Emails to cheer up a sick friend have been parlayed into a collection of essays by former Pittsburgh attorney and Fox Chapel resident Laura Aristidou Candris.
Her literary debut, “Greek by Osmosis: My Life on a Small Greek Island (With Mama Kiki’s Recipes),” reached Amazon’s bestseller status in the Cyclades Travel Guides category, holding the top spot for more than 30 days.
“Had I still been in Pittsburgh when (my friend was ill), I would have been taking her food, driving her to appointments. I sent emails in an effort to make her smile,” she said.
Candris, a Kentucky native, chronicles a decades-long immersion into life on a small Cycladic Greek island after marrying Aris Candris, former president and CEO of Westinghouse Electric Co.
The pair met at Transylvania University in Lexington. Candris earned her law degree at the University of Pittsburgh and practiced for 34 years, mostly in Pittsburgh — her “adopted hometown.”
She first traveled to Greece in 1978 and spent summers there before building a home in 2003. The couple retired altogether in 2012.
Cultural adaptation woes were softened by people who were warm and wonderful, she said.
From navigating a real-estate market without agents to building a house by fax, Candris learned to embrace the rhythms of island time. She details incidents of cement-eating ants, marauding goats and clever crows, as well as tender moments spent learning traditional Greek recipes alongside her mother-in-law.
On expat life in the Mediterranean, she likened it to Appalachia in that the people were isolated so long before a spike in tourism attributed to the impact of TV and social media.
“They had their own music, food and customs,” Candris said. “Some of that is disappearing — definitely the dialect — but I’d like people to know that world. It is remarkably beautiful.”
While much of the story unfolds abroad, her connection to Pittsburgh remains strong.
Candris lived in North Huntingdon while studying law, commuting by bus to Pitt’s main campus in Oakland. The couple lived in O’Hara from 1980 until moving to Fox Chapel in 1992.
“I’ve had foreign guests who come through the (Fort Pitt) tunnel and tell me they think people would come from all over Europe for that view,” she said. “I’ve always loved everything about Pittsburgh except the weather and the roads.
“I always said the only way I would be pried out of town is to put me on a beach.”