THE CIRCLE OF KOURABIES

Crane and Harrison offer a memoir that’s part family history, part Greek cookbook.

Back in 1898, a young girl named Penelope grew up in Koroni, Greece. As Penelope reached marriage age, she had two problems: She couldn’t cook and she wasn’t interested in her suitor. Penelope instead wound up with the son of confectioners, a man named Elias Harlambakis, and the two headed to America. Elias Harlambakis became Louis Harrison upon his arrival at Ellis Island, and the couple later opened a candy store in East St. Louis. In 1917, another Greek family set out for America—the Tsetsos family, who opened a general store in the growing city of Los Angeles. In 1928, their son Nickolas was accepted to dental school at USC. In 1945, Nickolas’ daughter, one of the authors of this book, was born. Penelope would later become her mother-in-law. As the stories of these Greek immigrants and their descendants unfold, the text also includes recipes. The pages provide instructions on how to create everything from specialties like chocolate-walnut sweets called kariokes to main dishes like roast lamb with manestra (a one-pot orzo stew). The authors make quick work of this sweeping family history, but even with the sparse descriptions, readers will get a feel for the main characters (and their culinary preferences). One can easily picture Penelope, who wore 1950s “cat-eye” glasses “long after they went out of fashion, until she passed away at the age of ninety-three.” Some other aspects have the feel of a more generic story; for instance, a young Nickolas, while studying to become a dentist, reflects on the sacrifices his parents have made, and how they “would end, and a new life would begin for them.” Such statements don’t do as much to establish Nickolas as a character as, say, details like his lifelong preference for a 7-Up and whiskey cocktail. Still, the work brings the histories of real people, their memories, and their food to evocative life.

A lively, novel look at a 20th-century immigrant experience.