My friend and I really love hot food. It was 1987 and we were on assignment in Southern India with a group called The Bible League. We had visited remote villages in the interior and had returned to Andhra Pradesh and needed a rest. This particular region of India has the reputation of having the spiciest and most deadly cuisine on the continent.
Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce is a quintessential Italian dish known around the world, despite taking many twists and turns on its voyage. Last month I had the unique opportunity to be an observer at a cooking demonstration conducted by Maestro Ivan Bombieri, Chef at Risotrante La Taverna, just outside of Udine, in Friuli Venezia Giulia region. Mr. Bombieri is a soft-spoken, charismatic man of no pretension who like his cooking to speak for itself.
Like many North Americans I grew-up eating lasagna. I recalled how my grandmother, who hailed from Genoa, would explain that lasagna was the name of a pasta, not a dish. Her style of preparing lasagna was to boil the pasta, then layer it with a Tucco sauce (dialect) and Parmigiano–Reggiano cheese, with no baking in the oven.
Pancake Day always takes place on Shrove Tuesday in Great Britain, the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of the Christian season of Lent in the run up to Easter. Traditionally, Shrove Tuesday was a day for using up food that could not be eaten during Lent, which was a time for fasting. Therefore people made pancakes …
If you love bread, Switzerland is the country for you. There are over 200 different traditional breads, including 22 special cantonal bread varieties. When in Zurich, you might want to try Seri's baguettes or croissants. A very popular bread, which you get everywhere in Switzerland, is a soft white loaf called "Zopf". The dough is made from white flour, milk, eggs, butter and yeast, plaited into a braid and then brushed with egg yolk before baking. It's traditionally eaten on Sunday mornings.
Susanne Servin of Herzerl Tours has just returned from Vienna and the festive Advent Markets. While Ms. Servin was in Vienna she revisited two great Viennese holiday cookies, Vanillekipferl (vanilla moon/crescent shaped) and Engel Augen (Angel Eyes), in which she has generously shared the recipes with our readers. History and Recipes Vanillekipferl are sugar cookies in the shape of crescents that originated in …
Latke (pronounced LOT-keh, LOT-kah or LOT-kee) is Yiddish for “pancake.” On Chanukah, it is traditional to serve latkes (most often potato) fried in oil to celebrate the Chanukah miracle, which involved the oil of the Temple menorah lasting for eight days instead of just one. Jews eat foods that reflect the significance of a holiday — such as matzah on …
Early Americans were absolutely oyster crazy. When the first English settlers arrived at Plymouth Rock, oysters were a reliable and tasty source of nutrition. Coastal American Indian Nations had already been harvesting them for at least 3,000 years. As the young colony’s population grew and spread to cover much of the East Coast, folks along the shores devoured oysters. In stuffings, chowders, …
On a recent trip to Curacao I had the good fortune to taste Chef Taco’s African Peanut Soup on two occasions. The first was at the local restaurant, Trio Penotti, on the west side of the island. It is an unassuming place, typical for a local’s country place in that it had open-air seating in a rustic outside pavilion. It …
Susanne Servin of Herzerl Tours shares her Apfelstrudel family recipe. Says Susanne: “It may seem overwhelming but believe me, it’s not. In a two hour session I taught a group of my German students how to make it.”