Dimitris Papadimitriou
With the title "Cooking is inner prayer", Gastronomos magazine, host the interview of the composer Dimitris Papadimitriou for the August issue. His portrait photography took place at his home accompanied with the great taste of his recipes and an interesting conversation about his music experiences.
Music for cinema, theater and television, symphonic works, pioneering actions and vision. The composer Dimitris Papadimitriou It is still thirsty, after forty years of creation, and quenches the thirst of its recipients. With its prestige and consistent attitude, it brings together artists and people with similar concerns, at the same time giving a step to younger people to show their talents. He is steeped in our popular wealth, he owns its secrets and peculiarities, he knows deeply the ways and places of his libation. His folk songs have his "academic" aura, but they are not ossified, that is why they were sung, loved, they were even danced by the crowd, and most importantly, they stayed!
Quiet strength. It has a "plan", earthly, but also transcendental at the same time. Global, cosmopolitan, that is to say "Greek". He becomes a heretic to forge new paths, he becomes a "wrecker" to flatten swampy stereotypes and build new bridges. He loves cooking and has even received professional offers for his performance. So, my invitation for a culinary interview in a meal at his house. Dimitris Papadimitriou is a hospitable host. The space is similar to his work, flooded with unique art objects, some of which have family roots.
Text by Kostas Balachoutis
Dimitris Papadimitriou has written symphonic works, pieces for solo instruments and combinations of instruments, music for theater and for Greek cinema (Electric Angel, Revenge, Archangel of Passion, The Tree We Hurt, Victory of Samothrace, Lovers in the Time Machine, The Life One and a Half Thousand, The Light Going Out etc.), for Greek television and for television series in Sweden, France, Germany and elsewhere. The general public discovered him because of television.
Known from the beginning of the 1980s until today for his fine compositions, several of which dressed up well-known television hits (such as Anastasia by Giorgos Kordellas in a script by Mirela Papaikonomou, Don't Be Afraid of Fire, Due to Honor, Life which I did not live, Leni and the Witches of Smyrna), Dimitris Papadimitriou has also collaborated with Eleftheria Arvanitaki in a cycle of songs with the general title Songs for the Months, where he set well-known Greek poets to music.
In 2003 he took over as director of the Third Program and in September 2010 general director of Hellenic Radio[5]. Busy but versatile, after his long-term presence in the administration of ERT radio, he founded the Greek Project, a non-profit organization for the promotion of Greek and not only music[6]. In 2006 he gave a concert in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations Organization on the occasion of the organization's 60th birthday. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1958.
TAVERNA for Gastronomos Magazine
In this photo story about Taverna for Gastronomos magazine, I shared my angle of view and my respect to all these people who in daily basis keep alive the living history of the greek culture. In all these little spaces, mostly away from the crowd,
humanity and real contact have the first role. The philoxeny and the devotion of the owners, make these spaces ataxic and creates a space in where different people could connect, share their personalities and create culture.
"We enter the 42 oldest haunts of Athens and the countryside of Attica and talk to the people who for decades have held the reins of famous family shops that have written their own history in Athenian gastronomy.
From “Athinaikon” and “Lelouda” to “Oikonomou” and “Diporto”, the historical Athenian taverns that from being haunts of the popular strata became a favorite culinary destination of all social classes.
We select and collect the famous recipes from the most famous taverns of Athens and the surrounding area and present them in detail, with their secrets and the selected ingredients that established them: the fried meatballs of “Katsogiannos”, the yuvetsi of “Kitsoula”, the kakavia of ” Pezoula”, the rooster with thick macaroni of “Rhamnouda”, the bekri meze of “Vardi”. 40 iconic recipes immortal and timeless over the decades.
We learn the history of the tavern, from ancient Athens to the present day and gather in a glossary the old and new terms associated with the tavern and its culture.
We met people of letters and art in historic taverns and let them explain to us through their own experiences and reflections the meaning and essence of the tavern. Pantelis Voulgaris, “Deipnosophist” Christos Zouraris and Christos Chomenidis discuss and reflect on famous dishes of the Greek tavern and George Pittas gives his valuable advice to young tavern owners, through experience as well as his long-term study of history of the tavern.
How much did the Athenian tavern influence literature and music? Papadiamantis, Polemis, Karyotakis, Tsirkas were inspired by the popular atmosphere of the tavern and transferred it to their works, while theories and existential anxieties unfolded on its tables from the companies of Seferis, Papagiorgis, Papanoutsou. But the tavern also left its indelible mark in the popular song that praised it and captured its atmosphere like no other genre.
The tavern in art: Painters and photographers from Hatzikyriakos-Ghikas and Topazis to Manousakis, Craxton and Zavicianos each captured with their art and their eyes the warmth of the tavern and transferred it entirely to their canvas and film . Along with them is the self-taught popular painter Giorgos Savvakis, who with his blinding colors decorated over 40 taverns in Plaka with his murals, vividly capturing their aesthetics and patrons".
Agamemnon Tselikas
Portrait photography of Agamemnon Tselikas, the palaeographer who discovered the oldest Greek cooking guide, written before 1821. speaks to Angelos Rentoulas, editor-in-chief of Kathimerini gastronomic publications for Gastronomos Magazine.
Lefteris Lazarou for Gastronomos Magazine Christmass Cover
In this portrait photography mission for the the Christmass magazine's cover story of Gastronomos Magazine I had been travel to Hydra Island and the shots took place at the House-museum of Lazaros Koundouriotis, with the Greek chef of Varoulko Restaurant Lefteris Lazarou preparing the christmas Diner. This work was a combination of portrait and food photography. Special thanks to the chief editor: Angelos Rentoulas and the photo editor: Nasia Diamantidis for the excellent cooperation.
Styling: Alexandra Tasounidou
Assist: Panagiotis Andriopoulos
"This year, when we are stuck, when time counts twice and every minute instills new uncertainties, we need a conscious effort to recall our festive mood, to direct it from memory, even when the surrounding atmosphere weighs on us. We will help you with that - we hope. Our goal, when planning this year's "Gourmet" Christmas tribute, was to cultivate as never before the illusion of the holiday, the transcendental warmth of Christmas, through a moving descent journey into the past. A spiritual and real journey to six separate points on the map of Greece.
Four journalists, three photographers and six chefs scattered to the four corners of the Greek territory, in Xanthi, Zakynthos, Hydra, Lesvos, Syros and back to Athens, with the destination of six great mansions that opened their doors for us for the first time and the sets were made to photograph six separate holiday menus. These trips took place just before the second lockdown, in difficult conditions, with many adversities that we had to overcome. We did it, and now, in this introductory note - which is written almost at the end of the whistle, when the whole issue is ready to leave for the printing house and we are correcting the last details - you will forgive us for advancing the feeling. You have not yet turned the pages, you have not been immersed in the images and words that try - and we believe succeed - to convey the emotion, pride and affection we felt coming in contact with these great landmarks of Hellenism. Meeting them was an exercise in self-knowledge.
Walking around the spaces, climbing stairs, listening to squeaks and strange sounds, breathing air of old wet closure, we completed with our senses the stories that were told to us about each mansion by the people who welcomed us. We took pictures, seasons and whole worlds. Greek worlds that pre-existed, that clashed, that correlated or annulled each other. That fermented, that flourished, that bore ideas, art, spirit, matter and taste". Text By the chief editor of Gatronomos Magazine, Angelos Rentoulas.
Cretan Food & Culture
A travel tribute about Cretan life, food and gastronomy culture for Gastronomos Magazine. With the travel and food editor Nena Demetriou, we crossed over Rethymno mountains, covering the cretan life through the people of small local productions, like farmers, cheese & honey makers, shepherds and many other people that in open heart, generosity and hospitality, made us feel Crete like our home. Some of the published portrait photographs and moments from this food & travel tribute is following.
