Fish Amok

The food in Cambodia is great. There is a lot of coconut and fresh fruit. There are hints of the curry one expects due to proximity to Thailand. Noodles are loved, but so are French baguettes, a reminder of colonial times. The food is not as hot as in Thailand, but it is still wonderfully [...]

Datiles con Tocino

This recipe is Spanish, and it is most commonly served as a tapa, or appetizer. The term tapa means “cover,” and it refers to the practice of covering your drink with a card to keep the flies out. People would then use the card on top of their drinks as a place to set down [...]

Hot Dates

Dates are a staple food in many desert lands, and this dried fruit seller in Meknes, Morocco, offers many different varieties, along with a few figs.

While a coconut palm may be the quintessential image of hot, humid, tropical landscapes, the inescapable image in hot, dry, desert landscapes is the date palm. (Have you ever [...]

A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

Coconuts in the Caribbean (Barbados)
Tree of Life—it sounds somewhat mythical or mystical, but in many parts of the world, not only does such a tree exist, it exists in abundance. It is the coconut palm, that slender, graceful tree that is so much a part of our image of tropical paradise. While coconut is enjoyed [...]

Peixe com Môlho de Tangerina

Of course, following a history of oranges, I need to offer you a recipe that uses this popular fruit. The easy and elegant recipe below comes from Brazil. The Portuguese are known to have been growing oranges there by 1587. Today, Brazil is one of the world’s leading commercial producers of sweet and mandarin oranges, [...]

Orange You Glad

 Oranges in an outdoor market in Mexico.
The room that surprised me most at London’s Hampton Court Palace, the first time I visited, was the orangery. I expected a lot of things in a palace, but not agriculture. The orangery at Hampton Court is a wonderful, bright room with high ceilings and high, arched windows [...]