Pat and David, Author at Hungry Travelers

Pat and David

CLINK. locks up Benziger wines for showcase dinner

Posted on September 29, 2025September 29, 2025 by Pat and David

Chris Benzinger, vintner at Benziger Family Winery (benziger.com), was full of stories when he co-hosted a harvest wine dinner at CLINK. restaurant in Boston's luxury Liberty Hotel (libertyhotel.com). He relates that his family's first foray into the alcohol business was his grandfather's bootleg operation supplying New York City speakeasys. Chris's father became a legitimate importer. The whole family got into the winemaking business when Chris's older brother Mike moved to California in 1973 and came back a few years later to pitch the clan on the idea of a family winery in then-rustic Sonoma County. ‶So my dad bought this land with three acres of chardonnay and 10 acres of cannabis,″ Chris said. ‶It was a golden time when all you needed was passion.″ The...Read More

Rosé after Labor Day? Ô yes!

Posted on September 5, 2025August 25, 2025 by Pat and David

Fashion has all sorts of silly rules. ‶No white after Labor Day″ used to be scripture for appropriate dress. Even Vogue put that outdated idea to rest. Equally ridiculous is the idea that all the bottles of rosé must go back into the cellar once that September turning point arrives. Balderdash! As fans of rosé as the kinder, gentler red, we think autumn is a truly splendid time to indulge. In fact, rosé wines are a perfect pairing with dishes that celebrate the end-of-summer, advent-of-fall harvest season. We recently got our hands on a delightful Languedoc wine from Lorgeril (lorgeril.wine) called Ô de Rosé. It's an interesting blend of 60% Grenache, 30% Syrah, and 10% Viognier that's harvested at daybreak when the vineyards are cool...Read More

Wine revelations in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley

Posted on August 18, 2025August 16, 2025 by Pat and David

It's probably been a decade since we first tasted a Nova Scotia wine at a dinner hosted by Canada Tourism. It was an excellent cold-climate Chardonnay — steely dry but full of characteristic fruit. We filed that tidbit for future reference. Then this summer we finally drove to Cape Breton Island, a trip we'd planned years ago before COVID closed the border. We also had the chance to stop in the Annapolis Valley along the way for a snapshot of Nova Scotia's fast-maturing wine industry. We're glad we did. We half expected a slew of fruit wines (and there were some) and a lot of wines made from French-American hybrid grapes bred for cold climates. (There were some of those too.) What we didn't expect...Read More

Two Lustau twists on sips for Father’s Day

Posted on June 9, 2025June 9, 2025 by Pat and David

Spain celebrates Father's Day as the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, which is the kickoff of spring. Here in North America, Father's Day marks the transition into summer. We've chosen two stupendous wines from the Andalucían sherry producer, Lustau, for diametrically opposite approaches to sipping on a summer evening. It really comes down to whether your dad is a Manhattan or a Martini drinker. Either goes well with a Spanish snack plate of marcona almonds, potato chips, and slices of Manchego cheese. How sweet it is On the sweet side, we've picked the often overlooked cream sherry category. At Lustau, that's East India Solera Sherry — a style designed to mimic historic sweet sherries aged at sea in casks that shuttled from Spain to...Read More

Handheld wonders of National Hamburger Day

Posted on May 27, 2025May 27, 2025 by Pat and David

The food and restaurant industries goes a little wild with so-called ‶national day″ designation for most foodstuffs, from pickles to pancakes to peanuts to vanilla pudding. (That's November 14, March 4, September 13, and May 22, if you're keeping track.) But if ever an edible deserved a proper celebration, it's the hamburger. Its day is May 28. We've always found that (apart from fast food chains) you can get a good hamburger almost anywhere in the USA, from downtown diners in Manhattan NYC to saloons and tap houses of Manhattan, Kansas. We're particularly taken with some of the regional specialties, including Oklahoma's own onion burger (See here). New Mexico has the great green chile cheeseburger, whether at a rustic lodge (see here or a swank...Read More

Saffron, Spain’s gastronomic gold, shines at La Melguiza

Posted on May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 by Pat and David

Ask Spaniards where the world's best saffron comes from and they'll proudly tell you Spain. Ask David Saenz Condado and he'll tell you why. Saenz is the proprietor of a smart little Madrid boutique called La Melguiza (c/de Santiago, 12; +34 91-547-9323, lamelguiza.es). Just a block and a half from the Mercado San Miguel off Plaza Mayor, the shop promises ‶tesoros de azafrán.″ It delivers those treasures in spades with containers of saffron as well as saffron honey, saffron chocolate, saffron hard candies, and saffron body products. (The shop also offers sweet, smoked, and hot Spanish paprikas.) For the uninitiated, saffron is the world's most expensive spice. It consists of the dried stigmas of the fall-blooming flower of crocus sativa. Fortunately, only a few threads...Read More

Walk the Camino? Piece of cake!

Posted on April 17, 2025April 17, 2025 by Pat and David

We first tasted a tarta de Santiago at a little restaurant in Santiago de Compostela. We were seated outdoors at a small sunny table enjoying the midday menu del día. The food was homey but good: a Galician tuna empanada and simple roast chicken. Even better, we could watch a steady stream of pilgrims leave the Pilgrim's Office where they certified the conclusion of their journey and headed to the cathedral (at right) that holds the purported remains of the apostle St. James. Their sense of joy, relief (and maybe even disbelief) was palpable. When it came time for dessert, we felt there was really only one right choice. We bypassed the flan option in favor of the city's signature tarta de Santiago. From the...Read More

Dublin coddle warms up St. Patrick’s day

Posted on March 1, 2025February 21, 2025 by Pat and David

We've eaten a lot of good meals in Dublin, but we've never had the dish called ‶Dublin Coddle.″ Since we won't be at home — or in Ireland — on St. Patrick's Day, we decided to mark the holiday a little early. We were looking for a homey, comforting dish and figured, what could be better than to be coddled? Dubin coddle seemed like the kind of dish that Pat (always called Patricia by her mother) would have grown up eating if her Irish grandmother had lived long enough to teach Pat's mother and two aunts how to cook. Lacking a family recipe, we consulted the websites of Irish chefs Donal Skehan (donalskehan.com) and Billy Parisi (billyparisi.com). We ended up adapting our own version using...Read More

Magic and nanotech make stunning Irish whiskey

Posted on February 4, 2025February 5, 2025 by Pat and David

Not that many years ago, Irish whiskey was an endangered species. As recently as the 1980s, Ireland was down to just two distillers. The marketing power behind Jameson's, however, sparked new interest and rescued a nearly moribund market. Now Irish whiskey is enjoying a renaissance. Of the more than 40 new Irish distilleries, one of the most exciting is Boann (boanndistillery.ie), named for the goddess of the River Boyne. The firm burst on the scene by winning best ‶new make″ (unaged clear liquor from its pot stills) at the 2021 World Whiskey Awards. After three years in barrels, that same ‶new make″ debuted last summer as Boann Single Pot Still Irish Whiskeys. We say ‶whiskeys″ because they are a trio, each aged in a different...Read More

Playoff pizza with healthy options

Posted on January 24, 2025January 24, 2025 by Pat and David

Improbable as it might be given our personal histories with organized sports, ours is a football household. Throughout the fall and into winter, we watch a lot of games. We are particularly fond of those that are broadcast during the early dinner hour. We call them the ‶pizza games″ because we often watch while eating a homemade pizza and drinking wine. (The NFL beer advertisers would be appalled, but we don't care. We mute their commercials anyway.) This couch-potato indulgence isn't always the healthiest. We might toss pepperoni or some other sausage on top, or use a tomato sauce filled with crumbled bacon. Full-fat fresh mozzarella is sometimes in the mix.We might even go for an extreme like a walnut-based white sauce topped with fig...Read More