As I was rummaging through my receipts for expenses on a story, I came across proof that I am, indeed, a total creature of habit: eight receipts for meals of special dal and garlic naan from Kabab-E-Q in Dhaka’s Banani neighborhood. I lived in Banani for four weeks last fall and was a regular at [...]
I finally made it into one of my all-time favorite food columns with an essay (with recipes) on one of my all-time favorite food rituals, the summer meze.
The News & Observer/March 30, 2008 In every savored memory, the kind that rolls through your head in warm colors and sounds, there’s always someone touching those scenes with grace. And, perhaps, with the scent of a home-cooked stew. I’m thinking of Porotos Granados, a humble Chilean medley that reveals itself in wafts of comfort [...]
The New York Times November 11, 2007 The aromatic resin from the mastiha, or lentisk, tree on the Greek island of Chios has flavored potions, sweets and cosmetics in the eastern Mediterranean for thousands of years. In more recent times, entrepreneurs have been transforming the fresh burst-of-sweet, hint-of-bitter sap known in Greece as mastiha into [...]
October 7, 2007 Views, Not Tourists The view from Oia, on the wildly popular island of Santorini, illuminates the sun-and-sea bliss of Greece: At day’s end, the sun drops into the blue Aegean horizon, draping the caldera of the Santorini volcano in a shimmery twilight. But just try finding an unobstructed glimpse of this [...]
