Starting with our Queens Migrant Kitchens project – whose creator, Sarah Khan, was recently featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown – and continuing with the introduction of our dedicated Queens section, we’ve been increasingly drawn deeper into the rich world of New York’s most diverse borough. The food in Queens, representing communities that speak over 150 languages, is of course a major draw. But it’s the human element, particularly the stories of the immigrants who call Queens home, that we have found so compelling – particularly during these unsettled political times.

Grilling meat is a Greek tradition that hearkens back at least to the days of Homer. In his Iliad, the poet wrote of a sacrifice of cattle to the god Apollo, after which the men “cut all the remainder into pieces and spitted them and roasted all carefully.” They feasted, they drank wine, they sang praise to Apollo and they slept, until “the young Dawn showed again with her rosy fingers.” In modern-day Greece, spit-roasted meat, today called souvlaki, is an everyday meal. The same is true in Astoria, Queens, home to a stalwart Greek-American community for more than half a century, where you can feast on skewers for the sacrifice of only a few dollars each.

The promise of food prepared before our eyes, just for us, is a big reason that we’re constantly spreading the good word about food events in and around New York. We’re especially fond of festivals and other gatherings held by members of a close-knit group – sometimes congregants of a church, temple or mosque, almost always folks who share the common bond of a previous homeland far away. Often their dishes are assembled by (gloved) hand immediately before serving for maximal stimulating freshness. A few such events repeat periodically, but most, we know all too well, come just once a year. We’re always on the lookout, then, for businesses that take a similar up-close-and-personal approach.