Kathryn Gauci, Our First Guest Contributor Brings an Aegean Memoir...and a Recipe

You know how sometimes Greece doesn’t just call you? It nudges. Then insists. Then refuses to leave you alone until you get on a plane.

That’s more or less what happened to Kathryn Gauci.

If you’re not familiar with her yet, Kathryn is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her historical novels set in Greece and beyond (as well as collaborating on one of the most beautiful coloring books I've ever seen).

But long before the book awards and glowing reviews, she had another life entirely. She spent more than thirty years as a carpet and textile designer, and in the 1970s she worked in Athens. Greece got under her skin early. It never really left.

In 2005, at a point in life when many people are settling in rather than shaking things up, she did the opposite. She took two months off, packed her bags, and went back to Greece alone. No fixed plan or guaranteed outcome. Just a desire to find the “old” Greece she felt was slipping away under the weight of modernization and mass tourism. She wandered through the mastic villages of Chios, the wide olive-draped landscapes of Lesbos, the turquoise waters of Karpathos, and the mountains and gorges of Crete. Along the way she stayed in small villages, ate regional food cooked the traditional way, and met the kinds of characters you only find when you slow down and stay a while.

Those notes from that solo journey eventually sparked her first historical novel, The Embroiderer, and the rest, as they say, is literary history. Fifteen books later, she has finally returned to that original trip in her memoir, An Aegean Odyssey. And what strikes me most is not just the travel, though there is plenty of that. It is the leap. The decision, in midlife, to pivot. To trust that inspiration is worth following. To believe that traveling alone as a woman can be not just safe, but transformative.

That message feels especially close to home here. So many of you in this community are heritage seekers, curious travelers, women and men who are standing at some kind of crossroads. Kathryn’s story is a reminder that you are allowed to begin again. You are allowed to book the ticket. You are allowed to chase the version of Greece that speaks to you.

In today’s guest feature, Kathryn shares a bit about her journey and her book. Even better, she brings a recipe from An Aegean Odyssey, a taste of the islands that shaped her path. Because in Greece, stories and food are never far apart. You learn about a place through its mountains and myths, yes.

But also through its kitchens.

So settle in. Imagine the scent of thyme in the hills, the sharp sweetness of mastiha in the air, the sound of a village kafeneio at dusk. And then head over to meet Kathryn and sample a little piece of her Aegean odyssey for yourself.

Filakia,

Barbara