Uncategorized Archives - Hungry Travelers

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Eating at the omphalos of the breakfast burrito

Posted on September 10, 2024September 10, 2024 by Pat and David

At the temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece, a round stone covers a deep hole that plunges into the earth. According to myth, this well stone is a sacred spot that marks the center of the earth — the bellybutton from which all creation sprang. If you like breakfast as much as we do, Tia Sophia’s (210 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, NM; 505-983-9880, tiasophias.com) is the omphalos of the breakfast burrito. A breakfast and lunch stalwart just off the plaza in downtown Santa Fe since 1975, Tia Sophia's specializes in New Mexican comidas nativas, or local cooking. Founders Ann and Jim Maryol aspired to create a casual diner serving good food at good prices and catering to local tastes. This was back...Read More

Lombardi’s, where New York pizza got its start

Posted on November 13, 2023November 12, 2023 by Pat and David

Even Google doesn't know how many pizzerias there are in New York, but various uninformed estimates place the number between 1,000 and 32,000. What we do know is that it seems there's a pizza joint on every block and many of them sell slices to go. That fits with the NYC culture of literally eating on the run, or on the walk. New Yorkers seem to be constantly eating in public. But we digress. Surrounded by pizza from the moment we arrived in New York, we immediately gave up on trying to find the “best” pizza in the city. We were just happy to visit what might be the oldest pizzeria in New York. At least that's what Lombardi's claims. It was established in 1905....Read More

A New Mexican take on The Bear’s omelet

Posted on September 3, 2023September 3, 2023 by Pat and David

Like many food-obsessed fans of Hulu's The Bear, we had to replicate the omelet that Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) makes in episode 9 of the final season as a gesture of love and comfort for a pregnant Natalie (Abby Elliott). Assuming you have a decent non-stick pan, it's an easy dish. But a few key elements set it apart from the standard omelet. For starters, Sydney whisks three eggs together and then forces them through a medium sieve. We'd never heard to sieving your eggs for an omelet, but it does break down the egg whites so they blend more cleanly with the yolks. That eliminates streaky white sections in the omelet. Sydney also uses three tablespoons of butter in the omelet pan. Pretty much anything...Read More

Going to the source for dinnerware design

Posted on July 8, 2023July 8, 2023 by Pat and David

Regular followers of HungryTravelers might have noticed that most of the food we present is served on the same set of dishes. Those of you who haunt flea markets and shops that traffic in collectibles might even recognize them. They're all ‶Iroquois Casual China by Russel Wright,″ launched in 1946. The dinnerware was meant to make modern design accessible to the masses. A teacher or a cab driver could afford the dishes. Decades later, so could freelance writers. Antiques malls and flea markets yielded our collection of Iroquois Casual in four colors: Sugar White, Charcoal, Oyster, and what we think is probably Chartreuse. True to the original advertising, they've proven surprisingly durable. Wright has been a fixture in our home for years. When we learned...Read More

What a burger! Like the name says…

Posted on January 2, 2023December 21, 2022 by Pat

My friend Patti was incredulous when I told her that I had never eaten a Whataburger. For the uninitiated, that's the signature burger of the chain of the same name. It launched in Texas in 1950. As far as Patti is concerned, few, if any, burgers rival a Whataburger. She was born and raised in Texas, so I might have written off her enthusiasm as local pride. But we share a taste for really good hamburgers, so I was eager to give Whataburger a try when we visited San Antonio. From one burger stand in Corpus Christi, Whataburger now has outposts in 14 states, but none in New England. Transplanted Texans like Patti, who now lives in Whataburger-free Kentucky, often make the orange and white...Read More

Lost in Valencia’s cathedral of food

Posted on April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 by Pat and David

When we stepped into the Mercado Central in Valencia, the first thing we did was to plan where we'd meet when we got separated. We're really not as direction-challenged as that might sound. It's hard to imagine – even when you're standing inside – but the market has a remarkable 929 stalls covering roughly two acres. It's pretty easy to lose your bearings. The market is not only one of the largest in Europe. It's arguably one of the most beautiful. We decided that we would rendezvous at the spot that we couldn't miss: the central dome where the nave and apse of this gastronomic cathedral cross. Rising above the angular arches of the roofline like a tunnel to the sky, the dome is the...Read More

Icelandic sea salt explodes flavors of summer favorites

Posted on August 29, 2021August 29, 2021 by Pat and David

We had planned to be in Iceland about now—until the late summer flareup of the novel coronavirus. We had hoped to go to Reykjanesi way up in the northwest quarter of Iceland called Westfjords. The plan was to visit the Saltverk (saltverk.com) facility there, founded in 2011 by Björn Jónsson and Gísli Grímsson. (If you caught the Iceland segment in season three of Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, it's Gísli who shows the Scottish chef around.) Sea salt harvesting has a long history in the Westfjords, where the king of Denmark established a saltworks in the late 18th century. It used geothermal energy, since Iceland is basically one craggy cap on a rift in the earth that leaks hot water, steam, and sometimes lava. The Danes needed...Read More

Imagining a legendary dinner with Monet at Giverny

Posted on June 19, 2021June 18, 2021 by Pat and David

Long before there was Instagram, there was Claude Monet. His 1883 painting of peaches could make any art lover's mouth water. The only things Monet loved as much as painting were his family and his meals. Once he tasted Yorkshire pudding at the Savoy Hotel in London, he badgered his cook Marguerite until she could replicate the version. But mostly he indulged in fresh vegetables, many of which he grew in the gardens of Giverny. (‶I am good for nothing but painting or gardening,″ he reportedly quipped.) Monet is just one of the celebrities featured in Legendary Dinners: From Grace Kelly to Jackson Pollock edited by Anne Peterson (Prestel 2021, $40). Dinner guests ranged from painter Paul Cezanne to novelist Guy de Maupassant to the...Read More

Sturgeon from caviar to smoked to kebabs

Posted on September 9, 2019August 27, 2019 by Pat and David

[caption id="attachment_6694" align="aligncenter" width="916"]As the great sturgeon repast was being readied, we relaxed with some wine and this charcuterie board of sturgeon pâté, smoked shortnose sturgeon (rear), smoked Atlantic sturgeon, and puffed sturgeon cartilage—much like pork rinds.[/caption] A big part of the “safari” experience is the languorous luncheon that follows the harvest expedition. Cornel Ceapa and his wife, Dorina, had everything ready to cook when we returned from the river (see previous post). [caption id="attachment_6709" align="alignright" width="416"] About a zillion three-day-old sturgeon hatchlings swim in a tank at Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar.[/caption]But first we toured the hatchery, where zillions of newly hatched sturgeon swam in huge white tanks and hundreds of juvenile and adult shortnose sturgeon coursed in others. Ceapa hatches both Atlantic sturgeon and...Read More

More ice cream, just in time

Posted on June 16, 2019 by Pat and David

Chow and Alan Mezger could almost be the Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of ice cream in the U.K. The two brothers have transformed their dad's hand-churned ice cream business into a kingdom-wide taste phenomenon called Jude's Ice Cream (www.judes.co.uk). But being Brits, their taste references are very different from Ben & Jerry. On this side of the pond, their ice creams seem rather exotic. We doubt that Pillsbury is about to issue Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk or Vegan Malted Banana anytime soon. But you can make your own. A cookbook/wishbook of their recipes has just been published by Kyle Books, and it's available in the U.S. Called Jude's Ice Cream & Desserts: Scoops, Bakes, and Sauces, it retails for $19.99. It's also on Amazon,...Read More