Eneko Atxa is a chef who is deeply rooted in the regional traditions of classic Basque cookery. His culinary inspiration were the dishes of his mother and grandmother, yet his current dishes reveal an inventiveness and imagination that go well beyond any constraints of regional or even national gastronomy.
I use olive oil on a practically daily basis to poach vegetables to finish soups and grilled fish, for sautéing, and dressing salads. Like any food product, olive oil has a finite shelf life. It’s quite extended if the product is kept under the right conditions, but quite short if not.
Marrakech is an ancient city located at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, in the center of Morocco. It has the largest and oldest medina (walled city) in the country which is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In 1958, I found that my grandfather had left money in his will for my higher education at a European university. At the time, I was living in Athens, Greece with my family, finishing high school and preparing for a future life of adventure.
Istanbul was called just “The City” or the “City on the Seven Hills” when it was the capital of the Byzantine Empire. It’s indeed a very ancient city that straddles Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus Strait. This both modern and ancient city has expanded along the Bosphorus coast from the Sea of Marmara almost to the Black Sea, engulfing what used to be suburbs and outlaying villages on both sides of the Strait.
We believe the products in this article should be part of the well-stocked bar of anyone who takes their holiday spirits seriously.
Long had I coveted taking a river cruise, and my dream was realized when we sailed the Legendary Rhine & Moselle (Mosel) with the top ranked UNIWORLD Boutique River Cruise Collection. The 13-day itinerary was aboard the River Queen, one of UNIWORLD’s fleet of luxurious ships that ply the rivers and waterways of the world. Their fleet covers 22 rivers in 26 countries.
From the island of Hispaniola, the home-base for some of the most notorious pirates – Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Calico Jack, and Bartholomew Roberts – came a very enjoyable rum that would have been great booty for any privateer of the 16th or 17th centuries.
What is interesting is that many of the wineries retain their ancient marble cisterns, where grapes are still foot-pressed and then aged in very large concrete vats or barrels (foudre) of Portuguese or French oak, making wines the old-fashioned way.
Nowadays, Madeira attracts visitors not only from the UK but also from the rest of the world, and there are numerous 5-star hotel properties on the island that cater to the luxury traveler, as well as other rated hotels and B&Bs. Actually, most of the important international hotel groups have properties in or around Funchal, the capital.
Orient Express recently took over Reid’s Hotel, renamed it Belmond Reid’s Palace, and refurbished the legendary mansion that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Now, the Grand Dame on the Bay of Funchal is enjoying a renaissance.
I recently tasted an exceptional Prosecco made in the classic méthode champenoise, not in the usual Martinotti-Charmat autoclave method that most Prosecco is produced today.
I love good soups, and I often make them in my kitchen. Through the years, I’ve added numerous soups to my repertory, and Tom Kha Gai, a Thai chicken soup, is one of them.
Olive oil has been produced and consumed in the Eastern Mediterranean since time immemorial. In the Cairo museum, a collection of papyri dating more than 5,000 years ago from Pharaonic Egypt talks about the olive oil and preserved olives trade between Minoan...
The Italian peninsula sends to the rest of the world far more than just great wines and cheeses, fast cars, sultry actresses, and temperamental tenors. It’s also the source of some of the most complex and sought-after liqueurs.
The Spring House in Tenafly is a Northern New Jersey restaurant located in a majestic old house with a large back and side garden. It has been designated as a historic building. Valet parking is offered to all guests, making access stress-free in a largely residential locale.
Hot dogs, the “dachshund sausages,” as they were initially called because they were thin and long like the eponymous breed of dog, were first sold with sauerkraut in the 1860s from street pushcarts in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhoods around St. Mark’s Place.
I see great looking food as an art form. However, I also agree that there is just too much pomp and circumstance and stress around some of the tonier restaurants in New York City.
This is truly a spectacular dish when done right, and it can be prepared in just a few minutes.
The best hotel I ever stayed in!
I had the best sangria, Jamón Iberico, and other tapas while sitting at the outdoors tables of Cervecería Alemana on Plaza de Santa Ana in Madrid.
I have been flying for both business and pleasure for many years now. The following is my assessment of recent domestic and international flights, as well as the state of flying in general.
To honor land artist Jim Denevan, a very special dinner open to the public celebrating the agricultural program, Outstanding in the Field, will take place in a “roving restaurant” in or very near the area where the meal’s ingredients were harvested in locations that produce celebrated ingredients via sustainable farming and husbandry methods.
We rounded up our group of tasters, known as “the gang of the usual suspects,” to try a number of wines. Some bottles were new to us; others were from beloved vineyards.
A few months ago, we wrote about That Supper Club, a prix fixe set menu, quirky restaurant with very good food in Park Ridge, New Jersey, a town near us. They change dishes on a seasonal basis, depending on what’s fresh and good on the market. They let us know that they’re currently featuring an early spring menu and invited us to revisit and taste the new offerings.
The Temptations’ and the Four Tops’ 40th anniversary tour performance was a blast from the past … and a really great time was had by all! Thank you, New Jersey Performance Art Center (NJPAC), for bringing those still incredible artists to Newark.
Centuries ago, people emigrated from southern Chinese provinces, mostly Szechwan, into modern-day Thailand, bringing along their culinary traditions. Since that time, many other influences have affected Thai food, including dishes and methods of cooking from India and Portugal. At the Southern part of the country, Malay and Burmese culinary influences are also found.
Barbara and I decided to visit relatives we had not seen for a number of years. They live in a community near Trenton which is almost a 2-hour drive from us. A friend who lives halfway between us and our relatives told us about a new restaurant – Harpoon Willy’s of the Jersey Shore Restaurant Group. The restaurant opened about a month ago in Robbinsville, New Jersey, and she recommended we check it out.
Dolly Parton is not only a beautiful woman and a legendary country singer and songwriter, actress, and philanthropist – she is also an international wine company!
We have noticed significant travel restrictions, driven by the need to balance economic benefits with the safeguarding of local communities and environments. These adjustments mark a departure from older travel models, ushering in an era where responsible tourism is not just encouraged but it is mandated.
Tokaj is the name of an ancient winegrowing region that is currently divided between Hungary and Slovakia. The current Tokaj area used to be part of the greater Tokaj-Hegyalja region within the Kingdom of Hungary but was divided between Hungary and Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I.
As a food and wine writer, I get to try numerous wines and spirits each month from different parts of the world. Their prices might range from $5 per bottle retail to $600 and more. The latest batch of wines I tasted include red and white wines from Italy, Portugal, Spanish Catalonia, and Greece, as well as a Champagne and a couple of Proseccos.
If you’re wondering why the price of potato chips, an American snacking staple, has been rising so rapidly, there are two reasons. General inflation is one; according to the the Federal Reserve, the US dollar has lost 87% of its purchasing power since 1971. But another reason that has not been considered by the buying public is an overheating planet!
Auguste Escoffier, a chef of acknowledged genius, published his Guide Culinaire in France toward the end of his career. Looking through his recipes, I found the following Bisque d’ Ecrevisses, a dish that I recently enjoyed at a friend’s home in Florida. This friend is from Alsace, and she prepared it according to her mother’s recipe. It was the same as Escoffier’s with the exception of one ingredient – the addition of finely chopped fresh chives.
Cheese plates and cheeseboards are a fantastic way to elevate the end of a meal or titillate the palate at a friendly gathering. With so many cheeses available in the market from all over the world, you can go overboard and create a spread that overflows with a variety of the available domestic and international varieties. But here’s a piece of advice: don’t do it!
Ropa Vieja is a hearty and aromatic stew of shredded beef or goat shoulder meat, simmered in a tomato sauce with onions, green olives, peppers, garlic, and spices.
Frozen meals are an American invention that I still have to get used to, even though I’ve lived in this country for more than 50 years. As far as I’m concerned, they’re either an exceptional hit or a massive miss. And the problem is usually either texture or flavor.
We found a rather quirky but unique restaurant with exceptional food in the Northern New Jersey township of Park Ridge at 7 Hawthorne Avenue. Longtime restaurateur Tommy Greco, along with cousin and partner Chef Nicolas Pescatore, returned to their New Jersey roots with a unique concept: a casual restaurant called Pop Empanada during the work week which turns into That Supper Club, formerly known as the Pop! Pasta Club, Thursday to Saturday.
We use an adaptation of the classic recipe for fondue with a mixture of cheeses. Gruyère, of course, is the base, with half the weight Emmentaler and about two teaspoonfuls of Sap Sago for exceptional flavor.
Some of rum’s history isn’t pretty. Rum or rhum – depending on whether you’re in an English or French-speaking area – is the Caribbean’s most frequently produced spirit. It’s also produced in the Southern USA and Central and South America. Every island and every country where sugarcane is grown make their own version of the spirit in varying qualities, alcoholic content, and price ranges.
I don’t want to brag, but through the years, I have been lucky enough to eat in many Michelin-rated restaurants – several in Spain where starred establishments are almost a dime a dozen, a couple in Scandinavia, and a few in Rome, Torino, and Milan, as well as one in Piraeus, Greece and a number in New York City.
I decided to go back and reread some of the theatrical plays of antiquity that I had read many years ago as part of my high school curriculum. I dusted off my copies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes and started going through them, especially looking at what Athenian thinkers of ancient times had to say on subjects that could apply today.
he flaky pastry “cake” is filled with a mixture of almond paste and crème pâtissière, baked until puffy and golden, and topped off with a gilded paper crown. Inside the galette is a small figurine – a fève – and the person who finds that in their slice will wear the crown and become king or queen for the day.
Motown legends The Temptations and The Four Tops practically defined popular American music in the late 1950s and 1960s, along with the other performers on the Motown roster. They will be in concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) next April 19, 2025 at 8 pm, and tickets are already going fast! (Photo courtesy of NJPAC.)
I don’t think I have a personal prejudice against low calorie, no-alcohol wines. Still, through the years, I have tasted a number of these bottles and thought most had very little to no taste. But the product line, Ventessa by Mezzacorona, has proved to me that I can be wrong about this and should try more of these wines just to make sure I know what I’m talking about.
One place still cooks the definitive Fegato alla Veneziana – the famous Harry’s Bar, which was Ernest Hemingway’s favorite watering hole where he had his very own reserved table while working on his novel, Across the River and into the Trees, in Venice.
I just received a copy of a cookbook I have been looking forward to called Sri Owen’s Indonesian Food from an imprint of Interlink Publishing. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m very partial to Asian dishes, and I have a good number of cookbooks from different Asian countries.
There are a number of travel hazards that you may not be aware of, so follow these guidelines to be safe during your holiday vacation.
All whisky or whiskey is made from three basic ingredients: water, grain, and yeast. But there is a very wide range of products. They depend on where they’re made, the legal and tradition-required differences in the water and grain used, how the distilling is done, and what the aging process involves.
Butlers in a luxury hotel or on a cruise will act, in essence, as a floor supervisor, usually covering a single floor and making sure that the hotel’s services – such as housekeeping, food, and beverage – are delivered timely. Butlers also ensure the quality of the service you receive.
In the past, luxury stemware preferred by wine drinkers of my father’s generation were fairly thick, ornate, heavily carved, lead crystal glasses. They were produced by companies with a long history such as Baccarat, Moser, Josephinenhütte, Orrefors, Waterford, Cristallerie de Sevres, or Cristalleries Saint Louis, to name but a few of the better European producers.
The time that most people purchase sparkling wines is usually just prior to the winter holidays. People like to celebrate either the end of a challenging year or the beginning of a new one, which will be full of expectations for a great outcome. Therefore, we generally publish a review of sparkling wines that we and the members of our “usual suspects” group of tasters, have enjoyed at the beginning of November each year.
In many of the stories, as well as in toponymics (the study of proper geographic names) based on descriptions from the past, we find references to giants.
On a recent driving trip to the south of France, we stopped for lunch at the fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer known for its Moules-frites or moules et frites (mussels with fries).
Sicily is producing some very interesting white wines. The largest island in the Mediterranean is now one of Italy’s most exciting wine producers. The wines, especially the whites, range from sweet or savory and crisp to complex and startlingly age-worthy.
According to Homer, Ulysses found monsters, giants, and bewitching creatures galore in the waters of Lazio, Italy. While on our own “odyssey,” we found a region filled with lovely seaside hotels, beautiful sand beaches, stunning vistas, and ancient ruins that can be explored without hoards of sightseers blocking our access or cannibalistic giants hurling rocks at us.
The Greeks or Hellenes were never really a totally homogeneous group. Their language is considered an independent branch of the Indo-European group of languages, and the people came down in successive waves of migrating tribes from North of the Balkan Peninsula, settling in different regions of what is now the Greek nation.
North of Sicily in the Tyrrhenian Sea, a group of seven volcanic islands rise from the cobalt-blue waters. They are called Salina, Lipari, Vulcano, Alicudi, Filicudi, Panarea, Basiluzzo, and Stromboli, and they’re definitely worth a visit.
Yearning for both a fun and a delicious dining experience to usher in the upcoming Halloween season, we opted for a visit to the Sugar Factory Restaurant in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City. This was our second visit to a Sugar Factory eatery. Last year, it was a Manhattan location, celebrating the Christmas holidays. We had such a good time that we thought a repeat should be on our menu.
Recently, I decided to visit Crete to see the ancient cities that became the cornerstone of our modern culture. They were the precursors of 21st century Western civilization.
Nowadays, we hear a lot about symposia. In current usage, it has come to mean an academic or scientific gathering where distinguished speakers present their insights or findings on cultural, archaeological, economic, or scientific questions. The word’s usage in ancient times, however, meant a sumptuous dinner attended mostly by affluent or influential male participants. In addition to food and drink, there would be entertainment, as well as philosophical or political discussions.
For ages, honey has been considered the “perfect” food. Produced in many parts of the world but especially popular in the Eastern Mediterranean, it has been used as both food and medicine since antiquity. Read about our favorite honeys and hotels with beehives.
In Greece, the land beneath your feet is steeped in very ancient history and lore. Many of our current civic, as well as theatrical traditions, come to us from the city-state of Athena, in Attica.
The price of olive oil in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, where 90% of the world’s olive oil is produced, is rapidly rising to a very high level. This means that the consumers of olive oil in the rest of the world will be paying much more.
It seems that the number 13 is considered unlucky by many cultures around the world. And it’s considered even more unlucky if the date falls on a Friday! There’s even a psychological term for the fear of the number 13, which was supposedly coined by none other than Sigmund Freud. But the etymology is actually of ancient Greek origin: Triskaidekaphobia.
Are you confused about the difference between port and sherry? Port is fortified during fermentation. Sherry is fortified after fermentation. Port tends to be sweeter, while sherry usually has a slightly higher alcohol content. Read on to learn more.
Pastitsio is the Greek answer to Italian lasagna, but what sets pastitsio apart from the Italian version is mostly the use of numerous aromatic spices in the meat ragù. The other difference is that pastitsio uses a thick, long pasta with a hole, topped by a hearty cheesy béchamel instead of the flat Italian lasagna.
Just found another of my mother’s recipes – an aromatic sponge cake that is steeped in orange syrup. This one is a classic Eastern Mediterranean sweet cake called in “revani” or “ravani” in Greek or “rebane” in Turkish. it’s also very popular in Egypt and Yemen.
Since the invention of alcoholic beverages, hangovers have become a universal curse that every culture has to deal with. From “hair of the dog,” to raw egg sucking, to the South American ceviche, both ancient and modern men and women have had to deal with “the Morning After.”
About 66 years ago, I got my first taste of European travel when my father said, “We should instill culture in the children.” At the time, I was living in Greece with my parents and younger brother, and I was still in high school. So my mother, a couple of her friends, and I embarked on an escorted summer trip to Austria and Germany departing from Piraeus by ship to Venice, spending a day in La Serenissima, then by “Pullman Bus” (as high-end motor coaches were called in Greece at the time) to Vienna over the Brenner Pass.
At the recent Summer Fancy Food Show in New York, I found a New Jersey company called Hoboken Farms that makes great Marinara, Vodka Sauce, Basil Marinara, and Low Sodium Marinara. They are all high quality tomato-based sauces – chunky and very good!
Actually, there are three Magnus whiskey variants currently on the market. The Joseph Magnus Bourbon, triple cask finished, is straight bourbon whiskey. The Murray Hill Club blends 18- and 11-year-old spirits with a lighter 9-year-old whiskey. The Cigar Blend Bourbon is blended to enhance the enjoyment of a fine cigar.
The first recorded reference to cider dates back to Julius Caesar’s Britain, where he found the native Celts fermenting crab apples and making cider, as well as fermenting honey to make mead. There were also alcoholic cider-drinking Normans and Anglo-Saxons in what is now France.
This quick and easy take on a Greek classic – shrimp and feta with orzo – will have dinner on the table in 20 minutes from start to finish if you use precooked shrimp as we now do!
The 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City seems to have recovered the losses of exhibitors during the COVID period, making it as large as (or possibly even larger) than ever. There were exhibitors from all over the world, but I will dedicate this article to my thoughts about the presence of mostly Greek products at the show.
Vermouth is an aged, aromatic, fortified European wine flavored with botanicals, such as citrus peel, star anise, basil, thyme, and wormwood, to name a few. Read our recommendations.
Meissen is considered the oldest high quality porcelain manufacturer in Europe, producing decorative items and tableware of unique quality, design, and timeless elegance. Meissen’s hand-painted, fine bone china eventually became very collectable.
It’s the beginning of what is supposed to be a very hot summer, so we thought a cold glass of a bubbly would be a great antidote to the heat.
The one evening we were in Buenos Aires, we were introduced to a churrascaria (steakhouse) called “Parrilla El Ferroviario,” which means The Railroad Grill – a hidden treasure about 20 minutes from the city center. It is located in what used to be a railroad yard that still has a train engine parked in the front.
Hello, all you current and to-be dads, and welcome to our very first LuxuryWeb Magazine Father’s Day Gift Guide. We have a few suggestions that you might want to pass along to spouses and children who want to celebrate your special day with that extra-special gift.
Try our delicious recipe for Ziti Rigate alle Vongole with white clam sauce.
The success of two films – Boy on a Dolphin with Sophia Loren, Alan Ladd, and Clifton Webb, and Phaedra with Melina Mercouri and Anthony Perkins – catapulted Hydra from a sleepy, quiet Greek island with a notable 19th century naval history to the playground of the Athenian upper class in the very early 1960s and a “must visit” location for the international jet set.
Most Saharan Berbers are still living the same way they did 10 centuries ago in the Western Sahara and the Atlas Mountains. They are both a tourist attraction and an international lesson on “how to live in harmony with the land and the neighbors Allah gave you.”
The unprecedented affluence of the early 21st century and the newfound willingness of the American public to try the pleasures of foods and fresh products from other countries has caused both restaurant chefs and home cooks to make exotic meals that were unknown to the U.S. market twenty years before. The problem is that many of these new products that grace America’s larders are not always what they pretend to be.
Risi e bisi is a traditional Italian dish from the Veneto, initially cooked as a special festive dish in Venice, Vicenza, and Verona. It was served to the Venetian Doges and the ruling families of Venice during the festival of San Marco every 25th of April.
Spain’s Cultural Ministry abolishes its Annual Bullfighting Award.
Pandeli Locandasi is a culinary institution of Istanbul and well-known business lunch hotspot. Every guidebook regarding the city has a paragraph about this storied eatery.
Do wine bottle closures matter to you? Do you think that screw-capped bottles contain cheaper or lower quality wines? Are you a die-hard cork devotee?
Bolgheri is a central Italian village of Castagneto Carducci, a commune in Tuscany in the province of Livorno that is well-known to wine lovers for the exceptional quality of the bottles created in the region.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be premiering two new works at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC): Amy Hall Garner’s first work for the Company, CENTURY, and former dancer Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish’s duet, Me, Myself and You, on Mother’s Day Weekend with performances Friday, May 10 at 8pm, Saturday, May 11th at 8pm and Sunday, May 12 at 3pm.
New restaurants appear in Northern New Jersey all the time. However, some are just run of the mill eateries serving the same tired dishes that have been served for ages, while a few others are serving food of exceptional quality, rivaling Michelin-starred establishments around the world in inventiveness and ingredient quality. The 87 Sussex Restaurant in Jersey City is an absolute stunner – modern and upbeat.
At a recent major wine event in New York City promoting Barolo and Barbaresco wines and general tourism to Piedmont, Italy, I heard a rumor that one of the best and most influential Italian chefs, Davide Scabin, will be opening a new venue. His last renowned restaurant Combal.zero (pronounced Combal Dot Zero) closed in 2020 because of the pandemic, and the culinary world has been much poorer for its absence.
I don’t understand why there are so few articles written about sweet wines, except for articles about madeiras, ports, and sherries. It seems that a number of wine writers veer away from sweet wines and consider aficionados to have “uneducated palates that cannot appreciate the complexity and beauty of dry wines.” That’s exactly what a well-known, very full of himself wine writer commented during a tasting we both attended.
Sherry is one of the two spectacular fortified wines produced in the Iberian Peninsula, in the wine-growing maritime region of Jerez, mostly from white grapes. The other is Port, produced in Portugal at the country’s northwestern Atlantic seaboard, mostly from red grapes grown in vineyards along the Douro River.
For a long time, I thought there was no good New York-style rye bread in any other area than Manhattan’s Lower East Side. So it was with great pleasure that I recently discovered a bakery near me that makes a classic artisanal New York rye loaf with a somewhat dense interior and a crispy crust.
In our office, we received a box with three fruity Johny Bootlegger liquors that can be excellent bases for cocktails or can be sipped as after-dinner drinks. Included in the box was also a metal flask just like the ones the “fellers” used to carry in their hip pockets and “dames” used to tuck in their garters.
As far as this travel, food, and wine writer is concerned, Spain has surpassed most traditional European countries lauded by gastronomes for food and wine excellence.
One of the most elegant hotels in London’s Mayfair, Claridge’s has been the favorite residence of visiting industrialists, international aristocracy, statesmen, and illustrious celebrities since 1898.
Butter is an essential ingredient for everyday cooking and enjoying at our table. But there are some pronounced differences between the butters consumed in Europe and the ones sold in the USA.
Arnavut ciğeri, which means Albanian liver, is a pan-fried savory liver dish livened with crushed red pepper flakes, accompanied by a red onion and parsley salad flavored with sumac. I usually enjoy it as a main course instead of just as meze.