Dan Perlman's Blog, page 9

The Bread & Soup Project #4 – Angola

We’re chugging right along, into week 4 of this project, and alphabetically, we’ve moved on to Angola. Now, along with Mozambique, Angola is probably the most heavily influenced African country by Portuguese colonization many moons ago, and looking through dozens of websites with info on the cuisine, it tends to fall into two categories – either a somewhat traditional West African that seems to be pretty indistinguishable from Nigerian, in fact, they seem to share pretty much the same recipes...

Wines of the Week

Luigi Bosca Sauvignon Blanc 2015 – pale yellow, almost clear at the rim; fruit forward nose with grapefruit and green bell pepper on the nose; on the palate, upfront moderately high acidity, dry, lots of grapefruit, bell pepper and hints of grass; medium finish heavy on the grapefruit. $17

Luigi Bosca “Gala 3” Viognier-Chardonnay-Riesling 2013 – pale yellow, color holding to the rim; fruit forward nose of fresh peaches and flowers; on the palate, soft acidity, dry, minerally – wet stone, the...

Festivals of the Boot

I was sure when I posted a week or so ago about the various gastronomy festivals sponsored by the city in the “BA Celebra…X” series, that the huge multi-ethnic Festival de las Colectividades was the culmination of them all. I was wrong. Another two this past weekend – Croatia & Italy. The first, a mere dozen or so booths, of which only four were serving food, and maybe, maybe, over the course of the hour and a half I was there, two hundred people showed up. I imagine that’s reflective of the...

The Bread & Soup Project #3 – Algeria

Although originally I started out thinking about this project in terms of breads, some sort of vaguely formed idea in my head that every culture has some sort of stuffed bread similar to an empanada, samosa, turnover, pasty, etc. – that’s turning out to not be as true as I surmised. So the bread part of this may stray into slightly more pastry-ish, stuffed sorts of things, or perhaps even not stuffed. Soups, however, in one form or another, are ubiquitous in the world. I think. And besides, w...

Sunchoke and Sundry

I’ve written in the past about the annual BA Food Week event. It’s one that in general I’ve ignored, I sort of gave my reasons there. That was 2013. Last year, I decided to throw myself into it and give it a shot, rather than just whinging, and made it to six spots (here, here, and here), out of which, I concluded, I’d only return to one of. This year, I went back to ignoring the whole thing, except when a friend invited me to join her for lunch at one. And so, a day last week, we toddled off...

The Bread & Soup Project #2 – Albania

There are a myriad of ways I could go with this project. I decided alphabetically by country. Accept it. Embrace it. I can see already that the difficulties, too, are myriad, but I’m game: I have to decide what soup and what filled bread or turnover-ish thing really represents an entire country’s cuisine, and then I have to research various versions of recipes for each and come up with one that seems to encompass the soul of each. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to take awhile – I figure on...

The Season of Food (Festivals)

I’ve never figured out why, but all of the 2-3 dozen ethnic food festivals here in BA seem to take place over the winter – which to me seems the worst time of the year to have outdoor events. Those are quickly followed on by the big gastronomy festivals, like Bocas Abiertas (this past weekend), Raíz (mid-October), and Masticar (though this year it was moved to early, in April, I don’t know if there’s another one coming up in November, as in past years). Somehow, we missed all of the June one...

The Burgers They Keep a’Comin’…

It’s starting to seem like every week I hear about another new gourmet burger spot that’s opened up. Where just a few years ago, it was an actual search to find a burger worth even considering, now my list of places to try is getting longer than I can keep up with. I suppose I could concentrate and just go out there and try one or two a day for a couple of weeks and get all caught up, but much as I like my burgers, that seems like a poor diet plan. I’ll just trudge along and who knows, maybe...

The Bread & Soup Project #1 – Afghanistan

This photo might be the most “liked” of my photos in the last year or two on both Facebook and Instagram. It clearly struck a chord – but then, bread and soup tend to, no? I have this vaguely formed idea of exploring, one country at a time, what amounts to the national bread, preferably something stuffed or flavored, or even more empanada-like, and soup, or at least the most popular, if it’s not been officially recognized in any way. Whether or not this goes on, we shall see. But we do like...

Bread & Soup – Afghanistan

This photo might be the most “liked” of my photos in the last year or two on both Facebook and Instagram. It clearly struck a chord – but then, bread and soup tend to, no? I have this vaguely formed idea of exploring, one country at a time, what amounts to the national bread, preferably something stuffed or flavored, or even more empanada-like, and soup, or at least the most popular, if it’s not been officially recognized in any way. Whether or not this goes on, we shall see. But we do like...