Author: Karen McCann

​Hosting dinner parties in a foreign country provides abundant opportunities for pitfalls, pratfalls, and faux pas. I often recall with a shudder one particular night, shortly after we moved to Seville, when I passed around a cheese platter only to have my Spanish guests throw back their heads and howl with laughter. I stared at…

Remember the chicken dance ? The one where you flap your wings and shake your tail feathers? When was the last time you did it walking down the street in a foreign city? Yeah, I can’t remember either; maybe never — until last Monday night in Zagreb, Croatia. That’s when Rich and I heard the…

“Bey’s Soup is the ultimate comfort food of the Balkans,” Dalida told me, as she began chopping onions. “We eat it in every season, at the holidays, for special occasions — all the time really.” “Who is Bey?” I asked. “Ah, that would be Gazi Hüsrev Bey ,” she said, smiling the way you do…

Sam Osmanagich, a Bosnian businessman based in Houston since 1992 and dressing as Indian Jones since becoming an amateur archaeologist in 2005. ​Growing up in California, I was steeped in the culture of goofy roadside attractions involving ghosts, aliens, Bigfoot, and ancient, unfathomable mysteries recently invented by hucksters who’d like to sell you a ticket…

“Whatever you do, don’t cross her,” Rich said, after our first encounter with the manager of our hotel in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This formidable woman had issued a flurry of instructions and left a large, laminated card in our room listing more rules. No cooking in the room, despite the fact we had a…

“You want coffee now?” Our waiter could not conceal his astonishment. “With breakfast?” Too well-trained to roll his eyes, the waiter (who also served as the desk clerk of our hotel in Durr ës, Albania) murmured, “Right away, madam” in a way that spoke volumes. He disappeared into the back, ostensibly to fetch the coffee…

​Four years ago, my husband — and I say this lovingly — became obsessed with an Albanian restaurant called Ali Kali. “The owner brings in your food riding on the back of a trick horse,” he said. “Ali Kali means Ali’s Horse. It’s fantastic. We’ve gotta go.” “I’m in, obviously. Where is it?” We were…

Some readers (and you know who you are) have expressed skepticism about our visit to Albania. “Why?” and “Are you nuts?” are among the milder comments I’ve received. “There’s nothing to see there,” a Spanish friend insisted. I beg to differ. Last Friday we entered Albania over wooded mountains, descending into a broad green valley…

“How can there be no taxis?” I demanded. “This is North Macedonia’s second largest city. Wikipedia called Bitola the transportation hub of the region. What gives?” “To be fair, there is a taxi. There’s just nobody in it.” Rich and I gazed at the empty yellow cab at the curb, the silent train station, and…

​Like so many of Rich’s truly brilliant ideas, I thought it was totally insane when he first proposed it. Five days earlier, we’d left the warm hospitality of Greece and headed to the more bracing atmosphere of Skopje, the capital of what’s now known as North Macedonia . Skopje turned out to have a marvelous…