By Nicole Solis  February 19th, 2010 3:29 pm  |  Comments (1)

Today, Afar’s cofounder, Joe Diaz, appeared on a travel-themed episode of The Martha Stewart Show. In addition to being the doyenne of beautiful living, Martha is also an exceptionally well-traveled lady. She chose Afar as one of her daily Finds for “its focus on travel as a way to explore and connect with other cultures.”

Joe and Martha chatted about their favorite trips—China and the Galapagos for Martha, India (the birthplace of Afar) and Argentina for Joe—and of course, one of the best ways to truly get inside a culture: its food.

The other guests joining Joe and Martha were best-selling author and Afar contributor Susan Orlean, environmental advocate Alexandra Cousteau, and Flight 001 cofounder Brad John.

By Julia Cosgrove  January 28th, 2010 4:51 pm  |  Comments (2)

Irish cheese at the Temple Bar farmer's market in Dublin's Meeting House Square.

An oversize new cookbook landed on my desk right before the holidays: The Country Cooking of Ireland, by Colman Andrews. For many years, Irish cooking has been the subject of ridicule, and this book aims to change that. Andrews—the co-founder of Saveur magazine, winner of numerous James Beard Awards, and an upcoming Afar contributor—is the author to do it.

Flipping through the book’s recipes of brown bread and smoked salmon, shepherd’s pie, and Irish stew, I was momentarily transported to the year I lived in Dublin. During the week, I was there to study Irish literature. During the weekends, I felt it was my duty to eat and drink my way through the city. First stop: Bewley’s, for an overflowing Irish breakfast and some strong tea. Then on to the Temple Bar farmer’s market, where I stocked up on freshly baked soda bread, flaky smoked salmon, and artisanal farmhouse cheeses like Gubbeen and Durrus. By the afternoon, I hit a cafe or pub for some reading, accompanied by a pint of Bulmer’s cider. Dinners often entailed “takeaway” from the local chip shop.

When I think back to that year, it’s not the names of books that I remember (apologies to all my outstanding professors). Rather, memories of food and drink come flooding back.

I know that some of you are as obsessed with food as I am. What are your best food-related travel stories?

Photo by William Murphy.

By Jeremy Saum  December 23rd, 2009 9:12 am  |  Comments (3)

Dear Santa, I would like a subscription to Afar. And an edible hat.

In the second issue of Afar, on newsstands now, writer Christopher Hall takes readers on a delicious romp through Spain, sampling tapas wherever he goes. His dining companion in Madrid was Alicia Ríos, a woman who has a passionate, creative, wacky relationship with food. She makes hats out of meat, bakes entire cities, and constructs Flemish galleons from fruit. If you’re looking for inspiration or if you’ve just seen one too many holiday fruitcakes, check out Alicia’s Web site, alicia-rios.com. I recommend the Edible Representations page. 

Thanks to all of you who have helped Afar get off to such a great start this year. Happy holidays!

By Jennica Peterson  December 8th, 2009 6:00 am  |  Comments (6)

You'll shop for spices in the souk on the International Kitchen's trip to Fes, Morocco.

Thinking about a career change? On WPIX-TV, Afar co-founder Joe Diaz talks about five trips that might inspire you to work in a new field. After this trip in Morocco, you might pursue work as a chef:

Trip: International Kitchen’s “Feast for the Senses in Morocco” program
Overview: In the 1200-year-old Moroccan city of Fez, you’ll work with professional Moroccan chef Lahcen Beqqi to learn the essentials of the country’s cuisine.
Skills you’ll learn: How to choose the freshest ingredients at the market; how to combine spices such as dried ginger, cumin, cinnamon, and turmeric to create the distinct flavors of Moroccan cuisine; how to make traditional Moroccan dishes such as lamb tagine, couscous, and cornes de gazelles—crescent-shaped pastries filled with almond paste.
Other highlights: Visiting the tanneries and an auction of Fez’s famous soft leather. Sleeping in a renovated 14th-century palace in Fez’s medina.
Price: from $2,800 for a six-day trip

Four other career-changing trips:

• Work alongside marine biologists in Greece
• Live the life of an organic vintner in New Zealand
• Help healthcare workers in Guatemala
  
• Teach English and surf in Bali

Photo courtesy of the International Kitchen

By Jennica Peterson  November 3rd, 2009 5:30 am  |  Comments (1)

Step 2: Process the cocoa beans with the help of Belizean locals.

Step 1: Pick cocoa pods.

If you really love chocolate, why not travel to its source and make it yourself? On Elevate Destinations’ Belize Chocolate Tour, you’ll visit an organic cocoa farm, pick cocoa pods, then grind, roast, temper, and mold the beans into chocolate bars with the help of locals.

Based in Punta Gorda, the trip includes a tour of Mayan ruins, a day volunteering with Sustainable Harvest International, and a sunset boat cruise on the Moho River–chocolate rum cocktails served onboard.

Step 3: Enjoy ooey gooey chocolatey goodness.

$3700 per person. From February 13 to 20, 2010, in time for Valentine’s Day.

Photos courtesy of Elevate Destinations.

By April Kilcrease  October 8th, 2009 5:09 pm  |  Comments (2)

Soft, creamy, sweet, there’s something so comforting about rice pudding. According to Afar writer Jeff Koehler, the milky dessert “is one of the few universal rice dishes around the entire Mediterranean.” In his latest cookbook, Rice Pasta Couscous, Koehler offers three regional variations on the delicious dish.

The oven-baked rice pudding with mastic (sakızlı fırın sütlaç) is inspired by his first trip to Istanbul in 1994. “The weather was cold and wet,” he writes. “Much of my time was spent in cafes and muhallebici, ‘dairy bars’ specializing in milky puddings. Creamy, baked rice pudding was a discovery for me, especially when flavored with mastic. Crushed tears of mastic give a piney flavor to the pudding and a chewier consistency.”

His creamy vanilla-scented rice pudding (rizogalo) is adapted from a Greek family recipe that has been “passed from mother to daughter for generations.”

He also includes a spiced rice-flour pudding (moghli) from Lebanon, where “families prepare this caraway-and-anise-laden rice-flour pudding for guests after the birth of a baby.”

Rice pudding (arroz con leche) is a favorite in Koehler’s Barcelona home. As he shares in his article “Absorbing Rice,” “when the weather cools, my girls start asking for…arroz con leche. These are the days when…the flat fills with the aroma of rice simmering in milk with sugar, cinnamon, and citrus peels. To me that smell announces autumn.” To make the traditional treat, follow the arroz con leche recipe at the bottom of his story.

What foods say autumn to you?

By Derk Richardson  September 24th, 2009 8:00 am  |  Comments (0)

Though Irishman Jonathan Swift praised the luscious mollusks in poetry, oysters might not seem likely cornerstones of Celtic cuisine—until you’re in Ireland eating them with a slice of brown bread and a pint of stout. For 55 years, Galwegians, living close to Ireland’s west-coast fishing beds, have celebrated the opening of oyster season at the Galway International Oyster Festival, a four-day indulgence in all things oyster. September 24-27, you can cheer the shuckers during the international oyster-shelling contest, and sample chowders and raw oysters all day long. Join the locals at the opening-night party, afternoon tastings, and the Saturday-night gala ball and banquet.

Check out the oyster shucking and slurping action in this Fresh From the Sea episode on Galway.

By April Kilcrease  September 23rd, 2009 5:02 pm  |  Comments (4)

Hailing from Russia, sushki are adorably diminutive, and surprisingly tough. Like bagels (and bublik and baranki), sushki are boiled and then baked, but the results are much, much drier. In fact, the word “sushki” comes from the Russian word “sushit,” or “to dry.” Talk about truth in advertising. Hard enough to chip a tooth, these bite-sized bagels bite back. But softening them up is part of the fun. As an unrepentant cookie dunker, I love that this interactive snack is made to be dipped in tea first (coffee and milk work too).

Traditionally, bakers strung sushki together with twine and hung them up for sale. Now, they come bagged in cellophane, but often the string remains.

Tea-drinking season has hit the northern hemisphere, so break off a ring and start dunking. And while you’re enjoying your traditional Russian tea bread, keep this quote from Ian Frazier’s New Yorker story “Travels in Siberia–I” in mind (which I found on the Russian food blog Yulinka Cooks):

“Dinner has ended long ago, but still we are sitting at the table, drinking our fifth or seventh cup of tea; and I am thinking that Russians can sit at a supper table while saying brilliant or ridiculous things longer than seems physically possible; further, this trait may explain Russia’s famous susceptibility to unhealthy foreign ideas, with the post-mealtime tea-drinking providing the opportunity for contagion; and, further yet, I am wondering whether tea perhaps has been a more dangerous beverage to the Russian peace of mind, over all, than vodka.”

Photo by S1 CC 3.0.

By Jennica Peterson  September 4th, 2009 10:07 am  |  Comments (1)

Amedei's 9 bar (left), the winner of the Golden Bean Award.

Every year the Academy of Chocolate votes on the best chocolate bar in the world. The 2009 winner of the Golden Bean Award–the top prize–was the 9 bar made by Italian chocolatier Amedei. The company describes the 9 bar as “a powerful, well-balanced dark chocolate, with a fresh aroma of cacao and hot cocoa, evolving into whiffs of citrus and toasted almonds.”

Be the judge yourself; sample the gold medal winners in all fourteen categories of the Academy of Chocolate Awards.

By April Kilcrease  August 28th, 2009 8:01 am  |  Comments (1)

Hot and spicy on the tongue, harissa seems to inspire similarly fiery passions in the hearts of many cooks. But nothing compares to the erotic rapture of Abdelmajid Mahjoub, head of Les Moulins Mahjoub, a family-run farm in Tunisia’s Mejerda Valley. Posted on the food blog Sugar Cauldron, Mahjoub had this to say about his first taste of the chile paste:

I can still hear the enchantment of women crying out of pleasure, they weep out in ecstasy when they see it, unfolding its charms on a slice of bread.

After reading this, and the rest of his rhapsodic poem (“Virgins are bursting away with pleasure, elbowing their way through to reach ecstasy…Its flame, lingering on in my fragile memory, has marked me…with all its sensations.), I had to try it. I ordered a jar and tossed Les Moulins Mahjoub’s mixture of sundried peppers, garlic, cardamom, salt, and coriander into a chicken and pasta dish. While I wouldn’t call the experience transcendent, it was tasty.

As ubiquitous in Tunisia as hot sauce in Mexico, the condiment gets spread on almost everything—pizza, eggs, cream cheese, all food tastes better with a harissa kick. The basic recipe calls for dried red chiles, salt, and olive oil, but north African variations include onions, tomatoes, mint, and rose petals. Mahjoub recommends adding harissa to lablabi, a traditional chickpea stew.

If you’re hankering to pound some chiles with a pestle, food historian and cookbook author Clifford A. Wright provides a Berber-style recipe on his Mediterranean food Web site. A merchant in Tunis gave him the original ingredient list, which required fifty pounds of chiles. Thankfully, Wright has scaled it down.

You can order Les Moulins Mahjoub Harissa from Cube’s online market.

For a simple harissa dish, try Kitchen Caravan’s Harissa Deviled Eggs recipe.