Pat and David, Author at Hungry Travelers

Pat and David

Branzino on the Weber—that’s Greek for fish

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Pat and David

Greeks consume about 43 pounds of fish per capita every year, roughly comparable to American consumption. The main difference is that Americans eat a lot of fried fish (calamari, clams, popcorn shrimp, fish filet sandwiches) and Greeks who can afford it favor fin fish. Part of making fish affordable is sustainable aquaculture. Greek aquaculture produces almost all of the world's supply of branzino. The European sea bass, which the French call loup de mer is also a restaurant staple from New York to San Francisco. It's the fish you'll probably get in Athens when you order whole fish—unless you get gilthead bream, another farmed fish. Above, the photo shows grilled seabream from a little street cafe just down Veikou from our rental apartment. It's simply...Read More

World on a Plate: beet salad in Jordan, Ontario

Posted on September 18, 2020 by Pat and David

As harvest season bears down on us here in northeastern North America, we're reminded of some of the great dishes we enjoyed during visits to the wine country of Ontario's Niagara Peninsula. Beets are popping up in all colors at our Cambridge, Massachusetts farmers markets, and they only make us hanker for the beet salad (shown above) that we enjoyed at On the Twenty (3845 Main St., Jordan, ON; 905-562-5336, vintage-hotels.com/inn-on-the-twenty/dining-experience/) in Jordan Village, Ontario. The restaurant is part of Inn on the Twenty, the classy getaway hotel across the street. It's part of the Vintage Hotels group, which emphasizes luxury stays in Niagara wine country. We are happy to note that On the Twenty restaurant was able to reopen for patio and indoor dining...Read More

Chicken meat enriches classic Greek egg-lemon soup

Posted on September 15, 2020September 14, 2020 by Pat and David

The moment we saw eggs stacked up in the Athens Central Market—all sold individually by weight!—we had an immediate hankering for egg-lemon soup. It had been one of our lunchtime standards at home even before we ever got to visit Greece. David has fond memories of the soup because he once edited a small weekly paper housed upstairs from a diner run by Greek immigrants. As he and the production crew would fuss over page layouts (this was in the day of paste-ups of paper type laid down with hot wax), they would send downstairs for cartons of egg-lemon soup. Each came with its own rolled and lightly steamed round of pita bread. The key was not spilling any eggy soup on the layouts. By...Read More

World on a Plate: eating fried green tomatoes

Posted on September 11, 2020September 10, 2020 by Pat and David

Now that it's September, we're entering another phase in our tomato watching. We're coming to the end of the ripe tomato season for the determinate varieties, but the indeterminate tomatoes have kept flowering and setting fruit. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a pretty dumb move. Frost will kill the plants and spoil the fruit before it ripens. Even the seeds will be too green to sprout another year. So while we enjoy the last plates of insalata Caprese, we're considering how to turn the immature fruit to good use. Before any of you readers bombard us with pickle recipes, we're going on record that we already have enough pickles to last the winter. So now we're trying to think of good ways to eat...Read More

Greek tomato soup far surpasses anything canned

Posted on September 8, 2020September 5, 2020 by Pat and David

The Greeks have legitimate claims on inventing western civilization, but we're pretty sure that they didn't invent tomato soup. But they might have perfected it, which doesn't really surprise us given all the delicious tomatoes we ate while we were in Greece. After a hot, humid summer, we're delighting in the kind of bright, fresh early fall days that New England is known for. That first hit of cool air always makes us start thinking about soup and this Greek recipe for tomato soup is a great way to use up the less gorgeous but still tasty end-of-season ripe tomatoes. It makes a rich and satisfying soup that has only the most remote kinship with the stuff that comes in cans. We like our soup...Read More

World on a Plate: Tea at Niagara’s Prince of Wales

Posted on September 3, 2020September 2, 2020 by Pat and David

As we swing into the fall harvest season, we wish more than ever we could be visiting the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario. It's the fruit and vegetable capital of eastern Canada and one of the country's tastiest destinations. Its biggest community, Niagara-on-the-Lake, is a model of grace and propriety. That's something sorely lacking in our strife-riven country to the east and south. But we understand why the Canadians want us to stay on our own side of the border. During the War of 1812, American troops effectively destroyed Niagara. Undaunted, the Ontarians rebuilt Niagara-on-the-Lake with a Victorian splendor that it retains today. The Prince of Wales Hotel (6 Picton Street, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, Canada; +1 905 468 3246, vintage-hotels.com/prince-of-wales/) was constructed in 1864 in the heart...Read More

World on a Plate: the cult of New Mexico chile peppers

Posted on August 28, 2020August 29, 2020 by Pat and David

It was a very different August when we stumbled onto the Santa Fe Farmers' Market (santafefarmersmarket.com) on our way back from Abiquiú, and the scent of roasting green chiles transported us to a kind of nirvana. (We're happy to report that the market is open and following careful health and safety protocols to protect against COVID-19.) There are chile peppers and then there are New Mexico chile peppers. They are in a league of their own, balancing heat levels from mild to mildly scorching. Many chileheads think in Scoville units—the scale that measures perceived level of chile burn. They nibble habañeros and bird chiles with macho abandon, insisting through the tears washing rivulets in their faces that ‶this ain't hot.″ They're probably the same folks...Read More

Fassolia Piaz: Greek bean salad for summer

Posted on August 25, 2020August 24, 2020 by Pat and David

Back in March, when no one knew what the pandemic food supply chain would be like, we reflexively purchased bags of dried beans. They were cheap, shelf-stable supplies that could guarantee a source of quality protein if we were suddenly faced with food insecurity. In hindsight, we overreacted. On the bright side, we have a lot of beans on hand to make summer salads. Fassolia piaz is the Greek variant. In its simplest form, boiled beans are mixed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, and olive oil. We like it expanded a bit to include chopped tomato, chopped cucumber, and skewers of fresh tuna cooked over hardwood charcoal. That makes it the Greek cousin to Salade Niçoise. You could add Kalamata olives or even sliced hard-boiled...Read More

World on a Plate: Kelowna, B.C. cherry tomato salad

Posted on August 21, 2020August 21, 2020 by Pat and David

We took the photo above at the Terrace Restaurant at Mission Hill Family Estates Winery (missionhillwinery.com) in Kelowna, British Columbia. The property sits at the northern end of the Okanagan Valley, where Canada grows some of its best table wines and a lot of astonishing fruits and vegetables. Before it was wine country, it was peach and cherry orchard country and those stone fruits still thrive there. In more recent years, Okanagan farmers have expanded their row crops as well. Some of the best cherry tomatoes we're ever tasted were grown in the Okanagan. This tiny salad of fire-peeled cherry tomatoes, blueberries, prosciutto, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and paper-thin sourdough toasts was an amuse bouche at Terrace. It's seasoned with a couple of dots of balsamic...Read More

Olympian Greek laurels for swordfish kebabs

Posted on August 18, 2020August 17, 2020 by Pat and David

This is a spectacular time for fish in New England, so we've decided to take our Greek culinary research seaside. Well, not really seaside, since our backyard grill is a good mile from the ocean. On a recent market run, we were surprised to see fresh swordfish steaks, since this is mainly yellowfin tuna season in New England. But asking the fishmonger, we found that the sword was caught in Canada and landed in New England—close enough to home for us. When we discovered that the same market had fresh bay leaves—European bay laurel leaves, not the more eucalyptus-scented California bay—we knew we were in business. (They were from Goodness Gardens: goodnessgardens.com/bay-leaves.) Greeks love to thread fresh bay between pieces of swordfish for grilled kebabs....Read More