The chef who has cooked for Obama, Biden and the homeless [Greek audio]

Every morning she wakes up thinking about what recipes she is going to make, about what she has to offer. She has catered for Presidents such as Obama and Biden, as well as homeless people during the pandemic.

Chef Maria Loi began cooking from a young age at her hometown, a little village of Aetoloakarnania, in northern Greece, called Thermo. She had to cross the Atlantic, and cover many miles at a different line of work until she could finally step back into the kitchen. And thank God she did. Because she taught us to nourish ourselves not for the sake of filling our stomach, but in order to live fuller lives.

Narrator: Maria Loi
Interview by Sofia Papaioannou
Podcast Creation: Haris Pagonidou
Sound Engineering: Iasonas Theofanou
Sound Editing: Thodoris Moustakas
Photos by Maria Loi

Istorima is the largest project for recording and preserving oral histories of Greece. More than 1,000 young researchers find narrators listen, collect and preserve stories of people from all over Greece: Stories of their hometowns, stories of love, stories that changed Greece or defined it, modern or old stories. Stories that are not recorded in the history books and that could easily be lost in time. It was created by the journalist Sofia Papaioannou and the historian Katherine Fleming and is implemented with a founding grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), as part of its initiative to Restart and Empower Youth (see more on www.snf.org). More than 20,000 stories are gradually being published in full on www.archive.istorima.org. Excerpts of the stories are published in the form of podcasts, videos, or written stories on www.istorima.org.