Scenes from Foreign Cinema

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee

I am not sure how you like yours, but I drink all kinds. The constant is that I never use any sugar and, I would ALWAYS rather have my coffee in a cafe, or a coffee shop. I guess growing up at our house, coffee was always a time to try and get whomever of your neighbors is around, assemble, eat pastries (some would smoke) and TALK. Invitations were yelled orally from balconies, except in the mornings where people take turns hosting the coffee hour (you can always go on Monday to so and so's house for coffee). Anyhow, things have changed a lot, some for the better (I think much better coffee) and some to the worse. Around here, we are blessed with amazing local roasters -like Metropolis and Intelligentsia- that supply the majority of our local coffee shops (See this for a brief description of the coffee scene here). The drink that I order more often than not is a double espresso with foam on top (or machiato - I find the descriptive name easier). Anyhow, on the right, you will find ...

Paris, O Paris...

This is a brief post about what we ate on our recent lovely trip to Paris. We have made it to unbelievable restaurants, sampled amazing chocolates, saw beautiful art, walked romantic streets, and just had a great time. The restaurants we ate at are all in the nouveau French cuisine where the emphasis is on fresh, local, healthy,... and amazing. Arriving to our hotel, we head immediately to lunch at Ze Kitchen Gallery ... a funky and hip restaurant in St. Germain right a block from the Seine. The appetizers we chose were a play on raw fish. These dishes to me are as good as the fish you get, and they were wonderful (with a unique presentation): Asian flavors, mixed with slightly sweet and crunchy peels of cucumber, some radishes marinated green papaya and mango. Dora had the (raw) sardines, tomato and a ginger like sauce. It is slightly challenging to eat raw sardines as the fish is a little tough. Trout from Banka.... Sardines Cod... Rabbit! Desert... Ch...

The Spice house - Evanston

It took Easter and making homemade Sausage for me to take a trip back after a VERY long time to our local SPICE store. And, what a treat this was. Walking in, the smell of anise/cinnamon/red chile/ welcomes you, with tons of jars alongside the walls, you immediately feel that this is the real deal. I immediately thought this is how an old 1950's pharmacy -where pharmacists literally filled your prescription- must have looked like: Different size glass containers, meticulously labeled and displayed alphabetically, and some by region. They had the Paprika wall of fame, along side the outstanding collection of various kinds of chiles from Mexico and beyond, opposite the green wall of various oreganos, Turkish peppermint, zaatar, cilantro (or coriander),... You order by the bag or by various size jars. We got cumin, coriander and fennel seeds, Paprika, and crystallized ginger (yes - the sausages were ok- that is another topic). I really enjoyed this place, a temple for spice, and why...

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