Wine. Travel. Food.
Joanne and I just returned from Italy with grandkids in tow. And of course we dragged them – occasionally kicking and screaming (not really) – to all of the must-sees: the Colosseum, Roman Forum, St Peter’s, the Uffizi Galleries, the Duomo, etc. And while these icons certainly caught their attention, they were rivaled by two […]
In my last posting, I wrote about our drive to South Bend, Indiana for our granddaughter’s graduation from Notre Dame University. But it just wasn’t Notre Dame. We made it into a bona fide road trip in order for our 11 year-old granddaughter to see two more campuses: the University of Illinois (Joanne’s and my […]
Our granddaughter just graduated from college, and the four years passed like lightning. The proud grandparents that Joanne and I are, there was never a debate about attending her graduation. So it was on an early Friday morning a couple of weeks ago that we headed to South Bend, Indiana and the campus of Notre […]
“STEAK NIGHT” IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS The past two weeks I’ve posted about a couple of pretty fancy restaurants in London and in Paris. But a part of me always feels like an imposter in places like that – as though the maître ‘d is going to say, “Ah, Roberts. From Keewanee, Illinois. I have a […]
Some years back, I was in Paris and had picked up Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code for some travel reading. Part of the book is set there, and in the course of following some of the story’s clues around the Left Bank, Joanne and were led to the SAINT-SULPICE CATHEDRAL, home of the Rose […]
Fresh seafood and oysters have been part of the Paris restaurant scene since Frederic Bofinger opened his eponymous brasserie in 1864 near the Bastille. It was a time when railroads were new and were just beginning to bring fresh seafood to the hordes of awaiting Parisians. BOFINGER STILL STANDS. In the 1920s, after World War […]
AHHHH….at last….SPRING…wonderful spring! Can summer be far behind? After all, the flowers are in full bloom…the beach beckons, and lovers once again stroll hand-in-hand. After last week’s post about Amalfi, I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the compelling summertime pasta choices that await us. So I thought I’d serve up a random (and by […]
During my BUCA days, Joanne and I regularly led groups of managers and chefs to southern Italy. The purpose: to immerse them in “la cucina povera” – the peasant cooking brought to America by Italian immigrants and celebrated by our restaurants. While Rome, Florence and Venice are on many people’s bucket lists, our itineraries focused […]
Since the economic tumble in 2008, it’s been a tough ten years for many restaurants, especially those in the “FINE and FANCY” segment, but also for many of the celebrity and highly talented restaurateurs out there. As you already know, Joanne and I tend not to frequent fine dining joints, yet it’s hard to see […]
NUSR-ET. That’s what this is blog is about: An experience I found to be fascinating, fun, a little weird – and loaded with “high camp” – at a restaurant called… Nusr-Et. Some back story: Nusret Gokce is a Turkish chef who opened an eponymous steakhouse in Istanbul in 2010. He has since grown his empire […]
