Food Travel - - Page 22

by ES Guest

Small Plates Get Smaller: Pinxto in Basque Country

San Sebastian

Ed Note: Our friend Jake recently returned from the Basque Country, eager to tell me about his love affair with food from the region. I think he might have even said it was his favorite cooking from around the world.

Baby Eel

And Jake’s been around, growing up in Philly, living in Boston, DC and Portland and traveling through Asia and India and many more places. Especially, Costa Rica, where he toured with teenagers around the hills, farms and lakes of the country. He also wrote about it on Simmer a few years ago. Here are a few highlights from his taste of the Basque Country.

Beans, Jamon and Olives

Basque Country (Pais Vasco) claims to be neither a part of Spain nor France, rather an independent region with its own take on how eating should be done. I like.

Anchovies

I’m pretty sure everyone knows tapas, you sit down to eat with a few friends, share a few small plates and leave hungry and feeling like you overpaid. I get it.

Oxtail, Mashed Potato, Pepper Guernika

Enter pinxtos (pronounced pinch-os).

by forkitude

10 Things I Learned About Food From a Swiss Grandmother

My recent trip to Switzerland with my boyfriend brought me to his grandmother’s house. In an old farmhouse with a garden, a wood oven, and a ceiling so low that I hit my 6’0″ tall head a few times.

I ate three square meals a day, sitting down at a table. (Can this be real?) When I stumbled down the stairs in the morning, the breakfast table would be set with plates, napkins, silverware, hot tea, milk, yogurt, cheese, fresh-made jam, honey, bread and museli. Did I die and go to heaven? No, I was still alive in Switzerland at a grandmother’s house.

in Food Travel / Lists 6 comments

by BS

Beyond Chocolate: Why Americans Do Get Fat in France

I just returned from 10 days in Paris and Brittany, France, where my girlfriend and I had a highly delicious time combining refined French cuisine with old-fashioned American overindulgence. They may say French women don’t get fat, but Americans on vacation in France most decidedly do. I mean, there’s a cheese course option at every meal. What can you do?

While desserts aren’t generally my favorite, it was food in that category that we found the most to write home about.

There were plenty of traditional sweets options at Mathray and Robert’s Pain de Sucre in the Marais, but we were most intrigued by their nouveau marshmallows, heavily infused with flavors like saffron (left) and whiskey (right).

Their classic macaroons also have a new school twist, with flavors like cool mint, salted caramel, and passion fruit-chocolate.

in Desserts / Food Travel / Photos 2 comments

by forkitude

Hot Food, Served On A Plate, Eaten While Sitting

I have now been in San Cassiano, Italy for a week and could write volumes about the amazing alps and Alto Adige. As if the last week wasn’t great enough, the man had to pull something as crazy awesome as a spa day at Hotel Fanes: massage, sauna, a “quiet relax room” with a heated water bed, and naked Europeans. When a girl doesn’t think that things could possibly get any better, this ultra pampering session was followed by an impromptu three-course dinner in the Chef’s office.

A stock broker can get desensitized to money because she sees it all day long, and when the Dow drops 650 points, it’s really just another day at the office (stay with me here). Similarly, working in the food industry can cause a cook to be desensitized and forget how food makes people feel. We in the restaurant business don’t get to sit down very often to enjoy a hot meal. We forget what it’s like. Most of the time we eat standing up, perhaps over a trash bin because we’re too busy to actually put the food on a plate. (Especially if you’re in the shit and can’t get your work done fast enough because you’re still a shitty cook when it comes down to it, but work up a sweat all day trying to improve.) Sacrificing normal-people dinnertime rituals is what we do to make others feel happy during their dinner time. When you think about it, food really is quite simple. You either make people happy or you don’t. And a lot of us try to make people happy 100% of the time. The endless pursuit of perfection can be mentally and physically taxing. Sometimes if we don’t step away often enough, we forget what it feels like to be served a hot meal, on a plate, while sitting down. And if we don’t step back every once in a while from what we work so hard at every day and reflect on what is really important, we might just forget what that is. It’s just food after all.

Sometimes what a girl needs is just to sit down and be served a hot meal…in Italy…by a sweet chef…and take a deep breath of mountain air.

in Food Travel 0 comments

by forkitude

Artsy Photo Of The Day

Dear Italy: your meat is fantastic.

in Food Travel / Pig / Red Meat 1 comments

by forkitude

Artsy Photo Of The Day

It would be a shame to fly 14 hours across an ocean and not enjoy dessert.

in Desserts / Food Travel / Photos 0 comments

by gansie

Eating A Roll With a Hole and Other Bagel Intelligence

I never really thought about living in another country before. Sure, my summer in Barcelona many years ago was predictably magical. But could I really live there?

No, because it’s a country without bagels. And if I were to base my residency on bagel possibilities, I would strongly consider Canada (and Denmark).

Montreal bagels own some serious street cred (although our writer hated Montreal bagels), with even an appearance on Anthony Bourdain‘s anti-trend travel show No Reservations. But no obsession can really be complete without a dedicated Tumblr. And we’ve found it on Bagel Diaries.

You will find all of your Montreal bagel needs here (and links to ground-breaking bagel articles).