About

My name is Ivy Liacopoulou and I am a Cypriot,  living in Greece for the past thirty years. I grew up in Limassol, Cyprus, which is a beautiful island in the Eastern Mediterranean until I got married and we moved to Greece.

My passion for cooking started by watching my mother cook and helping her in the kitchen, back in Cyprus, where I grew up. When we moved to Greece, I started learning more about Greek cuisine and learned to cook dishes like giouvetsi, fricassee, pites, hilopites, magiritsa and other Greek dishes which we did not cook at home.   I continued cooking my Cypriot recipes and my new family and friends were always happy with what they ate.

Cypriot cuisine is shaped by the island’s Mediterranean climate, geography, and history. Most of it’s recipes are based on Greek cuisine but Cyprus’s strategic location brought to the island too many conquerors and thus Cypriot cuisine has evolved as a fusion of Turkish cuisine, as well as from the neighbouring Middle Eastern countries. There are remnants too of French, Italian, and Anglo-Saxon influences stemming from the island’s occupation by the French Lusignans, the Venetians and the British.

A few years ago when I stopped working, I wanted to rewrite my old recipes, as the notebooks I had were torn and all greasy after so many years of use. I decided to copy them on the computer so that I could give a copy to all my children.

During the summer of 2007 we went on vacation early in July and in August, when all the Athenians take their holidays everything was on hold for a whole month, even on T.V. they have reruns of winter series, so there was no much to do and I was feeling very bored. My eldest son suggested that since I loved cooking so much, why not create a blog and interact with people. I created my blog «Kopiaste» and ever since I have been hooked to this hobby.

For those who do not know Greek, “kopiaste” is a polite way of inviting somebody and literally means “make an effort to” but it is also synonymous to “welcome”. We say “kopiaste” when we want to invite someone in our house, to share our food with or when we open our house to friends and invite them to come and make themselves at home. So in my way I am inviting you into my kitchen to share with you all my recipes and all my “little” secrets.

My specialties are healthy Greek and Cypriot dishes but that does not mean that we eat only Cypriot and Greek food, so you will be seeing recipes of other cuisines as well.  We have expanded our tastes with other hearty, sophisticated and elegant meals, which fit with our taste and adapted to the Greek way of cooking using Greek ingredients such as olive oil, Greek herbs and spices or Greek cheeses.

Ever since I started blogging three years ago, I have learned a lot about cooking and to appreciate the Mediterranean Diet.  I have been creating recipes of my own, based on the Mediterranean Diet and even taking some traditional Greek or Cypriot dishes and giving them a tweak of my own, transforming them with a more modern approach, into healthier dishes.  

When I stopped working, cooking has become my best hobby, setting aside painting which I took lessons for two years, as I find cooking a very creative form of art. You take vegetables, legumes, fruit, raw meat, spices and many other ingredients and transform them into desserts, meals, salads, and each category has millions of recipes, created by people who love cooking.

Each new thing I have learned to cook, I have cooked it over and over again until I was satisfied that I had mastered it well. Although I started writing my recipes the old fashioned Greek way saying a glass of this or a handful of that,  the past years I am working with cups and spoons or weighing the ingredients and by the time I publish the book I shall also convert the recipes in ounzes and pounds but for the time being, if you wish to convert the recipes you can find a culinary converter on the side bar of my blog, which is very easy to use.

The past year I have created many dishes of my own and I pay close attention to the quality of the products I cook with and all my dishes are made from scratch and from the freshest local ingredients available depending on the season.

If you search for a recipe and do not find the list of ingredients it is because I am in the process of publishing a cookbook, so I have removed some recipes.  Hope you have the patience to wait for a while until they are published.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read about me and hope that you will enjoy my recipes.

Kopiaste and Kali Orexi,