Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

Talk about epic foodventure.  We have just returned from NYCWFF's Grand Tasting, our minds blown and stomachs filled (not to mention, livers battered).  I've never seen anything like this before, and probably will not until next year's event. The Grand Tasting is sort of like a trade show for everything in the food industry.  Housed in Pier 57 on the Hudson, it's this ginormous space packed to the gills with vendors, edibles, and foodies.  It's really fun, in a way, but you can also start feeling extremely claustrophobic and overwhelmed easily. When the hardworking volunteers popped a wristband on me, I was wondering why there were two little tabs with the images of a wine glass and a briefcase.  When we entered, I discovered that the wine glass tab was to get you a free wine glass from IKEA (efficient and environmental way to dole out wine samples) and a tote bag half-full of goodies (for you to fill the rest of the way with more goodies to come).  Let me

So we bid London farewell with one fewer member in our tour group and headed on the Eurostar from London St. Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord.  Oh Paris!  City of Lights, city of love.  We had a very short time in Paris, hardly long enough to do it justice.  In the two-and-a-half days, I squeezed in trips to Notre Dame Cathedral, Musee d’Orsay, Versailles, a Seine boat cruise, the Latin Quarter, Musee du Louvre, the Champs Elysees, and the Eiffel Tower.  Phew! Along the while, we had some interesting eats.  The first night, we dined at  Le Saint Germain  after Musee d’Orsay.  We were starving and ready to keel over so I made the executive decision to head over to Saint Germain where I’d heard there was good food.  We stopped at this brasserie on a street corner (very typical of Paris, no?) and a cute waiter handed us a menu.  I barely looked at it and said YES PLEASE FEED ME.  We shared some escargot (just me and Mom: Dad isn’t quite at that level yet), I had a canard dish (shredde

I’m back from a family vacation to London and Paris.  What an exhilarating week!  I’ve been to London and Paris before, but it’s always great to return to places you love and places where you found love.  My parents have been to neither London nor Paris, though, so I was in charge of planning “Quintessential London” and “Quintessential Paris” tours.  Obviously, food played a major role in our experience of the local culture, so here is a recap of all the goodies we had!   I present to you: a multi-part series, my ode to London and Paris food.  (I actually originally wrote one enormous entry but I figured no one would read it, so here is "London".) From the first meal we had on this vacation, I was already excited and impressed.  On our  British Airways flight , they served chicken curry.  I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to have curry, and I was not disappointed.  The chicken was somewhere between a plain garam masala curry and a chicken tikka masala cu