Hungry Travelers - Page 22 of 82 - Bringing the tastes of travel back home

World on a Plate: lobster and lighthouses

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Pat and David

We spent the last week researching and writing a story about lighthouses that will appear sometime soon in the Boston Globe (bostonglobe.com). We, of course, have been visiting them from land and during the day, but David has enduring and fond memories of lighthouses in Maine's Penobscot Bay. In the pre-GPS days, when he worked on an old salt's small trawler, he can recall navigating at night by distant lights winking at each other across the bay. His heart would leap when he rounded Sears Island and suddenly saw the pint-sized light of Belfast harbor flashing in the distance. Coming home for a late dinner. In summertime, that usually meant lobster. These days, when we want lobster, we're more likely to stop at the Clam...Read More

Something Greek to spread on that fresh pita bread

Posted on July 14, 2020July 12, 2020 by Pat and David

We've been practicing pita (see July 7 post) until we got it down just right. Sure enough, our loaves stay nice and pliable and puff up with an air pocket from edge to edge. The key is searing the first side when you start cooking. But with all that pita, we needed something Greek to spread on it. Wherever we went in Athens, every meze platter had pita with four spreads: hummus, tzatziki (cucumber yogurt), tirokafteri (whipped feta with red pepper), and baba ganoush. We have yet to tackle making our own hummus and we're reserving baba ganoush for next week's post. But here are our recipes for the yin and yang of Greek dips or spreads, tzatziki and tirokafteri. TZATZIKI This utterly refreshing dip/sauce...Read More

World on a plate: Welcoming tomatillos

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

As summer rounds the corner and comes scorching down the midway, the tomatillo plants in our garden couldn't be happier. The bees are buzzing and flitting into the profusion of yellow blossoms and the half-vine, half-branches of the plants are sprawling into every available space. We try tying them up, but how do you restrain a plant the grows like Jack's proverbial beanstalk every night? Answer: You don't. If tomatillos were frost-hardy, they would probably be more invasive than kudzu. Their seeds, on the other hand, could probably outlast a nuclear blast, and since we're not always as quick to clean the garden as we should be after the first frost, a few seeds become embedded in the soil. Once the soil temperature reaches about...Read More

Going Greek: the pleasures of homemade pita bread

Posted on July 7, 2020July 6, 2020 by Pat and David

Greece was the last place we were able to visit before the worldwide pandemic struck. The Parthenon, Delphi, and all the rest fulfilled that bucket-list desire to see the origins of western civilization. And we really enjoyed the food—everything from simple salads with slabs of feta to roasted whole fish. We had never really tried cooking Greek dishes at home, but as long as we're in a travel holding pattern, there's no time like the present to remedy that. We're focusing on some of the staples we enjoyed on our sojourn in Athens last winter. That begins with the simplest of breads. Pita isn't a quick bread, but it takes very little time to make Except for the fresh strawberries with super-thick yogurt we ate...Read More

World on a Plate: Breakfast worthy of Georgia O’Keeffe

Posted on July 3, 2020July 13, 2020 by Pat and David

For us, the first flavor that springs to memory when someone mentions New Mexico is green chile. But to be honest, green chile isn't very picturesque. When it comes to picture-perfect plates from New Mexico, it's hard to beat the breakfast and brunch dishes served at the Abiquiu Inn (21120 U.S. 84, Abiquiu, N.M.; 505-685-4378; abiquiuinn.com). Conveniently located just down the road from Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch (1708 U.S. 84, Abiquiu; 505-685-1000; ghostranch.org), the inn has a nice mix of rooms, suites, and casitas. Some casitas are arranged to share central courtyards. The inn might be one of the pricier lodging options in the area, but it's worth every penny. For more details, see our post from 2018. The Abiquiu Inn's Café Abiquiu serves meals...Read More

Tastes of Greece at Pantopoleion gourmet shop

Posted on June 30, 2020July 13, 2020 by Pat and David

We love shopping in grocery stores to look for the foods that local people use in their kitchens. That's usually what we bring home to our own kitchen. But Athens supermarkets proved too much for us because we are illiterate in Greek. The alphabet confounded us. We can usually figure out food names in most European languages that use a Roman alphabet. Ironically, many of those food names come down from Greek. But knowing that doesn't help when you can't sound out the spelling. So we resorted to Pantopoleion (34 Dimitrakopolou, Athens; +30 210 325 4890; pantopwlion.gr/), a local specialty store in our neighborhood, and put ourselves in the capable hands of John Kontoyiannis, one of the owners. (That's John behind the deli counter at...Read More

World on a Plate: Montreal Jazz Festival goes digital!

Posted on June 26, 2020June 26, 2020 by Pat and David

This time of year, we're usually in Montreal. We like to head up in time for June 24, Quebec's National Day, and stay through July 1, Canada Day. It's party time—not least because the Montreal Jazz Festival is usually in full swing. It's time to grab some great food to go, settle into a spot in one of the smaller venues, and jazz the day away. The thing is, in Montreal even the fast food is something special. And we're not talking Rotisserie St-Hubert (though we like rotisserie chicken as well as the next jazz fan). How about the casual sandwich above from a lunch counter in the Place Ville Marie shopping center? It's duck confit with a peach and red pepper barbecue sauce on...Read More

In the beginning … was Greece

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

As we all keep living in the eternal present, we are grateful for the recent past. Last winter we caught the Paris sales and moved on to Athens, a city we had wanted to visit for years. Even while we were there in our rented apartment, we kept seeing ominous news of an infection that was sweeping Wuhan in China. Not long after we got back to Boston in February, it had jumped to Lombardy. The rest is already history, with more in the making. But we wouldn't give up that trip for anything. Even Greek friends told us we'd get bored after three days in Athens, but for us, a week was still not enough. Beyond the amazing sites from antiquity and the stunning...Read More

World on a Plate: When in Rome…

Posted on June 19, 2020June 21, 2020 by Pat and David

While nothing quite compares with eating big plates of pasta at an al fresco table with the Pantheon in the background, we remain eternally grateful to the chefs at Ristorante-Caffe di Rienzo (Piazza del Pantheon 8/9, 06-686-9097, www.ristorantedirienzo.it) for teaching us two of the basic Roman dishes made with dried pasta. They are both in the photo at right—bucatini all’amatriciana in the foreground, and cacio e pepe behind it. In fact, we can almost hear the light jazz of the street musicians on the Piazza del Pantheon. If you'd like the recipes for the two dishes as the DiRienzo chefs taught us, see these two posts: hungrytravelers.com/learning-roman-pastas-1/ and hungrytravelers.com/and-then-there-was-amatriciana/. Both dishes remain among our favorites that we turn to when need a delicious but quick...Read More

Simple roasted asparagus, a Diana Henry gem

Posted on June 16, 2020June 15, 2020 by Pat and David

Every year about this time we work our palates into a state of frenzy trying to enjoy the fleeting season of local asparagus. The farm at the head of the post is one of those legendary growers along the banks of the Connecticut River in Hadley, Massachusetts. Until verticillium blight struck after World War II, Hadley grew much of the country's best asparagus. Good tillage practices and more resistant varieties have helped revive the asparagus industry in the Pioneer Valley, though it's never going to be what it was. It does mean that even 90 miles east in greater Boston, we enjoy a surfeit of the noble spears for a short time each year. And granting that one cannot live on asparagus risotto alone (hungrytravelers.com/remembering-italy-3-asparagus-prosciutto-risotto/),...Read More