Melanzana (Italian) or Melitzana (Greek) – that is the question. Or at least it was the question through much of today, as I wrestled with making Italian eggplant Parmigiana or Greek Moussaka for my dinner. I have loved both dishes in restaurants for decades, of course – and both cultures and cuisines, mixed with extensive […]
Life may be more complicated than any bowl of cherries. But leave it to the French, as with so many things, to use them best when they are in season. The cherries, that is. Not the French. Sharing taste and especially some textures with pancakes, flan and custard, the French dessert oddly named clafoutis started […]
When I was growing up in New Orleans, no one ate shrimp and grits, and no restaurants offered the dish on their menus – even on menus that offered shrimp and, in some different context, grits. Shrimp and grits was simply not a New Orleans dish, in an era when that was the first, sometimes […]
NOTE: Necessity being the mother of entrepreneurial invention, I clearly would have missed out on a ton of adventures had I been able to spend my entire career with the one employer I truly loved – United Press International. Who knows what I might have become with UPI, though maybe something less weird and/or interesting […]
NOTE: I’ve been promising and/or threatening myself to publish fiction here from time to time, since writing novels has been a significant part of my life. The other night I had a dream, and like most dreams it had some kind of beginning but nothing resembling an end. This story is what I think the […]
Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown, both in Virginia and both part of crucial early moments in the commonwealth’s history, make for strange but fascinating bedfellows. The first is the place England made its initial go in the New World, despite starvation and an understandably violent pushback from native Americans beginning in 1607. The second is the […]
As we speak, my 60th book – Virginia Ham: A History of Salt and Smoke– is making its way into the retail settings of the world. On the in-person side, I will be speaking and signing at Fonts Books & Gifts in McLean, Va., Tuesday May 12 at 7 p.m. And I’m especially happy to […]
I just spent the better part of a week with two of my oldest and best friends – not together, mind you, since I’m not even sure they know each other. First with one and then with the other, we revisited old haunts, swapped much-loved yarns and discovered a few new places we might seriously […]
For all who visit the Hungarian capital of Budapest on the Danube, there is intense romance written into the city’s very existence. For centuries, Buda and Pest faced each other from opposite sides of the river – the first regal, a bit haughty and filled with castles and cathedrals, the other scrappier and more commercial […]
There is quiet and peace in the green meadow on a not-too-hot summer’s day. The grass now covers the valley among gently rolling hills, with only a few stones marking departed buildings poking through. A welcome breeze finds its way through the leafy trees. The world, meaning the bustling Czech capital of Prague only an […]