SaltShaker

 Romania has the majestic castles, medieval towns, great hiking and wildlife, and cheap skiing of much of the ‘undiscovered’ former Eastern Bloc…. Horse-drawn carts jostle for space against fast cars whose drivers are talking money on mobile phones; farm workers watch The Apprentice on satellite in their medieval farmhouses. No longer the weird kid of [...]

 Traditional Swedish cooking cannnot be compared with the sophistication of, say, French or Italian cuisine. Swedish food is usually simple and satisfying, and nowadays also healthy. In the last few decades immigrants from all over the world have enriched our food culture with a host of exciting dishes. Foreign fast food, for example, has become [...]

 I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Indeed, unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all.”
- Ogden Nash
Buenos Aires - The city of Buenos Aires has declared war on billboards, with the intent to remove some 60% of them, roughly 40,000, from the various barrios, calling [...]

  In a country of more than 1 billion people, with 16 official languages and myriad ethnic influences, there is no singular “Indian” cuisine. Instead, hundreds of culinary styles co-exist, each shaped by a unique confluence of geography, history, climate and religion. Each of India’s 28 states and seven union territories has its own specialties. [...]

 The 550 farmers who contribute the cow’s milk for Beemster cheese belong to a century-old Dutch cooperative in the province of North Holland. But the land they farm, a 200-square-mile area called the Beemster Polder, has been dairy country for four centuries. Prior to that, the land was underwater.”
- Janet Fletcher, The Cheese Course, SFGate
Buenos [...]

 Life isn’t enough. One life isn’t enough for me. There aren’t enough days. Too many things to do, too many ideas. Every sunset upsets me because another day has gone by.”
- Nicola Lorusso, Mediterraneo (1991)
Buenos Aires - I mentioned recently that I’m accompanying a friend on her quest to research the various kosher restaurants here [...]

 To say simply that the Wright Brothers invented the airplane doesn’t begin to describe their many accomplishments. Nor is it especially accurate. The first fixed-wing aircraft — a kite mounted on a stick — was conceived and flown almost a century before Orville and Wilbur made their first flights. The Wrights were first to design [...]

 My new pig out food is Indian food. I eat Indian food like three times a week. It’s so good.”
- Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress/singer
Buenos Aires - A few weeks back I’d been wandering around Las Cañitas looking at one thing or another, and I noticed a new restaurant done up with some sort of Taj [...]