Hungry Travelers - Page 19 of 82 - Bringing the tastes of travel back home

Faces of Paris at the winter cafés

Posted on November 18, 2020November 18, 2020 by Pat and David

For the last few months, Boston and Cambridge have had a decidedly European flair as both cities allowed restaurants to spill outdoors and set up dining terraces on the streets. Restaurateurs embraced the chance to spread out and lure diners back. Most planned and decorated their terraces with style and diners jumped at the chance to get out of the house and out of the home kitchen. On weekends, Hanover Street in Boston's North End seemed like a giant block party with especially good food. Alas, the party has started to fizzle as New England's weather inevitably turns colder. So we were heartened to learn that Restaurant Strong Winterization Grants are going to help restaurants in Boston (as well as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia)...Read More

San Marzano DOP tomatoes to the rescue

Posted on November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 by Pat and David

When our garden was hit with the first killing frost (and four inches of snow) on Halloween, we were lucky. We had harvested all our green tomatoes and a bucket of partially ripe cherry tomatoes before the mercury plunged. So we will still be cooking with fresh tomatoes for another week or so. But end-of-the-season tomatoes can't hold a candle to the sweet, juicy beauties of summer. Ditto the greenhouse tomatoes that we buy over the winter. Every year we talk ourselves into their virtues and overlook their faults. At some point great canned tomatoes are superior to just okay fresh ones. Finding the best canned tomatoes in the world We look for cans labeled ‶Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP.″ Sometimes it's a subtitle...Read More

World on a Plate: Caino’s coffee-dusted cacio e pepe

Posted on November 6, 2020November 5, 2020 by Pat and David

Sometimes culinary genius reveals itself in a brilliant gesture rather than in profound technical flourishes. This tangle of pasta demonstrates the genius of restraint. It also embodies the taste and imagination of Valeria Piccini. Piccini simply calls the dish spaghettone cacio, pepe, e caffè. She frequently offers it as a pasta course at her family restaurant. Il Ristorante Caino (Via Canonica, 3, Montemerano; +39 0564 692 817; dacaino.it) is hidden away in a tiny medieval mountain village in Tuscany's Maremma. But Piccini's cooking draws admirers from all over Italy to the 13th century hamlet where sheep and goats may outnumber the 400 human inhabitants. Da Caino earned its first Michelin star in 1991, and has held two since 1999. The dining public and Michelin's inspectors...Read More

Faces of Pátzcuaro, Mexico, on the Day of the Dead

Posted on October 27, 2020October 23, 2020 by Pat and David

[caption id="attachment_7757" align="aligncenter" width="1832"] Island cemetery in Lake Pátzcuaro is decorated with marigolds. [/caption] In this COVID year, every ‶normal″ celebration seems a little strange, even abnormal. Yet there is something comforting, even reassuring, about marking our festivals. To forget them is to lose continuity with our past. This year, we'll again seek out marigolds to honor family members who are no longer with us. And we'll make a dinner with mole amarillo, the saffron-scented marigold-colored sauce popular in this season in many parts of Mexico. We will also remember the faces of Pátzcuaro, the colonial city of 80,000 in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Thanks partly to Disney's Coco and partly to glossy travel stories, Pátzcuaro has become almost too famous for its Day...Read More

World on a Plate: Day of the Dead in Michoacán

Posted on October 23, 2020October 21, 2020 by Pat and David

Halloween may taste like candy corn and mini-Snickers to most Americans. But Day of the Dead tastes like tamales striped with red chile, green chile, and white crema. At least that what it tastes like in Morelia, the capital city of the Mexican state of Michoacán. The region is famous for its Day of the Dead commemorations. The animated Disney film Coco is set in nearby Pátzcuaro. But somewhat bigger Morelia brings equal magic to the passage of fall into winter and life into death. Around the end of October, it seems like almost every flat surface is covered in marigold blossoms and every building has a prominent Day of the Dead altar to feed the spirits of those on the other side. Surprisingly, the...Read More

Timely ‘Soupology’ arrives as the weather cools

Posted on October 20, 2020October 17, 2020 by Pat and David

As soon as we catch the first whiff of frost, we mentally switch cooking modes from salads, stir fries, and grilled vegetables to ragouts, daubes, and rich stocks. In perfect synchrony with the falling thermometer, the North American edition of Soupology: The Art of Soup from Six Simple Broths by Drew Smith (Rizzoli, 2020, $29.99) launched last month. Earlier in his career, Smith was a deft restaurant reviewer for The Guardian and for many years edited The Good Food Guide, an annual review of Britain's best restaurants. This volume is more about home cooking and the tone is friendly and intimate. It's easy to imagine looking over his shoulder as he shows how to make a delicious range of soups. Don't be put off by...Read More

World on a Plate: Tybee Island boils

Posted on October 17, 2020October 16, 2020 by Pat and David

Even the alligators eat well at The Crab Shack (40 Estill Hammock Road, Tybee Island, Georgia; 912-786-9857, thecrabshack.com). The casual eatery seems to have evolved from a casual marina and even more casual beer store on Tybee Island, the laid-back, barefoot suburb of genteel Savannah. A barrier island backed by a stunning salt marsh, Tybee Island is literally a crab shell's throw away from the South Carolina-Georgia state line that cleaves the main channel of the Savannah River. Subtropical waters lap Tybee's shores, making it warm enough to go fishing or kayaking in the middle of the winter. Or to feast on the deck of The Crab Shack. This is Low Country cooking par excellence. The cuisine has strong elements of African dishes, a lot...Read More

Pastry can whisk you back to Paris

Posted on October 13, 2020October 12, 2020 by Pat and David

We love to visit Paris for the sales, for the museums, and for the sheer ambiance. But as long as we're being honest, we love to visit Paris for the patisseries. Small French pastries are always a highlight of any trip to the City of Light. Combine our love of French pastry with our longing for far-too-distant Paris, and Petite Patisserie couldn't have crossed our desk at a better time. It gives a shot at baking our way back into the Bois de Boulogne—or at least one of our favorite pastry shops in the Marais. Petite Patisserie: 180 Easy Recipes for Elegant French Treats by Christophe Felder and Camille Lesecq (Rizzoli, 2020, $45) is a 350-page guide to financiers, madeleines, Napoleons, petit fours, tartlets, and...Read More

World on a Plate: Pastitsio’s immigrant life as Cincinnati chili

Posted on October 10, 2020October 9, 2020 by Pat and David

In our last post, we ended our exploration of Greek cooking with a recipe for pastitsio, the hearty dish of layered meat sauce, noodles, and béchamel. As we made the cinnamon-laced meat sauce, we realized it tasted hauntingly familiar. We hadn't encountered in it Greece, but in Cincinnati at Camp Washington Chili (3005 Colerain Ave., Cincinnati; 513-541-0061; campwashingtonchili.com). It turns out that Cincinnati chili is actually a New World adaptation of Greek pastitsio. Greek immigrants opened the Empress restaurant in Cincinnati in 1922 and began serving the deconstructed pastitsio. It became such a huge hit that other restaurants run by Greek immigrants began making their own versions. Unless you are an aficionado, they all seem pretty similar, though Cincinnatians are always ready to debate the...Read More

Pastitsio ends our Greek sojourn with comfort fare

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Pat and David

Our nearly four-month exploration of Greek cuisine has netted us some dishes that we expect to stay in the rotation for years to come. Most rely on the goodness of fresh local produce, so we thought the arrival of autumn was an auspicious time to conclude our research. Frost is on the way, and outdoor grilling gets harder and harder as the temperature drops and darkness falls earlier and earlier. We decided that the best cool-weather Greek dish for us to perfect would not be any of the many variations of Greek lamb stews, but instead the dish sometimes called ‶Greek lasagna.″ A baked casserole, pastitsio contains layers of tubular noodles, a meat sauce, and a cheese-laden béchamel. While the tomatoes in the meat sauce...Read More