Thanks for joining me on the journey.
I’m an American travel writer dividing my time between Seville, Spain and California. I travel the world seeking intriguing curiosities and outrageously delicious comfort food so I can have the fun of writing about them here. — Karen McCann
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Dazed and Confused in Dijon, France
“I like my gingerbread covered with pâté de foie gras , accompanied by a nice white wine.” As Philippe sighed with pleasure at the memory, I thought: “I will never get this town.” Dijon was the 36th city we’d stayed in during the last five months. Our Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour has taken us through…
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You Are What — and Where — You Eat
“Deliciosa, ” my guests all murmured politely. “Que maravilloso.” But it was pretty obvious they didn’t really think the dinner Rich and I had prepared was delicious or marvelous. In fact, having accepted the smallest possible servings, they mostly just pushed the food around on their plates as if hoping it would somehow contrive to…
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Carlotta’s Secrets for Cooking Italian Comfort Food
Want a simple, sure-fire way to break the ice with strangers? Try committing a social faux pas! Rich and I proved the effectiveness of this method yet again last Saturday night when we showed up at a dinner in Turin, Italy with a bottle of white wine as a hostess gift. I’d chilled it in…
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How to Create Your Own Comfort Food Tour of Italy
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano couldn’t survive in space without a taste of home. One of the many things I loved about living in Cleveland was Little Italy, a neighborhood where you could always find outstanding pasta, veal piccata, and Chianti, often served family style with a side of accordion music. A friend took us down…
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The Secret Life of Parmesan Cheese
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…
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Croatia’s Time Machine
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…
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The Ultimate Comfort Food of the Balkans
“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…
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Offbeat Roadside Attractions in Sarajevo
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…
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Packing, Food, Comfort: Lessons from 100 Days on the Road
“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…
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Coffee with Breakfast? Are You Crazy?
“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…
TRAVEL with CURIOSITY
These days I’m cultivating curiosity, which science says will keeps my brain agile. I figure spending more time on the road and indulging my natural nosiness about the world will be good therapy and a cheerful counterpoint to today’s headlines. And I will never run out of quirky stuff to write about.
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