I’m spending the next week at Gudiolo, a beautiful Italian countryside home outside of the small Umbrian village of San Giovanni del Pantano. The week is a visit with my sister, who is travelling throughout Europe this year, and also a farm stay as part of the helpex network. Longtime readers will remember my similar visits to the French goat farm and in Tuscany three summers ago. Although we are working for our room and board, we are also guests of the wonderfully gregarious Madeline, who has so many words of wisdom I feel compelled to follow her around with pen and paper collecting bits of life lessons as we weed the gardens and carry out chores.

In the few days we have been here already, we have seen and done so much. We quickly made ourselves useful on day one, cooking a casual dinner for friends, family, and other helpexers in Madeline’s impressive kitchen, roasting artichokes from the garden into a pilaf and finding a use for the chickpea flour with a Moroccan-style crepe. I’ve been constantly reminded of my mother and grandmother during the morning’s weeding sessions, surrounded by the property’s poppies, something both women loved. Afternoons have been spent walking the family’s beautiful new Maremma puppies, and the landscape is just breathtaking—the hillsides go on for miles and miles in every direction. And we had the lucky opportunity to attend a presentation of the Civetlla Ranieri Foundation’s current fellows, a collection of visual artists, writers, composers, and poets spending a few weeks working in Italy; Melanie and I were both a little star struck to hear regular New Yorker poet Jane Hirshfield read her works.

The plan for the rest of the week is just as exciting. Tonight we are headed into Cortona to pick up Madeline’s daughter for a weekend visit, where we will all enjoy a pizza dinner and possibly look for new summer sandals. Saturday we have a wonderful dinner party for 20 planned, a menu of fresh, light dishes along with a three-piece jazz band. Hopefully there will be time for a visit to a special gelato shop in Perugia, a nearby town, as well. In between all the fun, I’m putting my skills to work trying to help Madeline with her website and blogging, as well as with weeding projects (a great way to work on my tan!), and cooking for the group (which I find so relaxing). All in all, it may not be tanning poolside,  but it is a wonderful break from the rush of work and life in Berlin and really so lovely to get to know these new people, hear their thoughts and perspectives on life, and breath this fresh Italian air.

Melanie and I have been waking up each morning to clear our heads and prepare for the day with some yoga. Looking out of the terrace during my stretches I face the heart-shaped hillside opposite Gudiolo. I find the view to be so positive that I know I will certainly come away from the trip feeling quite rejuvenated and renewed in spirit.

My January trip to California may have been for work, but I was also able to spend a few rare days with my best friend Jessica while I was on the West Coast. As Chef de Cuisine of Los Gatos’ Manresa, Jes has an even busier schedule then me, so I felt lucky to catch her days off. But she stays busy even in her freetime, often foraging and helping out at the restaurant’s farm, Love Apple Farms. When she asked if I’d like to go looking for chanterelles and citrus, I jumped at the opportunity.

Which brought me, Jes, and a few of the friendly ladies from the Manresa kitchen to the Santa Cruz mountains looking for mushrooms. It had just rained, and the group was hopeful for a great catch. A bit naively, I expected a field full of mushrooms to greet me, ready for whatever enthusiastic picker was interested. Instead we climbed around the country side, using long sticks to search the ground beneath the trees.  I turned over a dried-out chanterelle, but didn’t find anything edible. The girls declared it a dud day in the end, but they still managed to fill up a container with mushrooms in a variety of shapes and sizes. The experience makes it very clear why mushrooms can be so expensive—it’s hard work to find them!

After our mushroom foraging, we went back up the hill to Gene Lester’s incredible citrus grove. He grows an amazing variety of citrus (with nearly 500 trees!) including Mexican limes, Indio Mandarinquats, and Variegated Eureka Lemons. I walked around and tasted as many as I could: bright tangy kumquats, sweet nectarines, and bitter Meyer lemons. The majority (what I didn’t eat) went back to Manresa to be turned into jam, zest, mustards, sorbets, and more for their upcoming annual citrus dinner.

Just thinking about this day brings the citrus scent into my mind, a memory I always associate to my days living in California. Citrus season will soon come to an end, so if you live somewhere warm enough to find them growing locally, pick a few and think of me!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s the middle of February—time is just flying by! We are in the midst of a transatlantic move, but my busy life is also thanks to the month I recently spent back in the U.S. I left a very rainy Berlin in early January, taking nine flights in less then four weeks(!) to jet back and forth from the East and West coasts.

The trip started in San Francisco, where I met some of the city’s top chefs with StarChefs.com‘s Editor in Chief Antoinette Bruno. Then it was back home for a few relaxing days in Virginia with my mom and dad, enjoying the East coast and their company. In early February, TH met me in Brooklyn for a quick visit to some of our favorite haunts. And then we both travelled to San Francisco to see family and friends, celebrate birthdays, enjoy California’s nature with hikes and drives along the coast, and cook plenty of great meals.

I love our life in Berlin, but it was really nice to be back in California, where everything is a little bit sunnier and the produce can’t be beat. It doesn’t hurt that Antoinette and I had some incredible meals during our tasting trip. We both eagerly awaited our visit to Benu, where Chef Corey Lee and Sommelier Bobby Conroy treated us to a very special night. It was also so wonderful meet the talented Pastry Chef Yigit Pura, who has to be one of the happiest and most positive chefs I know. We got to stop by one of my favorite places, the Ferry Building farmer’s market, and we attended the 20th Annual Women Chefs & Restauranteurs conference. It was an action-packed two weeks and such a source of inspiration.

I was also able to visit with my best friend Jessica during my California trip, and she took me on an adventure to a citrus farm in Santa Cruz. I’ll share some citrus photos next week but for now here are a few pictures from my incredible meals in San Francisco.

Pastries by Pastry Chef Yigit Pura from Tout Sweet

Trout, Dungeness Crab, Fennel, Pistou, Couscous, Saffron, and Vanilla from Chef Mark Liberman of AQ

McEvoy Ranch Organic Olio Nuovo Poached Chicken, Grains, and Cabbage from Chefs Evan and Sarah Rich Rich Table

Sweetbreads, Asian Pear, Brussel Sprouts, Black Truffle, and Chestnut-Celery Root Velouté from Chef Jason Fox of Commonwealth

My sister, TH, and I headed south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen over the Christmas holidays for a few days in the German alps. It is a beautiful area and it was wonderful to enjoy the charms of a small Bavarian town. Getting there included a 10-hour train ride from Berlin through the countryside, so I packed a batch of delicious granola bars to snack on. A combination of oats, nuts, seeds, peanut butter, and dried fruit, these bars are full of flavor and energy. They’re definitely a new favorite snack—great for on the go or after a long day.

Garmisch provided just the relaxing getaway we were looking for. We stayed in the quaint, family run Gästehaus Sissi, where we enjoyed big German-style breakfasts each morning before catching a train up the mountain to the country’s highest peak, the Zugspitze. The town itself is full of picturesque Bavarian-style homes covered in elaborate paintings, and the holiday decorations and jovial Christmas market really helped set the mood. Our Christmas meals were full of local specialities, including a giant roasted pig knuckle with potato dumplings and kaiserschmarrn, a traditional sweet pancake, for dessert.

After a few days of skiing and snowboarding over the gorgeous, snowy alps, we headed back to Berlin via an overnight stay with our friend Charlotte and her family in Erlangen, a small town outside of Nürnberg. It was so special to see a real German household decorated for the holidays and enjoy an incredible feast with her delightful family. We also visited Nürnberg and Bamberg, enjoying our fill of Nürnberg’s tiny bratwurst and delicious leberkäse sandwichs in Bamburg, as well as the cities’s charming architecture and sites. It’s great to be back in Berlin, but it was a truly special trip, full of wonderful friends, food, and fun.

Granola Bars, adapted from Serious Eats
Servings: 16 bars
1 cup agave syrup or honey
⅔ cup chunky natural peanut butter
2⅔ cups muesli with flax and sunflower seeds, or rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup golden raisins
½ cup dried goji berries
½ cup chopped almonds

Preheat the oven to 350°Farenheit/176 °Celsius. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. In a medium bowl, combine the syrup and peanut butter until well mixed. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Add the peanut butter-syrup mixture into the dry ingredients and combine. Lightly grease your hands and press the mixture  into the pan, flattening into a uniform sheet. Bake until golden brown, around 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes, remove from the pan, and cut into bars. Cool completely and store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

A three hour bus ride took us to Hamburg last weekend for a visit with our good friend Charlotte.  Although Hamburg is often described  as generally rainy and wet, we had a clear sunny day to walk around this beautiful city. We explored the Venetian arcade and Rathaus area, had lunch in Sternschanze at Bulleri, and enjoyed the festivities at the world’s sexiest Christmas market in Hamburg’s red light district. We also quickly became fans of Franzbrötchen, a flattened cinnamon roll, that I strongly suggest you try if you find yourself in town. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.

I had to go on a very quick trip to Chicago this weekend for work—gone Friday, back Saturday night—and walking around my old haunts made me remember how much I love the Windy City. New York may have all the glitz and glamour of a big town, (along with some serious culinary greats), but Chicago is a beautiful place that stands out on its on. I was in town to interview the fabulously interesting Martin Kastner, the creative genius behind Crucial Detail and many of the artful, thought-provoking service ware, design elements, and boundary-pushing elements of Alinea and Next. It may have been in-and-out trip, but it was so cool to see Krastner’s studio and work in action.

Inside Crucial Detail with Martin Kastner

Although I barely had a chance to unpack my bags before I was heading back to the airport, I did get to run along the lakefront (one of my favorite areas in Chicago), catch dinner and drinks at Balsan in the newly minted Waldorf Astoria, and hang out with the fun, and very proud, crew of Balena for staff meal. It’s always great to be back in Chicago, even if it’s only a short but sweet trip, and it was particularly nice this time around. Be on the look out for my Martin Krastner profile and Balena staff meal feature in the coming weeks on StarChefs.com.

Tiki drinks and waterfalls, a little sunshine from our last vacation, to Hawaii.

TH has finally made his way from Chicago to New York, and this weekend we were in the midst of moving me from Park Slope into a  sublet together in Williamsburg, so this will be a short little note hello. And what better way to say hello than with sunny pictures from our most recent holiday in Hawaii. While we were still apart, we were lucky enough to meet up, and fly the coop for a few days in early February, when we headed to the Big Island for tiki drinks, snorkeling and waterfall hikes.

This was my first visit to Hawaii (other than as a six-month-old), and I was thoroughly enamored with the Island culture; the warm hospitality and laid-back spirit was certainly something I could get used to. And those big drinks didn’t hurt either. Highlights included Okolemaluna Tiki Lounge, Akaka Falls, fresh rambutan at the Kona farmers market and snorkeling at Kahaluu-Keauhou cove. And we’d head back for the pretty beach view at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, any day. Even though our larger-than-life Hilton resort (complete with a monorail and on-site dolphins), wasn’t our normal traveling style, it was nice to sit by the beach, relax and escape the East Coast winter. And with spring right around the corner, Hawaii’s sunshine look’s like it’s finally headed our way!

Marrakech, Tangier, Casablanca. We may have been lost, but we were certainly well fed.

It all started with the idea of getting lost in Morocco. From a romanticized article in the New York Times and the abundance of cocktails in Casablanca, to our friends misty memories of their own trip to the North African country, TH and I couldn’t get the locale out of our heads.

So we booked tickets, slept through most of Christmas Day in the Lisbon airport, and arrived by nightfall in Marrakech. And we learned very quickly that it is not at all difficult to get lost in Morocco. Lesson number one: Google Maps, and GPS systems, don’t work in in this country, where the old city center most closely resembles Labyrinth. Wandering the streets at 11pm, two suitcases in tow, every male age 10 to 70 wants to become your new friend, bring you to his riad, or show you the way. Sooner or later (the when just depends on your exhaustion level), you’ll need to succumb to these new friends (for a fee, of course), because Google Maps, just isn’t gonna cut it.

Of course, in the moment it will seem that you are going the right way (your GPS will say you are!) and that you can navigate the city all alone. But when you let your pride give way, and ask the latest leather-jacket-wearing buddy for directions, you’ll realize, as you turn down the fourth winding side street, that, arriving by nightfall in Marrakech is adventurous, at the least. The $1 you tip your friend will be worth it, I promise.
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Start your day with a bright herbal tea inspired by my African adventure!

I was lucky enough to spend a week in Morocco over the Christmas holidays. TH and I had an incredible time exploring a completely new culture, and eating a week’s worth of tagines, preserved lemons, cured olives, and rich breads. From wandering through the evening medinas — complete with grilled meats, live music, and costumed performers — to drinking cocktails à la Casablanca in a bar said to inspire the movie, the trip was truly unique. I’ll post a detailed travel guide from our trip shortly, along with some great pictures we snapped along the way, but for a fresh start to January, I wanted to share a glass or two of Moroccan mint tea.

We saw locals sipping on this herbal tea everywhere we went — bars, cafès, even corner stoops; one café owner described the brown liquid as Morocco’s whiskey. We trekked up steep cobblestone streets to sip on it over lunch at a tiny seaside restaurant in Tangier, and watched the sunset over the Marrakech marketplace at a fancy rooftop café. We also managed to bring back a lovely set of gold painted glasses perfect for enjoying the mint-studded tea back at home.

Mint tea may be a wonderful memory of our trip, but this cooling herb also packs plenty of benefits for those of you looking to spruce up in the New Year. Rich in Vitamins A and C, mint also contains a number of minerals, making it a great addition to your morning cuppa. Drinking a pot spiked with mint can stimulate the senses and improve mood, and mint is also known to relieve congestion, head colds and headaches, a much needed remedy this time of year. Moroccan’s enjoy their tea very sweet, with a large handful of mint in each glass. I prefer to cut out some of that sugar, and add a squeeze of lemon juice for a bright, minty sip that makes me feel fresh and ready to tackle the day.

Moroccan Mint Tea
4-6 servings
1 tablespoon loose leaf green tea
4 cups boiling water
2-4 tablespoons sugar, to taste
1 large bunch mint, reserve some mint for garnishing
1 lemon

1. Place the mint, green tea and sugar into a decorative teapot. Pour the boiling water over the mint and brew for 3 to 5 minutes. Place the garnishing mint into the tea cups, pour the tea through a strainer into the cups, and serve. Top with fresh squeezed lemon juice to taste.

A last bite of summer full of lobster, lobster and, oh yeah, some seaside views.

We spent a few days in Cape Cod last week, surprisingly my first visit to this in-demand East Coast locale. Although the weather has turned decidedly chilly and many establishments shuttered their doors shockingly early in lieu of the drop in visitors after Labor Day (don’t plan for any late night eating), it was easy to understand the charm of this seaside getaway. Driving on curvy back roads, you’ll stumble upon one must-see stop after the other — Marion’s pie shop (try the mini blueberry-crumble), the picturesque and remote South Beach in Chatham, and the kitchy Bird Watcher’s General Store in Orleans are all worth a visit — but just walking through the tiny streets amongst salty air-worn bungalows makes for an enjoyable day.

Other than a weekend of relaxing beachside strolls and sightseeing, the area provides for a pretty simple mission: lobster rolls. Harwich Port’s Brax Landing offers the makings of a massive lunch; sit on the bayside patio (the perfect setting even on a chillier afternoon) and share the enormous sandwich, as well as a bowl of the ultra-rich lobster bisque. Make sure to visit to the classic Cape Cod town of Chatham, complete with whitewashed fences, preppy boutiques and Topsider-wearing tourists, and you’ll find Nickerson’s Fish & Lobsters, a tiny operation hidden on a fishing dock. It’s a great place to pick up grub (especially their delicious toasted lobster rolls) before you head out to South Beach, a pristine area popular with both bird watchers and dedicated fishermen, that can only be reached by boat. And the roadside Arnold’s Lobster & Clam Bar in Eastham deserves a stop along your route, for its eclectic diner-style charm and the raved about fried lobster tail dinner.

When you’re ready for a break from lobster, head to the town of Wellfleet, home to the eponymous oyster. You’ll find some of the most inventive fare in the Cape Cod area at the Wicked Oyster, along with a variety of creative cocktails and a decent wine list. For a more casual affair, head to Mac’s Shack and shuck a few oysters yourself. And when you’re feeling a bit stuffed, just head out for another oceanside walk; that salty breeze is guaranteed to get your stomach growling again.