May 2009 Archive

The following posts were made in May 2009. You may subscribe to the RSS feed for this archive if you would like to take your time reading through our posts.

Texas-Size Adventure

By Andrew Zimmern on May 26, 2009 12:00 AM | Permalink | 32 Comments

Texas is the state where everything is BIG, and where personalities are larger than life. It's a state made rich by oil ... and as home to the nation's space program, it's given the state and its food a reputation that is literally out of this world. But at its very heart, Texas is cowboy country. A cowboy heart beats strong in its wide range of cooks ... from down-home barbecue legends to five-star chefs catering to Texas billionaires. That cowboy spirit is infused in every dish from goat meat gorditas to rattlesnake and rabbit sausage and, of course, barbecue. Spanish, Mexican, Eastern European and French influences in the 19th century have made the cowboy culture all the more precious to the Texan mindset. They are ferociously protective of it --Texans see themselves as Lone Star Staters first, and Americans second.

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Singapore

By Andrew Zimmern on May 19, 2009 12:00 AM | Permalink | 9 Comments

Ever since Thomas Stanford Raffles founded Singapore as a trading post for the British East India Company, this precious island nation has been at the crossroads of food, commerce and culture, capturing the imagination of the world. Singapore is one of the three remaining City States in the world: Monaco and Vatican City round out the club. Raffles set foot on this island back in 1819, in hopes of creating a British trade port that would rival the Dutch settlements in the surrounding areas. What resulted from that is a hybrid food culture that encompasses the best of Asian cuisine. Positioned off the tip of Malaysia, this small island nation has built itself on being an ideal, a clean, crime free country which through centuries of trade with surrounding nation has now become a place where eating has literally become a national pastime.

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Eastern Australia

By Andrew Zimmern on May 12, 2009 12:00 AM | Permalink | 8 Comments

Sydney is an incredible city, and yes, deserving of all the accolades it's received over the years. It is clean, modern and supports an incredible arts scene. Its coast line is ringed with beach after spectacular beach, all within a 10 or 20 minute drive of downtown. The restaurant life is world class. The markets are beyond compare-literally- with shelves and tables groaning under the weight of some of the world's finest meats, seafood, fruits, vegetables, dairy and wine. The people are friendly and warm, and despite some of the wrinkles we had getting to know folks outside of the big city, in Sydney, everyone wants to be your friend. Neil Perry wanted to be mine, and that was a dream come true.

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Appalachia: Crème de la Crème

By Andrew Zimmern on May 5, 2009 12:00 AM | Permalink | 32 Comments

Central casting office from Deliverance. Speaking in tongues. Moonshine. Dolly Parton. If you listen to the ethnocentric pop culture Mandarins you would think the Appalachian Trail is littered with this hill country iconography. It's not. The trip we took through West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee was the crème de la crème of all our domestic shoots. Chic little restaurants in Asheville NC, killer barbecue stands on the rural highways in Tennessee, real country stores in the mountains of West Virginia where even the hams are cured on the premise. That's the Trail that I saw.

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