When I was 18, I had a job mapping power lines, on foot, across Texas. During that walking tour from Texarkana to Amarillo, Paris to Corsicana, I had lunch in hundreds of cafés, some in towns so small the restaurant was just somebody’s porch. Everyone had a chicken-fried steak special on the menu, and invariably I ordered it. I can’t recall a single proprietor who didn’t swear it was “the...Read more >

“Listen to me very closely,” said Giovanni Serrazanetti, the owner of Cantina Bentivoglio in Bologna, Italy. “Never—and I mean ever—eat spaghetti Bolognese. It’s always with tagliatelle.” This, I was learning, was the first rule of Bolognese ragù. How anyone started eating the tomato-laced meat sauce with spaghetti instead of the long, more rectangular tagliatelle is anyone’s guess. The first...Read more >

In 2007, when residents reported noxious fumes in London’s Soho neighborhood, police and firefighters feared the possibility of a terrorist chemical attack. They smashed down the door of a small commercial storefront to discover the culprit: a pot of burning chilies. The chef of the Thai Cottage restaurant was making nam prik pao, the chili paste that just might be the secret weapon of Thai...Read more >

Along the historic streets of Vienna, tucked between imperial-era buildings and modern boutiques, countless bakeries and cafés proudly display neat slices of Sachertorte. Since Austria’s “king of cakes” was invented nearly 200 years ago, Vienna’s pastry chefs have perfected the art of spreading apricot jam over layers of dark chocolate sponge cake to achieve a fine balance of bittersweet...Read more >

A few years ago, my friend Roulla had a craving for a favorite childhood treat, a classic Australian cake known as a lamington. It’s simple fare—just a cube of sponge cake dipped in chocolate and coconut, usually eaten with your hands—and one of the few culinary inventions that Australia can claim as its own. But when Roulla tried to order a lamington at a Sydney bakery, she was disappointed....Read more >

A cool morning wind blustered off the Mediterranean and through Jaffa’s jumble of millennia-old buildings above the sprawl of Tel Aviv. “This is the place,” said Gil Hovav, a leading Israeli food journalist, as he guided me into the restaurant Abu Hassan’s din of clattering plates and chatter. In the Middle East, the land of hummus, the only way to find the best is to ask the local experts.We...Read more >

Outside the kitchen door at Ku De Ta, a beachfront resort near the southern tip of Bali, palms line the parking lot. Throughout Indonesia, the coconut palm is an all-purpose plant, its nuts collected for milk and flesh, its husks woven into rope, its shells fashioned into bowls, its fronds transformed into religious offerings. Yet when Will Goldfarb looks out at those palms, he sees none of...Read more >

A good bowl of Lanzhou la mian conjures its Silk Road roots. La mian translates from Chinese as “pulled noodle,” which refers to the athletic technique used to make the ribbons of pasta. It is also the name of an aromatic beef soup made with these smooth and slightly elastic noodles. A blend of spices and herbs—cumin, star anise, turmeric, and fresh cilantro—gives the broth a vibrant flavor...Read more >

I am obliged as an honorary member of the Confraternita del Pesto—a “brotherhood” founded in Genoa in 1992 to celebrate and protect the integrity of this famous paste of crushed basil, garlic, pine nuts, cheese, and olive oil—to inform you that you have probably never had the real thing. And you certainly can’t reproduce it at home in Sausalito or Sarasota. That’s because unless you live in or...Read more >