Diane Kochilas says that the minute she sets foot on Ikaria, she feels at peace. The award-winning TV show host, cooking teacher, and author of more than a dozen books on Greek cuisine spends her time shuttling between New York, Athens, and this Greek island in the Aegean Sea, a seven-hour ferry ride from Athens.
“All the hours I have spent getting there, all the annoyances I might have encountered along the way dissolve immediately. My face softens; my shoulders drop. I am filled with the belief that everything is fine,” she said.
Given that Ikaria is one of only six blue zone regions in the world—defined as places where people live longer than the global average (currently 71.7 years, according to the U.N. Population Division) and often with their physical and mental health intact—it’s hardly surprising that Ms. Kochilas feels a sense of well-being when there.
As to the reason behind their longevity, she’s careful not to name a definitive cause.
“They are active, they have strong support networks, they enjoy the amazing nature that surrounds them, their diet is heavy [in] plants and low [in] animal fats. These are probably important contributory factors,” she said. “But equally, it could be something we’ve not considered—something in the air, or the water, or the DNA of the people.”
Still, health practitioners point to undeniable evidence that exercise and diet have a huge bearing on life expectancy. There is no doubt that a Mediterranean diet, full of fresh vegetables, raw honey, herbs, pulses, and lots of olive oil, is beneficial.
“The tempo of life is slow and easy, and people connect through food. In essence, this is the Ikaria way,” she said.
Deep Roots
Ms. Kochilas was born in New York, but her father and maternal grandfather were from Ikaria. Her appreciation of good food came not from her mother—a native New Yorker of Ikarian descent, who lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—but from her father.“He loved to cook, and I’d watch as he threw ingredients together—a bunch of this, a handful of that, a pinch of seasoning, a couple of spirals of olive oil,” Ms. Kochilas said. “He didn’t teach me, but I learned, as if by osmosis, what it took to make beautiful, nutritious food.”
When she was 12, she traveled to Ikaria for the first time, with her older sister and brother-in-law. Other visits followed. Some of her most profound food memories come from those childhood trips.
“Eating a tomato I’d just picked from my aunt’s garden was a revelation,” she said. “I’d only ever had those sorry excuses for tomatoes we used to get in the States—pink, hard, flavorless—so when I bit into that one, it was sensational. My senses were intoxicated by the color, the fragrance, the taste.”
Her aunt’s garden was full of trees—pear, apple, apricot, almond, quince—and what she couldn’t grow, she got from her neighbors by trading her own fruit.
“I went around her garden plucking vegetables and fruits from trees, from the earth. Everything was full of life,” Ms. Kochilas said.
That same aunt introduced her to spoon desserts—fruits, nuts, or vegetables preserved in honey, petimezi (grape syrup), or sugar syrup. They’re served on a spoon, with grainy Greek coffee, a cool glass of water, or both.
The first one she ever had was walnut. Her aunt had picked the walnuts before they had ripened—so their shells were still soft and green—and preserved them in syrup.
“I have eaten thousands made by other people since, but not one comes close to my aunt’s version. Its flavor was so nuanced, so delicate, the taste unfolding almost like the petals of a flower,” Ms. Kochilas said. “She was poor, and had only the most rudimentary of cooking facilities—no more than pans on a hearth—yet the food she made will live with me forever.”
Ms. Kochilas’s father died young, but the family continued to return to Ikaria.
“I was just a kid when he died, but my connections to his island and its traditions were extremely deep-rooted, and have only become more so with time,” she said, describing feelings of familiarity and homecoming. “It’s a spiritual freedom, a warm and embracing sense of belonging. I feel safe. Even if the world goes awry, I have this notion that I will still be able to find sanctuary here.”
Visiting Ikaria is a sensory experience as much as an emotional one, she said. “I see how the light changes as I approach the island on the ferry. I can smell its honey, its pine forests, even its baked earth. My senses are awakened, as if Ikaria and I are stretching to meet each other.”
Homecoming
Ms. Kochilas describes herself as a professional home cook whose passion evolved into a career—partly through the strength of her convictions and partly through serendipity.After spending most of the summers of her adolescence and college years in Ikaria, she got her first job in New York, in the finance sector. Her life on the island had been one that afforded her space and time, and peace and freedom. City living threw pollution and frenzy, and noise and confusion, at her.
And then there was the work: “It was never going to last,” she said. “It was deadly, a stress-packed worry wheel.”
She vividly remembers the day she quit. “I was in the elevator with one of the analysts, who was dressed in the typical suit and bowtie, and I was there in my slacks,” she said. “He looked me up and down and said, ‘Well, you’re clearly not on the corporate career ladder.’ I thought, ‘You know what? I’m not.’”
She returned to her desk, typed her resignation letter, left it in the typewriter, and went for lunch. She never went back.
Ms. Kochilas switched careers to become a journalist, but something still gnawed at her. Within 18 months, she left for Greece.
There, her stars began to align. She got a job writing restaurant reviews for a leading local magazine, fell in love with a boy from Ikaria, moved with him back to the United States, found new work editing a food column, and pitched an idea for a book to a publisher.
Sharing Island Wisdom
Ms. Kochilas published her first book, “The Food and Wine of Greece,” in 1990. It took her down a path she is still walking today. “The Ikaria Way,” published in March 2024, is a love letter to her island home—and, she said, to “real food grown locally wherever one may be, with an overwhelming amount of vegetables, greens, beans, great Greek olive oil, herbs, spices, whole grains, crunchy sea salt, and all the other gifts of the earth with which we happen to be blessed with in the Mediterranean.” Thankfully, many of those foods are also readily available outside of Greece.
Though her cooking is more pared down now that she lives on her own, with her children having moved away, what she eats “is always wholesome,” Ms. Kochilas said.
“It might only be a salad, a lentil soup, or an omelet, but I will still use the best ingredients I can find—good olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon, dried herbs if I don’t have fresh on hand.”
Greek oregano is a seminal herb, packed with antiviral and antibiotic properties, and so aromatic that it transforms the most basic of meals. Thyme, a great flavor enhancer, is another of her favorites, as well as mint and bay leaves. All the herbs she grows in her garden in Ikaria are found dried in her kitchens in Athens and New York.
It’s a different story when her children visit. For them, she prepares a feast of fresh zucchini or pumpkin pie, homemade sourdough, spinach rice, and gigandes (large butter beans).
“My guests and I prepare the healthiest seasonal meals together, and enjoy them around my garden table while gazing out over the Aegean. The time each group spends together is special,” Ms. Kochilas said. She’s formed lifelong friendships with her students, and they, in turn, have bonded with each other.
“I like to say that, to me, Ikaria is not where people forget to die, but where they remember how to live.”
Diane Kochilas’s Guide to Embracing the Ikarian Way of Life
- Forgive, let go, and don’t sweat the small things. Ask yourself if what stresses you today is something you’ll even remember in a week, month, or year. If the answer is no, let it go.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh at yourself. It helps alleviate stress.
- Don’t covet more than you need.
- Value your time over money. Give yourself time to enjoy being at leisure. Take a walk, or plant something; even if you don’t have outdoor space, you can still sow some seeds in a pot.
- Connect with family, friends, and strangers, and nurture those relationships.
- Eradicate the words “efficiency” and “punctuality” from your vocabulary. They cause stress and create a false sense of what is important.
- Spend time in nature, which is everywhere. You don’t have to live on an island as heavenly as Ikaria to enjoy it. Take a walk in a park or forest; stroll down to a stream or pond. Look up at the stars and the moon. It will change your perspective.
- Be as self-sufficient as you can manage. Even managing to grow tomatoes on a window ledge, or basil in your kitchen, will give you a sense of fulfillment.
- Eat real food, mostly plant-based, and avoid processed foods. Cook simply and seasonally.
- Sleep!
