Cheese for Dessert?   The Europeans have served it for years.  Along with some fresh or preserved fruits, or a dessert wine, any fine cheese can be turned into a dessert course. And any cheese course can be greatly enhanced with a discovery we made at…

This dessert is a showboat.  It looks like it came straight from Paris’ best patisserie.  And indeed its inspiration did.  It was Dorie Greenspan’s introduction to French pastry, an all-strawberry version and the first pastry she tasted when she first set foot in France.  It…

Emerald Waterways takes to the Rhône With a Top Chef on Board Jun 20, 2017 | 4:26 pm By Monte Mathews Staff Writer Chef Fabien Morreale has created a special meal for the passengers of these ships. Glen and Karen Moroney The Australian Company Scenic…

            Baking can be a challenge in the heat. But the lure of local berries and the idea of incorporating them into a very simple cake sounds like a great idea.  Especially one like this  can be eaten virtually any time of the day. That…

 The focus of The Daily Meal, is, of course, food.  And so everything I write for them is about Food Events, Wine Touring and Culinary Travel.  I’m proud of my work and have acquired quite a portfolio of stories.  But many of my trips are…

Last Thursday’s  post about the first five days of my Rhine River Getaway, brought news from many of my fellow passengers and I was so glad to hear from them.  To me travel has always been about meeting people, making fresh discoveries together, learning, absorbing…

Dorie Greenspan’s Rhubarb Upside-Down Brown Sugar Cake with Fresh Strawberries and Crème Fraiche In the annals of Chewing the Fat, never has one cake come close to having a name as long as this one.  However, I could write a new adage: ‘the longer the…

         Last November, in the New York Times no less, came a story about a Burger that caused, in the words of my late father, “a big stink”.  There were no complaints about the burger itself. In fact, it is lauded as being New York’s…

Too often, I get into trouble with a recipe that’s just too much food for two people.  Try as I may, cutting back on volume isn’t always the easiest task.   Things that say they are for four people are relatively simple to divide in half. …

Julie Richardson wrote a cookbook devoted to old-fashioned cakes, the ones you may remember your grandmother cooking or at the very least, bringing home from the local bakery.   “Vintage Cakes” (Ten Speed Press 2012) is filled with gems that are not only nostalgic but are…

I got into a peck of trouble for pronouncing Pasta a cold-weather food.  And I have to admit, ‘they’ were right and I was wrong.  Pasta is one of the most adaptable of all foods.  Just think what you can marry it with! Fish, shellfish,…

I have to admit, I am enamored with Trader Joe’s even if it has its drawbacks.  Among them, those incredible lines out the door on weekends. And their cash register lines are epic.  The store also doesn’t carry everything so it inevitably means shopping two…

Lyon, one beautiful city Three years ago, my friend Kimberly moved to Europe from Montclair, New Jersey. Her husband had been assigned by his American company to run their European division which has its headquarters in the third largest city in France: Lyon.  Kimberly, Peter…

Letizia Mattiaci of Alla Madonna del Piatto Lucky me!  I’ve been traveling most of the month of May.  I’ve done two almost back-to-back river cruises, one on the Rhine from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands with stops along the way in France and Germany.  A…