Pat and David

What to Eat at the Airport: ATL (Atlanta Hartsfield International)

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Back in November, we described how the fantastic tamales at Pappasito's Cantina had helped to salvage an otherwise tedious delay at the Dallas Fort Worth airport. Since then, we've been keeping an eye out for local food specialties to break the monotony of the fairly generic airport experience and at least glean a little flavor of a place that we're only passing through. We had practically written off Atlanta airport where the nice little food court in Terminal B had a fairly predictable line-up of Sbarro pizza, Popeye's Fried Chicken & Biscuits, Seattle's Best Coffee, and even sandwiches from Boston-based Au Bon Pain. But, it pays not to give up too quickly. Away from the food court area, we discovered Café Intermezzo, a coffee shop...Read More

Chocolate: Going to the source

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Ecuador has been famous since at least the 19th century for its “fine aroma” cacao from the Arriba strain of beans. Only about 5 percent of the world's cacao production meets the “fine aroma” standards as an enhancer of more plebian beans in fine chocolates. Nearly two-thirds of those “fine aroma” beans come from Ecuador. The 8-year-old República de Cacao company aims to highlight the qualities of the Arriba bean with a line of single-origin dark chocolates from different growing areas within the country. The bars are available in Ecuador and are beginning to show up in the U.S. (We discovered them in the Guayaquil airport when we were en route to a Galápagos Islands cruise, but more about that later....) It was enlightening to...Read More

Everyday squid in Basque country

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Those of us who aren't Basque have a hard time imagining just how well they eat. Good food and a love of cooking seem to be central to the culture. When we sat down with Elena and Juan Marí Arzak for the Robb Report story about the seasonal special dish of angulas (see the Dec. 21, 2011 post), they emphasized that love of good food was a Basque birthright that extends to every meal--not just special occasions. That certainly seems to be true. When we later met professional guide Ana Intxausti Gardeki, she took us to the San Sebastian market and told us all about the various kinds of fish available. (She had worked for a seafood broker before changing careers.) She even gave us...Read More

Basque treats: angulas for Christmas

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Nothing says Christmas in Basque country like a nice plate of angulas, i.e., baby eels, also known as elvers, glass eels, or ''spaghetti with eyes.'' Threatened by overfishing and by Asian buyers who purchase the live elvers to raise on fish farms, angulas nonetheless remain a touchstone of Basque traditional cuisine. They are, however, expensive. We have a piece in the December 2011 Robb Report about fishing for and preparing angulas. We should note that we had a lot of help to research this story, especially from chef Fernando Canales of Etxanobe in Bilbao, eel fisherman and all-around outdoorsman and gourmand Txetxu Oliver, and chefs Juan Marí and Elena Arzak, who were good enough to sit down and talk with us at Restaurante Arzak about...Read More

Montreal bargain lunches

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Of all the guidebook series we work on, the research for the Food Lovers' series may be the most fun. Our most recent published volume was on Montreal, but we didn't spend all our time eating foie gras or dining at innovative contemporary restaurants. We're always on the lookout for good values, and we found 10 great lunches for about $10 where we could tap into various strains of Montreal culture. We recently published that roundup in the Boston Globe. You'll find the results as a pair of PDFs on our Sample Articles page. We are just about finished writing our next volume, Food Lovers' Guide to Vermont & New Hampshire, and have a refrigerator full of artisanal cheese, cured pork products, and storage vegetables...Read More

What to Eat at the Airport: DFW

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When we started this blog about two years ago, we never dreamed that we would be singing the praises of airport food. But that was before Pappasito's Cantina became the only bright spot in a very trying day at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. We were en route from Boston to Albuquerque when our early morning connecting flight in Dallas was canceled without explanation. The next flight wasn't until late in the day and we were resigned to a long, boring wait and generic fast food. We were debating the merits of pre-made sandwiches, bagels, yogurt smoothies, and McBurger when we stumbled on Pappasito's in Terminal A. The long bar looked so inviting that we grabbed a couple of stools, perused the Tex-Mex menu and...Read More
Cooking in Marrakech with Souk Cuisine

Cooking in Marrakech with Souk Cuisine

Posted on by Pat and David
The Boston Globe recently published our abbreviated tale of taking a cooking class with the wonderful Dutch and Moroccan folks of Souk Cuisine in Marrakech. You can find the piece on our Sample Articles page. It was some of the best cooking instruction we have experienced because it enabled us to get intimately involved in the life and rhythm of the city and its inhabitants. Even if your goal is to bargain your way through the souks (Pat was told she bargained like a Berber), it is hard not to work up an appetite when you keep encountering vendors like the back-street fruit man (above) or the citrus juice truck that stands on the main square, Jemaa El Fna. Everywhere you look, there is food....Read More

Mountain View Grand’s tomato-cilantro cooler

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Every cook has a different way to cope with the end of tomato season. In June, Brian Aspell was lured away from the Equinox in Vermont to bring his brand of culinary passion to the Mountain View Grand in Whitefield, N.H. He was still getting his feet under him when we visited in August, but on very short notice he managed to whip together a chef's tasting menu that swept us away. It was a harbinger of great things to come at this grande dame of the White Mountains. (The fall menus will be pure Aspell.) The opening salvo of the dinner was an amuse-bouche of a New England gazpacho. Aspell served our portions in tall shot glasses, but on a warm day we could...Read More

Buried in tomatoes? It’s time for tomato jam on burgers

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When we were working earlier this summer on a New England burger roundup for the Boston Globe (see Sample articles), we had no idea that we would discover a partial solution to the late-August glut of tomatoes. When we dug into the basic hamburger served at Christie's in Newport--the casual restaurant of the luxurious Hotel and Marina Forty 1º North--we just knew that chef Kim Lambrechts' tomato jam was the perfect complement to the rich beef burger. With a little cajoling, we found out how it's made. TOMATO JAM Chef Kim Lambrechts is the director of all food and beverage operations at Hotel and Marina Forty 1º North in Newport--including the casual restaurant, Christie's. He serves this brilliant ketchup substitute on beef burgers. We find...Read More

Watermelon steak from José Andrés

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When we first tasted this at Cayman Cookout on Grand Cayman Island in the middle of January, it was hard to think about watermelon. But José Andrés was thinking nothing but—demonstrating eight recipes for watermelon in an hour-long session. Andrés is perhaps the best ambassador of Spanish cooking to America. His Washington, D.C., restaurants include Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel, Café Atlantico, and minibar by José Andrés. His grand Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills has taken Los Angeles by storm. We always think of watermelon as the most juvenile of summer fruits, but José showed just how sophisticated it can be. The preparation that stuck with us was his version of bistec de sandia, or watermelon steak. As every calorie-counter knows, watermelon is actually...Read More