Two stretches of sunny southern European coast compete for the American retiree’s imagination: Portugal’s Algarve and Spain’s Costa del Sol. Both promise warmth, beaches, golf, established expat communities, and a comfortable Mediterranean-style retirement. Both get described as affordable, a bargain next to retiring in the pricier corners of the United States. But which is actually …
There is a growing fascination in America with the way Europeans eat, and not just with what is on the plate. People have started paying attention to when Europeans eat, the rhythm and schedule of meals that runs so differently from the American one. The observation underneath the curiosity is real: people in the Mediterranean …
Open a refrigerator in America and then one in Europe, and you will notice the differences immediately, not just in what is inside but in what is considered to belong there at all. A whole category of foods that Americans automatically refrigerate, Europeans leave happily on the counter or in the cupboard, sometimes to the …
This is a fight between two of the spiciest, most thrilling chicken dishes on earth, and it is worth saying up front that both are magnificent. Nashville hot chicken, the fiery cayenne-lacquered fried chicken of Tennessee, and Korean fire chicken, the searing buldak that has become a global byword for heat, are both built to …
Traditional pho broth takes hours. Sometimes all day. Bones roasted and simmered for six, eight, ten hours until the collagen has broken down and the liquid is deep, golden, and impossibly rich. That version is extraordinary. That version is also the reason most people never make pho at home. Because no reasonable person is going …
By the first week of August, our part of Spain goes quiet in a way that has nothing to do with holidays and everything to do with survival. The shutters come down before noon. The streets empty between two and six. Anyone who can leave has left, usually for the coast or for the cool …
Two soy-glazed classics, two of Asia’s most beloved chicken dishes, and a title that promises a clear winner, which means I owe you an actual verdict rather than a diplomatic dodge. Filipino adobo and Japanese teriyaki both center on chicken lacquered in a soy-based sauce, both are beloved worldwide, both are weeknight staples in their …
After years of living in Europe and shopping in European supermarkets, returning to read American grocery labels is a genuinely strange experience, like reading a slightly different language. The ingredient lists are longer, the additives more numerous, the colors and preservatives and dough conditioners that European products often lack present and accounted for. So for …
The hotel is a quieter stage than the cafe or the restaurant, but it has its own set of American tells, the habits and expectations that mark the American traveler as surely in the lobby and the room as at the table. Americans arrive at European hotels with a set of assumptions formed by American …
This one is less scandal than mismatch. A lot of Americans assume butter is butter, and that Europe is merely selling a more romantic wrapper. The real difference is usually more mechanical: fat percentage, water content, culturing, salt style, and the fact that French cooks often buy butter with a specific job in mind instead …
The first year is the easy part. A lot of move-abroad stories stop there for a reason. Year one still feels like escape. New cafés, new language, lower grocery bills, better weather in the right region, and the emotional high of not being in America anymore. If a single woman lands in Spain at 52 …
For years, my monthly routine in America revolved around a set of expenses I never questioned, because everyone around me had the same ones. There was the gym membership, the boutique fitness classes, the equipment and the gear, the whole apparatus of paying significant money every month to exercise in dedicated facilities, a routine that …