In 2009, when I met Peter Perez of Chronicle Books at the IACP conference he told me that Laura Catena was writing a guidebook to Argentinean wines and wine regions, to be published by Chronicle in 2010. Guidebook is an understatement–Bible of Argentine Wine is a more accurate description–and the wait is finally over! If you're not familiar […]
This fall I was lucky enough to have the chance to work with the 33rd Annual Starz Denver Film Festival, doing some screening and writing. Not only did I get to watch some amazing independent and foreign films, and then write about them, but the film festival itself is one big party–full of food, film and […]
Photo: REUTERS/Mariana Bazo The image below is part of a shocking and heartbreaking slide show compiled by Reuters of the 8.9 quake that devastated Chile on March 1, 2010. In light of this event, I ask you all to see this tragic event and read the email I got from my friend Liz Caskey, an American married […]
Nirmala Narine, who has been called 'the Indiana Jones of Spices', was born in Guyana in the family kitchen on an empty flour sack, delivered by a marijuana-puffing midwife. Her grandfather was an Ayurvedic scholar and Hindu priest who introduced her to the importance of spices and cooking holistically. Narine spent the first ten years of […]
Pradel Chocolates is a traveler's treasure–a small store front in downtown Mendoza that sells handmade artesenal chocolates. It's on a side street off of the Peotonal–Mendoza's pedestrian mall. Owner and chocolatier Miriam Beatriz Ahumada (pictured below) studied chocolate-making in Spain, returning to her native Argentina to share her delectable treats with all Mendoza. Her hand-decorated […]
