Lisbon. November, 2010

Our only other visit to Lisbon (aside from a plane touchdown in 1995) had been in October, 2009, so we were unprepared this time for the city’s beginning to decorate itself for Christmas. Lights strung across streets in the Bairro Alto. Stores beginning to bling up their windows and facades. “Boas Festas” signs all over the place. Look at the snowballs or globes or whatever hung above the pedestrian street Rua das Portas de Santo Antão seen here on our way back from another satisfying dinner at A Esquina da Fé. Some guidebooks warn that this neighborhood may be too dangerous for tourists to stroll. What? That has never been our impression. We want the real Lisbon (and its restaurants), not the sanitized Disneyed attractions on offer to the timid. And besides, who would possibly misbehave beneath such well-wishing decorations as these?

Istanbul. October, 2011

I love that everyone drinks tea in Istanbul. All the time. And I love how tea shops transport take-out orders to customers at nearby businesses. Look at that ingenious device, a tray to carry four glasses (he’s just served one) on the ubiquitous red-smeared saucers plus a small dish of sugar cubes. Everywhere you look in busy sections of town (here in a crowded street behind the Spice Bazaar) you see men (never women) carrying these trays that are held by three “prongs” connected to a joining-point handle at the top. So much more genteel than a paper (or plastic!) bag filled with lidded styrofoam cups. No wonder Istanbul (and earlier Constantinople or Byzantium) has been a center of civilization for so many centuries.

Madrid. October, 2009

Lunch at the Taberna Almendro 13 in the La Latina neighborhood (after we’d fled the gussied-up and sanitized nearby Mercado San Miguel) and this Madrid specialty is what all the locals were having. Huevos rotos con jamón: thinly sliced fried potatoes doused with a slightly cooked “broken” egg and some diced ham. And no wonder it’s a popular dish; it was terrific. Ham, eggs, potatoes...sounds like breakfast, no? Not in Spain. I was amazed at the reverential place the egg has on menus at every meal. It could be in the fabled tortilla española (an omelette-like cake of onions and potatoes, served whole, cut up as tapas or as a sandwich filling.) Or maybe expertly fried as an entree...the “incredible, edible egg” (as the old ad campaign used to say) is everywhere. And, come to think of it, so are potatoes and ham. No problem.

Watertown, MA. December, 2010

Little yellow things. That’s what these cookies are called in the Venetian dialect of Italian: zaleti. How do I know all this? I learned it from my friend Nick’s Great Italian Desserts book, the zaleti page of which carries the smears and other marks of honor that bear witness to my having made this recipe more times than I can count. Of course, my results for these Venetian cornmeal diamonds may not have the professional finish that Nick’s do (as he’ll be happy to remind me) but no one (else) seems to mind. I make them at Christmas time. I make them in summer. I make them when friends request them for their birthdays. All the time. Cornmeal, flour, lemon zest, sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla, salt, baking powder, raisins or currants. Nick’s recipe is all over the internet (search: zaleti nick malgieri) and is foolproof, yielding terrific cookies every time. Make a lot because everyone likes them (even the many internet bloggers who’ve lifted Nick’s recipe uncredited), so they tend to disappear quickly. And if you want to see how a professional does it, go to Nick’s website, click on "Videos" and watch him make them with Julia Child. She liked them, too.

Los Angeles. May, 2005

Los Angeles at night always looks like Christmas to me. The strings of lights spread out to the horizon. The colors. The activity. Even though I snapped this photo off season from the heights of West Hollywood, it still suggests December decorations, no? Actually I was in LA only once at Christmastime. Maybe I harbored unrealistic expectations, but what a disappointment. Elaborate front-yard Santa panoramas on bright green lawns (or, worse, sun-scorched lawns.) Huge decorative candy canes criss-crossing entranceways, roasting in full, bright sun. It just seemed wrong. (Like below-the-equator residents in Australia or South Africa who go to the beach on December 25, midsummer for them. No!) When Jay and I lived in Beverly, MA, in a house whose kitchen/dining room/living room was mostly glass that gave onto woods, I strung small white lights throughout the whole room one December. They reflected back and forth in the glass over and over, multiplying each time. Jay walked into the room and said, “It looks like Los Angeles.” QED.

Catania, Sicily. October, 1984

I chose Catania as my home base for travel through eastern Sicily. It had good bus and train connections, and plenty of cheap places to stay for a single. A walk from the train station, a check-in at a bare-bones pensione, and, of course, a stroll to the outdoor market. Where I saw this...a wonderful tableau of a butcher making sausage on the sidewalk outside his shop. This is varsity sausage-making, ingredients in the grinder on top, check. Pig’s intestine attached to the exit, check. Go! Soon, yards of salsiccia for sale, a meandering pile from the freshest of ingredients...and maybe just a little bit of cigarette ash thrown in for good measure. One of many such scenes in this lively and welcoming market. (The morning after I took this photo, there was a government crackdown on local Mafia chieftains less than a block away, gunfire and all.) I love Sicily.

New Orleans. March, 1991

Okra. Love it or hate it. No in between. I love it. Seen here in the French Market in New Orleans, its mucilaginous (aka slimy) qualities are one way the natives thicken their gumbos. (I had less success with said qualities when I sliced up some of the pods to make soup once.) I also like crisp pickled okra, which I’ve found both in Middle Eastern and Middle Western venues. The Armenian markets in my neighborhood feature both homemade and commercial varieties. And the Talk O’ Texas brand (”makes your mouth happy”) can be readily found in pickle-loving communities nationwide. I’ve put up jars of my own with iffy results. Hell, even Martha Stewart’s got a recipe for them. In Istanbul, baby okra is strung into “necklaces” and hung up to dry, later to be reconstituted in stews and other vegetable dishes. Closer to home, it’s still a mainstay of Southern and Southwestern buffets, breaded and deep-fried, the perfect accompaniment to chicken-fried steak. On the “hate it” side: My friend Nick makes a face whenever i mention okra (maybe he remembers that gooey soup referenced above) and always hopes his okra-lovin’ friend Nancy will forget to order it at the Manhattan Vietnamese restaurant they frequent. For the especially vehement, there are several “I Hate Okra” websites and even a Facebook group. Enjoy.