Tom Stone went to Greece one summer to write a novel--and stayed twenty-two years. On the tiny idyllic island of Patmos, he fell in love with a beautiful French painter, married, and had two children. Seven years later, he moved his family to Crete for a teaching job, but his heart was still in Patmos, so when a Patmian friend offered him a summer partnership at his taverna, he jumped at the chance. But his wife warned him not to forget the old adage about Greeks bearing gifts. At The Beautiful Helen, hard work and very long hours were tempered by Stone's growing reputation as a cook and the promise of enormous profits in August. But his illusions were shattered with the realization that his partner had been cheating him out of thousands of dollars. Featuring Stone's recipes, The Summer of My Greek Taverna is a grand, humorous, and sometimes bittersweet adventure of a modern-day innocent pursuing his dreams in a foreign land.