At a Snail’s Pace

Escargot will never be something I willingly choose from a menu. Not that I can’t stomach a few snails if I need to when pressured into a Survivor-style challenge, I just prefer my shelled food to come from salt water rather than the garden. My wife doesn’t have such hang-ups and has been begging me to try escargot for years, insisting I will love the buttery and garlicky morsels. I often remind her that before we met I had never eaten escargot, never even considered putting those dirty little things in my pristine mouth, and I have gotten along just fine. Read more

Live & Uncorked with The Thirsty Traveler and The Surreal Gourmet

Without television cameras on them, Food Network stars tend to let loose a little. Londoners found this out firsthand when Bob Blumer and Kevin Brauch rolled into town for their Live & Uncorked tour, giving us a taste of some high-energy antics with food and drink not seen on their TV shows. Blumer and Brauch have both been fixtures on Food Network since its inception and the live performance was advertised as an irreverent, behind-the-scenes look at their culinary careers. If this performance were ever to air on television, there would be plenty of censoring – the alcohol was flowing generously, the four-letter words were flying freely, and there was even a titillating video display of Blumer making S’more shooters with a topless woman in a see-through apron on the Naked News. Not your typical Food Network stuff. Read more

The Taste of Place

The pleasures of identifying unique flavours in food based on where it comes from is something that started in France with regional wine. The French call it terroir, meaning the taste of place adds something unique to certain foods. Even though the idea was conceived in France, it is spreading as a culinary concept as Rowan Jacobsen elaborates on in American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields, taking us through some of the North American regions that give unique terroir to foods around us. He writes: “If you want to tour the museum of old terroir masterpieces, go to France and Italy. If you want to visit the galleries where new artists are trying new things, look around America.” From the southernmost tip of the Central American country of Panama to the northern reaches of the Yukon River in Alaska, this book covers an entire continent. Maple syrup, coffee, apples, honey, potatoes, mushrooms, oysters, avocados, salmon, wine, cheese, and chocolate take on elevated stature as High-Mountain Maple Syrup of Vermont or Totten Inlet Oysters of Puget Sound becoming “great foods that are what they are because of where they come from.” Read more