Planning guides: what is in season, which region to choose, and how to get there.
A loose, food-first week around Sicily: Palermo street food, Catania and Etna wine in the east, Baroque Ortigia and Noto, and the Marsala wine and salt pans of the west, with where to base and when to go.
What to eat in Santorini: the volcanic produce behind fava (split-pea purée), tomatokeftedes (cherry-tomato fritters), white aubergines and capers, plus fresh seafood and the island's crisp Assyrtiko wine - the dishes to order and where to eat.
Souvlaki vs gyros: both are Greek grilled-meat street food in pita, but souvlaki is grilled on a skewer while gyros is stacked on a vertical spit and shaved off. The difference, the Athens naming quirk, and how to order the wrap right.
Greek dishes explained: the meze dips (tzatziki, taramosalata, fava), souvlaki and gyros, baked moussaka and pastitsio, spanakopita and tyropita pies, Greek salad, and sweets like baklava and loukoumades - what each is and what to drink.
What to eat in Crete: dakos (barley rusk with tomato and mizithra), wild greens and olive oil, slow-roasted antikristo lamb, gamopilafo, snails, kalitsounia pastries and graviera cheese - the Cretan diet's dishes to order and where to eat, with raki to drink.
What to eat in Athens: souvlaki and gyros, a meze table of tzatziki, dolmades and saganaki, Greek salad with feta, moussaka, and sweets like loukoumades and baklava - the dishes to order, where locals eat, and what to drink.
A flexible 3-day Athens food and wine itinerary: the Varvakios Central Market and tavernas with a food tour, a Greek cooking class and a wine tasting of Assyrtiko and Agiorgitiko, then a Nemea wine day trip or the coast. Suggestions, not a fixed schedule.
How Lisbon cooking classes work: pastel de nata baking workshops where you laminate the pastry and make the custard tarts, and savoury petiscos or bacalhau classes, often after a market visit, then eaten with Portuguese wine. What you make and how to choose.
What is port wine? Portugal's fortified wine from the Douro Valley, made by adding grape spirit mid-fermentation to leave it sweet and strong. Ruby, Tawny, White and Vintage styles explained, how to drink each, and where to taste it in the Gaia lodges.
What is a pastel de nata? Portugal's custard tart - crisp laminated puff pastry filled with egg-yolk custard, baked blazing hot so the top caramelises. Its Belém monastery origin, pastel de nata vs Pastel de Belém, how to eat it, and where to make your own.