Wine is part of that equation, too, an element that whets the appetite, complements the taste of the meal, and eases the mind. And since we've just finished our Greek tastings for this issue, having found forty Greek wines to recommend, our palates are primed for more. It wasn't always like this - four or five years ago, we were hard-pressed to find half as many recommendable Greek wines. Most of what was available in the US was retsina, old oxidized whites and baked reds. But with increased pressure and funds from the EU, there have been remarkable improvements in winegrowing and technology in Greece, and the changes are noticeable. The wines keep getting better, fresher, brighter, and there are more of them coming this way. With so many indigenous varieties grown in so many different climates, the array of wines produced is unparalleled. For us, wine lovers but foreigners, tasting the wines is a fascinating way to get to know the country, and a way to track a bit of history.
  Unfortunately, many of the wines haven't found their way onto restaurant lists in Astoria. While Manhattan's Molyvos and Milos have extensive Greek wine lists, tavernas in Astoria tend to stick to what's tried and true. That's not to say those wines aren't good; they're just not the whole story. So as we cross over from Manhattan on the N train to the other side of the river, we decide to spend our day not just eating, but shopping for our favorite Greek wines and the foods to go with them.
  The place to start is Grand Liquors, a giant (in NY terms) wine store right under the elevated N tracks. It doesn't look like much on the outside, its windows plastered top to bottom with sale signs. But the middle of the store offers the most enormous selection of Greek wines I have ever seen. "We have about two hundred or so," the salesman says, checking the count on the store's website. "Plus twenty-some ouzo." They have nearly every assyrtiko made on Santorini, plus a rare dessert wine that I didn't think was exported; they have xinomavros that could cellar for a decade, and everything in between. Nonetheless, "Retsina is still the top seller," the salesman remarks.
  And why not? I love a good retsina, if it's fresh and crisp (as it should be - the problem is that in a non-Greek neighborhood, retsina often languishes far too long on a dusty bottom shelf). There's no other wine that pairs so well with the sharp and aggressive flavors found on a mezes platter: pickled grape leaves wrapped around spiced rice, thick yogurt made tangy with garlic, beet salads, eggplant purée, salty feta, crunchy caper berries, bitter greens... retsina handles them all, refreshing the palate with that cool, foresty note of pine. I add a bottle to my cache.
  Now that we have the wine, it's time for the food. First stop is Hunter of the Sea, a fish store just up the street. On any given day they display a minimum of four different types of cephalopod. Today it's two different sizes of octopus, plus cuttlefish and squid the size of a child's thumb. They also offer all the favorite Mediterranean fish: the little marithes (whitebait) and gopes that get battered and fried; the orange-red barbounia, or red mullet, for grilling; the beautiful branzino, the gaping-eyed scorpio and, of course, the sardine. All were born to be enjoyed with assyrtiko, the crisp, acidic white grown in Santorini, in the middle of the sea.
  For lemons, we jog over to the "Elliniki Agora," or "Greek Market" in English. The bins heaped with vegetables spill onto the sidewalk. Artichokes come in two sizes, five for a dollar or a buck apiece; dandelion leaves in purple, a shade I've never seen, as well as green. They have fava fresh and dried, which can be made into a savory dip, as well as okra, which is delicious stewed with onion and tomato and served with a chunk of feta - the same thing can be done with all variety of beans.
  Feta - that's what we're missing. Next door at Greek House Foods, we find five kinds, each from a different part of the country. The couple behind the counter let us taste each one before we settle on Metsovo, a medium-hard style from the mountains in western Greece.
  Bags laden with foodstuffs, the next necessity is bread. From the smell of a wood fire, there is a bakery nearby. We find it not far away, on the other side of the tracks, adjacent to Opa! Tony's Souvlaki. The baker is just sliding some loaves into the clay oven. She pushes a plate of honey-coated fried dough balls toward us while we make our selections - "dokimase to," she says, urging us to taste. It's comfort food, warm, soft, rich and sticky-sweet. But what says Greece to me like nothing else are the koulourakia, dry bracelets of sesame-studded bread big enough to wear on your arm (in Athens, school children do, for a portable breakfast). In Greece, the rings are everywhere, sold in bakeries or hawked by old men who stack them on poles they carry through the streets.
  That sort of street life is what's missing in Queens, what keeps it from feeling overtly like Athens. Though we do have our share of souvlaki carts, there are no koulourakia men, nor men and boys shuttling coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice from cafes to nearby stores, no lotto sellers, no people hawking papers. Distances are a little too far here, stores too spread out. The similarities to Greece are more subtle: at the newstand, we count eleven papers printed in Greek, most of which are published right here in New York. Through fences, we glimpse gardens overgrown with tomatoes and zucchini, and grapevines connect the yards.
  Where the Greek vibe runs deepest is in the restaurants and cafes. We head to Stamatis, the best taverna on this side of town, for a bite to eat. In the steam table just inside the door, today's menu is on display. There are massive chunks of moussaka and pans full of stewed vegetables, roast leg of lamb to be served with avgolemeno sauce and small meatballs called keftedes moistened in tomato sauce. (Steam tables don't hold the stigma in Greece that they do here in the US. In Greece, the food is typically cooked before the heat of the day, then held in steam tables, where it sits, tender and juicy with a richness only olive oil and time can infuse.) We order the day's special - small slippers of eggplant holding vegetables, meat and cheese and cooked until melted. First, though, comes a platter of little fried silver fish and crisp, cold glasses of Kourtaki's Kouros white to spark our appetites. After that, the plates come randomly, as they are ready: In Greek restaurants, there is no minutes-between-courses rule because here nobody cares. The food is made to withstand the wait of people talking, drinking, and taking their time; the people are there to see each other, not to see the food, which is normally nothing they haven't seen before. So the atmosphere is mellow, the feeling nothing but friendly. You could stay all day.
  Some of us, however, need to get back to Manhattan. By the time we finish the little grilled lamb chops and a carafe of juicy red agiorgitiko, it's clear that Christos Hapsapo, a butcher shop-cum-restaurant down the street, will have to wait for another day; no room for one of their giant T-bones now. We skip Scouna, too, though the sidewalk tables offer the perfect vantage point to watch the neighborhood go by. We do, however, stop for coffee and bougatsa, a physics-denying construction of soft, creamy custard encased in weightless phyllo, at a zacharoplasteion, a dessert café, down the street, and linger with the men playing backgammon and watching soccer on TV while twirling their worry beads. With the sun setting behind the edge of the island (for Queens is geographically the western end of Long Island) and with the unfamiliar rhythm of a foreign tongue in our ears, it's easy to imagine ourselves in a different land.
  And that illusion can continue when we get home and unpack our bags. All we need to do is lay out some olives and cook up some fish, crack open a bottle of assyrtiko, and we can stay in Athens for as long as we like.

Where to find a taste of Greece
Athens Cafe, 32-07 30th Ave., 718-626-2164
Christos Grocery, 29-27 23rd Ave., 718-545-3931
Christos Hapsapo, 41-08 23rd Ave., 718-726-5195
Elliniki Agora, 32-12 30th Ave., 718-728-0751
Grand Wine & Liquors, 30-05 31st Street, 718-728-2520; www.grandwl.com
Greek House Foods, 32-22 30th Ave., 718-545-5252
Hunter of the Sea, 31-01 30th Ave., 718-777-5370
Lefkos Pirgos, 22-85 31st St., 718-932-4423
Opa! Tony's Souvlaki, 2844 31st St., 718-728-3638
Scouna, 23-01 31st St., 718-545-4000
Stamatis, 29-12 23rd Ave., 718-721-4507 and 31-14 Broadway,718-204-8968
Titan Foods, 25-56 31st St., 718-626-7771