Christina Xenos has come a long way since starting out as a chef with the online platform eatwith.com, now with recipes inspired by her family from Crete and the island of Milos where she learned about fresh goods from backyard gardens.

Opa! The Healthy Greek Cookbook she wrote with co-author Theo Stephan was at the Long Beach, California Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Labor Day Greek festival where Orange County Register writer Judy Bart Kancigor met up with her.

https://www.ocregister.com/2024/08/29/cooking-with-judy-some-awesome-options-for-a-taste-of-the-mediterranean/

“I’ve been cooking all my life,” said Xenos. “My earliest memory is my grandmother teaching me to make dolmades, stuffed grape leaves.” A Greek island visitor, she said she wanted to write a cookbook easy to use.

“Times have changed. We don’t have time anymore to spend three or five hours in the kitchen making one recipe. Takeout’s great, but we wanted to use accessible ingredients and streamline the recipes so people would have time to cook, and we wanted people to cook healthy,” she also said.