Catania x2

Catania x2

“Coastal Italian” is an inviting descriptor for the restaurant on the top floor at Wall and Girard.  So I went twice. Initially, we were a group of journalists hosted for Saturday lunch at...

SOS For ITALY’S CHEESE

SOS For ITALY’S CHEESE

Like pizza, pasta, espresso coffee, and gelato parmigiano reggiano, produced in the approved areas of the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, and Mantua is a quintessential Italian food product. Recent statistics recount that c. 240,000 cows, mostly...

IFAD’s “Recipes for Change”

IFAD’s “Recipes for Change”

To celebrate 2015’s “World Environment Day” on June 3 the Rome-headquartered International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) partnered with Italian celebrity chef, Carlo Cracco, to bring attention to the negative impact of climate change on many traditional...

Zaré at The Fly Trap

Zaré at The Fly Trap

"I was supposed to be a brain surgeon," Chef offered, grinning ear to ear. His presence is as bold as his red chef coat.  The Persian/ Mediterranean/Californian menu is brilliant.  At The Fly Trap, Hoss Zaré builds upon lessons from his mother's kitchen, playfully....

Liquid Gold at Mutari in Santa Cruz

Liquid Gold at Mutari in Santa Cruz

Lovers of hot chocolate and mocha should run, not walk, to Mutari Chocolate House & Factory, located in downtown Santa Cruz, CA. This is melted—molten better conveys the unctuousness—dark chocolate in a cup: no cocoa powder or lecithin. According to the company's...

Traveling to Tuscany?

    FutureBrand, the international business evaluation company, surveyed thousands of people to describe countries worldwide in a few words. The three most frequent for Italy were culture, beauty, and food. Without a doubt food is a “driver” when it comes to...

 AUTUMN IN VERMONT

 AUTUMN IN VERMONT

  text and photos ©2012 Driving down nearly deserted roads during the first two weeks of October, I couldn't help but wonder, 'If this is the busy season, what is Vermont like in the off-season.' This, after all, was the “high season” as tourists flock to see the...

MOLISE

MOLISE

Molise is a tiny region with just 28 kilometers of seaside and very limited tourism. Wine has been made here since pre-Roman times, and was commented upon by Pliny the Elder. Today the area has about 49,000 acres under vine, grown on the long, low hills that stretch...

ABRUZZO

ABRUZZO

The political divisions along the Adriatic are merely arbitrary human delineations and bear only cursory resemblance to the landforms, so I think I should take a moment here to set the topography in the reader’s mind. Behind Molise, the mountains rise to about 3,000...

Marché

Marché

For the gastronomic traveler, there are reasons enough to visit Marché (pronounced Mar´kay). From the culinary point-of-view, Marche is a little more sophisticated than Molise or Abruzzo, sharing borders and culinary traditions with Emilia-Romana and Tuscany, as well...

The Epicurean Traveler in  Alto-Adige

The Epicurean Traveler in Alto-Adige

  Text and photos ©2010 Tucked away in a steep-sided narrow valley in the Northeastern part of the country, Alto-Adige seems a world apart from the rest of Italy. It’s almost unknown to American tourists who stick to more traveled roads, though it’s a popular...

Ten Great Things about Whistler

Ten Great Things about Whistler

  Text and photos ©2012 The crossing:  Getting to Whistler by air requires flying to Vancouver, a beautiful city that deserves at least afew days of your time. En route to Whistler, the awe-inspiring ambiance of the Sea to Sky Highway with its misty mountainous...

Turkish Fare

Turkish Fare

Text ©2013 Photos ©2013 by Sal Laterra              I have two strong recollections of my first visit to Turkey more than four decades ago.       In Istanbul I stayed in the Youth Hostel overlooking the Bosphorus. Then and there, I decided that Istanbul must be one of...