Ferelith Knoll had always admired the Mediterranean lifestyle—its colorful plates, fresh flavors, and the way meals seemed to bring people together rather than pull them into strict diet culture. But when she decided to actually try it herself, she quickly found that starting was harder than it looked.
“I kept searching ‘Mediterranean grocery list’ and getting overwhelmed,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘Do I need fancy olives from Greece? Wild-caught sardines? Twenty different herbs?’”
What helped Ferelith wasn’t another shopping list—it was a mindset shift.
She stopped trying to replicate Mediterranean food perfectly and started building a new rhythm based on simplicity. Her first shopping trip? Surprisingly short. Olive oil, garlic, a loaf of whole grain bread, some tomatoes, a cucumber, chickpeas, lemons, and a small wedge of feta.
“I decided that instead of copying recipes, I’d just pick a few ingredients that made me feel good and work them into my meals naturally.”
That week, she made toast with olive oil and sliced tomatoes in the morning. Chickpea salad with cucumber, lemon, and parsley for lunch. Dinner might be grilled zucchini with couscous, drizzled with lemon and a bit of crumbled feta. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was delicious, fresh, and easy.
“The Mediterranean way is really about ease and joy,” Ferelith says. “It’s not about restriction or showing off. It’s about good ingredients and good intentions.”
Now, she shares her own version of a beginner-friendly Mediterranean kitchen—not as a rigid plan, but as an invitation to slow down and savor every bite.
