There are flowers all around us. Seeds and plants are scattered here and there. Herbs and fresh fruits rest in wicker and reed baskets. Sitting amongst all this glory is Stefania Salvetti, who is telling us about Paradisiello, where she lives. Meaning “Little Paradise” in Italian, Paradisiello is where Stefania has a home with 2,000 square meters of greenery, citrus trees and even chickens. The big surprise? What sounds like a glorious village outside of Naples is actually a quarter within the city, very close to the historic center. Il Paradisiello is a small, romantic, peaceful place just a few meters from the noisy city. A site where time seems to stand still, the air somehow more rarefied.

In your granddad’s Lisbon, lunch in a tasca may pass silently, the television, on mute, tuned to the mind-numbing variety show Praça da Alegria. It may take years to achieve a first name basis with the dour man behind the counter. On his menu, scribbled on a paper napkin and taped to the window, anything but cozido portuguesa on a Thursday would be tantamount to treason. Now don’t get us wrong, we have a deep appreciation for the code of that bastion of traditional Portuguese cooking that is the tasca – the knee-jerk resistance to change that has helped preserve neighborhood culinary traditions against a ferocious tide of globalized sameness – but, let’s admit it, fun is generally not on the menu.

They grow off of walls and rocks, on rocky hills, near the sea – and even out of chinks in the sidewalk in the center of Athens. Tangy, floral and tart, capers are a wild crop like no other. The Acropolis Hill and most other ancient monuments in central Athens are covered with crawling caper plants throughout summer. On the islands, when driving those curvy, snake-like roads, look out for capers growing under the cliffs and hanging off the side of the road. (These plants often grow huge in size!) Growing untamed all over most of Greece, capers have been making their way onto local tables for centuries. The oldest recorded evidence of capers being used in food is in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, written c. 2150-1400 BCE.

Standing behind the smoke veil raising from the hot clay griddle, Thalía Barrios Garcia roasts dozens of tomatoes of all shades of red with the confidence of a woman who has her future in her own hands. At the early age of 26, Thalía is the owner and head cook of Levadura de Olla, one of Oaxaca City’s most exciting new restaurants. Despite the pandemic – or maybe because of it – Levadura de Olla’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last few months, likely due to its healthy menu that is friendly to most dietary styles and, more importantly, because it is deeply rooted in the cooking styles of Thalía’s hometown: San Mateo Yucutindoo.

Standing behind the smoke veil raising from the hot clay griddle, Thalía Barrios Garcia roasts dozens of tomatoes of all shades of red with the confidence of a woman who has her future in her own hands. At the early age of 26, Thalía is the owner and head cook of Levadura de Olla, one of Oaxaca City’s most exciting new restaurants. Despite the pandemic – or maybe because of it – Levadura de Olla’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last few months, likely due to its healthy menu that is friendly to most dietary styles and, more importantly, because it is deeply rooted in the cooking styles of Thalía’s hometown: San Mateo Yucutindoo.

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.

Two-and-a-half kilometers of curves and narrow alleys at 150 meters above sea level. Breathtaking views overlooking the sea. A coast dominated by the blue of the sky and dotted with arabesque domes. All around is the unmistakable perfume of the sfusato amalfitano – the Amalfi lemon.

It snowed in Tokyo on March 22 – a wet, rain-like snow that puddled as soon as it touched the ground, but snow nonetheless. It was un-springlike as the week before was sunny. Early spring is sly and tricky here. One moment the kawazu-zakura have blanketed trees in pink popcorn blooms, the next moment it’s cloudy skies and planning hotpot dinners all over again. But it is glorious when temperatures aren’t whipsawing wildly from hot to freezing, when spring finally deigns to show up in the form of balmy, blue-skied days and flowers blooming everywhere. Spring days like this are beautiful for cycling in Tokyo. Fresh air, warm sun and, best of all, no freezing fingers and ears when you’re on a bike.

Ahead of our recent launch in New Orleans, we spoke to our walk leader Dianne Honore and contributors James Cullen and Pableaux Johnson about the Crescent City's rich and storied food scene and its deep connections to traditions and community. We originally shared what they had to say in our New Orleans launch newsletter (you can sign up for our newsletters on our main page to receive exclusive, behind-the-scenes content like this every week), but what they had to say was so informative and interesting that we decided to share it more widely. Dianne is a history buff, cultural preservationist, founder of the Black Storyville Baby Dolls, Queen of the Yellow Pocahontus Hunters Black Masking Indian Tribe and cooking instructor.

As the call to prayer drifts from mosque to mosque and lights flicker on in anticipation of dusk, everyone around us takes a sip of water and wolfs down a date, almost in unison. It is the start of Ramadan and, here in Sultanahmet Square, folks are breaking their first fast of this holy month. They have been waiting patiently for the loud cannon blast which announces the day’s end – a tradition of old that still persists here in the square, though the loud bang often frightens unsuspecting tourists – sitting on blankets spread in the square’s grassy patches and pulling tupperwared iftar meals out of plastic bags and picnic baskets.

CB has teamed up with the creators of “Native Dish: United Flavors of NYC,” NYC Media’s new food TV series, to offer a behind-the-scenes look at some of the New Yorkers featured in these short videos. The series, which aims to celebrate New York City immigrants from all over the world, focuses on one individual and one dish at a time as a means through which to explore the myriad cuisines represented in the city and the people who make them. While each episode features a general overview of the participant’s life story, particularly as it relates to food, we are expanding that narrative by providing the full interview transcript, albeit condensed and lightly edited. This month we are spotlighting Jeannie Ongkeo and her recipe for Tam Mak Hoong, a Lao green papaya salad drenched with savory anchovy sauce.

Simple and quick, the dish bitoque can be found all over Portugal. Its origins are a bit murky, but seem to be connected with the Galician immigrants from Northern Spain who moved to Lisbon during the Spanish Civil War. It consists of a small, thin steak surrounded by carbs (fries and rice), cooked vegetables or a salad of sorts, and topped with a fried egg on top. The essential ingredient is the sauce, however, and across the city of Lisbon are several variations and styles – all are generous and comforting, all are thick, and many include ingredients like bay leaf, garlic, and white wine.

When you board the 1 tram line in boisterous Noailles, the train snakes from a dark, underground tunnel onto the picturesque Boulevard Chave in the Le Camas district. Like the country roads of Provence, the wide street is lined with soaring plane trees. Behind them, 19th century buildings – a mix of typically Marseillais trois fenêtres (three window) and decorative Art Nouveau facades – add to the eye-pleasing promenade so beloved by locals. This scene was similar a century ago. Just a mile as the seagull flies from the Vieux-Port, Le Camas was appealing for its accessibility to the city center by tram. Landowner-turned-developer André Chave founded the neighborhood to accommodate Marseille’s growing middle class.

“Ο Μάρτης πότε γελά και πότε κλαίει” – Μarch sometimes laughs and sometimes cries. So the idiom goes here, as has this year. There are many phrases like this about March in the Greek language. Most of them (like in other cultures) focus on the weather’s instability during the month, and folk tradition believes that the weather gives us a glimpse of what will come in summer. This March was unstable, to say the least: one week it was snowing, then the next the spring sun was shining, and then again back to snowy winter! One of my favorite March traditions is donning a bracelet made with red and white thread. We call it “martis” or “martia” after the month’s name, and we make it on the last day of February and wear it on March 1.

When wandering around Tbilisi, we often find ourselves at a loss when looking to grab a quick, quality snack to fill our stomachs. As much as we love our favorite Georgian cheesy bread, sometimes we want a little something more than khachapuri or pastries. Many times, these inexpensive offerings are infamous for deceiving customers with various forms of cheap filling folded into the dough in lieu of real cheese. Then, of course, there is the ubiquitous shaurma (a transliteration of the Georgian word შაურმა) – an unfortunately tasteless descendent of the Middle Eastern shawarma. This dearth of quality street food and an abundance of disappointing snacks is an ongoing issue but, as seems to be the story the world over, some entrepreneurial souls realized they could fill this gap during the Covid-19 pandemic, offering quick bites via delivery and takeaway.