Food, culture, celebration, and memory are inexorably tied together inside Tessa Kiros's Kouzina. As the follow-up to her best-selling Venezia and Falling Cloudberries, Kouzina explores Kiros's Greek-Cypriot heritage and takes readers on a colorful journey into the Greek kitchens of her friends and family as she catalogs the traditional foods for fasting, festivals, and feast days.

Recipes like Vassilopitta New Year Wish Cake, Lamb in a Flowerpot with Dill and Red Wine, Yamopilafo Wedding Rice, and Easter Soup are accompanied by short introductions that explain each dish's cultural significance. In addition, lavish full-color photographs take readers on a tour from the local Mediterranean fishmongers and markets into Greek family homes and kitchens to experience the best in authentic Greek cooking.

With a glossary and more than 200 classically prepared Greek recipes, Kouzina adds a greater depth of flavor to each dish through Kiros's warm anecdotal introductions like the following passage for Vassilopitta:

"In Greece, everyone has a vassilopitta (cake) at New Year. The wonderful thing about this cake is that a flouri (coin) is added before baking. If you're lucky to get the piece with the coin, you'll be blessed for the year. Don't you love that sense of celebration the Greeks have?" --Kouzina: Food from Many Greek Kitchens