Eating Europe Week 12 PALERMO, SICILY— The longer I stay in Italy, the more I want to pitch a tent, skip the rest of the countries on my yearlong list, and dive into the Italian food and culture as deeply as I can. France, Spain, and a dozen other countries with storied cuisine and customs [...]

Amalfi, Italy— “God called the dry ground ‘land’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas.’ And God saw that it was good.”— Genesis I:10. In case you were wondering, God was looking at the Amalfi Coast when he said that. For 50 years I have been drawn to photographs of Italy’s Amalfi Coast. It has [...]

Eating Europe Week 10 ROME— Yesterday we regretfully left Villa Il Santo in the Tuscan countryside and made our way down the A-1 toll road to the capital city. As we were packing and shutting down the villa, I worried that we might have reached this expedition’s pinnacle just 10 weeks into the yearlong journey. [...]

Week Nine Eating Europe Lesson #267— The tourist places are crowded for a reason: There is usually something worthwhile, awe-inspiring, memorable, and/or inspirational to see or experience in those locations. Leaving home, I had the attitude that I was going to steer clear of the tourist spots and keep it local. The problem with that [...]

FLORENCE, ITALY— I eat for a living. Over the course of the last 30 years I’ve eaten all manner of meals in all types of locations. Last week I enjoyed one of the most unique meals I have ever eaten. I enjoyed it in one of the most unusual settings I have ever seen, in [...]

BARBARINO VAL D’ELSA, ITALY— This yearlong trip was two years in the making. I knew, going in, that the first six weeks were going to be hard. I had no clue. My wife, 14 year-old daughter, 10 year-old son and I just covered 4,500 miles, on two continents, in 13 countries, spending the night in [...]

VIENNA, AUSTRIA— In 1968, I came home from a day in first grade at Woodley Elementary School and my mother asked, “What did you have for lunch today?” “Hamburger with peeling,” I said. It took her two weeks to figure out that the cafeteria had served veal cutlets that day. It’s strange to imagine that [...]

This yearlong writing assignment has taken me into some pretty strange places. Last week I was in Albania. This might seem like a strange stop on a 30-country tour of Europe, but there is rhyme to the reason. Ferdinant Balla is one of the chefs at our new Italian restaurant, Tabella. He is from Albania, [...]

DELPHI, GREECE— Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Back home, I have several options. There is my “Daddy Breakfast,” the go-to morning meal I make at home at the request of the children. It’s the same every time— Allan Benton’s bacon cooked in my cast-iron skillet, hash browns cooked crisp in the grease [...]

My week in 111 words or less: We regretfully left Bologna, drove a beautiful stretch of Italian highway along the Adriatic Sea, spent two nights in an ancient Southern Italian town— Ostuni— with tiny streets, lost my wife at a laundromat, was verbally accosted by a crazy Italian man, spent the night on a rickety [...]