a community wood fired oven in Vathi, Sifnos, Greece
A community wood fired oven…producing cheese from goats and sheep from your farm…serving these dishes on the beach mere feet from the Aegean. Welcome to the 21st century Greek style.
ingredients for caper salad
The village of Vathi is a classic beauty. The winding road descends from the hills and one’s first glimpse is the gleaming white buildings clustered in a crescent on a white sand beach in front of the interminable clear aqua water of the Aegean. Read all about Nikos, Flora and Tsikali Taverna at…
Party games at Fort Hunter Mansion late 1800sView of the Susquehanna River from a mansion window
Fort Hunter captures a sweeping 200-year panoply of Pennsylvania. From frontier outpost, slavery, Revolution, the promise of canals, Civil War, the age of steel to modern philanthropy, this bucolic site was at the center of history.
From 1786 to 1831 over 20 enslaved African-Americans made the soap, ironed the clothes, cooked and cleaned the house, worked the farm and its businesses. Narrowly avoiding being in the center of the Civil War, Fort Hunter entered an era as a focal point for Harrisburg society in the 1880s.
Fort Hunter Mansion
With over 80% of the mansion’s furnishings, antiques and art original to the families that called Fort Hunter home, a tour of the house provides a rare glimpse into 200 years of American life. Read the intriguing story…
As an Acadian historian and cultural anthropologist I sing the praises of my family heritage and its extraordinary history. Yet as a chef…both Acadian and Cajun foods are misunderstood and misrepresented in the North American rush to celebrate regional cuisine. They’re worthy but limited.
Tabasco store, Avery Island
The greatest difference separating Cajun and Acadian cooking is spices. Cajun uses spices borrowed from Creole cuisine – a different fusion altogether. Of course world famous Tabasco sauce has become a Cajun standard even though its origin is clearly West Indian.
Read my story on discovering the cuisine of my ancestry:
Mt. Olympus & the village of LitohoroWithin the Mt. Olympus range
Home to Zeus and his family of gods, declared the first Greek national park in 1938, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1981 and a European Union “Most Important Bird” area, the region includes 120 species of flowers, 1,700 species of plants with 23 exclusive to the Mount Olympus microclimate.
The Bath of Zeus
No wonder the gods wanted this prime real estate. At its base is Dion, the nearly three-millennium old holy city of ancient Macedonia dedicated to Olympian Zeus. Within the confines of the park is the 600-year-old Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Dionysios of Olympus. And scattered throughout are sites steeped in legend and history.
Virmilionville holds the spirits and memories of the people who lived, loved and worked in them for over two centuries
Vermilionville
There is much to see and learn at Vermilionville. The self-guided walking tour gives the visitor the opportunity to linger and absorb the feeling of life in a pre-20th century village.
Cajuns are the survivors of ethnic cleansing carried out of a grand scale in the 1760s…I know. As the direct descendant of survivors I grew up with the history as bed-time stories… read at
Fed by three river systems—the Sabine, Calcasieu and Mermentau – 85 percent of Cameron Parish is coastal wetlands, open water or open range.
Over a million alligators populate Louisiana. Cattle graze on grasslands; rice and sugar cane fields still thrive. There are 26 miles of Gulf of Mexico beaches blissfully free of high-rise condos, hotels or even beach houses.
Mt. Athos at dawnmosaic floor at the excavations Monastery of Zygos
The evidence of Greece’s long and turbulent civilization lay scattered throughout the country. It was as easy to stumble across remnants of an ancient site in the middle of a farm field as it was to visit the impressive ruins of the 10th century Monastery of Zygos
Ancient StagiraAlexandros Palace Hotel
Between Mt. Athos and Stagira the 250-room Alexandros Palace Hotel resort complex, a veritable village on a 90-acre hillside just outside Ouranoupolis, is an ideal location to explore this fabled peninsula.
The volcano that blew Santorini into history 3,500 years ago is responsible for a combination of natural forces creating ideal conditions for agricultural products sought after throughout Greece.
Georgia Tsara and Yiorgos Hatziyannakis
Georgia is the foremost expert on the island’s unique agriculture, coordinates and teaches many of the cooking, cheese and wine classes held at Selene and was a major force behind Santorini’s Year of Gastronomy designation in 2013.
Philippi would be a doorway to Asia Minor. It would serve three empires. It would be a major player in creating history.
Lydia of Philippisia became St. Paul’s first convert in 49 A.C.E. receiving baptism in the Zygaktis River – a gesture with international ramifications.
Legendary New Orleans: hurricanes can’t destroy it; corrupt politics can’t infect it; potholes can’t deter its beauty.
Sazerac: the “official” drink of New OrleansNapoleon House (circa 1791)
Food and drink sustain it: “We’ll always have hospitality,” says celebrity chef Frank Brigtsen.
Chef Frank Brigtsen at the New Orleans Cooking Experience
“I was taught by Paul Prudhomme; it was one the greatest blessings in my life, and I want to give back and foster the next generation of New Orleanians to at least learn and respect the cuisine.”
Gumbo
“As we diversify the types of food being cooked in the city of New Orleans, it’s even more important to me to make gumbo and keep that going.”
Read my exclusive interview with famed chef Frank Brigtsen.
Liz Williams, director of SoFABLobster, crab & avocado cocktail
“Creole cuisine, the food of New Orleans, it’s a living thing. Nobody’s trying to stop it from changing; nobody said its got to end, so that’s why it’s still alive.”
Is there a beverage that defines the South? Creole and Cajun fusion? (or confusion) In my interview with Liz Williams, director of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum (SoFAB), she answers all and states the mission of this unique institution, “Look at cultural attitudes towards the foods, not just a recipe.”
Travel with Pen and Palate 
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