Afternoons in Ithaka - A memoir of Greece - a most appealing book to hold and to read.

A charming memoir of self-discovery, family, connection and the power of a tomato..
ABC Books - $NZ29.99

'I remember crusty just-baked bread, rubbed with juicy tomato flesh, swimming in a puddle of thick green olive oil. I am seven years old. I sit on a stool in my grandmother's house. It is the height of summer in a seaside village in the south of Greece. We little Aussies devour 'tomato sandwiches' as the family chats and laughs and swats flies …' 

From the first heady taste of tomatoes on home-baked bread in her mother’s village in Petalidi, to sitting at a taverna some 30 years later in Ithaka with her young family, Spiri Tsintziras goes on a culinary, creative and spiritual journey that propels her back and forth between Europe and Australia. These evocative, funny and poignant stories explore how food and culture, language and music, and people and their stories help to create a sense of meaning and identity.

About the Author:

With a keen interest in people and their stories, Spiri Tsintziras has a background in social work and freelance journalism and has worked in marketing, publishing and policy roles for more than 15 years. She has had numerous stories about food, family and connection published in THE AGE, and was winner of the Australian Book Industry Award Book of the Year for Older Children 2010. 

Spiri lives in Melbourne with her husband, two kids and a bunch of pets. 

For more on Spiri, see her blog The Tribal Tomato, at www.writingspirit.com.au