Mastering the Art of French Dining: From childhood, the French are raised to appreciate the art of dining, and the many rituals that accompany it—even public school lunches include a cheese course. Part of the reason you’re traveling to France is, presumably, to tap into that gastronomic reverence. But knowing how to do it right is tricky, particularly if you don’t speak the language. Here’s everything you need to know about Parisian restaurant etiquette, including some helpful phrases. Do as the French do, and you’ll have a much better experience in Paris.
How migration has enriched the UK’s booming food culture: The subject has become a key issue in the Brexit debate: who gets in and who has to stay out. And what will Britain look like if we put up insurmountable barriers to people from other countries and cultures who want to live and work here? The Conservative government has already been tightening up immigration controls for the very people British industries say are most needed – unskilled workers – and is considering a points-based system that would allow only the best-qualified professionals in.
The secret behind Italy’s rarest pasta: Away from its famed cerulean seas, Sardinia’s craggy interior is a twisting maze of deep chasms and impenetrable massifs that shelter some of Europe’s most ancient traditions. Residents here still speak Sardo, the closest living form of Latin. Grandmothers gaze warily at outsiders from under embroidered veils. And, in a modest apartment in the town of Nuoro, a slight 62-year-old named Paola Abraini wakes up every day at 7 am to begin making su filindeu – the rarest pasta in the world.
First Day I Got My Michelin Stars: Richard Ekkebus of Amber: Richard Ekkebus, Culinary Director at the renowned two-Michelin-starred Amber at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, is laser-focused on sourcing and serving the finest quality produce. That’s no surprise when you learn that his grandparents on the Dutch coast first taught him how to hunt and fish, pick the best apples in autumn and the finest berries in summer.
Fed-Up Chef Challenges Local Critics to Actually Cook Something for the Public: There’s drama at the dinner table up in Canada. A chef from Edmonton, Alberta, has challenged his city’s food critics to show they can not only talk about food — but actually make it, too. The chef, Paul Shufelt, has invited any willing writers to get a taste of their own medicine by cooking a three-course meal that will be evaluated by a panel of judges. Billed as the Eat Your Words dinner, it will be attended by 150 people and benefit the Ronald McDonald House Northern Alberta.
Noma Co-founder Claus Meyer’s Next Big Project Is in One of Brooklyn’s Poorest Neighborhoods: Claus Meyer sees me as soon as he walks into the 3 Black Cats Café, a newcoffeehouse on Belmont Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. I’m easy to spot because I’m the only patron in the cavernous space. Still, he stops to talk to Ionna Jimenez, one of the three sisters who own the café, then persuades her to pose for a picture with him and his lieutenant Lucas Denton. He quizzes her about what kind of cakes she has today and how late the café is open. He wants to take some carrot cake home to his family.
Recipe: slow-roast celeriac, cabbage and trompettes: “Slow-roast” is a handy expression. Slow-roast shoulder of lamb, slow-roast pulled pork, slow-roast anything generally goes down well. It is au courant in Shoreditch — I think — and in magazines and on the telly. It does not necessarily mean cooked at some imperceptibly low temperature for 18 hours — although there are some recipes like that, not many of them good — nor does it mean very much else, I suspect, except cooked for a longish time. It mostly means, ahem, meat that is well done.
A delicious dinner in Berlin – from food that would have been thrown away: In a quiet side street in the otherwise buzzing Berlin-Neukölln is what looks like just another cosy vintage cafe: exposed brick, mismatched furniture, candles in jam jars. But Restlos Glücklich is Germany’s first anti-food waste restaurant, serving delicious dishes using discarded food.
Blind tasting: tricks of the trade: Blind Tasting is a term we winos use in reference to our ubiquitous penchant for tasting wines without seeing the label or otherwise knowing what the wine is. Apart from being a popular sport among wine geeks, it is also a useful means of testing the abilities of wine students and occasionally a manner of assessing wines by wine professionals. The object is to ascertain such features as the grape variety(s), region, vintage/age and/or quality purely through the acts of seeing, smelling and tasting the wine in the glass. Variations include a single-blind tasting, whereby one aspect such as region or grape variety is known or a double-blind tasting, in which case nothing is known about the wine.
Five Places to Go in Milan: Blue-collar workers and mobsters used to live side by side in Isola, or Island, the Milanese neighborhood that once felt removed from the city, separated by rail tracks and river boundaries. Just north of Milan’s historical center, the area today is seen by locals as radical chic and is home to Google’s Italian headquarters. Its mishmash of 19th-century Art Nouveau buildings with wrought-iron balconies next to high-rise towers, built for Expo 2015, the six-month-long world’s fair hosted by Milan, is the perfect expression of the alternative vibe that now defines Isola.
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