Both of her families - her family in Jackson, Mississippi, and her family on the island of Skopelos in Greece - share a love of good food, a passion for gathering around a table for long conversations with family and friends, and a generosity of spirit that reaches from the Aegean Sea to the American South. Her dad, Spiros, born in the Missisipi Delta two months after his parents left Skopelos, has the warmth and fun-loving appetite of a Greek and the humor and charm of a Southern gentleman. In 2005, Cat Cora made television history on Food Network’s Iron Chef America as the first and only female Iron Chef, and in November 2006 Bon Appetit Magazine bestowed her with their Teacher of the Year Award, an award she calls, “the greatest recognition she could achieve as a chef”.  Cat Cora's Kitchen Favourite Meals for Family and Friends The dinners of her childhood inspired her to write this book, to pass along the idea that good cooking can spring from modest budgets. Greek home cooking