Category: Food and Drink

A Lesson in Cooking Peka, the Signature Dish of Croatia’s Dalmatia Region

One of the most popular meals in Croatia’s Dalmatia region is peka, a blend of vegetables and meat drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with herbs, and then baked to perfection under a bell-like dome, or ispod čripnje. You’ll see peka listed on menus throughout the region, and if you’re lucky enough to be invited into…
Foraging for Wild Asparagus in Croatia’s Dalmatian Countryside

When spring returns to Croatia, residents do what they’ve done for centuries: take to the fields and forests in search of wild asparagus, known in Croatian as šparoga. The asparagus-hunting season has just begun here in central Dalmatia, and last weekend, we were lucky enough to be invited by Croatian friends to go foraging for…
A Long Weekend in California Wine Country: Getting a Taste for Napa and Sonoma Wines (Part 2)

Note: This is part two of the series, Long Weekend in California Wine Country. Click the image for part one.
The Hunt for the ‘Original Zin’: A Wine Tasting Tour of Croatia

We started the day in the seaside city of Trogir, Croatia on a quest to find Zinfandel’s ancestral home. By the day’s end, we’d not only savored many splendid glasses of wine, we’d also acquired a greater appreciation of Croatian culture while broadening our circle of international friends. Our wine tasting tour in Split and…
A Long Weekend in California Wine Country: Getting a Taste for Napa and Sonoma Wines (Part 1)

“I should like to spend the whole of my life traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.” William Hazlitt There seems to exist a syndrome among international travelers and expats. They’ve visited the world’s most far-flung destinations, but haven’t seen much of what their home countries have to…
Threshing Rice on Christmas Day in Cambodia

‘Twas Christmas Day in Cambodia… The sun shone brightly overhead. Golden grass and towering palm trees danced in the strong gusts of wind. Cows mooed and baby chicks tiptoed about. Though we were far from our family and friends who are scattered throughout the world, we yearned to have a special holiday. And indeed we…