All in Culinary Travel

A Chocoholic Falls off the Wagon

Elyn Aviva
Culinary Travel

by Elyn Aviva

I don’t know what I was thinking. Or rather, I wasn’t thinking. Like a lamb being led to slaughter, I followed our friend Jack into Oriol Balaguer’s chocolate kitchen in Barcelona. I knew I was a dead duck the moment I walked in. The sweet spicy scent of Gran Cru chocolate filled the air, and streams of satiny liquid chocolate poured exuberantly into stainless steel sinks. It was like being transported into paradise.

It’s true confession time. I used to belong to a Chocoholics Club. Note the operative verb: “used to.” Once a month, one of the members would make an over-the-top chocolate dessert, which we would savor briefly and then devour. Devotees of chocolate we were—and some of them still are. For health reasons, I had sworn off the dark, creamy, butter-and sugar-laden delights. And, except for an occasional lapse, I usually avoided succumbing to temptation.

So what was I doing in Balaguer’s High Temple of Chocolate? Jack (www.discovergirona.net) leads specialty tours in Catalonia, and the opportunity to do an interview with master chocolatier/pastry and dessert chef Oriol Balaguer was too good to pass up. I hadn’t considered the consequences—but now I knew. I knew I would live to regret it—but I also knew, as I took another deep, soul-satisfying inhalation, that I didn’t care.

Oriol has been winning prizes for his chocolate and pastry creations for the last 17 years—and he’s only 39. Best Pastry Chef, Best Book (The Dessert Book) in the World, Professional of the Year—the accolades don’t stop. Not only is he a brilliant inventor, he’s also a master marketer. He’s turned buying chocolate into a time-valued event.

When is chocolate like haute couture? When you are Oriol Balaguer and you present twice-a-year collections of new tastes, textures, and shapes. Last season’s collection is so last year—but so good that it is still available and still in great demand. Oriol also launches monthly “concept cakes” in his specialty shops, where each item is displayed like a precious jewel. Suddenly, everyone wants to purchase the latest product, score the most recent release for their dinner party.

Certified Extra Virgin

Charmaine Coimbra
Culinary Travel

by Charmaine Coimbra

 

When the Los Angeles Times reported in July that approximately two-thirds of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) sold in California grocery stores isn’t so virgin after all, and that the problem comes from imported olive oils, I dashed to my pantry, flung open the door, and sighed.  My EVOO bottle was on the list of claims-to-be-extra-virgin-but-don't-believe-it olive oil. The alleged EVOO from Italy in my pantry apparently shacked up with cheaper canola, seed or nut oils—thereby losing any hint of virginity. Shame on my olive oil, and shame on Italy.

Arbequina Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Kitehawk Farm in Atascadero, Ca.Double shame on me. One, the report went on to say, “No such mixing was found in the recent tests of products produced in California…” and, two, the nearby foodie-town-in-training, Paso Robles, CA, is home to over two dozen olive farms that co-habit with the burgeoning world-class local vineyards. Why did I not buy local?  I preach it, so my bargain EVOO shopping vs. quality EVOO shopping was about to change.

Last week, I slipped into the 7th Annual Olive Festival in Paso Robles, and it was a voyage into the new world of an ancient food. Mostly family-owned farmers/producers poured samples of their oils for visitors to taste. Vendors supplied bread for dipping—but I watched as the purists went directly for the straight on sipping. Without a clue as to how oils are tasted, I chose the purist route.

Portugal: Pack Your Appetite

Editors
Culinary Travel, Insider's Guide, Spotlight On Destination, travel writing

by Ellen Barone

[this is the final article in our SPOTLIGHT ON PORTUGAL series this week... ]

When the only vices of a place involve food and wine, booking a flight is a no-brainer according to my travel rules. Throw in sandy beaches, cultural riches, mild climate, a lost-in-time pace of life, and an inexpensive cost of living, and you won me over, Portugal.

On a recent visit to the northern wine country, I spent four delicious days table-hopping from hearty lunches, rustic meals featuring unpretentious fare and artisanal feasts prepared by innovative young chefs who bring a creative flare to traditional specialties. Each meal was paired with the region’s fresh, light, aromatic wines known collectively as Vinho Verdes.

In Porto, the Confeitaria do Bolháo (Rua Formosa 339) proves it doesn’t have to be expensive to be good. I’d wandered into the café for an espresso and to sit out an afternoon rain shower. But I quickly upgraded my order to the meal of choice among the elderly patrons in wool caps and sturdy shoes who packed the place. “Yes, it’s fantastic”, said the waiter, when I asked to have what the couple at the table beside me were so obviously enjoying – a plentiful plate of crispy sardines, crusty bread, a delicious stew of red beans and rice and a carafe of robust red wine. Total bill: 7-euros. Nice.

 

A perfect example of the region’s rustic fare is Restaurante Páteo das Figueiras (Rua do Além 257), a homey establishment near Braga which serves exquisite local cuisine family-style in a simple and cozy room. The caldierada, a stew consisting of a variety of fish and shellfish with potatoes, tomato and onion, scooped up with a garlicky bread, was delicious.

Coffee Rituals Around the World

Vera Marie Badertscher
Culinary Travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Vera Marie Badertscher

 

Drop me down in a coffeehouse somewhere in the world, and if I have ever visited that country the native rituals will tell me where I am before I’ve heard a single “sucre”, “glyko”, “milchcafe”, or  “café negro.”

flickr photo by uteart via flickr (common license)In Europe and the Americas, coffee is the upstart, edging out the earlier communal drinks of hot chocolate and hot tea.  I have learned from impeccable sources that coffee was first discovered by goats. That legend somehow makes me feel better about the fact that although I love coffee houses and their ritual, I really can’t stand coffee. With a few slight exceptions, I drink tea—or hot chocolate.

In Greece, my husband and I acquired a taste for Greek coffee, in defense against the alternative to American coffee. The waiter inevitably served a small shiny packet of powdery brown stuff, which would perhaps dissolve if the water in the cup were hot enough.  From the prevalence of this powdery stuff throughout southern Europe, we figured that some Swiss Nescafé guy was one heck of a salesman.

To ease into drinking Greek coffee, served in a small cup that holds strong black liquid on top of a spoonful of black sludge, and makes you grateful it comes in a tiny cup, we took it sweet. This coffee, we decided, explains the hairy chests on Greek fishermen. It helps to drink it down after a glass (or between glasses) of ouzo, the licorice-flavored, clear firewater of Greece. While ouzo is getting you drunk, the strong coffee is sobering you up.  I could keep that routine going for quite a while.

I had first discovered that trick in Switzerland, where I found I could indeed tolerate a cup of coffee livened with a lot of plumkirsche or orange or pear-flavored liquer, or best of all, cheri-suise. Yum!

In A Pig's Ear

In A Pig's Ear

Dorty Nowak
Culinary Travel, cultural immersion, cultural musings

by Dorty Nowak

There are 72 recipes for animal body parts I have never eaten in Le Meilleur Cuisine de France. I purchased the cookbook, a staple in French kitchens, when I first moved to Paris, and over the past five years it has become a trusted guide for my culinary adventures. However, the section titled “Les Cochonailles et Les Abats” (Pork Products and Offal) remains untried territory.

Blood On His Hands

Elyn Aviva
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

words and photos by Elyn Aviva

 

He was a good-looking guy, even though he had blood on his hands and his jacket was spattered with red stains. His eyes were intense, his smile tight, his long fingers graceful as he sharpened his knife, the thin blade scraping rhythmically against the long steel rod.

The carnicería was packed with customers, patiently impatient, enjoying Julio’s ongoing spiel, willing to wait (for wait we would) while he cut each piece of meat to order. There were five butcher shops (not counting two supermarkets) in Sahagún, the small town in northern Spain where we were living, but this was the best. I had it on good authority.

“He’s an artist,” my late friend Paca had explained. “He can slice a piece of meat so thin you can see Barcelona through it.” No small task, given that Barcelona is 500 miles to the east.

Inside the entrance to the small shop was a red ticket machine. Take a number and you will know where you stand. Or so I thought at first. But I was quickly disabused. The flashing number on the bright-lit sign above Julio’s head never changed.

“Who’s last in line?” I asked, my limited Spanish having expanded to cover such necessities. A man leaning on a cane pointed to the elderly, burgundy-haired woman beside him; she nodded. I knew my place and sat down to wait. And wait. An hour would be fast, I realized, for it was just before the holidays, and everyone was stocking up to feed the hoards of friends and relatives returning home.

Homemade chorizo sausage, marinated pork loin, pork tongues, skinned rabbits, quarters of young and slightly older lamb, whole chickens, duck pâte, smoked pork chops, soup bones, bacon, tiny quails packed close together, pig ears, beef steaks, stew meat, chunks of beef to slice into fillets—and more—were tightly packed inside the glass-fronted case that separated Julio from his customers. Another case was crammed with rounds of cheeses and heaps of packaged pork products, its flat top covered with jars of leeks and asparagus and tuna, and bottles of local fruit conserves. On the wall behind, assorted Iberian hams hung from ropes tied around their shanks.

Dreaming of Fresh Corn

Laura B Weiss
Culinary Travel

by Laura B. Weiss

 

“Go ahead, take a bite,” said farmer Joe Barsczewski, handing me an ear of just-picked corn.

“You mean eat it right now, without cooking it?” I asked Joe, who’s been farming 22 acres of land on the outskirts of the North Fork, Long Island town of Greenport for the last 14 years. I was dubious even though the perfectly aligned yellow kernels appeared sparklingly fresh.

But raw?

Joe, who also grows potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes and other summer crops, emptied a bushel of ears onto the stand, eying me as I took a tentative bite. Though I expected the kernels’ texture to be leathery and tough, the perky yellow globes were unexpectedly crunchy and moist—and so full of flavor they exploded in my mouth with a jolt of sugary bliss. Even that Hallowe’en perennial, candy corn, couldn’t compete with this bit of vegetable heaven.

It's January, and if you’re like me, you’re dreaming of fresh corn from the farm. On the North Fork of Long Island, an area that is two hours from New York City and dotted with farms and vineyards, Joe is just one of more than a dozen farmers who offer up impeccably fresh corn and other vegetables. 

Chasing Fairy Tales In The Dordogne

Kimberley Lovato
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

words + pictures by Kimberley Lovato

Dreams are often born from the most unsuspecting places. Incredibly, mine happened to be delivered by an editor. The assignment that landed in my lap was to head to the Dordogne region of France and follow a chef and her new culinary tour company guests around for a week. No convincing needed, I immediately got in my car in Brussels and drove 10 hours south.   En route I stopped to fuel up and a postcard caught my eye. A picturesque village was enveloped in fog and huddled against a cliff at the edge of the Dordogne River, with a dilapidated rowboat tied to its shore. On the back of the card, in small black and white print, were the words, La-Roque-Gageac, Dordogne.  If fairy tales were depicted on postcards, they would look like this. I bought the card and tucked it behind the visor of my car.

I arrived in Biron, a village of 140 people, at an old priory that sits in the shadows of a 500-year -old castle.  I recall knocking on the weathered wooden doors of the Priory, and hearing the metal against metal slide of the bolt behind it, then a slow creek as the door opened.  Half expecting Frankenstein, I was greeted, instead, by the face of my host, Florida based Chef Laura Schmalhorst. Since then, Laura and I have met up in the Dordogne every year, bonded by our love of a good adventure, good food and wine, and seduced by the convivial people, their passion for the food and their willingness to share it and their stories with us.

While I prefer to travel by bus or local rickshaw, in the Dordogne, a car is essential.  The 2-lane roads are well marked but signs can be miniscule, especially the hand-painted ones directing you to local farms. Be warned: some signs, like those of a walnut farm I was seeking, lead you like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs only to completely disappear. I have learned not to get worked up over this loss of time. We as Americans are programmed for efficiency and if we don’t get where we are going in a reasonable time, our springs pop out and the brain shuts down, reducing us to cursing, yelling idiots.  In the Dordogne, time itself is on vacation. When you live in a fairytale there is no reason to rush, someone once told me. Sometimes it’s good to get off the time track, or be knocked off.

 

Travel Writer 2 Travel Apper

Jules Older
Culinary Travel

by Jules Older

 

Meet the Olders, Jules and Effin.

Jules: former magazine editor-in-chief, former website Director, Global Interactive Content, former person with income.

Effin: widely published photographer, suddenly not widely published.

Hi. I'm Jules.

Not long ago I start getting emails asking if I'd like to write all about San Francisco for a travel website. It would be oh, two or three month’s work. For which they'd pay me, oh, $400.

As calmly as I could, I asked, “Did you inadvertently leave out some zeros?”

That ended our correspondence.

Ah, but was I discouraged?

Yes. Deeply discouraged.

Then, one day, an email arrives, asking if I'd like to create an iPhone app. Thinking it’s one more of those $400 opportunities, I'm tempted to trash it, unread.

But when I read it, this offer is a fair one, and the subject is one of my special interests. Thus is born, San Francisco Restaurants, the app.

Wine & Stein[beck]: It Happened in Monterey

Jules Older
Culinary Travel

by Jules Older

Back when I was a grad student in New York, I was lured to Monterey in California. The words of John Steinbeck are what lured me.

© Effin OlderA Baltimore boy who'd discovered Steinbeck in my teen years, I wanted — no, needed — to see and smell and walk the streets where Doc and Mack, Hazel and Wide Ida, Danny and Pilon plied their trades and plotted their scams.

Now, those same Steinbeck characters help entice three-to-four-million tourists every year and have, in the words of Diane Mandeville, vice president of Cannery Row Company, “changed us from a dirty, smelly industrial town to a clean and green tourist town.”

That’s all well and good, but it wasn't just The Grapes of Wrath that upgraded Monterey. It was also the grapes of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Cabernet, Chardonnay and almost every other potable varietal under the sun. Like Napa and Sonoma to the north, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara to the south, Monterey is now serious wine country.

And it was on my last trip to Monterey that I got into the fermented grape juice.

For the same sort of reason — if ‘reason’ be the word for it — that I skied the French Alps with French-speaking Quebecois, sightsaw Kyoto with one of those Japanese tour parties and toured Israel with the Black Hebrews of Jerusalem, I now found myself in Monterey with a group of dedicated oenophiles.

10 Ways to Start Your Day around the World

Vera Marie Badertscher
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

by Vera Marie Badertscher

I am not one of those Americans for whom a familiar breakfast serves as a security blanket.  You know what I mean.  “I must have fresh ground coffee.” “I have to start the day with a three-minute egg. Don’t those people have an egg timer?”

I welcome that plunge into local culture, as, not quite full conscious, I am confronted with something on a plate or in a bowl that seems, well, foreign.

 photo by Meaduva via Flickr

 

How to Eat Breakfast around the World


1. New Zealand

Baked beans. Okay, get over it.  Beans are a good source of protein, have a touch of sweetness, and the fiber equivalent of stewed prunes.  The milk for your tea will be down the hall in the hotel in a small fridge. 

2. Austria

Loosen your belt. Several times a day, stop in a café for Austria’s favorite sport—piling schlag (whipped cream) on coffee mit chocolate mit maybe a slurp of rum. But that is not for breakfast. At breakfast time, stack your plate from the tidy buffet with meats, pink and brown rounds, cubes, rectangular slices marbled with white.  Beside the meat, platters with neatly arranged stacks of cheeses—hard, soft, pale yellow to pumpkin orange, and hard boiled eggs in egg cups. Appel strudel and amazing breads. Try the sour pickles—honestly they go well with the meat.  Be sure to walk a lot between castles and churches.

3. Switzerland

Same as Austria, but with more cheese. Stuff your pockets with Gruyere and break it out for lunch on a mountainside overlooking a lake.

4. Ireland

Ireland cooks up the kind of breakfast that leaves you in a stupor. Three kinds of meat and four kinds of bread (including Irish soda bread and heavy country wheat bread) and butter so good it makes you wonder if calling that yellow stuff wrapped in foil that you eat at home should be prosecuted for false labeling. Pile on some fried potatoes, some eggs, and take a nap before lunch. Only a few cups of strong Irish tea will keep you alert.