World-Class Food Discovery: Styria!!!
Oh, I’d heard that Austria’s southernmost province, Styria (or Steiermark), is a great gastronomic destination. But I had never been there myself to confirm it. I was there this week.…
MY TOP 25 BITES OF ANNO GASTRONOMI 2013!!!!
2013 was a great year for me, and my travel agent. I trod the globe restlessly, ever eager for a good answer to the eternal question: “where’s dinner?” Here are…
Bollito Misto
It’s back to Emilia-Romagna again!–one of my most magical visits of 2013. I LOVE their local specialty Bollito Misto…a massive “boil” of “mixed” ingredients, mostly hearty meats. It goes the…
The White Wine in Winter
In this country, we often err in judging things by color…and that applies to wine, too! As the summer begins, so does the vinous drumbeat: white wine, white wine, white…
Tomato-ey Maryland Crab Soup
When you reach crab heaven—which to me is a crab house in Maryland—you will have a choice of appetizers before the main event (crabs!) is served. Ubiquitous on the menus…
Pot-au-Feu
This fabulous French country dish did not make a grand comeback in the eighties and nineties—but we’re hoping it will over the next decade. People are a little intimidated by…
Minestrone
For many decades, this great vegetable soup—a specialty of Liguria—has been the headliner soup in Italian-American restaurants, and has been simmering in the pot of many an Italian-American grandma. There…
Old-Fashioned Chicken Chow Mein
There is almost nothing authentic about chow mein; there is almost nothing even Chinese about it. But the dish that became emblematic of Chinese-American food in the 1950s—an almost stew-y mass of celery, onions and bean sprouts, with a very specific flavor—functions for me, and others, as powerful comfort food.
Holland…Where Have You Been All My Life? (Yeah, yeah, I know exactly where. But why on earth didn’t I get there sooner???)
PART ONE: AMSTERDAM Dear reader, as you’ve perhaps inferred from a few earlier posts…I was dazzled by my April/May 2013 trip to a country I’d somehow never visited before…Holland! We’ll…