Author’s Note: Several months after my colleague and good friend, Phyllis Méras, published here her all-inclusive story, “In Search of Belgian Chocolates,” I too traveled to Flanders thanks to the New York office of the Flanders Tourist Board. My assignments were to...

  THE FIRST FLEMISH CHEF AWARDED 3 MICHELIN STARS   text and photos ©   Thanks to the New York office of the Flanders Tourist Board, last May Lucy Gordan, the Rome Bureau Chief of Epicurean-Traveler.com, visited Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp and Mechelen. In Bruges...

  Text © 2012 On February 5th, Felice Sgarra, a Pugliese from Andria, was in Milan to participate in Identità Vent’anni, a day dedicated to chefs who are not yet 30 years old.  He just made it under the wire because the next day was his 30th birthday and that of...

  The New President of “Jeunes Restaurateurs d’Europe” in Italy text © 2012   Andrea Sarri’s restaurant “Agrodolce” is situated on the seafront at the quay of the port of Oneglia in the Ligurian city of Imperia on the Italian Riviera.  It boasts one Michelin...

 ©2012 This hand-clapping rhyme is recited by thousands of English-mother-tongue children to count and eliminate fists when it comes to choosing who will be “it” — the leader, the hunter, the counter at the start of an outdoor game.  Instead the number 4,000 refers to...

AUTHORS of FEEDING THE DRAGON Interview ©2011 While in 2001 Nate Tate, today aged 30, was one of the first Texas college students to study abroad at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, his younger sister Mary Kate, 26, visited him there, and the two developed a...

THE PIONEER OF AUTHENTIC ITALIAN CUISINE IN USA   Marisa and Tony May   photo by Robert Caplin text ©2011 by Lucy Gordan  Tony May has been in the restaurant business in New York City for half a century. He is a “gastronomic ambassador and professor,” a living legend,...

TONY MAY’S DAUGHTER, DISCIPLE, AND PARTNER    text ©2011 I always begin my interviews with “food people” with the question:  what are your earliest memories of food? MM: Pastina in brodo, which is still one of my favorite dishes, and nutella spread on bread. We’d...

  SWISS CHEF OF THE YEAR 2006   Housed in a villa of the elegant suburb of Bruderholz on the top of a hill overlooking Basel, Tanja and René Graf Grandits’s peaceful and understated restaurant, Stucki, has one Michelin star and 17 Gault Millau points. Here,...

  TWICE ITALY’S BEST PASTRY-CHEF IS FROM JAPAN   Interview ©2011                 Tatsuya Iwasaki was born 34 years ago in the Japanese city of Saitama located10 to 15 miles north of Tokyo.  After obtaining his diploma as a professional chef from the Hanasaki...