Athens

Notes on Reopening: An Athenian Taverna Prepares to Face the New Normal

Restaurants closed in Athens on Friday, March 13. For Sophia Vracha, it was a “horrible” day, a real “Friday the 13th,” as she put it. Together with her parents, Nikos and Mary, Sophia runs Kissos, a taverna in Chalandri that I wrote about when things were still “normal,” just about a month before the city went into lockdown. While it was a hard day for the family, they had seen it coming. “There was a rumor out and about in the week before it happened,” Sophia said. As she described it, a general feeling of uneasiness and insecurity was in the air. People really began to panic when Covid-19 arrived in Italy, thinking that it was just a matter of days before the virus would come to Greece.

Tbilisi

Notes on Reopening: Small Wineries on Shaky Ground

This year was going to be a big one for Oda Family Winery. Since its humble beginning in 2016, the winery and family farm-to-table restaurant in western Georgia’s Samegrelo region had been carefully expanding with the increasing popularity of its outstanding wine and formidable fare. This year, Keto Ninidze and Zaza Gagua calculated 3,000 guests would visit their restaurant, located in the front yard of their family’s oda (a traditional wooden two-storey house) in Martvili, so they emptied their savings and added new washrooms and a storage room for wine equipment, made a larger garden, and advertised for seven more employees to add to their staff of three. Then coronavirus arrived. “Thank God I didn’t hire any of the applicants and they didn’t leave their jobs,” Keto says.

Lisbon

On the Rebound: Lisbon’s Restaurants Reopen, Step by Step

The dining room may be empty but João Gomes, his wife, Adelaide, and their son, Nuno, still beam a warm welcome as I enter their tasca. Monday – the first day when restaurants in Lisbon were allowed to open – was slow, they explain, and Tuesday was not much different, with only a few people sitting down for a meal. But they have faith that their regulars will start coming in June. “Things will get better, people are still fearful but they will come back,” João tells me. Their tasca, Imperial de Campo de Ourique, is one of the great classics still left standing in the city. They had sold out for many days in February and early March, as lamprey season was in full swing, but now that feels like a distant memory.

Athens

Recipe: Spanakoryzo, Greek Spinach Rice

Considering that there are more than 40,000 cultivated varieties, it’s no surprise that rice has fed people so successfully for so long. Many believe the wonder crop was first cultivated in China as early as 2500 B.C. before spreading to Tibet, India and beyond. It was in India that one of Alexander the Great’s military campaigns came across rice in the 4th century B.C. In his work Geographica (“Geography”), Greek geographer Strabo (c. 62 B.C.-24 A.D.) quotes a source from the campaign: “The rice, according to Aristobolus, stands in water in an enclosure. It is sowed in beds. The plant is four cubits in height, with many ears, and yields a large produce.”

Shanghai

Hot-Dry Noodle Recovery: Chinese Diners Support Wuhan Specialty Dishes

Domestic tourism is back on the menu in China, as new daily cases of Covid-19 drop to single digits across the country. Earlier this month, China’s Tourism Research Center reached out to the newly unlocked-down to see what their top domestic destination was for 2020, and Chinese travelers chose Wuhan as their number one spot. While the epicenter of the virus outbreak might seem like an unlikely travel destination, Chinese netizens are rallying around the city, citing a desire to help it rebound economically as the main reason for choosing Wuhan. It’s the natural extension to the cries of “Wuhan jiayou!” heard round the country during the worst moments of the pandemic here.

Mexico City

Las Crónicas del Conde: An Instagram Live Series with Paco de Santiago

Spanish speakers, join Francisco de Santiago (“Paco”), our lead guide in Mexico City who goes by Conde Pétatl on Instagram, for a new series called Las Crónicas del Conde (“The Chronicles of Conde”). From May 21 until June 16, he will chat with a different guest from around Mexico about the country’s cuisines, cultural traditions and history on Instagram Live each Thursday at 8 p.m. CDT (GMT-5). Paco is a Mexico City native who has a deep passion for his country’s cuisine. He is also a kind of renaissance man — a former champion chess player, bullfighter and more recently, a professional gastro-guide. These days, Paco focuses on the antojitos, or little culinary cravings of his hometown, which are a hallmark of a culinary tour of the city with him.

Marseille

Keeping the Faith: This Year in Marseille, Ramadan with a Twist

Outside brightly lit halal butchers, djellaba-clad women line up for lamb to make chorba stew. Tables heave with honey-soaked pâtisseries orientales, covered in plastic to protect them from flies. From fragrant bundles of mint to the mouthwatering smoke of rotisserie chicken, the tantalizing scents on the Rue Longue des Capucins are a sure-fire way to make you hungry. For those fasting for Ramadan, it is the ultimate test of self-control. The teeming stalls of foodstuffs give Noailles its nickname as the belly of Marseille. During Ramadan, the Marseille neighborhood fattens up. It is a mecca for ingredients and prepared food for iftar – the sundown meal that breaks the fast. “Noailles is as close to Morocco as I can get,” says Rachid Zerrouki, a teacher and journalist based in Marseille for years.

Tbilisi

Notes on Reopening: An Uncertain Future for Ezo

The coronavirus infection rate is currently slowing down in Georgia to only several a day (with an occasional exception), and this is about four weeks after Easter, during which some churches insisted on still holding services and had us all biting our nails. Travel restrictions are being lifted, and the government has penciled in June 8 as the day restaurants with outdoor seating can reopen. We just don’t know what conditions will be imposed on everyone. Will waitstaff and clients have to wear masks? How many people per table? Will khinkali be served in individual portions instead of on a huge communal platter? There are lots of questions, perhaps the biggest being, “Who will survive?”

Lisbon

First Bite: Feasting on Fish at Último Porto

Editor’s note: As our cities begin reopening and adapting to the new normal in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, we are asking CB team members as well as chefs, journalists and food personalities to share the meal they are most looking forward to eating in our new “First Bite” series. First up is Célia Pedroso, our Lisbon bureau chief. Choosing a place for a first bite in Lisbon after all the restaurants, cafés and pastelarias have been closed for more than two months is not easy – there are so many options, and so many foods I’ve been missing. But after a few inquiries, I realized many places won’t open on Monday, May 18, the official date given by the government for the opening of restaurants, cafés, kindergartens and museums. So that narrowed down the list of possible venues.

Queens

Queens Coming Back: The Borough Adapts to the New Normal

Is life in Queens normal yet? Well, it seems to be looking that way. Or as close to normal as it can get before the stay at home order, officially called “New York State on PAUSE,” is lifted. Lines at supermarkets are getting shorter, and restaurants are slowly reopening, although often with shortened hours and a reduced menu, and still only for delivery or takeaway. The vendors at the weekly Jackson Heights Greenmarket are working under the new normal. You point at the vegetables and fruits you want, and they bag them for you. A different person charges you. I can grab a cup of coffee at any of my local bakeries, making it almost feel like the pre-pandemic days. But

Athens

CB Cooks: Carolina Doriti’s Dolmades Avgolemono Recipe and Video

I have always loved dolmades, stuffed grape leaves, and my family obviously knew it. My grandmother would make loads of them and would call my mom to tell her, “I made dolmades for Carolina.” Dolmades, just for me! I especially liked the ones with just rice and herbs that we eat cold – you can pop them in your mouth like candy. Likewise, avgolemono, the smooth yet tart lemon and egg sauce, is another favorite of mine. My grandfather George was an expert on making this. As a child I’d stand next to him while he was whisking quickly but with a masterful technique he had acquired over the years of being married to my grandmother Rena. She would stand next to him, like a general, on the lookout for possible mistakes and giving him directions.

Naples

The New Life of Pie: Firing Up Naples’ Pizza Ovens

On Saturday, May 2, we were finally able to eat real Neapolitan pizza once again. No more homemade pizza, thank goodness (a timely measure as yeast is becoming harder to find across Italy). The threats of Vincenzo De Luca, the president of the Campania region, to use flamethrowers in response to those who violated the lockdown bans didn’t come to fruition. A fire, however, was finally rekindled in Naples: that of the city’s thousands of pizza ovens. Pizza is back but you can only buy it takeaway or have it delivered to your home, with a series of health rules to follow. It is not possible to eat in a pizzeria, and this, we will see, completely alters the relationship between the city’s residents and their pizza.

Lisbon

Recipe: Peixinhos da Horta, Gussied Up Green Beans

From a humble petisco (“snack”) in tascas to a fancy dish in elegant restaurants, peixinhos da horta are experiencing a revival in Lisbon. Chefs have perfected their crispy texture and experimented with dipping sauces, turning them into a simple and delicious starter or a snack to pair with a cold glass of white wine. Peixinhos da horta (which translates as “little fish from the garden”) are nothing but green beans deep-fried in a batter. As a child, I often ate them on summer holidays in the Algarve; my granny fried them in small batches of four or five, similar to how she prepared small horse mackerel, in a delicate batter and served them with soupy tomato rice on the side.

Istanbul

Yearly Bread: Ramadan Pide in the Time of Coronavirus

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that Turkey remains starkly divided on a range of issues, be it the controversial 2017 presidential system referendum or whether the classic scrambled egg dish menemen, which is always made with chopped green peppers and tomatoes, should also be prepared with onions. While the referendum squeaked through with 51 percent voting affirmative, the pro-onion camp narrowly edged past the naysayers by the same mark in a 2018 Twitter poll launched by popular food writer Vedat Milor, in which more than 430,000 people voted. (For the record, we prefer it soğansız). One thing that everyone can agree upon, at least those without gluten allergies, is that Ramazan pidesi, baked golden brown in the form a glorious puffy, chewy, robust disc topped with sesame seeds and/or çörek otü (nigella seeds), is delicious and something to look forward to.

Marseille

Raising the Bar: A Comeback for Marseille’s Olive Oil-Based Heritage Soap

Since the coronavirus crisis began in France, our computer and TV screens have been with barraged with public health missives. The Alerte France ads feature a four-pronged plan to “protect yourself and others.” The first step, “wash your hands very often,” has made good old-fashioned soap the best anti-viral weapon – especially due to the drought of antibacterial gel. Consequently, the emblematic savon de Marseille – an olive-oil based soap that makes use of Provence’s green gold – is more popular than ever, turning the city’s savonneries into unintentional ambassadors of public health. One of them, Savonnerie Fer à Cheval, has been particularly prepared for the role.

Oaxaca

Health Food: Oaxacans Turn to Traditional Healing in a Time of Crisis

Oaxaca’s natural food projects have long had a presence in the city, but they are gaining new importance in light of the current coronavirus crisis. In a time of disruption and disconnection, they see themselves as helping to restore the links between humankind and nature. While the medical and scientific communities are going to great lengths to fight the local spread of the coronavirus and Covid-19, many Oaxacans are also realizing that this is a good moment to recognize that science and natural healing traditions can coexist. It’s something that locals are appreciating now more than ever – all the producers and vendors we spoke to reported a considerable increase in the demand for healing food products in the last few weeks.

Shanghai

Shanghai In Recovery: Eating Out in a Post-Covid-19 World

It’s 9 p.m. at Fu Chun Xiao Long, and the waitress taps me on the shoulder to let me know they’re about to close. The Shanghainese snack shop has been serving up xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) and paigu niangao (deep-fried pork cutlets and rice cakes in gravy) until midnight for decades. But in the post-Covid-19 world, they shut their doors earlier, knowing that late-night business won’t be at the same level as it was last year, or even the last 10 years. Early closures aren’t the only changes to Shanghai’s dining scene. Most local restaurants have signs up requiring masks for entrance, despite the fact that the local government deemed them unnecessary several weeks ago. (We take them off to eat, of course.)

Naples

Pantry Guide: How to Eat Pasta Like a Neapolitan

Neapolitans have a special affinity for pasta. It’s a staple pantry, sure, but also more than that – in Naples, pasta is part of the pervading spirit of the place. Not only do we have great respect for this ingredient, but we also appreciate the minute differences between shapes, differences that would surely be overlooked elsewhere. This sensitivity, like many gastronomic rules, has been handed down for generations. With the aim of sharing such knowledge (and taking inspiration from my Pantry Raid presentation on Instagram Live), I put together a pasta guide, which will allow you to make and order pasta dishes as true Neapolitans do, and avoid the mistakes that true Neapolitans would never make.

Athens

CB Cooks: An Instagram Live with Carolina Doriti

In the next installment of CB Cooks, a series that brings our walk leaders into your home for a live cooking demonstration, Carolina Doriti, our Athens bureau chief, will be cooking dolmades avgolemono, stuffed grape leaves with avgolemono sauce. Her Instagram Live will run on Thursday, May 7, at 11:30 a.m. EDT (GMT-4). If you want to cook along with Carolina, here are the ingredients you’ll need (although all are welcome to come watch, even if you’re not cooking).

Athens

Recipe: Clay-Baked Chickpeas, a Pot of Culinary Gold

Legumes have been at the core of the Greek diet since antiquity, with chickpeas being especially popular. We find references to them, and the ways they were cooked, in the works of several ancient writers and poets, including Homer, whose epic poems provide insight into the eating and cooking habits of the time (roughly the 8th century B.C.). Revythi (ρεβύθι) is the Greek word for chickpeas, and it derives from the ancient Greek word erevynthos (ερέβυνθος), which referred to both the plant and the seed. Sappho (c. 630-570 B.C.), the greatest female Greek lyric poet, spoke of “Χρύσειοι ἐρέβινθοι ἐπ ̓ ἀιόνων ἐφύοντο,” which translates roughly as “Golden chickpeas that have for centuries been growing.”

Tokyo

Liquid Assets: Deciphering Sake in the Japanese Capital

The consumption of sake is a sacrosanct affair in Japan. In Japanese, the term “sake” technically denotes all alcohol, though it is often used interchangeably with the less ambiguous “nihonshu.” The true genesis of the island nation’s archetypal brew is lost to time, though the divine concoction of water, rice, yeast and koji mold likely originated, or at least became more standardized, sometime during the Nara period (710-784 AD) when Empress Genmei consolidated rule over an agrarian society. Most people in this fledgling nation state participated in animistic and ancestral folk worship, within which rice, and by extension nihonshu, came to play important ritualistic roles.

Tbilisi

CB Book Club: Lisa Granik’s “The Wines of Georgia”

We recently spoke to Lisa Granik MW about her book, “The Wines of Georgia” (Infinite Ideas, November 2019). Granik became a Master of Wine in 2006, and was a Professor of Wine at the New York Institute of Technology from 2013-15. Currently she advises wine companies and regions seeking to improve their sales in the United States. Granik, who has written for publications such as The New York Times, The World of Fine Wine and Sommelier Journal, dives into Georgian wine culture in this title, explaining not only grape varieties, terroirs, winemaking methods and viticulture but also the centrality of wine to Georgian culture generally.

Marseille

Kitchen Brigade: Feeding the Front Line in Marseille

To make my 12-person quiche I need: 12 eggs, 4 cups of cream, a pound of Emmenthal and two giant bags of frozen spinach. No, I’m not on lockdown with a soccer team, nor am I hosting an illicit dinner party. I am cooking for the nighttime ER team at the Hôpital Nord. My effort isn’t a solo act, but in alliance with one of the grassroots associations created in response to the coronavirus crisis. The clearly named Cuisinons Pour Les Soignants de l’Hopital Nord (Cook for the Medical Staff of the Hopital Nord) gathers local home cooks, restaurants and food purveyors to make meals for hospital staff. For those who aren’t culinarily inclined but want to contribute, Pizza du Coeur delivers Marseille’s most popular food to caregivers.

Istanbul

Street Food at Home: How to Make Sabırtaşı’s İçli Köfte, an Istanbul Classic

Several years back, before İstiklal became an open-air shopping mall, reaching old man Sabırtaşı’s streetside içli köfte stand felt like pulling into a safe harbor. Always standing there was the beatific Ali Bey, an angel in a white doctor’s coat offering salvation in the form of his golden fried içli köfte. Although his presence is still sorely missed, his son Mustafa – who inherited not only his father’s white coat but also his kind demeanor – and wife have proudly continued the tradition of selling their sublime içli köfte to İstiklal’s hungry pedestrians.

Mexico City

CB Pantry Raid: An Instagram Live with Paco de Santiago

The next installment of CB Pantry Raid, a series in which our walk leaders give a guided tour of the local pantry and discuss the staples that have sustained their communities over the years, features Francisco de Santiago (“Paco”), our lead guide in Mexico City, who will be talking all about corn. Tune in on Thursday, April 30, at 5 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) on Instagram Live. Corn is vital to Mexican cuisine and culture – one of the things we love most about dining in Mexico is the high likelihood that our meal will have a healthy dose of corn in one form or another. Sometimes we even wash down our corn with some corn, like when we order tamales with atole, a traditional beverage made of corn flour, fruit, spices, and milk or water.

Lisbon

Rallying Cry: Portuguese Solidarity in the Time of Coronavirus

Poverty and social problems are a worrying side effect of the pandemic, especially in big cities like Lisbon. As in most urban environments, there is a significant homeless population. Moreover, skyrocketing unemployment has meant more people than ever are in need of some assistance – families are struggling to pay their rent and put food on the table. The Portuguese have responded, however, to this large need with an equally large number of solidarity projects. While it’s impossible to name all the people involved who have stepped up to help, we thought it would be worth highlighting the efforts of many people in the food and wine industries.

Mexico City

Caldos de Gallina Don Beto: A Mexico City Market Vendor Confronts the Crisis

Enrique Del Moral (1905-1987) was one of the most important architects of modern Mexico. Together with Mario Pani and Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, he revamped Mexico City in the 1950s. One of his most important designs was the new La Merced Market, which opened in 1957 (the market built in the 1860s was demolished to make way for the new structures). Located east of Mexico City’s Main Square, the massive market used to be the wholesaler for the city, until La Central de Abasto was built in the late 20th century. Today, I want to talk about a family who has been working for 38 years inside Nave Mayor, by far the biggest of the original seven market spaces in Enrique Del Moral’s design.

Tbilisi

At Home with Maka Shengelia: Hands in the Paska Dough

Sunday, April 19, was Easter in the Orthodox Christian world, the holiest day of the year. Like most people in today’s pandemic world, Maka Shengelia, one of our walk leaders in Tbilisi, was home being a responsible citizen. But she was also spreading butter on her own freshly baked paska, Easter bread, popular in the Eastern Church. It is a tall, dome-shaped cake, inseparable from Easter’s other “edible decoration,” boiled eggs dyed a deep magenta with endro (madder root). God will forgive you for celebrating Easter without going to church, but commemorating it without red eggs and paska is another matter entirely.

Athens

CB Cooks: Carolina Doriti’s Galatopita Recipe and Video

Greek Easter was extraordinary – in the truest sense of the word – this year. Despite the fantastic weather people had to stay at home to celebrate, quite a lonesome setup compared to the crowded daylong outdoor feast that we are normally used to. Despite being at home, my 7-year-old son and I did all the same Easter traditions, just in smaller quantities. One of the most fun traditions for children is the “egg breaking” ritual. We dye eggs on Good Thursday; this year, since my son is into space and Star Wars, we used that as inspiration and dyed our eggs like planets – we’ve got plenty of time, so we might as well use it creatively!

Barcelona

Market Watch: La Boquería Reclaims Its Neighborhood Roots

Normally when you cross Las Ramblas, it’s like trying to navigate a river coursing with energy; more often than not, the current is too strong. On some days, the rush is easier to manage and more enjoyable. Lately, however, a strange emptiness has descended on the boulevard – no more crowds, no more buzz. But if you listen closely, a pulse remains, that of the area’s historic resilience, which is baked into the very stones that pave this famous thoroughfare. So many things have happened here, and Las Ramblas has endured so much. As Barcelona struggles with the current pandemic, which has brought a surreal silence to the city and raises difficult questions about how to reopen and rebuild, La Boquería, the 19th-century market at the heart of Las Ramblas that in recent years had become overrun with tourists, is reclaiming its role as a neighborhood market.

Lisbon

At Home with Filipe Rodrigues: Chef-Turned-Farmer in Lisbon

One of the things we cherish most at Culinary Backstreets are the friendships we build with the restaurant and small business owners featured on our walks. While we worry what will happen to them (and their independent businesses) once the pandemic ends, we also want to learn more about what they are doing during this period. The first person we checked in with was chef Filipe Rodrigues, from Taberna do Mar. He hasn’t left home since he closed the small corner restaurant, one of the highlights of our Lisbon walk “Hidden Flavors of the Hillside: Graça and Mouraria,” on March 14. While the delicious fish dishes are always a big hit with our guests, they really seem to love chatting to Filipe and admiring his skills, especially when he torches the sardine nigiri.

Barcelona

Can’t Stop the Monas: An Easter Favorite Finds New Life in Barcelona

“No kid without a mona” is the current refrain of Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona (the Barcelona Pastry Guild) – it’s their response to the coronavirus quarantine interrupting this Easter culinary tradition (godparents normally give the dessert as a present to their godchildren around the holiday). The guild, which includes 200 patisseries in the province of Barcelona, has launched a campaign to bring this slogan to fruition. The initiative is two-fold: first, they followed strict hygiene measures to make these delicious edible gifts that godparents ordered online or by telephone to be delivered to the homes of their godchildren last Monday, the Easter holiday called Pascua Florida.

Marseille

Springtime Fêtes: Easter, Passover and Mimouna in Marseille

Growing up with a Midwestern Protestant mom and a Montreal-born Jewish dad, my family’s holidays wove together traditions, much like a braided challah bread. We topped our Christmas tree with the Star of David and served matzo at Easter brunch. More cultural than religious, our celebrations weren’t restricted to one faith or another. What mattered was the meaning: respecting our roots through ritual and thoughtfully gathering together around the table. Now living in multicultural Marseille, I still celebrate with the same interconnected spirit. Here, the similarities of the springtime holidays abound. For starters, they are semantic cousins, with Passover, Pâque juive, known as “Jewish Easter” in French.

Mexico City

CB Book Club: Joe Yonan’s “Cool Beans”

We recently spoke to Joe Yonan, the James Beard Award-winning food and dining editor of The Washington Post, about his new cookbook, “Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein” (Ten Speed Press, February 2020). He has written two other books for Ten Speed: “Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook” (2013) and “Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One” (2011). The humble bean plays a starring role in many of the culinary cultures we cover, as evidenced by our “Bean Week” series, which included dispatches from Catalonia, Beijing, Mexico, Greece and Istanbul. So we were delighted to talk to Joe about this delicious, versatile and environmentally friendly protein, one that has gained new prominence in the current pandemic.

Tbilisi

Coronavirus Diary: Garikula

The aggressive spring winds took a break, and I can finally hear the village: the nearby river rolling through the valley, roosters singing, chickens gossiping and our dog barking at who knows what. Garikula is our summer retreat, but thanks to Covid-19, we got here a season early. The young cherry blossoms just popped this morning, and the tulips – gifts from our Dutch neighbors trapped in Rotterdam – opened wide yesterday while the plum, apple and pear trees are in full bloom. In ordinary times, our patio is full of boisterous friends as the delirious waft of mtsvadi roasting on oak coals fills the air. The only infections we are used to here are laughter and inebriation. But now, even our neighbor Zakhar stays away.

Naples

CB Pantry Raid: An Instagram Live with Amedeo Colella

We’re launching a regular Instagram Live series with our walk leaders called CB Pantry Raid – each person will give a guided tour of the local pantry and discuss the staples that have sustained their communities over the years. Tune in on Thursday, April 16, at 2 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) to hear Amedeo Colella, our Naples bureau chief, talk about the Neapolitan pantry, with a focus on pasta. As Amedeo wrote in his Coronavirus Diary, the markets in Naples initially saw a run on pasta, with only smooth penne pasta (penne lisce) remaining on the shelves (he obviously didn’t buy it, as they eat only ridged pasta in his house).

Athens

Lentil Soup for the Soul: Holy Week at Home in Athens

This year Greek Easter will be celebrated a week later than Catholic Easter. I guess “celebrated” might not be the right word, as everything – for the first time in recent history – will be shut, even the churches. In Greece, Easter is as important as Christmas. If they can, most Athenians leave the city to spend the holiday in the countryside or on an island, where the setting is ideal for the ultimate Easter tradition – a whole lamb on a spit, roasting in the open air on Easter Sunday. Everyone gravitates toward this central attraction, sipping on tsipouro and wine and munching on meze till the feast is ready to officially commence.

Naples

Home for Easter: Holy Week Rites in the Time of Coronavirus

A famous Italian saying goes, “Christmas with yours and Easter with whomever you want.” Well, this year there wasn’t much of a choice: Easter was spent at home, with family. The lockdown in Italy has largely coincided with Lent (the 40 days leading up to Easter, from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday). Except that this year, our Lent will not end on Holy Saturday but looks to continue for a long time (at least until May 3). Jesus Christ rose again on Easter Sunday to fly to the heavens, but it would be enough for us to be able to leave the house.

Lisbon

Grandma’s Folar Recipe: Sweet Bread for a Different Kind of Easter

Folar is the generic name given to traditional Easter sweet bread in Portugal. Making it from scratch is somewhat of a long process, but being confined due to the coronavirus crisis, we seem to have a bit more time on our hands than expected. My family’s folar recipe is from my grandmother Felismina, who was from Rosmaninhal, near Mação (in the center of Portugal). As long as I can remember we would have this sweet bread around Easter. (A similar type of sweet bread is also baked around November 1, for All Saints’ Day.)

Marseille

Vive Le Pâques: Easter Sweets in Marseille in the Time of Coronavirus

Though half of France’s population is officially Catholic, only 5 percent of the country regularly attends mass. Yet, les français still remain faithful to their Christian holidays. After Christmas, Easter is the second-most popular fête – perhaps because it falls on a Sunday, when lunch en famille is a French tradition that is as revered as a religion. Like many nations, chocolate is France’s essential Easter ingredient. Not surprisingly, the French exception – the country’s belief that they are unique – extends to the shape of their holiday confections. Here, a cloche (bell), not a rabbit, delivers Easter’s chocolate-y treats. How did an inanimate object become the bearer of sweets?

Queens

Queens Strong: The Borough Springs Into Action to Help During the Coronavirus Crisis

It’s been interesting to see how Queens has adapted to life in lockdown. Personally, I have been cooking at home a lot, particularly for breakfast and lunch, which are basically the only two meals I have every day (usually I have a snack late at night, right before I go to bed). I have been staying in as much as I can. I exercise in front of the TV. I try to ride my bicycle on rollers for at least an hour every day. I lift weights and stretch as much as I can. I go to the farmers’ market – it’s fantastic to see the farmers that are still making it into the city and providing us with access to fresh fruit, vegetables cheese, eggs, etc. I talk to Nestor from Tello’s Farm, who makes the trek down from Coxsackie, New York, with his fresh eggs.

Naples

Inherited Resilience: How Naples’ Multigenerational Family Businesses Cope with Coronavirus

The word “resilience” has come into fashion. I’ve heard it used everywhere in recent years, not only in the psychological field, where it was born, but also in a wide variety of disparate sectors. While I hate linguistic fashions, resilience is the only word that properly describes the ability of Naples’ long-standing family-run businesses to overcome traumatic events or periods of difficulty. I started thinking about this because the coronavirus has come in like a wrecking ball, one that risks destroying many companies. But, I wondered, how many punches in the face have the entrepreneurs of my city taken in the past? And how did they recover from what might have seemed at the moment an irreversible crisis?

Athens

Building Blocks: Paximadia, the Ancient Wonder Bread

If you happen to wander around a Greek supermarket or visit a Greek bakery, you will notice that there is always a section dedicated to paximadia (paximadi in the singular) of various shapes and sizes piled high or wrapped in cellophane bags. At first glance, they look like nothing more than slices of stale bread. So it can be surprising to learn that paximadia (or rusks), once a peasant food found in the poor areas of Greece, are greatly loved all over the country, with many different types available for purchase: from large rustic looking thick slices to small bite-sized “croutons.”

Naples

Coronavirus Diary: Milan

Editor’s note: We don’t operate in Milan, but it's the home of our managing editor, Emma Harper. So we asked her to share her experience living under lockdown in the epicenter of Italy's outbreak. The first thing I noticed on lockdown in Milan, and the thing that has stuck with me the most, is the barking. Our apartment sits on a noisy thoroughfare, with cars and trams running by at all hours. But now, save for the errant tram, it’s quiet and still; the piercing, fearful dog barks ring out and bounce between the buildings that line my street, amplified by the silence. The only sound that can drown them out is an ambulance siren. It’s safe to say that the Milanese are dog people: Canines crowd the parks and streets, join their owners on the metro, and tag along for caffè and a brioche at the bar.

Tbilisi

Riravo: A Brandy Joins the Fight Against Covid-19

I don’t recall who first poured us a shot of Riravo’s plum araki, or brandy, but I do remember the surprise at the subtleness of the cool spirit as it smoothly slipped over my tongue and down my gullet. Finally, someone was making a fruit brandy that didn’t smell like a soiled pair of grandpa’s socks. Later, friends recounted a fabulous brandy tasting they attended at the Riravo distillery in Saguramo, a village just north of Tbilisi. I tightened with pangs of envy from missing out. “You have got to meet Goga, the owner,” they urged, and I agreed, wondering whom I could get to be my designated driver out to his place. In the meantime, I’d sip a Riravo pear or persimmon brandy as a digestif when opportunity called and remind myself to get out to Saguramo soon.

Lisbon

Coronavirus Diary: A Quarantine Garden in Lisbon

Rua Antero de Quental is a short street that runs uphill from Avenida Almirante Reis – within whiffing distance of the famous Cervejaria Ramiro – to the pale yellow palace housing the Italian Embassy. Handsome 19th century buildings in various states of disrepair line both sides of the street. It’s a shortcut up to Campo Martires da Patria and over toward Avenida Liberdade so it gets a lot of thru traffic. A couple of haggard men stand at the bottom of the street waving people in toward parking spots up the street. At night, sometimes, African mestres leave flyers tucked under the windshield wipers of cars that offer remedies to all sorts of ailments. I collect these flyers.

Mexico City

Coronavirus Diary (with Book Recommendations): Mexico City

In 2009, the A(H1N1) virus, known colloquially as the swine flu, hit Mexico hard. Only a few months before the outbreak began, I had moved from San Miguel de Allende to Mexico City trying to rescue a broken relationship. I had to take the most boring job in the world: a customer service agent at CheapTickets, an online travel company. I was in training when all of a sudden the streets of Mexico City emptied out. Essentially, my job was to sit in front of the computer for hours and talk on the phone with very upset and nervous customers trying to change their return flights. We never stopped working.

Naples

Pay It Forward: “Suspended” Food Shopping Debuts in Naples

There’s some good news on the solidarity front. It’s especially nice to get good news since the coronavirus crisis in Italy goes beyond any disaster, any catastrophe I could have ever imagined. While there are few positive aspects to this experience, by nature I always see the glass half full. Professionally and psychologically, humanity will pay a high price, but I believe that we will recover soon. And my belief is buoyed by the solidarity shown in Naples (and that has sprung up all over the world).

Queens

Coronavirus Diary: Queens

I have sat down to write this three or four times, and every time I stop, scrap everything and start all over. For many reasons, the most important being that things are changing so fast – every time I finish, the information I have included is inaccurate. More and more restaurants are closing, businesses are changing hours, closing, opening again. It starts at the top. The Mayor of New York City, the Governor of New York State and the President of the United States can’t seem to agree on what to do and how to do it. The mayor announced we must prepare to be under “shelter in place” in the next 48 hours only to be contradicted by the governor just a few hours later.