This year, for the first autumn birthday, we took the family and a guest to a nearby Korean barbeque that has gotten some great reviews. Honey Pig really is a small slice of South Korea tucked into the DC suburbs. From its dark and industrial-styled interior to its straightforward, unembellished service and the thumping pop on the sound system it feels like stepping into another … Read more
A share of stock issued in 1606 by the sea trading firm Dutch East India Company has recently been discovered in the Netherlands. Locked away in forgotten city archives, the share was made out to Pieter Harmensz, from the Dutch East India Company has recently been found in the northwestern city Hoorn. As the Netherlands’ largest trading company in the 17th and 18 centuries, the … Read more
I’ve sometimes wished that I had gone to Yale. I’ve wondered if my life would be different had I studied there? Where might I be standing now if I had applied? Given my natural inclinations for dogged research, I might have become an archivist working with rare books and tablets or I might have become a preparator who restores and studies precious artifacts . . … Read more
A guest post by Chef, Miles Collins: When Laura kindly offered me her pulpit to eulogise the wonders of the Silk Road I knew at once what I should write about-England. I am English and as an Englishman I owe those ancient traders and travellers of the Silk Road a huge debt of gratitude. For as much as Laura’s writings of soups and stews from … Read more
“We always knew the Gypsies were coming when we heard the light tinkling of silver bells coming up the lane. The sound of the bells was delicate and light and fell in rhythm with the trot of the horses pulling the covered wagon. We didn’t know where they came from, there were no Gypsy encampments nearby, but they came to the house two or three … Read more
This interesting object recently found its way into our home. It’s a jade vessel dating from China’s Yuan Dynasty. It appeared on the breakfast table one morning at the end of January. To be honest, at first I wasn’t so sure about it, but the more I consider it, the more I’m taking a shine to it. We’ve got to clean it up a bit, … Read more
Cucumbers, capers, ginger, garlic, peppers, beans, asparagus, onions: Any vegetable out there – and quite a few fruits as well make excellent pickles. All along the Silk Road, harvest time and the weeks and months that follow are a time when, in many traditional cultures, foods are salted or pickles or otherwise preserved to provide a bountiful table in the cold winter months that follow. … Read more
Every chef and serious home cook knows that good knife skills are important for the safe and proper preparation of food. Knife skills teach us how to properly julienne or paysanne vegetables or other ingredients without taking the fingers of the facing hand off. They also teach you how to study the object being prepared and to cut in line with its natural shape or … Read more
No, not another promised exploration of the cuisines of the Levant States or of Saudi Arabia. This essay is about the root vegetables eaten along the Silk Road. That is onions, shallot, leek, garlic, carrot, rhubarb, beet, radish and turnip – and everything in between. For example, all of the commonly consumed vegetables in the Allium family (onion, shallot, leek and garlic) as well as … Read more
Several readers have commented that they have been surprised at all of the countries that I’ve included in the Silk Road Gourmet and in the blog. Being used to only considering the northern land route from Xi’an to the Caucasus as the Silk Road, some folks are amazed to learn of the many other land and sea routes that actually networked to move goods around … Read more
I love music. I avidly listen to a wide variety of music from the close harmonies of Orlando Gibbons to MJQ with the occasional Fall Out Boy hit thrown into the mix. I listen to different types of world music, and even like the modern fusion of electronica and world music found on the Six-Degrees label. I studied classical piano and the related subjects of … Read more