food

Forget Mardi Gras, May is the prime time of year for visiting Louisiana. The weather is heating up, snoball stands are open, farmers markets are in full swing, and crawfish are at their peak. With crawfish season, comes the mother of all crawfish festivals, the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Held the first weekend every May, it's a three-day celebration of crawfish, cajun food, and culture. On our vist, we throughly enjoyed feasting on a variety of cajun cuisine, as well as taking in the spectacle set to the soundtrack of zydeco music and want to share why it's well worth planning a trip.

I often come across passionate, enthusiastic characters in my travels. More often than not they have something to do food and drinks. I love learning about their passion for what they create and I love sharing my finds with you, so you can visit too.

At Barking Rocks Winery in Granbury, Texas, each grape crushing reveals a different path. The winemaker, Tiberia, is not interested in recreating the same bottle of wine again and again, but instead lets the grapes lead him through each barrelling. The journey of Barking Rocks Winery began ten years ago with an early retirement and a career change that led Tiberia to reinvent himself, dropping his first name and returning to his Italian heritage through winemaking. For the past decade, he and his wife Sissy have been sticking to their motto “making wine, friends and events happen.”

Thinking about heading to the Dominican Republic, but concerned about finding good, local food? Rightfully so. There are a lot of all-inclusive resorts and a tourism market that seems more concerned with pleasing a wide audience rather than teaching you about local flavors. When there’s Maine lobster and clam chowder on the menu, you’re right to be suspicious.

I’m by no means an expert, but on a media trip earlier this year, I saw both sides. The buffet and the tourist restaurant, a local favorite and the farmers market. I watched, I observed, and when faced with it, I ate the strangest foods on the buffet. I hope that my virtual smorgasbord that follows will help guide you and your palate through the Dominican Republic and far, far away from the dreaded buffet.

Los Angeles, California. Home to Hollywood, swimmin' pools, and movie stars. But behind the glitz and glamour, lies a city bursting at the seams with good food (enough even to forgive it for unleashing California Pizza Kitchen on the world.) The huge amount and variety of fresh, local produce available, the sheer number of different ethnic cuisines, and the rising class of new chefs all mean that Los Angeles is a food lover's paradise. If you love to hit up your local farmer's market, try out all the latest food trucks, and track down the newest craft brewers while you're at home, then a visit to the city of Angels is just what you need for your next trip.