Within that, there was another emotion Kathy was feeling; a sense of duty, an obligation as a mother to ensure she passes all her cultural knowledge to her sons, and her family. To leave a lasting legacy as a Greek Australian mother and noikokira.
Following her diagnosis, Kathy left her high-pressured finance career behind and followed her passion for food. But it’s not just a passion for food that drives this woman, it’s more a desire to nurture and love through food. Kathy understands and uses food as her tool to mother not only her children but everyone who enters her shop The Sweet Greek at Prahran Market, in Melbourne’s south east. Every piece of spanakopita consumed comes with a large helping of Kathy’s love and comfort, every bite you take out of the galaktobouriko she’s made comes with her warm smile. That smile follows you through every page of this cookbook.
As a lover of food – especially Greek – this is the cookbook I have been waiting for. It’s more than just recipes; it’s an insight into Greek culture, a guidebook of traditions and festivities but importantly, it tells the story of Greek migration to Australia through recipes and experiences. The pages pour with not only the emotion of the author but the blood, sweat and tears given by the generation Kathy calls her ‘heroes’ – the Greeks who migrated here in the ’50s and ’60s.
“Reading Neos Kosmos, suddenly you are seeing two to three pages of death notices, you go to church on a Sunday and there’s a sea of gray hairs and you know that the heroes that migrated here in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s are all dying,” Kathy says.
“These are the people that sacrificed so much and they can’t just die in vain.”
So the Sweet Greek acts as a homage to our heroes, the ones who migrated and paved the way for future generations of Greek Australians, and remembering never to take their hardships for granted.
“We have to take that legacy and pass it down, to know where you came from.
“We have to hold onto our traditions, if not for anything else but to at least respect and honour the people that came here to give us the life we have here today.”
But there was another reason other than documenting her knowledge for her family and honouring the heroes of our past; it was Kathy playing the nurturing role again.
Upon opening her store The Sweet Greek, she noticed customers wanting to recreate her classic dishes at home, or ask her advice on what oil to use for what, on which herb matched lamb better to create Hellenic flavours. Kathy created this cookbook for them too, to pass on her knowledge to her customers – who are ultimately her surrogate children.
“I want to nurture other people’s souls, I want to feed them, I want to embrace them and I want to arouse their senses through food,” she explains of her selfless need to pass on her culinary secrets.
The development of the cookbook for a self-proclaimed home cook had its challenges to say the least. Nearly all her recipes had been passed down from mother to daughter, either through a handwritten note but mostly always through a sense of memory. Watch and learn was the way Kathy was taught to cook, so she had to work backwards and write down every step of the way for something that comes as naturally to this mother as walking, as breathing. And with that, each dish created from her kitchen has meant something to her and her loved ones, something she wants to see passed on to all the readers of Sweet Greek.
“All my memories are around a table through food, sometimes we lose that, and I lost it too, we all do in this fast paced life.
“And I want to say to the people I met ‘create memories for your family, life is special and the best way to do it is through a glass of wine, some food around the table’. Food has the power to do that – whether it’s a smell, whether it’s a taste, it just does.”
For a woman who has lived so much, and endured so much in the past four years, just knowing about her charitable desire to nourish the souls of all makes this story even more special.
“I needed this to give back,” starts Kathy.
“I’m so grateful for what I’ve got. I’m so grateful to be here and I’m so grateful for all my friends and family that I have that this was my way of giving back.”
Sweet Greek: simple food & sumptuous feasts is now available in all good bookstores. For more information on where to purchase, contact Melbourne Books on info@melbournebooks.com.au.