Messenia

As they say in Messenia, a perfect dinner calls for three things: good friends, old wine, and always fresh EVOO.

During the summer of 1999, Michael Cosmopoulos, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, was conducting an archaeological survey with colleagues and students through the rugged and hilly terrain of Messenia, a region along Greece’s southwest coast.

Her husband, Cresphontes, a son of Hercules, and king of Messenia, was killed in a rebellion together with two of his sons.

By 1400 B.C., half a century after the warrior’s death, that power had been extended to the province of Messenia and 20 district capitals, all paying taxes to their Mycenaean overlords, who ruled in Pylos from the so-called Palace of Nestor, named after the Homeric hero.

I’m lucky: My boyfriend’s father presses olives in Messenia in the Peloponnese, a region known for its excellent oil.