When Melina Kanakaredes visits her family in Akron, Ohio, the first stop on her list is her uncles' candy store, Temo's Candy. "I'm 25 years old, and I still run straight to the caramel table at the candy store," says the actress, who plays the newly engaged Eleni on CBS's GUIDING LIGHT. "Everyone in my family has the cavities to prove we grew up working in a candy store." Kanakaredes may have grown up toiling at Temo's Candy, but not always with the sweet smell of success: "I failed peanut clusters 101, so my uncles relegated me to the role of putting paper candy-cups on trays. Still, I got to eat chocolates while I was doing it." And though Kanakaredes never mastered the art of concocting sweet confections, the newly married actress IS fond of making ethnic specialties with her husband, fellow Greek Peter Constantinedes. Together, they make everything from spanakopita to moussaka and tsatsiki. Kanakaredes says her grandmother Areti is particularly proud of the actress's daytime profession. "She used to listen to GUIDING LIGHT when it was on the radio in the late 1930s," says Kanakaredes. "But she laughs at my character, who is a Greek immigrant, and says, 'Why you talk broken English?' I tell her 'Grandma, you know that the way YOU speak.' Eleni's been in America a while now, so thank goodness I can lighten up her accent."
