Stuck at home, we've discovered that restaurant-quality meals and foods that we imagined were only available to us from ethnic eateries and foreign travel are actually as simple as pie when you put your mind to it. Restaurants may be closed, but heaven help us, ethnic markets are open.

Nukazuke pickles at the Nishiki Market in Kyoto, Japan.Credit...iStock/Getty Images

Housebound because of the pandemic, an international correspondent finds a way to travel the globe in her kitchen: Conjuring Up the World Through the Sense of Taste by Hannah Beech (New York Times)

"In other markets, on other shores, the unfamiliar fishes may be vivid, mysterious, repellant, fascinating and bright with
splendid color; only in Venice do they look good enough to eat. In Venice even ordinary sole and ugly great skate are striped with delicate lilac lights, the sardines shine like newly-minted silver coins, pink Venetian scampi are fat and fresh, infinitely enticing in the early dawn." — Elizabeth David, “Italian Food,” 1954.

Elizabeth David was one of the first food critics to explore the full range of Italy's regional cooking. The foods of Italy, she reported in vivid prose, reached far beyond the simple pleasures of minestrone and ravioli to complex traditions in Tuscany, Sicily, Lombardy, Umbria, and many other regions:
Italian Food (Penguin Classics) by Elizabeth David, foreword by Julia Child (Amazon).

Talk about a roadtrip!

The Union Oyster House is the oldest restaurant in Boston and the oldest restaurant in continuous service in the U.S. The doors have always been open to diners since 1826.



These eateries are local legends; some are national treasures: The Oldest Restaurant In Every State by Hannah Doolin (Delish)

It is reported that our medieval European ancestors were far more adventuresome eaters than are we, feasting as they did on delicacies like Living Eels in Roasted Pig.

How did we lose that?

Full course:
✓ Today we feast and give thanks for what we have -- and what we no longer have to eat: Give thanks that “Red Deer testicles” and “living eels in roasted pig” aren’t on the menu today by Noah Charney (Salon).
✓ Easy Roasted Pig Head Recipe For Lunch In Forest (YouTube).

Recommended: The Cheese Shop of Centerbrook, specializing in cheeses, wine, meats, breads, oils and vinegars, and specialty foods, is more than worthy of a detour if you're roadtripping through Connecticut. Great selection and attentive, informative assistance.

The Cheese Shop of Centerbrook, 33 Main Street, Centerbrook, CT (closed Sundays).
http://www.cheeseshopcenterbrook.com/

Raw shrimp at Sake House by Hikari

On my way to Culver City’s Boulevard Music Summer Festival last night (an evening of Motown, Ray Charles and James Brown covers by the indefatigable Brenda Lee Eager supported by a wildly talented band), I stopped by chance at Sake House by Hikari (9729 Culver Blvd, across from City Hall). Not only were most of the items sampled pleasing (don’t miss the Crispy Tuna) and the regular prices reasonable, but happy hour ('til 7) brought the cost down further. Sake House’s eclectic menu includes sushi, sashimi, maki, udon, teriyaki and tempura, it has indoor and outdoor seating, and it’s open daily for lunch and dinner. There’re also Hikari locations in Korea Town at Chapman Market and in Montebello.

Sake House by Hikari, 9729 Culver Blvd, downtown Culver City, and K-Town at Chapman Market, 3465 W 6th St #150, L.A.; and Hikari Sushi, 1864 Montebello Town Center.

Chopped a large heirloom tomato — keeping seeds aside — and sprinkled with lemon juice. Laid Spanish anchovies across chopped tomatoes and topped with tomato seeds. Served with cubed feta cheese and whole grain crackers (and a glass of Merlot).

Follow-up to Good Eatin’: Health Benefits of Coffee (The Detourist 2012-05-17): The Case for Coffee: All the Latest Research to Defend Your Caffeine Addiction, in One Place by Brian Fung (The Atlantic 2012-07-03).

*

Among dog-eared volumes on The Detourist’s crowded kitchen shelf none has suffered more wear and tear than Food Without Borders, a slim menu of healthy recipes using mostly proteins and vegetables compiled by French foreign correspondent, military analyst and adventurer Gerard Chaliand. Now nearly 80, Chaliand is an expert in armed-conflict studies and in international and strategic relations, especially in what are known as asymmetric conflicts, as for example in the fight in Afghanistan between the powerful military of the United States and the diffuse, lightly armed Taliban.

In 40-plus years as a freelance journalist and academic, Chaliand has traveled to more than 60 international hotspots from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nagorno-Karabakh and Sri Lanka to Chechnia, Peru, Chiapas and Kurdistan. Even at the time he published this cookery, in 1981, early in his career, he had already spent time in various parts of the Middle East, South-East Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Along the way, he came to the conclusion that there are, in his words, no “such things as national cuisines. In fact there are only regional cuisines or cuisines with local variations which cover a vast geographical area.”

In that spirit, Food Without Frontiers divides the world into geographical/historical regions with “cuisines which seem to me outstanding or worthy of special attention.” From each of these Chaliand presents foods that he found most appealing during his travels. Though its author has had long career as a social scientist and his interest in what people eat springs from a desire to understand the cultures he visits*, Foods Without Frontiers is anything but pedantic. Instead, it is a highly enjoyable visit to the kitchen of an opinionated Frenchman as he whips up meals that are exotic at the same time that they are well within the ken of most American cooks (Chaliand includes a list of substitutes for ingredients that may not be available in your neighborhood, although these days it is unusual for an urban supermarket not to devote a row or two to ethnic foods and fixings).

Food Without Frontiers is parceled into seven sections: Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans (lamb dishes are typical); East and South East Asia (steamed duck); India, Pakistan and South Asia (Mulligatawny Soup); The Americas including the Caribbean (Chicken Sauté à la Creole); Black Africa (Bobotie – Cape Malay-style meat loaf); Northern, Central and Eastern Europe (Hare in the Pot); and Western Europe — the Latin Countries (Blanquette de Veau). Although only 120 pages including an index, I’ve used it for 30 years without tiring of it. Most of the recipes are easily adapted to US kitchens. As with many regional cookbooks, it will lead the adventurous cook to experiment with new flavors and ingredients.

*Regional cuisines “and probably also music,” Chaliand says, writing before cable tv, the internet and Putumayo Presents, “are the most accessible parts of a culture and, at the same time, the most resistant to outside influence. They are the first points of real physical contact with a different society. Part of knowing how to travel is to have an appreciation of other cuisines: this is the very essence of the pleasure of traveling.”

Food Without Frontiers by Gerard Chaliand, long out of print, is available used from Amazon and other booksellers. He is also the author of such works as The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age; The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qæda (with Arnaud Blin); and Nomadic Empires: From Mongolia to the Danube.

A handy and convenient improvement on the insulated lunch bag

PackIt is a freezable, foldable lunch bag that the manufacturer says will keep food fresh for up to 10 hours. The personal cooler bag gets the job done without resorting to melting ice or bulky, toxic ice packs. PackIts come in a variety of styles and sizes — for mini, individual and social lunches; accommodating single and double bottles; for bringing frozen and refrigerated food home from market — priced between $15 and $27. Store it folded in the freezer until you’re ready to pack it. Available online and many retailers.

Double the health benefits of your daily walks with free urban foraging.

“Fallen Fruit is a long-term art collaboration that began by mapping fruit trees growing on or over public property in Los Angeles. The collaboration has expanded to include serialized public projects and site-specific installations and happenings in various cities around the world.

“By always working with fruit as a material or media, the catalogue of projects and works reimagine public interactions with the margins of urban space, systems of community and narrative real-time experience. Public Fruit Jams invites a broad public to transform homegrown or public fruit and join in communal jam-making as experimentation in personal narrative and sublime collaboration; Nocturnal Fruit Forages, nighttime neighborhood fruit tours explores the boundaries of public and private space at the edge of darkness; Public Fruit Meditations renegotiates our relationship to ourselves through guided visualizations and dynamic group participation.

“Fallen Fruit’s visual work includes an ongoing series of narrative photographs, wallpapers, everyday objects and video works that explore the social and political implications of our relationship to fruit and world around us. Recent curatorial projects reindex the social and historical complexities of museums and archives by re-installing permanent collections through syntactical relationships of fruit as subject matter.

“Theoretically, David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young are the three artists of Fallen Fruit that imagine fruit as a lens through which to see the world.” — from the website.

“Coffee linked to lower risk of death”

So said the headline in today’s Los Angeles Times. “A study that tracked health and coffee consumption finds that coffee-drinkers had a lower risk of death,” continued the story. “Subjects who averaged four or five cups per day fared best, though it’s not clear why.”

Cuppa longevity

I know why, I think. People who enjoy life — who like the kinds of things we like: interesting companions, food and drink, music and art, exotic travel — have a firmer grip on life. Good coffee is a pleasure, an indulgence, a blessing. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising to find out that it isn’t coffee that makes for a longer life, but that many people inclined to a long, full life include coffee as one of its satisfactions.

Still, this isn’t the first time coffee has found favor with scientists. As long ago as 2005, as I wrote at the time, a study by a University of Scranton professor, Jon Vinson, found that coffee is the best natural source of the antioxidants that help protect cells in the body from damage caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals. Among other harms, free radicals may cause cancer. So, more antioxidants, fewer free radicals, less cancer, longer lives.

There was plenty of other good news for people who relish eating and drinking, I said then: that red wine improves cardiovascular health and life expectancy and wards off the common cold; that dark chocolate helps prevent diabetes and lowers blood pressure; that virgin olive oil is not only good for the heart, but fights cancer, diabetes, asthma and arthritis, and obesity, and that garlic, the staff of life, will cure everything from cardiovascular disease to the plague.

Throw in shellfish and mushrooms, and that pretty much describes my diet. It’s gratifying to find out you’ve spent so many years doing the right thing.

Given what she was told, your mother was doing the best she could when she tried to get you to eat your broccoli, but she might have done better to have poured a little vino on your Cocopops.

For it to turn out that java is superior in the antioxidant department to such fodder as carrots, collard greens, wheat germ and kale that we have been made to feel guilty our whole lives for not eating is sweet revenge. It only remains for someone to document the incontrovertible health benefits of Häagen-Dazs coffee & almond crunch….

Red wine and resveratrol: Good for your heart? (Mayo Clinic)
Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality (New England Journal of Medicine 2012-05-17)
Studies show wine is heart healthy, but what about the calories? (WebMD)
Source Of Major Health Benefits In Olive Oil Revealed (ScienceDaily 2009-04-01)
Garlic (NIH: National Center for Complementary and Alternative medicine)
Dark Chocolate Lowers ‘Bad’ Cholesterol And Blood Sugar Levels When Eaten In Moderation: Study (Huffington Post 2012-04-30)

Extra reading:
6 Surprising Facts about Oysters (Rodale Press)
Mushrooms for Good Health? (Weil 2012-03-27)

Denver, Colorado

"Continental social food," the slogan of TAG restaurant in Denver, could hardly be more apt. With menu items that extend from sushi tacos with guacamole through meat loaf friended by bokchoy and kimchi, grilled lamb with Bambino watermelon, and Kobe sliders with irresistible duck fat fries, to salmon served in the company of spring ramps, shiitakes, English peas, cured wild boar, Meyer lemon confit and umami butter, comfort food has never been so edgy.

TAG’s barkeeps follow the same fresh, seasonal path trod in the kitchen by chef and owner Troy Guard. Some classics like daiguiris and stingers are delivered straight, but most, like the Kumquat-Jalapeño Mojito, receive a TAG twist. Also, since many of the bar's concoctions depend on seasonal ingredients, every visit is likely to be greeted with a surprise, and not one not limited to mixed drinks: the Bazi Shot is an energy swallow packing 12 vitamins and 68 minerals, and there's house-made ginger ale and a TAG-branded coconut soda. The beverage menu matches the lets-give-it-a-shot attitude emanating from the galley.

I never pass anywhere near Denver without a visit to TAG. It's the only way to find out what happens if, say, the flavors of yuzu, jalapeño and Pop Rocks find their way onto the same plate. Desserts -- peanut butter partfait, for example, with caramel, bittersweet chocolate and Nutella marshmallow ice cream -- prolong the adventure. Tag also has a raw bar and is open for lunch and dinner (social -- a.k.a., happy -- hour is 2-6 pm). TAG, 1441 Larimer St., Denver CO 303-996-9985.

http://www.tag-restaurant.com

Tucson:

After hearing a bezillion times how great it is, I made a detour to the The Grill at Hacienda del Sol. Except for the setting -- in the restored and renovated Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort that was once a Roaring 20s-era school for daughters of the super rich -- the restaurant was otherwise remindful of St. Estephe, the legendary Southwest Fusion eatery of the 1980s that was unaccountably cloistered in a Manhattan Beach mall. At a time when there were possibly six decent restaurants in all of L.A. County, St. Estephe concocted sometimes delicious, often fanciful, always outrageously priced creations that took Hispanic-American food to places it had never been before.

(You might have ordered "chips and salsa," for example, and been served a dinner plate with a thin layer of red and green sauces deployed in the pattern of the holism symbol and graced with a single taco chip in the form of a dove. This was before anyone knew what a "plate" was, so the place definitely was cutting-edge, but as admirable as its efforts may have been as art, they left something to be desired as, well, food. And it was damnably expensive. You'd wonder if the boys in the back got a bigger kick out of sending out their latest caprices or the bill.)

The Grill at Hacienda induced St. Estephe flashbacks. The menu is replete with components like shrimp chorizzo, parmesan foam, pancetta dust, micro egg yolk, jalapeno-blueberry jam, yam and smoked gouda gratin, charred tomatoes and, I kid you not, "heirloom" beans. Normally this kind of menu -- small portions, unusual tastes -- is right up my alley, but Hacienda del Sol's eclecticism just comes across as pretentious. I can't say the food overall is bad (although the chorizo con pappas was positively insulting), but it lived up to neither its aspirations nor its prices (and lets face it, when you're blown away by a meal you don't even notice how much it costs).

There are plenty of first-rate restaurants in Tucson. You needn't go out of your way for this one.

You have to be pretty far off the beaten path these days not to have access to gourmet dining. Not that regional and ethnic food doesn't keep us well fed and happy, but it is reassuring to know that there is no longer a corner of the Union that doesn't have at least one place offering high quality cuisine and a decent wine list.

In Escondido, CA that place is Tango, a full service eatery, lounge and wine bar. Nationally acclaimed chef Rico Bartolome offers a constantly changing array of fusion dishes, on my last visit including tempura oysters (on arugula with a remoulade), a duck comfit (rhubarb jam, strawberries, goat cheese and candied pecans), and an amazing korean hot pot (miso-marinated sea bass, shrimp, kimchee, bok choy and assorted mushrooms in dashi). Applying classic European kitchen techniques to Pacific Rim-influenced dishes made of fresh seasonal ingredients results in offbeat creations from chorizo-wrapped loin of venison with chimichanga and mole through osso bucco with panang curry to pistachio duck schnitzel with sweet and sour cabbage. The wine list is always well-selected. Desserts change daily (think sugar pumpkin and mascarpone cheesecake with spiced whipped cream or crêpe stuffed with chocolate, banana fritter and banana ice cream), and last visit fresh pies to go were by the cashier. Lunch Monday to Friday and dinner every day. Monday to Thursday, $25 sunset prix fixe dinners are available. Happy hour 4-7 every day but Monday, when it's 4 to closing. Half price wine on Wednesdays. Events nightly in the lounge. There's a private dining room for parties of 10-30, and you can dine on the patio weather permitting. Despite the sometimes brutal desert heat, this is one place worthy of abandoning the comforts of the coast. Tango is at 417 W Grand Ave in Escondido; 760-747-5000; http://www.tangoongrand.com/.

When I first came to Los Angeles, there were maybe six gourmet restaurants in the entire town. Now there are more than that just on Ocean Avenue, and they're about to joined by another. Jean-Francois Meteigner of La Cachette in Century City will start serving patrons at La Cachette Bistro on Saturday in preparation for a full-blown opening in a couple weeks. La Cachette Bistro, 1733 Ocean Ave (between Pico Blvd and the Santa Monica Pier), Santa Monica; 310-434-9509.

The best way to experience Las Vegas is to get off the Strip. The unusual makeup of the town's populace -- heavy on entertainment workers and retirees wealthy enough to move there from somewhere else -- spawns local restaurant, nightlife and arts scenes that exceed those in most other burgs its size.

For example, a recent round of gallery hopping during one of Vegas' monthly First Friday street fairs was eye-opening. The Las Vegas arts district is housed in a few blocks of industrial spaces and ratty storefronts set just  the beyond the north end of the Strip, within walking distance -- if you like a good walk -- of the Stratosphere and old downtown. With the streets closed to traffic for the evening, a First Friday stroll amid food carts, street vendors and live bands would be fun even if the art was ordinary.

It's not. Recent visitors -- regulars at Thursday nights in Manhattan's Chelsea gallery district, Chicago's art Fridays and Los Angeles' scattered weekend openings -- were impressed by the vibrancy of Vegas' compact arts community. There may not be as much work on display in Vegas, but what's there is universally competent and intermittently thrilling. Vegas are holds its own against its bigger rivals.

Between the lively street scene and the usually perfect weather, you may not be inclined to go indoors, but there are a several display spaces that are not-to-miss. The Arts Factory (101-109 E Charleston Blvd) houses a dozen or so galleries and studios, including the Contemporary Arts Center, an established non-profits artists' collective, and the soon-to-open Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe & Lounge. Other essential stops includes the artists' lofts in the former Holsum Bread Factory and Commerce Street Studios (corner of Utah and Commerce) and Naomi Arin Contemporary Art (formerly Dust Gallery; 900 S Las Vegas Blvd - Suite 120B; by appointment: 702.324.5868).

Like any city in the southwest, good eating in Vegas is spread all over town. Fortunately for First Friday-goers, one of the local Vegas eateries worth a visit is in the arts district: Tinoco's Bistro (103 E Charleston Blvd; 702-464-5008), in the arts factory building itself, is a friendly Italian place, with low ceilings, tables shaped like artists' palettes, and lots of art on the walls. In a town where millions of dollars are spent creating ambience, Tinoco's stands out for its feeling of authenticity. By the comparison to the Strip, the prices are low, low and low for both lunch and dinner, and the food's terrific.

Most of the other eateries in the area are Latin-flavored. At Casa Don Juan (1204 S Main Street; 702-384-8070) an authentic enchilada platter will cost you less than a movie ticket and huge overstuffed tacos packed with carne asada and guacamole can be had for the price of a bag of theater popcorn (their claim to the title "Best Margarita in Las Vegas" would be hard to challenge). As you travel back toward the Strip  on South Las Vegas Blvd, you'll come upon a Howard Johnson's that holds a surprise: the  Florida Cafe Cuban Bar & Grill (1401 S Las Vegas Blvd; 702-385-3013 ) attracts a mostly Spanish-speaking crowd for downhome Cuban specialties like ropa vieja and classic Cubano sandwiches (one of the steaming, cheesy foot-long creations could feed a small village in the Sierra Maestra).

Other art district hangs: the pricier, more Vegas-ie Ice House Lounge (650 S Main Street; 702-315-2570) is a good place to hear live local music; on the other hand, so is Dino's (1516 S Las Vegas Blvd; 702-382-3894), calling itself "the last neighborhood bar in Las Vegas," the sort of dive where you might expect to find a (pretty good) polish sausage to go with your karaoke.

Like countless Bohemian communities before it, the Vegas art district is a fragile thing. Great galleries and clubs have already come and gone and experience shows developers love art scenes to death. Now is probably the time to visit, before it goes the way of the Soho, Wicker Park, Venice Beach and countless other artists' havens that have been abandoned to the bourgeoisie. It won't be as much fun after the artists are forced to move to the corner of Nellis and Lake Mead (or wherever) to find affordable space.

Shari Robins (former chef at James Beach and Canal Club) has opened a Balducci-esque market on North Venice, offering such Good Life-essentials as Petrossian smoked salmon, local farmers' markets favorite Kenter Canyon Farms produce and Giorgio Baldi’s pasta sauces, cheek-to-jowel with bodega-staples like Goldfish and Kettle chips and where-are-they-when-you-need-'em household items like kitty litter, paper towels and window spray. Robins Nest Quality Convenience Market, 68 North Venice Boulevard (at Pacific), Venice CA, 310-821-7281. http://www.robinsnestmarket.com/

A new study by a University of Scranton professor, Jon Vinson, has found that coffee is the best natural source of the antioxidants that help protect cells in the body from damage caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals. Among other harms, free radicals may cause cancer.

Along with other good news -- that red wine improves cardiovascular health and life expectancy and wards off the common cold; that dark chocolate helps prevent diabetes and lowers blood pressure; that virgin olive oil is not only good for the heart, but fights cancer, diabetes, asthma and arthritis, and obesity, and that garlic, the staff of life, will cure everything from cardiovascular disease to the plague -- I feel blessed to have spent so many years doing the right thing.

Given what she was told, your mother was doing the best she could when she tried to get you to eat your broccoli, but she might have done better to have poured a little vino on your Cocopops.

For it to turn out that java is superior in the antioxidant department to foods such as carrots, collard greens, wheat germ and kale that we have been made to feel guilty our whole lives for not eating is sweet revenge. It only remains for someone to document the incontrovertable health benefits of Häagen-Dazs coffee & almond crunch....

(originally posted to Impractical Proposals 2005-08-30)

It's late. After twelve hours on the road, we're exhausted and famished. Somewhere on Route 1A, a beaten-up stretch of highway that meanders through the North Shore parallel to the real Rte. 1 and the harbor, seeking a signal from the elusive ATT Wireless, we pull into a parking lot on what looks in the dark like landfill at the edge of a marsh in front of a dejected-looking building that might be dedicated to processing fish lips into cat food. We call our hotel for directions, but we've been through so many detours and roundabouts that we can't tell the innkeeper whether we're headed north or south. "We're in the parking lot of something called The Wharf," we say, and that wins us incredible and, as it turns out, fanciful you-can't-get-here-from-there-style directions that include a "right turn down the alley behind the Cathedral."

Satisfied for the moment that we won't be sleeping in the car, our attention immediately reverts back to our stomachs. All the long day, expecting to alight by dinnertime in the land of the shoah dinnah, we have been limiting our intake to light snacks, leaving room for the lobsters and steamers that are to be our reward. Sensing that we're talking to a local, we ask the hotelier for "the best place for lobster" in the Saugus-Revere area. "Yoah theah," comes the reply. "The Whaff is excellent!"

And you know what, it is. A rambling multi-roomed roadhouse that probably started its life 30 years ago selling the day's catch off the back of a wagon, Mt Vernon At The Wharf, as it is officially named, is comfortable, friendly and dim. Since it was so late and a school night, we were the only customers, save a couple of locals watching ESPN in the distant bar.

Too young to afford us a wine recommendation and too inexperienced to provide real service (she had to be sent back for things like napkins and butter), our waitress was nonetheless cheerful and solicitous; before heading home for the night, the proprietor herself stopped by to make sure all was well. Two large, plump lobsters, steamed veggies and baked potato, plus ever-dependable Guinness (better safe than sorry), and we were out the door for less than $35. We passed on the steamers because of the hour, but we'll be headed back. For one thing, we'd like to be in the joint on a Friday or Saturday night. Bet it's really cookin' (Mt Vernon At The Wharf, 543 North Shore Road, Revere, Massachusetts, 617-289-0885).