Three brothers buzz around their kitchen. One checks the oven, another whisks away, the third weighs out more ingredients. Every so often they check over yiayia Panagiota’s recipe to make sure they’re on track.
Yiayia Panagiota isn’t around anymore, but her recipes are, and her three grandsons George, Andrew and Peter Samothrakitis are making sure they’re kept alive with their own hands.
The brothers admit that although they love all their family members the same, their bond with yiayia Panagiota was particularly special.
“Our yiayia was that person in our life, no different to any other yiayia and their story, and the way they came down from Greece and the things they went through. But for us, she was that person. She was the only person that we could go to and talk to. She supported us even more than our parents would, more than the other grandparents would, more than anyone would,” they said.
Seemingly, out of the blue, tragedy struck the family as they learned that yiayia Panagiota was diagnosed with a rare lung disease.
Yiayia, undeterred by her illness, continued cooking in her kitchen, even with the oxygen tank dancing about her feet.
“She was a fighter to the last day. She would be in the kitchen with her walker and the oxygen, still wanting to cook and provide for the family,” they said.
Struck by the loss of their beloved yiayia, the young men found their own way to keep her resilient spirit alive. Not long after finishing year 12, Andrew took the first steps in collating her recipes and put together a book to share with the family.
“I started creating a recipe book with the boys. Pappou and I started to cook all her dishes again and try to remaster them and write everything down. I can’t tell you the amount of times we failed,” Andrew explained.
“We tried to make sense of her sticky notes here and there with all the recipes. Luckily pappou remembered a lot of the stuff she used to make, because he used to help her. And that way we slowly made the cookbook full of all her recipes for the family.”
A trip to Greece would then light the fire that bubbled their thoughts and inspired them to push for something greater.
“Andrew and I went to Greece for a big Euro trip. We visited yiayia’s brother in the village as well, in Sparta, and that gave us a bit of a wake up call. We thought, ‘we’re going to do something more for yiayia.’ She taught us so much when she was still around. We’re going to try to give back and keep her legacy alive,” Peter said.
Fuelled by their yiayia Panagiota’s love, resilience and generosity, the Samothrakitis brothers created Yiayia’s Glyka and officially kicked off sales in August of this year.
Every bite of their sweets are a testament to her essence and their mission to make the world a better place just as she did for them. Keeping true to their word, Yiayia’s Glyka donates 10 percent of each sale to the Lung Foundation Australia.
“Having lost her so suddenly, from such a cruel disease, triggered something inside us to do more about our culture and our heritage and to share the memories that we had with her. It wasn’t about business at all. It was about missing going to her house and giving us advice about life,” George said.
“The lung cancer that she had was so vigorous and there was no research or support related to it, and we thought we need to just do something to help with that as well. As soon as we knew yiayia was going through that, we realised how many others must be going through the same thing. Our recent collaboration with the Lung Foundation gave us a huge wake up call.”
So far, the brothers have raised $729 and hope to hit the thousands soon through general donations and sales.
Yiayia’s Glyka will be selling their desserts tonight (Wednesday, November 20) at the opening of the proika exhibition. The exhibition opens at 7pm and is being held at ‘the garazi’ (16 Cubbit Street, Cremorne). Register here.
