Selected Articles
| Irish Interlude: Cork on a Platter | April 2007 |
| Southern Ireland's fertile farmland, rugged coastline and entrepreneurial folks are the prime ingredients, the reasons why Cork city has become a hotbed of sophisticated restaurants and dazzling food shops. But all of this isn't exactly new. Second to Dublin in terms of size, Cork was home to one of the world's largest butter exchanges for over 150 years and has a long history of food production and export. | |
| Microbreweries in the Land of Guinness | June 18, 2006 |
| RECENTLY, a couple of tourists walked into a postcard-worthy pub in the West of Ireland, complete with a fieldstone fireplace, and asked for two pints of Guinness. Nothing unusual there: Guinness is practically the national drink of Ireland and a Guinness or two is an expected way to cap off the day, or, in some cases, start it. | |
| In Oregon, It's a Brew Pub World | January 13, 2006 |
| THERE'S a saying here that you can't drink all day - unless you start drinking in the early morning," said Jim Parker, a bartender at a venerable neighborhood pub in Portland, Ore., as he served up two beers. It was actually early afternoon, though well ahead of a respectable happy hour. But the chill rain splashing the sidewalks outside felt like a handwritten permission slip from Mother Nature herself to enjoy Portland from the comfort of a barstool. Call it hoppy hour instead. | |
| A Taste of Vintage Virginia | May 20, 2005 |
| ON a hazy morning glimmering with the early warmth of spring, the fog rises from a valley pond, and a flock of geese cries out a morning wakeup call. It is the day's first greeting at Barboursville, the site of a historic landmark in central Virginia, the ruins of one of only five homes designed by Thomas Jefferson. | |
| On Maryland's Shore, An Elegy for Oyster Season? | October 15, 2004 |
| ON a crystal clear afternoon, the light air hinting of fall, the Miss Brandy motored up to a dock on the Kent Narrows in Grasonville, Md., in front of W. H. Harris Seafood. Heaped like a pile of rocks in the middle of the boat was the morning's haul -- oysters, the rough and craggy bottom dwellers that have been the shining jewels of the Chesapeake Bay for generations. | |
| Spirit of New England | June 2006 |
| Think of New England and red barns and covered bridges may come to mind. The region is also known for liquid comforts, from maple syrup to apple cider, even micro-brewed beer. Now a handful of boutique distillers are infusing more spirit into the mix, and the region is emerging as one of the country's best destinations for sampling artisan vodkas. | |