Two nonfiction writers in my MFA program individually suggested that I check out Saveur, and I’m so glad they recommended the culinary magazine to me! It’s always full of such mouthwatering images of food and recipes I’d love to taste test. This week, the article “Menu: A French Picnic for Early Summer” arrived in my inbox. Sometimes I think I must’ve been French in another lifetime. I’ve always thought of myself more as an Anglophile than a Francophile, but there’s just something so charming and whimsical about the whole French flea-market aesthetic.
A summer or two ago, I read Barry Miles’ The Beat Hotel, about the years Beat Generation writers Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso lived at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur on the Left Bank of Paris. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a long, leisurely picnic of baguette and chevre along the Seine? Experiencing communion with God while drinking cabernet sauvignon and contemplating the enormous rose window of Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris? Reading bohemian and Beat poetry and penning poems in a pocket journal?
Sometimes I wish the Greek aesthetic lent itself to a more feminine and whimsical feel. I picture triangles of tiropita, squares of feta cheese generously sprinkled with oregano, and delicate twists of diples dripping with honey and cinnamon all laid out on an off-white doily-like tablecloth crocheted by my yiayia. Someone is fingerpicking an ornate bouzouki, and I’m reading about how Allen Ginsberg sailed to Greece in 1961 to track down his love. And I am writing stories about cultivating a garden of memories in Greece.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 
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