Recently the Ritz, the most famous hotel in the world, reopened its doors after a $450 million renovation. Situated on Paris’ Place Vendôme, where dukes and princes used to live, the accommodation is no less palatial than any royal residence and those who are able to afford a room there (running as high as $25,000 a night) surely must feel like a king or a queen, which was the goal of the hotel’s founder, César Ritz. Ernest Hemingway was a regular guest who even took some of the credit for the

"A handful of couscous is better than Mecca and all its dust." So says a famous Moroccan proverb about almsgiving. The maxim cannot be tossed off as mere chauvinism about the tiny balls of dough that are Morocco's national dish. You don't have to be from Africa to appreciate couscous. The late Craig Claiborne, for example, called it one of the dozen greatest dishes in the world. Paula Wolfert, who 30 years ago wrote what is still, in my judgment, the definitive treatise on the subject, claimed

Jack Conaway was cutting peat for fuel in the Emlagh bog in County Meath, Ireland, back in 2016 when he made a stinking discovery. Buried twelve feet underground was a twenty-two pound lump of butter estimated to be about 2,000 years old. The surprising thing about this finding is that it is not all that surprising. Hundreds of specimens of so-called “bog butter” have been located across the Emerald Isle. I’ve even seen one. It’s on display at the Butter Museum in Cork, Ireland, near the old

The pomegranate, that beautiful fruit with the jewel-like red seeds, has recently exploded on the culinary scene. Which is appropo for a fruit which inspired the name a hand-tossed explosive, known as the grenade. Grenadiers, 18th century soldiers who specialized in throwing grenades, thought that the device's shrapnel pellets reminded them of those seeds. Though the pomegranate may have only recently come into its own as a trendy ingredient, it has been around for a long time. Pomegranates were

I have much for which to thank the nuns of the Catholic Church. After all, one of them taught me how to read. But I’m almost equally grateful to Roman Catholic nuns for their role in inventing and perfecting some of the most heavenly pastries on earth. Collectively called convent sweets because they originated in the convents of Italy, Spain, and particularly Portugal as far back as the 15th century, they ultimately made their way far beyond the Iberian peninsula. The best of these creations

Though it was not part of the last Olympics, olive oil wrestling is the national sport of Turkey, where an annual tournament has been held since 1346, making it the oldest continuously running, sanctioned sporting competition in the world. Following Greco-Roman traditions, contestants slather themselves in olive oil and try to come to grips with one another, a process which, before time limits were instituted, could go on for days. Now if your interest in olive oil involves giving an opponent

What do award-winning cookbook author Rick Bayless , Food Network Iron Chef Bobby Flay, nationally acclaimed pastry chef Gale Gand , and Chloe, my granddaughter, have in common? They all began their culinary education by slaving over a hot light bulb. Chloe, just like those three celebrity chefs when they were youngsters, has been the recipient of an Easy-Bake oven, which, famously, can produce cakes, cookies, pies, and other goodies using only the heat generated by an ordinary 100-watt

Perhaps you remember the classic episode of the television sitcom "Friends" in which Rachel, a notoriously bad cook, concocts a trifle. As Rachel describes to dinner guests Ross and Joey the contents of her version of the classic English layered dessert, the two become suspicious, for interspersed among the typical tiers of ladyfingers, jam, custard, whipped cream, and berries there is a layer of beef sautéed with peas and onions. Not surprisingly, the dish is not a huge success and, curious,

I have a confession to make. For years I have been making a chocolate cake that everybody raves over. Once I took it to a committee meeting and one of the committee members said it was absolutely the best chocolate cake he had ever tasted. Another time I took it to a party and people actually fought over the last slice. Without fail, whenever I serve it, somebody asks for the recipe. Well, the cake does contain some flavorful ingredients— Kahlua , sour cream, and almost a pound of chocolate. But

The ancient Greeks believed that our galaxy was created when the goddess Hera spilled some of her milk as she was nursing the baby Hercules. Each drop became a star in what we have ever after appropriately called the Milky Way. Likewise the Egyptians, the Hindus, and the Sumerians assigned milk a central role in their creation stories. Milk-based creation myths can be found in many cultures around the world and you might regard them as merely entertaining and fanciful stories, as I always have.