Saveur.com: Daily Fare

Roasted Eggplant with Goat Cheese Tahini and Pine Nuts

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

MAKES ABOUT 2 DOZEN

INGREDIENTS

2 medium Japanese eggplants, sliced crosswise ½" thick
3 tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp. paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 oz. goat cheese, softened
¼ cup tahini
1½ tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. pine nuts, toasted, for garnish
2 tsp. finely chopped oregano, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 425°. Place eggplant in a single layer on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Combine oil and paprika in a bowl, brush about 2 tbsp. over eggplant, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake, turning once, until golden, about 20 minutes; set aside.

2. Combine cheese, tahini, juice, honey, salt, pepper, and ¼ cup water in a bowl. Top each round with 1-2 tsp. cheese mixture and drizzle with remaining oil. Garnish with toasted pine nuts and oregano.

Anatomy of a Pizzeria

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:00:00 GMT

by Keith Pandolfi
At Naples' Pizzeria Starita, the men who prepare the pizza include:

THE MOSTO E DONDERO

The man who keeps the trains running on time, the mosto e dondero is in charge of managing incoming and outgoing orders, making sure everyone's working in sync, and plating (or boxing) pizzas fresh from the oven.

THE FRIGGITORE

Neapolitan pizzerias are known not just for their pizzas but also for their angioletti fritti (fried dough strips), frittatine di pasta (pasta fritters), and other fried specialties, all prepared by this guy.

THE FORNINO

The baker of the pizzeria, the fornino wields a long-handled peel to transfer the pizza to the oven. As it cooks, he moves and rotates it a few times to ensure an even char, lifting it toward the flame-licked oven roof at the end of the process so the toppings emerge bubbling hot. A good fornino will cook a pizza to perfection in less than two minutes.

THE PIZZAIOLO

The executive chef of the Neapolitan pizzeria, this man flips and stretches and shapes the dough, adds all the toppings, and gives the finished product a final form-perfecting tug before pulling it onto the peel.

THE ASSISTANT PIZZAIOLO

Given the job of prying the dough off the baking sheet, then flipping it in semolina before handing it to the pizzaiolo, this understudy-often a pizzaiolo in training-takes over when the lead guy needs a break.

See more pizza stories, recipes, tips, and techniques »

Drink Pairings for Pizza

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:30:00 GMT

by Katie Parla
A wheat beer from Sardinia, Birrificio Barley Friska ($23; 750 ml) is extraordinarily fresh, food-friendly, and at just 5 percent alcohol, thirst-quenching. Its pleasant citrus aromas and flavors, enhanced by a hint of coriander, cut through the fat. Pair it with hefty creations like the pistacchio e mortadella pie, as well as pizza topped with that iconic Neapolitan duo salsiccia e friarielli (sausage and broccoli rabe). Birra del Borgo Caos ($23; 750 ml) is an intriguing marriage of wine and beer. It's created by adding the juice of malvasia wine grapes-a variety with a sweet, pearlike flavor-to the kettle while brewing an ale made from nutty-tasting spelt. Fermented in the bottle with champagne yeast, this light palate cleanser has a fine fizziness that can carry you through deep-fried starters such as angioletti fritti (fried pizza dough) as well as the Montara Starita, a pizza that's first fried then baked.

Barone Pizzini Franciacorta Brut NV ($17; 750 ml), a méthode champenoise sparkling wine from Lombardy, is structured and acidic. Its floral notes call for pizza topped with aromatic and delicate prosciutto (try it with calzone di prosciutto e ricotta, ham and cheese calzone) or a rich burrata.

Best when chilled (10C/50F), Cantine Federiciane Monteleone Penisola Sorrentina Gragnano ($15; 750 ml) sees Campania's indigenous aglianico, piedirosso, and sciascinoso grapes blended into an effervescent off-dry red wine. Fresh and vivacious, it makes an ideal pairing with the classic pizza margherita.

A still alternative is Guido Marsella Poggi Reali Greco di Tufo DOCG ($19; 750 ml) , made from an ancient white grape, greco di tufo. It has a firm acidity and mineral notes accompanied by a smoky finish that complements the pizza del papa (butternut squash and smoked mozzarella) and other pies made with smoked mozzarella.

Coca-Cola won't be disappearing from the market anytime soon, but Baladin Cola ($4; 250 ml) presents an artisanal alternative. This Piedmont-based soda is made with crimson colored, caffeinated kola nuts from Kenema in the northwestern African nation of Sierra Leone. It has a lingering sweetness and bitter finish that goes great with everything from pizza margherita to a pizza noci e zucchini (topped with walnut pesto and zucchini).

Campania's Feudi di San Gregorio Lacryma Christi Bianco Vesuvio DOC ($14; 750 ml), a blend of local coda di volpe and falanghina grapes, is a steely white wine with refreshing citrus notes, perfect for washing down a rich creation such as the rachetta (a pizza-calzone hybrid stuffed with mushrooms and topped with ricotta, mozzarella, pecorino romano, cherry tomatoes, and basil).

Friday Cocktails: French Monaco

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:15:00 GMT

by Sara Cann
Ordering a Monaco in Paris is akin to ordering a Shirley Temple in the states-only kids do it. I didn't know this the first time I heard about the frothy beer cocktail, which is spiked with grenadine or cassis and French lemonade; I just thought it was an ingenious way to dress up a light brew. As I explored Paris, ordering Monacos along the way, Parisian bartenders started to snicker at me. When a friend eventually whispered that only high school kids drink this beverage, I realized I had managed to make myself look young, even in a country that doesn't ask for your ID at the door. Mon dieu!

Personal pride notwithstanding, I love a drink with texture-one of my fondest memories as a kid was my family's milkshake machine purchase. In the Monaco, the addition of syrup and lemonade completely transforms a simple glass of light beer, creating a thick head that pleasantly coats the tongue, just like foamy waves on bare feet. It's comforting, it's smooth, and it's delicious. Returning stateside, I was hard-pressed to find a Monaco in an NYC bar-or any American bar for that matter-so to quell my cravings for this adolescent drink I decided to give it a grown-up facelift. I made my own grenadine (which lets you taste the pomegranate rather than burying the flavor under sickly-sweet corn syrup), then whipped up a batch of fresh-squeezed lemonade and topped it all off with Stella Artois (which is what they use in Paris) and voilà: the perfect shandy for summer. The only thing that could make this drink more satisfying is if I were sitting in a corner café in Paris pretending to understand le Monde.

See the recipe for French Monaco »

Top Tomatoes

Fri, 17 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

by Farideh Sadeghin
When sourcing canned tomatoes for our Naples-style pizza sauce, we tried every variety we could lay our hands on, from simple American Romas to imported tomatoes with D.O.P. status, the Italian protected designation of origin. As we tested each product, raw and cooked, we looked for vibrancy of color, consistency of texture, and overall purity of flavor. In the end, we found that these dozen brands do the best job.

See our favorite canned tomatoes in the gallery »

Preserving Plenty: The Beauty of Fermented Foods

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:00 GMT

by Sarah Dickerman

When I was a kid, every pickle my father ate was a bit of a disappointment. Dad, who grew up in the 1930s and '40s in the Bronx, New York, remembered plucking kosher sours out of barrels filled with cloudy brine-"Now those were pickles!" he'd tell us. I only knew Claussen and other vinegar-cured pickles, the kind you buy in jars off the supermarket shelf, and I liked them just fine. But when I finally tasted a real pickle-the kind made the old-fashioned way, fermented with nothing more than salt, water, and time-I realized what I had been missing. A vinegary pickle plows through your palate with its tartness (often in a most pleasing way), but a live-cultured, salt-cured, fermented one tells a more multifaceted story. It is sour, to be sure, but it tastes of something more, something elusive: It's the flavor of Middle Europe captured in one bite.

When I started cooking for a living, I realized that the complexity I'd tasted in that pickle is the hallmark of well-made fermented foods, which include some of my very favorite things to eat and drink: not just pickles, but aged cheeses, tangy sourdough breads, blistering kimchis, tart yogurts, winy salamis, and of course, wine itself. I'd rush to volunteer on fermenting projects in the restaurants where I worked: I was eager to learn how salted cabbage could turn into sauerkraut, and how buttermilk mixed with cream and stuck in the back pantry, turned into a pretty good approximation of crème fraîche in a few days. Making my own yogurt seemed like kitchen magic, the way it so effortlessly soured and thickened overnight.

Nurturing live-cultured foods, watching their colors change, and tasting the results is incredibly satisfying.

I've been out of professional kitchens for several years, and in the meantime, it seems fermented foods have become something of a culinary trend here in the States. Beer making, cheese making, sourdough bread making, and, of course, pickle curing are now legitimate hobbies for the industrious DIY food lover. With markets stocked more generously than ever with items like kefir (an effervescent milk drink) and kombucha (fermented tea), I grew curious about the vast range of fermented, or live-cultured, beverages, foods, and condiments found around the world and how they're actually made. What's happening inside bottles of the fizzy, malty, bread-based Eastern European drink kvas? And could I actually make things like soy sauce and miso at home?

Photo: Todd Coleman

The answer to that last question is yes, though it would take a long time to make them. I learned this from a man named Sandor Katz, who is the Johnny Appleseed of fermentation in this country. In the final days of summer last year, I headed to a bucolic hillside farm in central Tennessee for Katz's five-day workshop on fermentation. I was part of an eclectic group of 13 students, including a newly wed home-steading couple from Maryland, a performance artist and poet from Georgia, and a General Motors wheel buyer based out of Michigan, who had gathered in the humid basement of a midcentury ranch house to learn how to preserve foods.

Some good friends of mine had introduced me to Katz by giving me his celebrated book Wild Fermentation (Chelsea Green, 2003). Inspired by it, they were running out of counter space for all their pickle and sauerkraut projects. In Wild Fermentation, Katz writes with an infectious combination of erudition and evangelical vim about the pleasures of fostering and consuming edible cultures, from the familiar (sauerkraut, beer) to the arcane (a sweet Japanese rice beverage called amazake, a bubbly Guyanese soft drink called sweet potato fly).

Figuring out an effective way to keep eating those fresh vegetables through the fall and winter was also really exciting.

Katz is a 49-year-old with piercing blue eyes and a shock of steely curls that creep down over a memorable set of silvery muttonchops. He was not raised in a pickling family: He grew up a city boy, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, enjoying deli pickles just like my father did. As a young man, he did policy work for the city, but in 1993 he made a radical change in his life. He moved to a commune in the hills of central Tennessee and began gardening. "It was a rude surprise to me that all of my cabbages and all of my radishes were ready at the same time," says Katz. Not quite knowing what to do with his bumper crop, he remembered that sauerkraut might be an option, and using The Joy of Cooking and some favorite macrobiotic cookbooks as guides, he set to fermenting his first batch. The garden kept providing, he kept pickling and preserving, and before long, he was hooked. "Being able to create that flavor was really exciting," says Katz. "And figuring out an effective way to keep eating those fresh vegetables through the fall and winter was also really exciting."

Katz began our fermentation workshop with a lesson on sauerkraut. As we sliced cabbage and tossed it in a stainless steel bowl, he explained that long before Pasteur pinpointed tiny organisms-microbes-as the source of fermentation, cultures around the world had harnessed the power of fermentation to preserve food and improve its qualities (nutritive, alcoholic, or merely aesthetic). He revealed how wild colonies of microflora-whether yeast, bacteria, molds, or a combination-grow on food, changing its nature as the microorganisms ingest sugars or alcohols and excrete carbon dioxide, acids, or alcohols. The koji molds that spring up spontaneously on rice, for example, happen to be the same ones whose enzymes can turn cooked rice's starch into sugars. Those sugars then feed yeasts that transform the rice into the alcoholic drink sake.

Katz defines fermentation as "the transformative action of microorganisms." Often the microorganisms in question are bacteria. Take the sauerkraut we were making, for example. When chopped cabbage is combined with salt, squeezed to release its juices, and left to sit in the resulting brine, the various bacteria on the surface of the cabbage begin to grow, creating an acidic environment that transforms the flavor of the cabbage into the sweet-funky stuff we know as sauerkraut. This acidity also discourages the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

Similarly, bacteria can also change milk into yogurt and fresh cheese, and help turn fresh sausages into long-lived salamis. But bacteria are not the only microbes that transform our edibles: Yeasts consume the sugars in grains and fruits and excrete alcohol, creating beer, wine, and spritzy tonics. Sourdough bread is another yeast-bacteria collaboration: The gassy bubbles exuded by the yeast in the sourdough make the bread rise, while bacteria create a sour environment that gives the bread its characteristic tang. In Asia, countless foods are fermented, but beans account for a great many of them, from miso and soy sauce (which can take as much as three years to produce) to black bean paste and tempeh, a patty of soybeans bound by Rhizopus oligosporus mold spores.

Photo: Todd Coleman

In the contemporary world, we have outsourced these various processes to industries both small and large, but Katz is a cheerleader for bringing them back to the home kitchen. "A lot of people have the idea that eating cultured foods can be healthy for them, and maybe they'd like to make sauerkraut or yogurt," he says. "But they just have this fear of doing it because they don't have a degree in microbiology." True, there are some bacteria that can give you a gastrointestinal malady or worse, but we are reliant, too, on beneficial bacteria that inhibit the growth of the very toxins we fear.

In fact, live-cultured foods-foods that have not been pasteurized or have had the process of fermentation stopped in some other way-have long been associated with good health: They are believed to soothe the stomach and boost immune function. Yogurt sales, for example, have boomed in the past few years, in no small part because of yogurt's "probiotic" promise to regulate digestion. Katz is intrigued by studies that suggest eating cultured foods is fortifying: He himself has been HIV positive since 1991 and strongly believes that his habit of eating cultured foods has helped him maintain-and sometimes, after health downturns, regain-his health, alongside his use of antiretroviral drugs.

Still, many home cooks are cagey about fermentation precisely because it does not always go smoothly. Harmless but ungainly molds can bloom on the surface of a long-aged project, and, yes, bottles can explode-as my class learned when we made a watermelon drink, soured and carbonated with a bacterial yeast culture called tibicos. Despite Katz's urging to use plastic bottles, we ran out and decanted the drink into an old vodka bottle. In the morning there was shrapnel: The jug had exploded in the night, leaving shards of glass and sticky pink fluid all over the kitchen. We were lucky that no one was hurt. For Katz, such mishaps are part of the learning process. "There's a certain amount of flexibility and improvisation that you need to have if you're going to do these things," he said, as we cleaned up the mess.

On the last evening of the workshop, there was a huge bonfire party where we ate goat from the farm and foods we'd made in the workshop, including tempeh, pickles, and lots of sauerkraut. After that sendoff, I came home from Tennessee and quickly started culturing with wild enthusiasm-making homemade Concord grape soda, crunchy pickles from baby vegetables I had bought at the farmers' market, sourdough bread, and vinegar from leftover wine. My basement shelves quickly filled with jars and bottles, and I found true satisfaction in the mere act of nurturing them, watching their colors change, and ultimately tasting their transformation.

As a caregiver for millions of microorganisms, I have to admit, I've started to develop favorites. I'm darned proud of my kefir, whose culture keeps rolling along on my countertop. And my vinegar, well, it's pretty terrific-I've got my eyes on an oak barrel to make my next attempt in. And I've kept putting up new batches of sauerkraut and cucumber pickles: Katz's original fermentation revelation passed on to yet another fermentation convert.

See a gallery of fermented recipes »

Arugula and Pistachio Pesto Quiche

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

SERVES 6

INGREDIENTS

1½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1 cup packed baby arugula
¾ cup grated Parmesan
½ cup olive oil, plus more for garnish
¼ cup shelled pistachios, plus more for garnish
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup whole milk
⅔ cup heavy cream
4 eggs
Grape tomatoes, for garnish (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place flour, salt, and butter in a bowl; using your fingers, rub together until pea-size crumbles form. Add 5 tbsp. ice-cold water; stir until dough forms. Transfer to a lightly floured surface; knead dough until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Form into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate 1 hour. Purée arugula, ⅓ cup Parmesan, oil, pistachios, zest, garlic, salt, and pepper in a food processor until smooth. Transfer pesto to a bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. Roll dough into a 13" circle; transfer to a 10" springform pan with a removable bottom, pressing dough into bottom and sides. Place on a baking sheet; refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Heat oven to 375°. Prick dough with a fork; cover with parchment paper and fill with dried beans. Bake until slightly firm, about 20 minutes. Remove paper and beans; bake until crust is light brown, about 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325°. Whisk remaining Parmesan with milk, cream, eggs, salt, and pepper; pour filling into crust. Drizzle pesto over filling in a swirl pattern. Bake until filling is set, 30-45 minutes. Let quiche cool briefly and remove from pan. Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with more pistachios, plus tomatoes, if you like.

The Guide: Dubai on the Fly

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

by Felicia Campbell
As I prepared for my trip to Dubai, known for over-the-top opulence and Las Vegas-style theatrics, I wondered how I would be able to explore the place beyond its generic glitz in a mere three days. Sitting on the Persian Gulf just across from Iran, the city was not always the teeming metropolis that it is today: In 1883, when the ruling family Maktoum rose to power, Dubai was a just small pearl-fishing village. But in 1966 oil was discovered, forever changing the face of this desert town. By the 1980s the ruling family had made Dubai a tax-free zone to promote foreign investment, and in 2000 Dubai Internet City opened to lure in tech companies. The years that followed have been marked by unabashed displays of luxury, from the Burj al-Arab, the world's most expensive hotel housed on a man-made palm tree-shaped island, to a slew of outposts of some of the finest restaurants in the world, including New York-based Nobu and Frenchman Pierre Gagnaire's Relets Par Pierre. Despite the sudden-wealth and Vegas-like reputation, what I found was a uniquely Middle Eastern metropolis, featuring all the conveniences, trappings and surprises of a big city anywhere else, but with a distinctly diverse Asian flavor all its own. This nonstop, ever-changing town is an ideal destination for frequent trips, whether for urban-paced relaxation or adventure, for business or vacation, as I found out over the course of 36 hours.

Enjoy Randamp;R on the Run

Even when I'm on vacation (which is rare), I'm not one to totally disconnect. With its exquisite service, round the clock dining, strong internet connection throughout the entire property (a surprisingly difficult thing to find these days), and convenient location in the heart of the city, the Pullman Hotel Dubai Deira Center was perfect for my whirlwind 36-hour stay. On day one, I popped over to the mall attached to the hotel for a quick mani-pedi before heading to the Old City to explore the souks (open-air markets), and upon my return I had time to sneak in a facial at the hotel's fabulous spa before heading out to an evening business dinner. The rooftop pool and lounge area is wifi wired, so the next day I took in the views, had a drink and caught some rays while filing an assignment. Even walking around the hotel felt luxurious and relaxing thanks to subtle fragrances wafting through the central a/c and changing to match the decor (green apple on the green floors, lavender on the purple floors and lemongrass in the spa). The expansive international breakfast buffet includes prepared and à la minute options, perfect for customizing my breakfast of choice: cappuccino, fresh fruit, and lentil curry.

Pullman Hotel Dubai Deira Center
PO BOX 61871, at City Centre Mall
971/4-294-1222

Explore the "Other Dubai" in a Block

There are fine dining restaurants and international chains to rival New York, London or Hong Kong in this town-with price tags to match-but what makes Dubai stand out among the world's other top food cities are the superb Asian eats, courtesy of an immigrant population that hails from Syria to China. In Dubai you can find some of the best examples of these cuisines outside of their native lands, and many of the most dynamic eateries are located on the stretch. Al Diyafa Road is chock-a-block with tables and chairs set up in front of restaurants that serve authentic Chinese hot pot, the ornate Iranian rice dish pulao, fresh-carved shawarma, and incredible Pakistani butter chicken, daal, and goat curry that I sampled at local favorite Ravi Restaurant, all for ridiculously low prices.

Ravi Restaurant
Satwa street and Al Diyafa Road
Dubai
971/4-331-5353

Credit: Courtesy of SMCCU

Have Some History with your Brunch

If you want to try to track down a taste of the local cuisine but don't have an Emirati friend yet, head to Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding in the old Emirati neighborhood of Bur Dubai. There you can spend a few hours at the Bastakiya house feasting on traditional local fare, including crepe-like, saffron-laced chebab pancakes with date syrup and fresh cream; and salty-sweet balaleet, a sweet vermicelli noodle and omelet concoction, while sipping tea and learning about the Emirati culture that predates Dubai's current sparkling skyline. Reservations are required, so visit the website to book a seat for breakfast, lunch, dinner or weekend brunch.

Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding
House 26, Al Mussallah Road, Bastakiya
Bur Dubai
971/4-353-6666
AED 60-95; $15-25 USD

Sightsee While You Sip

Check one of the major "must see" tourist destinations off your list while having a cocktail at At.mosphere Lounge on the 122nd Floor of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The views are truly unparalleled, so sit back, relax, and watch the city below transform as the sun sets and the sparkling lights come on.

At.mosphere Lounge
Burj Khalifa
Downtown Dubai
971/4-888-3828

Start your Vacation at the Airport

I was lucky enough to start my trip with a business class seat on Dubai-based Emirates Airlines, so I was able to dine on an incredible breakfast spread in their airport lounge at JFK airport in New York. Keeping pace with Dubai's food-centric, lavish ways, the new planes are equipped with inflight lounges for business and first class passengers. In addition to hand-crafted cocktails from the full bar, the rotating lounge menu features 342 different hot and cold hors d'ouvres options, like turkey bacon wrapped dates, saffron potato cubes with sesame, salmon nori rolls, Australian lamb roulade, nutella cones, baklava, and roasted turkey breast tea sandwiches. Standing at the swanky little bar, I couldn't help but feel that my holiday had already begun.

Dutch Baby Pancake

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

SERVES 2-4

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
½ cup flour
½ cup milk
¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. confectioners' sugar
Juice of ½ a lemon
Jam, preserves, or marmalade of your choice, for serving (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 425°. Whisk eggs in a large bowl, and then add flour, milk, and nutmeg; whisk until blended but still slightly lumpy.

2. Heat butter in a 12" oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat. When butter stops foaming, pour batter all at once into center of skillet. Transfer to oven and bake until pancake is puffy on the edges and golden brown, about 15 minutes.

3. Working quickly, remove pan from oven and, using a fine strainer, place sugar in strainer and sift over surface of pancake. Return to oven for 2 minutes more. Sprinkle with juice, and serve with jam, preserves, or marmalade.

Recipes from the Galilee

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:30:00 GMT

In the Galilee, biblical roots, rich agricultural heritage, and Mediterranean flavors give rise to Israel's most soulful cuisine. From tahini-drenched charred eggplant to sweet cheese phyllo pastry, these 10 recipes are rich, vibrant, and delicious.

See the photo gallery of recipes from the Galilee »

The Promised Land: The Food of the Galilee

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:30:00 GMT

by Gabriella Gershenson
About an hour outside of Tel Aviv, driving north toward the Galilee, the land tells me I am getting closer to my destination. I see neat plots of banana plants and rows of avocado trees. I pass hardy date palms and fish farms with shallow rectangular pools. A stop at a gas station reveals a carob tree growing next to the parking lot and tufts of za'atar, a type of wild thyme eaten throughout the Middle East, sprouting from the curb. When I enter the Upper Galilee, subtropical hills and valleys give way to a rocky green vista of olive trees with gnarled, ropy trunks, which could be hundreds of years old. It's good to be back.

I've been to Israel before. I've seen the religious sites. As a Jewish American who spent my childhood attending Hebrew school, I anticipated having an "aha" moment in the old city of Jerusalem, or at the Wailing Wall, the holiest site for Jews. But it wasn't until I first stepped foot in the Galilee nearly ten years ago that I felt that visceral sense of the sacred so many others say they encounter here. The region, stretching from Lebanon in the north to the Jezreel Valley in the south, has been inhabited for more than 3,000 years. Somehow, the place itself telegraphs its antiquity.

Dishes are executed with the freshness and simplicity that's a hallmark of Mediterranean cooking.

The Galilee was the breadbasket of the biblical period, and more recently, the birthplace of the kibbutz, the 20th-century Jewish farming communes that harnessed the potential of this land, turning it into Israel's most fruitful region. It's also home to some of the most elemental and satisfying foods I've ever eaten: Israeli-style breakfasts of vibrant raw vegetables and soft goat's milk cheeses; specialties like hummus mashaushe, chickpea-topped hummus swimming in olive oil, and knafeh, a syrup-soaked cheese and shredded phyllo pastry, which I sampled in the Arab-Israeli port city of Akko. The cuisine here is influenced by Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins (see Original Galilee), and even by the Bible. There are flavors from the Jewish diaspora, from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Dishes are executed with the freshness and simplicity that's a hallmark of Mediterranean cooking. To me, it all amounts to Israel's most exciting regional cuisine.

The meal I remember best from an earlier trip to the Galilee was prepared by Erez Komarovsky, who runs a cooking school out of his home. A celebrated Israeli chef, Erez left a thriving business in Tel Aviv to live in Mitzpe Matat, a wilderness minutes from the Lebanon border. I found his way with the foods of this place so profound that I couldn't imagine returning without seeing him.

I arrive at Erez's on a Thursday morning in May. It's just before the harvest festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the bounty of the land. The hills are verdant after the winter rains, and the land is at its most beautiful. Erez, a fit man of 50, comes out to the road wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. He waves me toward his home, which is built into a mountain overlooking villages and valleys. I descend pale stone steps lined with fuchsia blossoms and follow him in. From his kitchen, Erez produces a pot of Turkish coffee and a lacquered roulade filled with crushed almonds and marzipan. The pastry speaks to his background-Erez rose to prominence with Lehem Erez, or "Erez's Bread," a chain that heralded the arrival of the artisan bread movement in Israel in the 1990s. "I wanted a simple, more satisfying life," he tells me. "Wild leaves, lambs and goats, chickens, dogs, cats, and lots of vegetables in my garden."

These days, Erez lives in a paradise of his own making. As he walks me through his garden to gather ingredients for our meal, he offers me tastes of what he has grown. There is an abundance of everything: herbs and beets and chickpeas; a mulberry tree that we duck under like it's an umbrella.

Credit: Eilon Paz

Inside the house, the floor is covered in crates brimming with produce and firewood for the taboon, a clay and mud oven that Erez fired up for our lunch. His style of cooking is powerful and spontaneous. He uses just a mortar and pestle, fire, and his hands. To make a cherry and herb salad, he singes hot peppers to intensify their flavor, splits each cherry along its seam, tears cilantro, and breaks walnuts between his fingers. He does the same with eggplant, which he chars, peels in one motion, and plates with jagged halves of soft-boiled egg and zhug, a Yemenite chile paste.

When everything is ready, Erez and I dig in. The cherry and herb salad is zesty and sweet. The recipe is from the Turks, Erez says, who occupied this land for centuries. The roasted eggplant, meanwhile, tastes smoky and fresh, the combination of nutty tahini, hot chiles, and garlic one you'd find all over the Middle East. "In the Galilee, the influences are not from abroad but from the Druze and Arabs living here," Erez explains. "The richness of the culinary knowledge that I get here is unparalleled to what you get in the big city." Here, Erez picks mushrooms with Jewish Moroccans and Kurds, makes goat cheese out of milk from a Druze neighbor, and buys the foods they forage. Because of the divisions inherent in modern Israeli life, and the tensions between Arabs and Jews, his culinary curiosity feels like a political act, one that emphasizes the way the land connects the people. Before I leave, Erez tells me, "Borders are politics. Borders do not cut the food."

The following afternoon, I meet my friend Lior Lev Sercarz, a 41-year-old silver-haired chef who owns a spice shop in Manhattan but grew up in the Upper Galilee. When I found out he'd be here visiting his family, I convinced him to let me tag along. Today, we're going to "Parliament," a social club that Lior's father, Moshe, belongs to. Started 30 years ago by a group of guys at Ayelet HaShahar, a kibbutz near the Syrian border, the club is where the men, now mostly in their 50s and 60s, meet on Fridays to talk politics and farming, and to cook a potluck meal made from the foods they've grown.

Thousands of years ago, farmers like him would bring the first harvest of the seven species named in the Old Testament as models of the land's fertility

We arrive at the clubhouse, a crude stone structure with a tin roof and an Israeli flag flying on top. It's growing noisy with greetings and the thuds of wine bottles being placed on the table. Lior's father, a bespectacled man with wavy white hair, approaches us, clutching plump green figs that he offers me and Lior's wife, Lisa, saying they're the first of the season from his trees. I taste one-they're pulpy, fragrant. Moshe's gift carries special meaning. The holiday that starts at sundown tomorrow, Shavuot, is also called Hag ha'Bikkurim, the festival of the first fruits, and marks the beginning of the growing season. Thousands of years ago, farmers like him would bring the first harvest of the seven species named in the Old Testament as models of the land's fertility-wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates-as offerings to the temple in Jerusalem.

Everyone gets started on the meal. There's an easy rhythm to the preparation-though some of the men no longer live on the kibbutz, working together is still second nature. Shlomo Razili, a bearded figure in a cowboy hat, fires up coals in the grill while Yoni Erez, in a black T-shirt, sharpens the knife that Gera Egozi, with a thick mustache and eyes creased into a permanent smile, will use to carve chickens destined for the grill. Behind them, two more men sit and chop green peppers, tomatoes, parsley, cucumbers, and onions into a typical Israeli salad. As they finish, Shlomo squeezes lemons over the vegetables, cupping his hand under the fruit to capture the seeds. Meanwhile, Dror Galili has been making poike, a stew cooked over fire in a cast-iron cauldron that layers beef with kohlrabi, turnips, and heaps of other seasonal vegetables. His father was so enamored of the region, he tells me, that when he moved here in 1935, he took its name for his own.

Credit: Eilon Paz

The meal progresses casually. Someone has brought a loaf of challah and labaneh, a thick yogurt-like cheese, drizzled with olive oil. We tear off pieces and dunk, and use the same bread to mop up the juices from the salad, which is refreshing and cool. The chicken is served as it comes off the grill. Someone passes a bowl of roasted potatoes; everyone takes them with their fingers. "We share from the same plate," one man says. "You don't mind?" Of course not-this is exactly what I came for.

The last dish to come to the table is the poike, and the crowd exclaims at the tender vegetables and savory meat. Now Dror's brother Eli, an avid hunter, claims the grill to cook wild boar. I can't believe he's captured that animal in these hills. This place keeps surprising me. As we nibble the first cooked morsels, a passionate discussion erupts in Hebrew. I'm dying to know what it's about. Farm equipment and irrigation, it turns out. I should have guessed.

A third Galili brother, an organic farmer named Moshe, passes bowls of his cherries. I think how wonderful it feels to eat this just-picked food among the men who lived together on this kibbutz and worked this soil. The open air and camaraderie are as nourishing as the meal. The mindfulness of this gathering, of the cooking and eating, embodies a reverence for the ordinary that I associate with this region.

The following day, I arrive at Bustan Chaim ("orchard of life" in Hebrew), Lior's home on a remote plot of land near the Lebanon border, for Shavuot dinner. It's a holiday I've never celebrated before, but here, it feels right to do so. I ascend a steep incline planted with lemon, pomegranate, olive, and fig trees and approach a low-slung house covered with vines. Inside, Lior's mother, Aya, a no-nonsense woman, is frying chicken livers and onions. She was born on a nearby kibbutz to a Tunisian father and a Transylvanian mother, but explains that she grew up eating Eastern European dishes like this one made by the Polish Jews who cooked their communal meals.

The table tells the story of age-old flavors, of recent migrations, and of fresh, new beginnings.

While Lior goes off to gather ingredients from the orchard's trees and the plants that grow wild among them, his father shows me the grounds, which, like so much of the land here, are idyllic. "My dream was to plant the seven species here," Moshe tells me. Farming, he says, has transformed him. "From the first plant I put in the ground, I decided I had to live here." Moshe isn't religious, but the land has led him to the Bible for unconventional reasons. For him, the text is full of agricultural insights into nurturing this very earth. Lior returns with lavender and figs for our dessert; purslane, which he'll toss with feta cheese and cured olives; wild fennel, his addition to a Tunisian turnip salad; rosemary as kindling for grilling vegetables; and grape leaves for rolling dolma.

As the sun sets, we gather on a deck overlooking the Galilee. The table is set. Lior's wife, his siblings and their children are here, as are friends. Moshe Galili enters with nectarines from his orchard and singing "Shalom Aleichem," a Sabbath song written by kabbalists in the Middle Ages in nearby Safed, still recited by Jews all over the world: Peace unto you, ministering angels, messengers of the Most High, of the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

Aya's Shavuot table holds riches. There's the Polish chicken liver. Lior has made chreime, a spicy North African fish and tomato stew using St. Peter's fish, tilapia from the Sea of Galilee. There are stuffed grape leaves and grilled pita bread with za'atar spice, both Arab specialties. And there are dishes Lior has improvised based on what's grown nearby-fennel bulbs, scallions, and zucchini grilled over lemon-wood charcoal, a salad of chickpeas with preserved lemon. The table tells the story of age-old flavors, of recent migrations, and of fresh, new beginnings. The combination, to me, is pure Galilee.

See a gallery of scenes from the Galilee »
Read more about ingredients from Galilee »
See our travel guide for Galilee »

Pizza-Perfect Heat

Wed, 15 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT

by Kellie Evans
The biggest difference between making pizza in a pizza shop and making one at home is the oven. The woodburning types you'll find at most Neapolitan pizzerias burn steadily at temperatures from 750 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit-temperatures at which the pizza cooks in a minute, resulting in crusts that crackle but stay pliant, mozzarella that remains milky, toppings that stay fresh, and tomato sauce that retains its raw brightness. Below are two methods we devised to reliably hit these volcanic temperatures at home.

1. The Broiler Since most home ovens won't go higher than 500 degrees, we concentrated on the broiler, where the heat is most intense. We placed a pizza stone on a shelf three inches from the broiler, set the dial to high, and waited. After 30 minutes, a temperature gun registered the stone's surface at 770 degrees. At this temperature, our pizzas cooked in two minutes, and came out with an airy crust, just-melted cheese, and fresh, pulpy tomato sauce.

2. The Grill A grilling kit and a pizza stone (see The Right Stuff) atop a grill create an ad hoc wood-fired oven. We banked our coals and wood chips to one side, let the temperature reach 775 degrees, then put in the pizza. In two minutes it emerged, its crust beautifully blistered and imbued with a kiss of smoke that's pure Naples.

See more pizza stories, recipes, tips, and techniques »

Chawanmushi (Japanese Egg Custard)

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

2 Japanese-style dried anchovies (iriko), heads removed
½ (2"x15") piece kombu
2 tbsp. dried bonito flakes
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut crosswise into ½"-thick slices, 1½" long
4 medium shrimp, heads removed, peeled, and deveined, halved lengthwise
1½ tsp. soy sauce
1½ tsp. mirin
3 eggs
2 shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and cut into 2 triangles each
4 tops of parsley sprigs, tied into a knot
Zest of ½ lemon

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Bring anchovies, kombu, and 1½ cups water to a boil in a 4-qt. saucepan; remove and discard anchovies and kombu with a slotted spoon. Add bonito; remove from heat. Let steep for 5 minutes; pour through a strainer and set dashi aside.

2. Heat oven to 325°. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add chicken; cook until opaque, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a bowl; set aside. Add shrimp; cook until opaque, about 30 seconds. Drain; add to bowl with chicken. Divide mixture among four 6-oz. ramekins; place in a 9"x13" baking dish.

3. Whisk dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and eggs in a bowl; pour through a fine strainer into a liquid measuring cup. Pour over shrimp and chicken in ramekins; top with mushroom triangle. Pour boiling water into baking dish to come halfway up sides of ramekins; bake until custard is just set, about 30 minutes.

4. Divide parsley among custard tops, and continue cooking until parsley is slightly wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove from oven, and transfer ramekins to serving plates; sprinkle with lemon zest before serving.

See all 150 classic recipes featured in our 150th issue »

I Love My Kitchen Because: Franklin Tartaglione

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:45:00 GMT

by Francine Prose
With its austere color scheme and warm wood surfaces, the kitchen my friend Franklin Tartaglione [far left] shares with his partner, the novelist Dave King, gets its inspiration from two separate places. One is the subterranean summer kitchens where Frank and his relatives would spend warm summer evenings while he was growing up in Buffalo; the other, the Catholic school where he attended Monday catechism classes.

But more than anything else, this kitchen, which Frank designed and built in a converted wool combing mill, is also a testament to his tremendous talents as a professional decorative painter. He has spent the past few decades adorning homes and apartments with murals evoking Blue Willow pottery, exotic paradises, and 18th-century French landscapes.

Frank used those talents to create what is perhaps this kitchen's most striking and dramatic aspect: the floor. While designing the house, located near Ghent, New York, he and Dave agreed on vintage linoleum underfoot. Unfortunately, the pattern they had their hearts set on turned out to be discontinued. And so, while Dave was away one weekend, Frank came up with an alternate plan, painting the wooden subfloor a pale raspberry red and tan checkerboard pattern to suggest a linoleum surface naturally faded by gentle light, generations of foot traffic, and the effects of time.

The kitchen's theatrical and evocative stage-set look (in certain lights, you can see it serving as the backdrop for a production of an Arthur Miller play) is also enhanced by the old-fashioned metal radiators and exposed copper pipes that Frank and Dave bought and installed themselves, by the rustic butcher block counters and wooden cabinets, as well as by the two small bathrooms (the original men's and women's factory washrooms complete with their original stalls) leading off the main space.

Though characteristically modest about his skills as a chef-much of them learned while working the short-order station at his father's Buffalo restaurant ("I know how to have seven or eight egg orders going at once")-Frank is a superb cook. His delicious roasts and pastas seem to enhance, and be enhanced by, the kitchen's décor, which channels history without self-consciousness, nostalgia without kitsch.

It's a magical experience to gather with friends for dinner in Frank and Dave's kitchen. You can almost hear the soft murmuring gossip of Frank's Buffalo relatives, and the buzzing of June bugs against the screen, even in the dead of winter.

In this kitchen:

A wall of painted faux beadboard running behind the sink reflects the sort of thing that Frank has learned to do almost effortlessly in his work. "It was all stuff that rolled off the brush. No fuss."

Wood countertops evoke the rustic summer kitchens Frank remembers seeing in Buffalo when he was a child.

Though he'd never made furniture before, Frank crafted the two large dining tables that can seat a crowd of holiday and dinner party guests.

"We just bought the simplest restaurant-quality stove we could find in the kitchen-supply stores on the Bowery," Frank says of his sophisticated Vulcan range.

Stairs were built leading up from the kitchen to reinforce the impression of a room that is at least partly underground, "as if it were below the fancy part of the house," Frank says, though in fact the kitchen is on the entry level.

See more photos of Frank and Dave's kitchen in the gallery »

Pressed Magic: Cuban Sandwiches in Tampa

Tue, 14 May 2013 05:30:00 GMT

by Gabriella Gershenson
If you'd asked me a year ago, I would have told you that the best Cuban sandwich I ever had was in, of all places, Cambridge, Massachusetts. My sister and I were roommates at the time living in nearby Somerville. We used to hang out at a Franco-Cuban restaurant called Chez Henri, where we'd order mojitos and what amounted to one of the greatest foods we'd ever discovered: Buttery pressed bread, melted cheese, garlicky roasted pork, ham, pickles, and mustard, cut into two triangles, with ribboned plantain chips on the side. It left an indelible impression on us both, and we were pretty much convinced that a better Cuban couldn't possibly exist.

My Massachusetts days are long behind me-I live in New York now, and my sister Shulamit lives with her husband and two kids in Tampa, Florida. There's no shortage of Cuban sandwiches there; in fact, you'll find signs at establishments all around the city flaunting the status of being the "birthplace of the Cubano." On my visits to Tampa over the years, I never took them very seriously, brushing the ads off the way I would any others that claim a superlative. But not too long ago, I made a long overdue visit to Ybor City, Tampa's historic Cuban enclave that at the turn of the last century was the cigar manufacturing capital of the world. There, I was forced to reconsider my skepticism about Tampa's Cuban sandwich. And I decided to eat a few, too.

It turns out that in the late 1880s, Tampa was the recipient of a huge influx of Cuban workers who brought with them their tradition of cigar-making. Ybor City, a municipality named for cigar factory owner Vicente Martinez Ybor, housed the factories, their workers, and the restaurants and food traditions that sprung up around them. While Ybor became a polyglot community of immigrants from around the world working side-by-side in the cigar factories, the flavor of the place remained distinctly Cuban.

Andy Huse, a librarian at the University of South Tampa and a self-proclaimed Cuban sandwich historian, explained to me that while eating establishments did feed workers, female factory employees were discouraged from visiting them, as they served alcohol and were generally considered unfit for a lady. The Cuban sandwich as we know it developed under these circumstances: The easily portable meal was one that men could easily carry with them from the restaurants back to the line, and that cafeteros, coffee carts that kept workers in cafe con leche and other refreshments, would shuttle to the female workers back at the factory.

The Cuban sandwich wasn't always known as a Cuban sandwich: It most likely migrated to Tampa in the guise of the mixto, so-named for its variable combination of meats. (Pork and ham are mandatory; salami appears depending on where you live: It's an essential part of a Tampa Cubano and sacrilege in Miami.) But as it evolved, its components became codified: "Cuban bread, mojo roast pork, ham, salami, swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise on request," Huse recites. He says that by the 1920s and '30s, the sandwich was everywhere in Tampa, the city's contribution to the growing American repertoire of portable, working-class foods, like hamburgers and hot dogs.

Credit: Gabriella Gershenson

Its cigar manufacturing days may be long gone, but Tampa stays true to its history: The city is home to an annual Cubano festival, and in 2012, in a brash challenge to Miami, Tampa named the Cuban its official sandwich. Clearly I had been wrong to skip over the city's Cuban offerings; the thing to do now was to sample them. I piled into the car with my sister's family for a field trip to one of Tampa's most iconic sources for Cubans, The Columbia in Ybor City, an over-the-top Spanish sanctuary and the oldest restaurant in Florida. There, they make their textbook sandwiches with generous quantities of salty meat balanced by mustard and pickle, all on bread from nearby La Segunda Central Bakery, which ended up being the sandwich's finest feature. La Segunda itself is an institution; it's been baking Cuban loaves with the fluffy interior and addictively flakey crust that I couldn't get enough of for more than a century.

Next up was Brocato's, a raucous roadhouse of a sandwich joint that also specializes in another Tampa original, devil crab. Their claim to fame is that they roast their own pork, fragrant with cumin, for their Cubano. (Though that's a selling point today, Huse told me that it was the norm in the early days: "It was an all day thing to make sandwiches," he said. "Eight hours spent making pork, four hours making ham. There was a lot more to it than there is now.") Hoagie-like in its girth and with a refreshing snap from the pickle, Brocato's was the heftiest of the bunch, a Cuban for a sub lover.

Though the relatively thick offerings at The Columbia and Brocato's were satisfying, when it comes to Cubans, I discovered that I fall into the camp of the slim, extreme-pressed, sparsely-filled Tampa Cuban. To me, the most craveable renditions capitalize on the flaky bread, and use the meat, cheese, and fixings as sources of flavor and moisture and little more. The honey Cuban from the West Tampa Sandwich Shop, a tiny cottage of a restaurant, exemplified this style, and hit the Golden Mean with its proportions-crispy, savory, tender, each bite compelling me to take another. I encountered a close second at La Teresita, a family-run Cuban diner with swivel stools and a takeout counter that offered a toasted, slender sandwich with just enough deli meat distraction. But the bread, again, was the star.

Though the formative Cuban of my memory from Chez Henri might always reign supreme (it's hard to compete with nostalgia), eating Cubans in Tampa exposed me to a history I had originally questioned, and an unexpected pleasure I am so glad I now know-Cuban bread, as essential to this place as bagels are to New York or pizza is to Rome. And there's something to be said for getting a specialty at the source, for biting into the original. And let's be honest-no matter where you try it, a Cuban sandwich is going to be pretty darn good.

Where to eat Cuban sandwiches in Tampa, Florida:

Columbia Restaurant
2117 E 7th Ave.
Tampa, FL
813/248-4961

Brocato's
5021 E Columbus Dr.
Tampa, FL
813/248-9977

La Segunda Central Bakery
2512 N 15th St.
Tampa, FL
813/248-1531

West Tampa Sandwich Shop
3904 N Armenia Ave.
Tampa, FL
813/873-7104

La Teresita
3248 W Columbus Dr.
Tampa, FL
813/879-9704

6 Traditional Sindhi Recipes

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

For Sindhi people living in India, cooking provides a vital connection to their homeland. Families uprooted from their place in the Indus Valley carry their home with them, in dishes like pohp batalu jo pulao (spiced rice with dates and fried potatoes), rich chickpea flour dumplings, and crispy twice-fried potatoes.

See 6 traditional Sindhi recipes in the gallery »

A Hunger For Home: Sindhi Cooking in India

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:00 GMT

by Kaumudi Marathandeacute;
Growing up, I moved all over the world with my parents, professors who went wherever the jobs were. Before settling in Los Angeles at 26, I never lived in one town for more than a few years, and I felt rootless. Food became a way for me to connect the dots between the places I had been and the ones I was going to. I'd known no one else who felt similarly-until I met the family of my husband, Sanjiv Bajaj. The Bajajs are Sindhi, a people from the Sindh in the Indus Valley, a northwest corner of the Indian subcontinent that became part of the newly formed Pakistan after independence from the British in 1947. While many Sindhi Muslims remained in the Sindh afterward, most Sindhi Hindus headed into India, never to return. Sanjiv's grandparents ended up in Mumbai, 900 miles from where they were born.

In some ways, Sanjiv's family was like the one I grew up in; they, too, were uprooted. But the difference was that this family carried their home with them, in their hearts and in their cooking. Whereas my mother made beef Stroganoff and the food of Maharashtra, the state in India where I was born, with equal flair, Sanjiv's mother and grandmother cooked only ancestral foods. Chickpea cakes in a rich tomato sauce; kadhi, a lentil stew; cardamom-spiced desserts-these were dishes that embodied their identity. Though prepared in a kitchen in Mumbai, the Bajaj family meal always pointed northward, toward the Sindh.

Credit: Ariana Linquist

I had my first taste of Sindhi food at my in-laws' house in 1990. Sanjiv's mother, Madhu, made kadhi, a tart, peppery stew bolstered with okra and green beans. When we sat down to eat, the family showed me how to drench the rice in my bowl with just the right amount of soupy lentils. While Sanjiv, who was born in Mumbai and had never seen the Sindh, devoured his kadhi with gusto but without nostalgia, each spoonful seemed to transport his 74-year-old grandmother, Savitri, back to Shikarpur, the sleepy district capital on the Sindh's northern border.

At this first meal and many more to follow, Savitri took me with her on flights of reminiscence, vividly recalling lush, green rice fields, swaying date palms, fish swimming up the nearby Indus River from the Arabian Sea. A tiny woman with a keen mind, Savitri had married at 14 and cooked for her family ever since. I spent many afternoons listening, fascinated, as she described the foods of her younger years. The Sindh's arid climate was ideal for drying foods to preserve them, she told me, and so the cuisine used ingredients such as dried morels, crispy lentil crackers known as papad, and sun-dried vegetables, such as squash and lotus root, deep-fried and heavily seasoned to add a crunchy, spicy element to meals. Beyond that, the Sindh's location on the Silk Road meant that over the years it was influenced by Iranian, Arab, and central Asian cooking. Muslim rulers had controlled the Sindh for centuries; their influence remains in the prominence that meat has in Sindhi cuisine. And given the Sindh's past as part of the Mughal Empire, the luxuriant staples of Persian cooking-saffron, rose water, dates, almonds, and pistachios-are prized for both sweets and savory rice dishes.

My education wasn't confined to stories. Whenever I prodded Savitri for more information about a dish, she'd ask, "Shall we make it?" And a cooking lesson would commence. One of the first recipes I learned from her was for dharan ji kadhi. The golden bracelets on her arm jangled as she gently kneaded chickpea flour with cilantro, chiles, yogurt, and oil to make thick dumplings that she fried and then immersed in a delectable sauce of tomato, onion, and cilantro. For an appetizer, we made tuk, twice-fried potatoes that she cooked until just soft, then smashed with her palm. Right before we ate, she fried them once more. The chunks of potato, brightened with red chile and dried mango powders, were crisp and golden outside, steaming and tender within.

Sindhis love these fresh greens, which have a pleasing, intense bitterness that the dried leaves don't

Over the next 20 years of visits and cooking, Sindhi flavors began to feel like my own. After Savitri passed away in 1997, Madhu took up where her mother left off. Then Sanjiv and I had our daughter, Keya. Although married life proved more complicated than either of us had expected, I still felt the same obligation that the Bajaj women had felt toward me to pass on the family's traditions to my child, so I cooked what Sindhi dishes I knew at our home in Los Angeles and became even more deliberate in my quest to better understand the cuisine. Madhu urged me to visit the twin towns of Adipur and Gandhidham in Gujarat, in northwestern India near the Pakistan border, where some Sindhis had settled after Partition. "Sindhis there have kept up traditions in ways we have not," she told me. "I'm sure their food is closer to its roots."

On my next visit to India, I followed her advice. I created lists of recipes to look into. I booked tickets. Then, two weeks before my trip, Sanjiv and I decided to separate, and in spite of all my preparations, I suddenly felt adrift. Planes to Gujarat flew from Mumbai, so I had made plans to visit Madhu before flying north. It was too late to change my itinerary; I headed to Mumbai anyway, wondering what this visit would be like now that my relationship with her son was changing.

I needn't have worried. Madhu greeted me as she always had, laying out a lunch of sai bhaaji, sautéed mashed greens that included fenugreek leaves. Sindhis love these fresh greens, which have a pleasing, intense bitterness that the dried leaves don't. I'd grown to love them, too. I mixed fluffy white basmati rice into the dish, along with a dollop of thick homemade yogurt. My mind was still in turmoil, but my senses told me to relax: I was home.

Credit: Ariana Linquist

Over the next few days, we cooked all of the Sindhi dishes I'd come to love. Not once did Madhu raise the subject of the separation, but she let me know, through the zeal with which she tackled each dish with me, that we were still family. The last recipe we cooked together was Sanjiv's favorite dessert, malpura, delicate curd cheese pancakes soaked in cardamom-scented syrup. Creamy and thin, with syrup clinging to their lacy edges, they melted in my mouth. Although malpura are prepared in other parts of north India, Madhu's recipe yielded pancakes that were soft clouds on the tongue. When my visit came to an end, I was unsure of how to say good-bye, not knowing when I might return.

Adipur and Gandhidham are 500 miles north of Mumbai. The plane touched down on land that was flat and dotted with thorny acacia trees.

This, she explained, was sonta, a seasoning base from the southern part of the Sindh upon which countless cooked vegetable and fish dishes are built

Through a friend, I had arranged to visit Kamla Sabhani, a Sindhi home cook whose family had settled here after Partition. Sabhani, a housewife in her 60s, met me at the door of her home with hugs before offering a traditional welcome of lentil crackers and water. She waved me into her kitchen where she was making pohp batalu jo pulao, a sumptuous dish of rice cooked in a tangy tomato and onion sauce, and seyal murgh, chicken simmered with onions in a creamy sauce, for our lunch. She started by grinding green chiles, garlic, and ginger in a mortar and pestle. This, she explained, was sonta, a seasoning base from the southern part of the Sindh upon which countless cooked vegetable and fish dishes are built. Sabhani used some of the sonta to make the pulao, sautéeing the paste before stirring in onions and tomatoes to make a sauce. To this she added rice and peas. At the very last, she blanketed the cooked rice with layers of chopped cilantro, sliced dates, caramelized onions, and fried potatoes. The rest of the sonta became a spicy base for the chicken.

We tucked in, washing everything down with glasses of lightly salted buttermilk. The chicken, served with homemade sweet cilantro chutney, was tender and fragrant. The pulao, with its ornate garnish, was luxurious, with a wonderful interplay of flavors and textures that changed with every bite. While you can find pulaos all over India, they likely originated with the former Persian rulers of the Sindh, and the dried fruit-which I'd never seen in the dish in Mumbai-spoke to the Sindh's proximity to Iran and central Asia. It was an extravagant dish, and a gracious offering for a visitor. As I ate, I reflected that while Shikarpur, the home of Savitri's memories and the wellspring of the dishes that defined Sanjiv's family, was still many miles away, this meal was as close as I was going to get, at least for now. It felt close enough.

My flight took off just past midnight, carrying me back to LA and an uncertain future. I dozed off, and when I awoke, a glance at the flight path channel indicated we were flying over Pakistan. I looked out the window. Below me in a magical starburst pattern of lights was Karachi, the capital of the Sindh, my first view of the paternal homeland my daughter might never see. She doesn't really need to, I realized then: As long as she knows the region's dishes, she will carry the Sindh with her wherever she goes.

See a gallery of Sindhi Recipes »

Saganaki Bites with Sun Dried Tomato Tapenade

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

MAKES 24 BITES

INGREDIENTS

½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, dry, not packed in oil, sliced
1 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. pitted kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
¼ tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. lemon zest
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 lb. kasseri cheese, cut into 1½" cubes
¼ cup flour
1 tbsp. thinly sliced mint leaves
Canola oil, for frying

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place tomatoes in a bowl and cover with 1 cup boiling water. Soak until soft, about 15 minutes; drain, add to the bowl of food processor with oil, olives, oregano, zest, juice, garlic, salt and pepper and puree until smooth; set aside.

2. Heat 1½" oil in a deep 12" skillet to 375°. Dip cheese in cold water and dredge in flour. Working in batches, fry, flipping once, until golden brown on all sides, about 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain and top each saganaki with 1 tsp. tapenade; garnish with mint.

Digital Feast: Relish

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:30:00 GMT

by Helen Rosner
Lucy Knisley's graphic memoir, Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (First Second, 2013), is a sweet account of the author's experiences growing up and finding her way in the food world in which she's been immersed since day one: Her mom worked the cheese counter at Dean andamp; Deluca while pregnant, and Knisely teethed on profiteroles and cream-poached salmon as a tot. A bright figure in indie comics, Knisely brings her talent for showing and telling to this well-crafted volume of stories about working at her mother's catering company, an adolescent discovery of Mexican food, experiences on the job at a Chicago gourmet shop, and struggles with her gourmand parents over a love of McDonald's. Each chapter has illustrated recipes for crowd-pleasers such as huevos rancheros and her mom's pesto.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, $9.99 at the Apple iTunes store »

Urban Grapes

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:30:00 GMT

by Joe Appel

In college, I read about fin de siècle Vienna and fell in love with the city from afar. I took Viennese modernists as my heroes and became enamored of their ideas: Arnold Schoenberg embraced musical dissonance; Sigmund Freud asked the individual to reject no aspect of himself, no matter how crude, in striving for self-insight. Experimental yet informed by ancient urges, a friend to nature but committed to a built future, their modern man was a complicated blend of the old and the new.

Not far into this century, the pretensions of my youth having settled their aging sights on food and wine, I finally made it to Vienna myself. There, I found unique wines that embody the same complexities I had cherished in Viennese art and culture.

On an autumn afternoon, I sat with Elke Hajszan on a bench at Weingut Hajszan Neumann, the winery she helps her husband Stefan run, gazing down from the vine-covered Nussberg slopes onto the city 500 feet below. I felt far from the urban hustle and, also, a part of it. Alongside cured meats, pickles, and the delicious cheese spread called Liptauer from the Hajszans' heurige, or winery tavern, Elke introduced me to Vienna gemischter satz wine, an intriguing white blend.

For most of the world's blends, the wines from each grape are made separately and blended afterwards for the final product. But gemischter satz, meaning "mixed set," is a true field blend, made from myriad grape varieties that are grown, harvested, crushed, and fermented together to make one wine.

It's a tradition that dates back at least to Roman times, when grapevines grew together on family farms. Whereas other cities gradually lost vineyards as they urbanized, an 18th-century decree stipulated that Vienna's crazy-quilt winemaking districts were to remain in perpetuity. Most of the more than 300 vintners within Vienna city limits make gemischter satz, and they treat it as their greatest asset.

"Gemischter satz is like a Wall Street portfolio," according to Gerhard Lobner, managing director at Vienna's Rotes Haus and Mayer Am Pfarrplatz wineries. "You want to diversify." This is because grapes have variety-specific responses to weather conditions; if one variety does poorly, the blend can be adjusted so that others compensate. "Some years there's early frost, some years hail," Lobner told me. "It's a way of preserving your worth."

The wines wrestle a cacophony of flavors and temperaments into sometimes untidy, but always beguiling, symbioses of softness and acidity, fruit and spice, herbs and minerals

It's also a delicious expression of the complex personalities of Vienna's vineyards, each of which yields a different blend. Peppery grüner veltliner, tantalizingly aromatic riesling, taut chardonnay, spicy neuburger, citrusy silvaner, welschriesling with its earthy funk-gemischter satz wines can contain more than 20 different grape types. The wines wrestle a cacophony of flavors and temperaments into sometimes untidy, but always beguiling, symbioses of softness and acidity, fruit and spice, herbs and minerals.

Because these blends vary so widely but unite so many different grape characteristics, it's practically impossible to find a food that can't be paired with one. Entry-level gemischter satz from Weingut Wien Cobenzl goes seamlessly with rustic fare such as wiener schnitzel. More nuanced wines, such as a resonant old-vine blend from the 400-year-old Christ family winery, hold up to spicy, salty-sweet Southeast Asian dishes. Suited to the eclectic way most of us eat and drink now, gemischter satz is less about uniformity and integration than exuberant synergy of flavors. And, happily for me, it's as vibrant as the city it comes from.

See a gallery of great Vienna white wines »

Perfect Champagne Brunch Cocktails

Sat, 11 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

You might drown your sorrows in a whiskey or martini, but when it's time for good news, only sparkling wine will do. And when it's time for a celebratory brunch, there's nothing more delightful than a Champagne cocktail.

The most familiar sparkling cocktail for morning is likely the Mimosa, a simple mix of orange juice and sparkling wine. But if you're looking to drink something a little different with your eggs benedict, there's an endless array of possibilites to be made with a bottle of sparkling wine and a bit of creative mixology. Here are ten of our favorite combinations:

1. Add a splash of pomegranate liqueur (like Pama); garnish with mint.

2. Add a bit of amaretto and a good amount of pear juice.

3. Soak a sugar cube in bitters then drop it in a full glass of bubbly.

4. Mix in a spoonful of coconut cream.

5. Add a dash of grenadine; garnish with freshly ground pepper.

6. Stir in a splash of elderflower liqueur; garnish with a large lemon twist.

7. Muddle a handful of blueberries and basil in a glass, add bubbly.

8. Top with a few fresh or frozen raspberries, and add a scoop of raspberry sorbet, if you like.

9. Add a dash of Campari or Aperol; garnish with an orange twist.

10. Mix with mango juice; garnish with a lime twist.

The Versatile Egg Sandwich

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:30:00 GMT

by Tara O'Brady
I never get tired of egg sandwiches. They run the gamut from light to hearty, rustic to refined: I love a good diner-style western omelet on toast, but I'm just as likely to crave dainty tea sandwiches layered with crisp watercress, sliced cucumbers, and mashed hard-boiled eggs. As long as I have eggs, bread, and maybe some greens on hand, a great meal is just minutes away: I toast the bread, braise some kale or leeks-whatever's in the crisper-and poach a couple of eggs for a sandwich that comforts morning, noon, or night.

See the gallery of egg sandwich variations »

Sai Bhaaji (Sindhi Mixed Greens)

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

SERVES 6-8

Ingredients

6 cloves garlic, peeled
1 serrano chile, stemmed
1 2" piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
10 oz. fresh or frozen fenugreek greens, defrosted, and finely chopped
9 oz. spinach, finely chopped
¼ cup chana dal
¼ cup canola oil
1 tsp. cumin seeds
3 dried chiles de árbol
1 large white onion, minced
1 medium carrot, minced
2 plum tomatoes, grated
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground turmeric
4 oz. green beans, cut into ½" pieces
1 medium Yukon gold potato, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
Kosher salt, to taste
⅓ cup finely chopped cilantro

Ingredients

1. Purée garlic, serrano, ginger, and 3 tbsp. water until smooth; set aside. Boil fenugreek greens, spinach, dal, and 2½ cups water in a 4-qt. saucepan. Reduce heat to medium and cover; cook until very tender, about 1 hour. Transfer to a bowl; set aside.

2.Wipe out pan, add oil and return to medium-high heat. Add cumin seeds and dried chiles; cook until seeds pop. Add garlic purée; cook 2-3 minutes. Add onions and carrots; cook until golden, 8-10 minutes. Add tomatoes; cook until caramelized, 4-6 minutes. Add reserved greens, plus coriander, turmeric, green beans, potatoes, salt, and 1 cup water; boil. Reduce heat to medium and cover; cook until potatoes are tender, 35-40 minutes. Uncover and lightly mash. Stir in cilantro.

Friday Cocktails: Fizzy Lifting Drink

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:30:00 GMT

by Kellie Evans
When I was young, the quickest way for me to get into a ravenous state of gastronomic longing was to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the 1971 fantasy musical about a lonely chocolatier and the hapless children he squired through a tour of his factory. From a chocolate river, to chewing gum that made you feel like you'd eaten a full roast-beef dinner, to wallpaper that tasted like fruit (sadly, despite my checking for it, my parents' Virginia home did not have this feature), the wonders of Willy Wonka's world sent me spiraling into fantasy.

But there was always one scene that made my brow furrow: Our hero Charlie and his grandfather sneak away from the group to try a sip of Fizzy Lifting Drink, a soda that they were warned not to sample-and with good reason, as its effervescent effect leads them within moments of a terrifying death by razor-sharp fan. Still, the shining sip looks like it's worth it, and even though we're never told what the soda tastes like, I've always wanted a sip.

On a recent trip to Charleston, South Carolina, I came the closest I may ever get: Christian Broder, of Social Restaurant and Wine Bar on East Bay Street, served me his take on fizzy lifting drink, a pink concoction of fruity crème de cassis and gingery Domain de Canton liqueur, topped with a generous pour of Champagne. Light, sweet, and spicy, it may not have made me float up to the ceiling in reality, but it certainly lifted me up in spirit-and satiated the long-standing desires of my inner child, to boot.

See the recipe for Fizzy Lifting Drink »

Brunch Breads

Thu, 09 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Whether you prefer classic honey-butter biscuits, cheese and herb-flavored monkey bread, or a fruity strawberry loaf, this collection of sweet and savory breads are great additions to a brunch spread.

See the gallery of brunch breads »