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Since the dawn of man, celebrations have centered on feasting. While pre-industrial man celebrated the success of a major kill or the yearly harvest (a natural reason to eat, drink and be merry – at least while the food lasted), today’s festive celebrations focus on traditional holidays and personal benchmarks.
The holiday season, more than any other, always brings to mind fa...
It is “Chicken Tuesday” of Holy Week in Guatemala, and the Santiago Atitlan market is filled with Tzutujil Maya women selling their hand-raised hens and roosters. Always a colorful scene, with women dressed in their hand-woven finery, the market is especially so today as hundreds of white, red, black and speckled hens clamor, their brightly hued heads straining on long necks from...
There we were on a sunny morning during our tour, on the Italian Riviera cooking with Fausto in his restaurant set among olive trees on terraced hills. His gardens overflowed with basil, rosemary, sage, oregano, vegetables and roses, his trees were loaded with lemons, his olive, fig and fruit trees, awaiting their seasons, surrounded his restaurant.
Spain is increasingly becoming well-known in culinary circles as a source of high quality ingredients. Spain’s olive oil is legendary, as is its saffron and bellota (acorn-fed ham). Flor de sal (“salt flower” – seas alt) is the new ingredient on all “foodies’” lips, and Spain’s flor de Sal from Mallorca is superb.
Coffee is an integral part of life in Cuba. Made thick and rich, it is served at breakfast, after lunch and dinner, and during business meetings and social events.
One year, I found myself in Oaxaca, “Land of the Seven Moles,” Mexico’s answer to Tuscany. Even the cab drivers in Oaxaca were foodies. I’d always ask them the same question: “Donde esta el mejor mole?” (Where is the best molé?) and the response was always the same: “En la casa de mi madre” (In my mother’s house).
Cellar Tours offers wine and culinary tours through Spain and Portugal. Thanks to the extensive contacts of owner Genevieve McCarthy, these guided luxury trips include exclusive visits to some of those countries’ best wine estates, normally not open to the public. 
To celebrate the holidays this year, why not make a traditional “Buche de Noel”? This delicious roll cake will make your Christmas spirits soar.
Italian Cooking is well known the world over but few know that most of its recipes were not created by highly trained chefs but by “regular” people – mothers preparing healthy food for their children, fishermen coming back from sea, peasants. These people created our cuisine with ingredients they could easily find in their...
Whether or not you grew up on the fairytale of The Snow Queen who captivates young Kai with her Nordic ice palace, you will easily fall under the enchanted spell of a winter wonderland of ice crystals like diamonds. Sweden’s biggest tourist attraction of the past decade is the Icehotel in Jukkasjarvi, where water borrowed from the river on its way from the mountains to the sea is worked by...
The mid-day sun blazed down on the canvas-roofed stalls. It was market day in Estepona, on the edge of the Mediterranean in southern Spain. For hours, I had been singing with a small ensemble at a junction of the busy barato’s shopping aisles. My mouth was so dry that I could barely speak. As I ducked into the shade of a booth piled high with local fruit, the heady scent of ripe, juicy...
People who live in Texas will be the first to tell you that it is like its own country; but this massive state is more like many countries rolled into one. From the rugged mountains of Big Bend to the cypress bayous of Caddo Lake, the expansive plains of the Panhandle to the miles of beaches on the Gulf Coast each corner of the state offers a unique experience. 
Throughout the millennia the Greek calendar has been full of special festive days that commemorate religious holidays or other social customs, and all them include the preparation and sharing of special foods. The main ingredients of these foods signify abundance, fertility, continuation of life and the sharing of goods. Wheat, barley, honey, nuts, and eggs are typically used to mark and celebrate Greek births,...
If you really look for them you can find a festival for anything. Somewhere in the world, someone is celebrating everything from elephants to string to beetles. And food is one of the things that draws people to the celebration. But there is nothing more amazing than when the festival is about food.