The Greek America Foundation has announced a new Homecoming Journey to Greece, this time led by celebrated chef, author and culinary storyteller Mina Stone, whose deeply personal approach to Greek and Mediterranean cooking has made her one of the most distinctive culinary voices of her generation.
Mina Stone’s Culinary Journey to Western Crete will take place October 18-25, 2026, bringing guests from Athens to Chania for an intimate, food-centered exploration of Crete’s landscapes, traditions and flavors.
The journey is part of the Greek America Foundation’s growing Homecoming Journeys program, a series of curated travel experiences designed to connect people to Greece through culture, heritage, food, history and meaningful personal encounters.
For Stone, whose life and work are rooted between Greece and New York, the journey is more than a culinary retreat. It is a return to origin.
Best known for her cookbooks Cooking for Artists and Lemon, Love and Olive Oil, Stone has built a following for food that is elegant without being fussy, deeply Greek without being nostalgic, and rooted in the kind of simplicity that lets ingredients speak for themselves. Her work reflects a way of cooking that is less about performance and more about memory, hospitality and the quiet beauty of ingredients prepared with care.
On this journey, guests will not simply observe from a distance. They will cook with Mina, eat with Mina, explore with Mina and experience Greece through the lens of someone whose culinary philosophy has been shaped by heritage, family and place.
The experience begins in Athens, where guests will gather for a welcome evening before continuing south to Crete, the island that has long occupied a powerful place in the Greek imagination. Crete is Greece at its most elemental: ancient and rugged, generous and defiant, shaped by mountains, villages, sea, olive groves and a way of life where food remains inseparable from identity.
In Chania and the surrounding region of western Crete, participants will enter the rhythm of local life through markets, kitchens, farms, villages and tables shared with the people who keep the island’s traditions alive. The journey will offer travelers the chance to understand Cretan food not as a trend or a cuisine to be consumed, but as a living expression of culture.
Across the week, guests will experience the stories behind the ingredients, the rituals behind the meals and the relationships that turn food into memory. They will learn from local cooks, producers and artisans whose work reflects generations of knowledge passed through families and villages. They will also spend time with Mina herself, whose presence brings a deeply personal and contemporary lens to the experience.
The journey is designed for travelers who want more than a standard vacation. It is not built around checking off monuments or rushing through famous places. Instead, it invites participants to slow down, listen, taste and enter a more intimate version of Greece — one that is found in courtyards, kitchens, village roads, family tables and conversations that unfold over long meals.
For the Greek America Foundation, the program reflects the broader purpose of its Homecoming Journeys initiative: to create meaningful pathways back to Greece for people who want to connect with the country in deeper and more authentic ways.
These journeys are rooted in the idea that Greece is not only a destination, but a living inheritance. Through food, music, faith, history, language, landscape and human connection, participants are invited to experience Greece as something personal, not simply picturesque.
Mina Stone’s Culinary Journey to Western Crete brings that philosophy to life through one of the most powerful forms of cultural memory: food.
The trip includes accommodations in Athens and Crete, local transportation, guided cultural experiences, culinary workshops, most meals, entrance fees and support from the Greek America Foundation’s Homecoming Journeys team. International airfare to and from Greece is not included, and travel insurance is required.
Space is limited for the October 2026 journey. For more information or to reserve a place on Mina Stone’s Culinary Journey to Western Crete, click here.
