The first time I tried salep was from a paper cup at a winter market stall, and I remember being confused about how a plain glass of warm milk could taste so silky and...

My husband's family does a big seafood cataplana on holidays, and the first time I served them zarzuela de marisco instead, there was a brief, tense silence while everyone compared it, unfavorably at first,...

I picked up taktouka from a Moroccan cookbook years ago during a phase where I was trying to understand how so many Mediterranean countries can start with the exact same trio, tomatoes, peppers, and...

A Greek friend of mine once told me, with total seriousness, that fasolada saved her country before olive oil and feta ever got famous, and after making it a dozen times I understand exactly...

Lucas has strong opinions about bread, and somewhere around the third day of a trip to Istanbul two summers ago, he declared simit better than any Portuguese pao we have ever bought together, which...

A Greek friend of mine once told me that gigantes plaki is what her grandmother made whenever guests came by unannounced, because there was always a jar of giant beans in the pantry and...

Lucas, my resident savory-quality-control officer, once declared this the best pasta he's ever had, then immediately asked why it wasn't spaghetti and meatballs, which tells you everything about the gap between what Americans think...

There's a running joke in my house that every culture has its own version of "throw the whole pantry and half the freezer into one pot and simmer it into a Sunday feast," and...

Northern Spain and northern Portugal share a border and, it turns out, a real weakness for a slow-cooked pot of beans and pork, so fabada asturiana felt like family the first time I made...

I have made a lot of fried cheese on this site, from my Azorean queijo São Jorge (recipe on the site) to the little Greek tiropitakia and peinirli I already have up, but I...