To say that we’re excited about our new web site design falls short. We’ve arrived at the other side of the mountain after an exhausting amount of work, but it was truly worth it. I’m …

Portugal’s wine regions got a facelift recently. Not the actual regions—those have been literally written in stone beginning in 1756 when the Upper Douro became the first wine region in the world to be demarcated, with …

When we pick up a dinner fork we rarely think about how or why it came to be. Using it is as natural as using our own hands. But the fork is a relative newcomer …

Where I come from, rites of passage take all forms. They might involve the unnerving introduction of a prospective spouse to the rest of the family; they could be more religious in nature, and include …

Frank Alexandre is so excited to make his point, he hip checks a table out of the way as he lurches toward the photograph on the wall. “Olhe! olhe!” he says, falling back into his …

 I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes people think just because I write about food (and certainly consume it in vast quantities) it automatically makes me a walking wine expert. At …

This past Thursday, March 5th, was sort of my unofficial debutante ball, if you will. While there were no frilly dresses or father-daughter dances anywhere in sight, there was quite a lot of buzz, warm …

It seems like forever since pork and beans meant a can of Van Camp’s or Campbell’s. Decades ago, American households were aware of only the common bean: navy, kidney, great Northern, and pinto. Then, as …

 Here’s the thing about Paris: It’s as wonderful as you imagine it to be. It’s even as wonderful as the glossy travel brochures promise it will be. People really do bicycle down the street with …

The Portuguese have as many fado ballads, their famously gut wrenching street songs about broken love, as they do recipes for salt cod. Maybe more. On the surface it might appear that Portugal is a …

Last night The One and I braved Arctic winds to go to the book party for the bad boy of the pastry world Johnny Iuzzini. His tome, Dessert FourPlay: Sweet Quartets from a Four-Star Pastry …