Inhaltsverzeichnis für March 2014 in SAVEUR

The farmer and writer Mas Masumoto lives in the San Joaquin Valley, a part of California I've loved since childhood, when I'd tag along with my father as he traveled from our Bay Area home to peddle office supplies there. On the far side of the coastal mountains, its sprawling farms and small towns held an exotic appeal. As my interest in food sharpened, I came to appreciate this majestic breadbasket, with its fields of vegetables and branches drooping with fruit, for the food it produced. I've often shared my enthusiasm in saveur, bringing the Valley's bounty to its pages. Last year, photographer James Roper and I visited Masumoto during the off-season. (That's me in the photo, toting a camera to shoot video there, viewable at saveur.com/masumoto.) He described the…

Marshmallow cream is covered in coconut, cashews, and milk chocolate for the quirky Charlie Chaplin. Candied macadamia nuts drenched in milk chocolate and rolled in powdered sugar result in King Condrell's Buffalo Snowball. Take a nugget of milk chocolate, drizzle it with hot fudge, and voilà—the decadent hot fudge truffle. This dipped raspberry from Aléthea's is a fresh, ripe berry rolled in sugar and dipped in chocolate. Buffalo's famed sponge candy is a hunk of burnt sugar covered in chocolate. At Aléthea's, spicy candied ginger is coated in buttery milk chocolate. Turtles, including these milk chocolate, caramel, and peanut versions, can be found all over town. The first thing that springs to mind when you think about Buffalo, New York, is probably its eponymous chicken wings. But after numerous visits…

WRAPPED IN A WISPY PAPER BAG, THE WARM NAVETTESIN THE CROOK OF MY ARM FELT GOOD AGAINST MY CHEST ON A RECENT DAMP WINTER DAY IN MARSEILLE. THE WHEAT FLOUR WANDS AND THEIR ORANGE-FLOWER PERFUME SUGGESTED WORLDS ONCE UNKNOWN TO ME, A REMINDER OF THE FIRST TIME I INHALED THEIR SCENT 30 YEARS AGO. I WAS A COLLEGE STUDENT TRAMPING THROUGH EUROPE WITH THREE FRIENDS, and I fell in love with this gruff, big-hearted mutt of a city the moment I stepped off the train at the Gare Saint-Charles. I was awed by the station's soaring cast-iron and glass canopy and by the pair of stone lions at the top of the monumental white staircase that greeted us as we emerged. The tall wooden shutters of my spartan shared hotel…

As soon as the dew has dried from the trees along Florida's Indian River, Sheffield Green sets up an orchard ladder and climbs toward its tapered top, his arms wrapped in socks to guard against thorny branches. Green is 67, and he's been at this job for 49 years. He doesn't earn much, but if the world were a fairer place, he'd make a lot more. Green and the other day laborers he works with are responsible for harvesting some of the heaviest, juiciest, most flavorful citrus on earth—the exemplars of a fruit so good that it's named for paradise: Citrus paradisi. Grapefruit. Florida is the world's leading producer, and in Indian River County, they grow it like nowhere else. It's an accident of place—a confluence of subtropical warmth, temperate…

March 2014 (Sugar Shacks) montreal, quebec During peak maple syrup season, Quebec's rustic cabanes à sucre (sugar shacks) throw all-you-can-eat breakfasts featuring maple-cooked eggs, maple baked beans, and pork pies known as tourtières. In Montreal, La Cabane, a pop-up sugar shack, offers elevated takes on the tradition with dishes like foie gras and maple jelly. Info: tourisme-mon-treal.org (Battle of the Oranges) ivrea, italy Citizens of this small Italian town hurl more than a million pounds of citrus at each other in an annual reenactment of a 12th-century fight between townsfolk and a local tyrant. The pre-Lenten food fight attracts around 4,000 participants and 100,000 spectators each year. Info: storicocarnevaleivrea.it/English anniversary The Waldorf Hotel 1893, new york city When it first opened at its original 34th Street location, the Waldorf, now…

“You will need to cook for yourself now,” my mother said, standing in our yellow-tiled kitchen in 1988. I was moving away to college and she wanted to make sure I could take the Cuban dishes of my Miami childhood with me: a lavishly spiced ground beef dish called picadillo, and comforting fricassé de polio, tender braised chicken in a tomato sauce dotted with olives, capers, and raisins. She handed me Cocina Criolla, the bible of Cuban cooking, written more than 60 years ago by Nitza Villapol, the island's most influential culinary figure. Nitza, as she was known, was most famous for hosting a cooking show on Cuban television called Cocina al Minuto, which launched in 1948, as many a compatriot will point out, a good 15 years before Julia…

Dinner for two with drinks and tip Inexpensive Under $25 Moderate $25–$75 Expensive Over $75 Marseille's rich history of Mediterranean influences combined with a new wave of young chefs and excellent local produce adds up to a vibrant restaurant scene. 150 Rue Jean Mermoz (33/491/711-652). Moderate. Chef Edouard Giribone serves delicious tapas and bouillabaisse at this small, handsomely renovated provençal villa. 2 Boulevard de la Libération (33/491/509-595; laboiteasardine.com). Moderate. Dazzlingly fresh Mediterranean seafood, grilled to perfection, is front and center on the daily changing menu at chef Céline Bonnieu's bistro and fish stand. 79 Rue de la Palud (33/491/339-378; facebook.com/O.bidulruedelapalud). Inexpensive-Moderate. At his 17-seat establishment, the talented Fabrice Bazin offers an inventive market-driven menu, featuring the likes of trotters with creamy polenta. 4 Rue du Lacydon (33/491/912-269; cafedesepices.com). Moderate. At…

Shafts of sunlight pierce clouds of smoke and steam as I plunge into the heat and noise of the kitchen at Bundo Sati, a small restaurant in Jakarta. It's only 8:30 a.m., but the narrow room is full of alchemical activity: Sheaves of herbs and vegetables lurk imposingly in corners; cooks cleave bones and meat on huge chopping boards with resounding thwacks; others diligently stir the seething contents of enormous woks, each bursting bubble perfuming the air. Thus coalesces the many-splendored array of dishes that compose this restaurant's nasi padang. Nasi padang (literally “Padang rice”), a meal of rice eaten with myriad beef, seafood, poultry, and vegetable dishes, hails from the Minang kabau people of Padang, the regional capital of West Sumatra, Indonesia. Immensely popular throughout much of Southeast Asia…

It wasn't the beaches that made me fall in love with St. Barth. What did me in was breakfast, in particular a jar of jam made by Stéphane Mazières, then the chef at Hôtel Le Toiny. Melding coconut and lime, it was a sweet tropical spread that I lavished on a hunk of baguette. And the recipe, unlike the sun and sand, could go home with me—a taste of the Caribbean for a rainy day. (See below for recipe.) Bring 1¾ cups sugar and two 13.5-oz. cans unsweetened coconut milk to a simmer in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium-low heat: cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is reduced to 2 cups, about 1½ hours. Stir in ¼ tsp. powdered pectin (see page 93), the grated zest of 1 lime, and, if…

When I was a kid, my mother made yogurt from the fatty cream-top milk delivered in glass bottles to our house in London. Delicate and wobbly, the yogurt broke at the touch of a spoon like a ghostly crème caramel. She'd make it in a ceramic jar, which would appear on the dining table at least once a week when we ate Gujarati-style potatoes and string beans fried with cumin seeds, or bright yellow lentils with rice. My brother and I would take spoonfuls to temper the heat of the chiles. The curds were cool and tart in a puddle of cloudy whey but never exactly the same as the last jar. I didn't know the reason then, but here's why: Yogurt is alive. It's milk, occupied by colonies of…

Spring stirs early in California. On this March day, I wake up, as I always do, before sunrise to make my morning rounds. Peach blossoms blanket our farm in the San Joaquin Valley. Sunlight shines through the translucent petals, creating a pink hue against the brilliant blue sky. The rough, gnarled bark of our trees contrasts with the delicate flowers, the old and new side by side. My ritual begins with coffee in the 100-year-old farmhouse I call home. I look over my farm journal, reviewing the rhythms of seasons past and the work that needs to be done. We always farm in the shadow of those who worked this land before us. From the porch I can see the orchard my dad and I planted 45 years ago. I…

Purchase House of Mandela Royal Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 at wine.com ($47 for a 750-ml. bottle; 800/592-5870). Buy Irish buttered eggs at the English Market in Cork, Ireland (353/21/429-4258; englishmarket.ie). Drink Soviet sodas; purchase Cockta at amazon.com ($1 for a 0.25-liter bottle) and Baikal at moscowonhudson.com ($3 for a 1-liter bottle; 212/740-7397). Visit Hôtel Le Toiny on St Barth (590/590/27-8888; letoiny.com). Make coconut lime preserves (see page 18) with powdered pectin from Ball ($1 for a 0.6-oz. bag; 855/813-9352; freshpreservingstore.com). See more Fictitious Dishes at dinahfried.com. Take a writer's retreat at Hedgebrook (360/321-4786; hedgebrook.org). Order Domaine Roulot Bourgogne Blanc 2011 at kermitlynch.com ($35; 510/524-1524); Domaine Michel Lafarge Raisins Dorés Bourgogne Aligoté 2011 and Domaine Roblet-Monnot Auxey-Duresses Premier Cru Le Val 2010 at martinscottwines.com ($20/$48; 516/327-0808); Domaine Olivier Merlin Mâcon La…