Nia & I: Darlings of the Danforth

It's Taste of the Danforth weekend. And once again, I'm leaving town. My absence is tradition.

My grandmother's birthday always coincided with the Greektown festivities; even though she's gone, the family's still hanging out. As much as I love baklava dripping off my napkin and down my arm in the hot sun, a barbecue with toddlers I rarely see is something I just can't pass up.

Because I live with the Greeks, it's impossible to walk down the street without seeing signed photographs of Nia Vardalos in the windows of small family-run restaurants. She's the hometown hero. And not only did she make a spectacular splash in Hollywood a few years ago, she did so by embracing her culture rather than melting into a cookie-cutter romantic-comedy sweetheart.

I should probably watch her breakthrough flick again. Firstly, because I'm inspired by Nia the writer. By the fact that she created her own material. She wanted to create and perform, so she wrote a one-woman show. And Tom Hanks (and his lovely wife) happened to love it. Just as I'm sure he'd love this blog.... But I could also justify a viewing as wedding-article research. With my new writing gig, I've embraced a new nuptial radar. It's actually quite fun to think about the weddings of others. Fictional planning has a lot of freedom in it.

Over at MovieZen, I posted about Nia's upcoming project. She's making a comeback, and hopefully not of Connie and Carla proportions. No offense to David Duchovny.

Read it here.

And then eat souvlaki on my behalf.