Global Table Adventure | Travel Tuesday

About the food of Morocco

May 15, 2012 By Sasha Martin 8 Comments

Ziz River, Morocco. Photo by Jerzy Strzelecki.

Ohh, ok. Here we are. This is Morocco week at the Global Table (and the crowd goes wild!). To be honest I was pretty nervous about this week. As far as I'm concerned, Morocco is a culinary giant. This comes from growing up in France, where delectable Moroccan dishes make regular appearances on Parisian menus. As I got to reading, however, I quickly realized that the food - although filled with intensely fragrant, glorious spices like cinnamon, cumin, saffron, and ginger - can be wonderfully … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Africa, Morocco, Travel Tuesday

About the food of Montenegro

May 8, 2012 By Sasha Martin 6 Comments

Black Lake, Montenegro. Photo by Nije Bitno.

This week we're eating Montenegro - where the mountains reach right up, into the clouds, like giant forks. By all appearances, they hold up the very sky herself. And then there are Montenegro's lakes which sparkle like eternal springtime. With beauty that has even captured National Geographic's attention for their coveted magazine cover photo, Montenegro is at once rugged and disarmingly serene. Funny that the country means "Black Mountain," a name which sounds straight out of Lord of the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Europe, Montenegro, Travel Tuesday

About the food in Mongolia

May 1, 2012 By Sasha Martin 11 Comments

Monastery in Mongolia. Photo by Bouette.

After the hot, sweaty day I had yesterday, a little stove top travel to the central Asian country called Mongolia is a welcome retreat. Even though the Gobi desert sprawls through southern Mongolia, she is best known for her long, cold winters (especially in the the mountainous north and on the dry, grassy steppes, where temperatures can dip way into - 40 F). Very little grows in dry, chilly Mongolia, but that's okay. Instead, people rely on an intensely meaty diet. And for good reason - 30% … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Asia, Mongolia, Travel Tuesday

About the food of Monaco

April 24, 2012 By Sasha Martin 9 Comments

Monaco sparkles. Built right up on the scrubby, rocky, Mediterranean coastline, she's bustling with luxurious yachts, zipping Ferrari, and more Formula 1 fan-wear than anyone can sport in a lifetime. This is a place where you can pay $40 for a beer and $1,200 for vodka (just head over to Jimmy's Bar, according to Stepping the World). Incredible. It's hard to believe that all this flashiness can be built into a teeny tiny country like Monaco. She's the second smallest country in the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Europe, Monaco, Travel Tuesday

About the food in Moldova

April 17, 2012 By Sasha Martin 6 Comments

If you're looking for wine, Moldova is waiting for you. For the last 25 million years (give or take a few), grapes have been growing in the region, ripe for the juicing. There's even evidence that, if you were to travel back in time about 5,ooo years ago, you could meander through vineyards sipping wine from cultivated grapes. Not out of glass, perhaps, but you'd be sippin'-happy all the same. Thankfully, you don't have to travel back 5,000 years to enjoy a good selection of Moldovan wine. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Europe, Moldova, Travel Tuesday

About the food of Micronesia

April 10, 2012 By Sasha Martin 7 Comments

Sunset at Colonia, Yap (taken from Manta Ray Hotel). Photo by Eric Guinther

Micronesia and her gaggle of islands amaze me. She is a dream - half a world away. There is not a lot of information to be found about her thousands of islands because many of them are, at best, sparsely settled. In an effort to delve deeper into the cuisine of this sprawling federation, I used one of my more recent tactics to educate myself on the cuisine: contacting a local. I love this technique. Emailing with someone halfway around the world makes me happy. While I've done it here … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Micronesia, Oceania, Travel Tuesday

About the food of Mexico

April 3, 2012 By Sasha Martin 16 Comments

My first time to Mexico was all "rainbows and puppy dogs." In fact, the only reason I got to go was because a co-worker broke up with his girlfriend and his two free tickets were simply passed down the line to me. A totally free vacation! In all my 27 years I had never won anything like this. The scene was set for perfection. There was just one catch: I found out on a Tuesday. The flight took off on a Thursday. There wasn't much time to plan. Keith (a.k.a. Mr Picky) - who had been my … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Mexico, North America, Travel Tuesday

About the food of Mauritius

March 27, 2012 By Sasha Martin 8 Comments

Just when you feel isolated, remote, and alone - like no one can possibly understand the way you are feeling, geography comes to the rescue. Way out in the Indian ocean lives Mauritius - an African country even more remote than Madagascar and totally teeny, tiny. If you study this "dot" amidst the crashing waves, you'll find crags and cliffs, turquoise water and rusty rainbow soil. For all her solitude, she is so beautiful. So intricate. How can we feel alone when this exists? It's like … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Africa, Mauritius, Travel Tuesday