On a recent archaeology trip to Iraqi Kurdistan, I fell in love… with tamarind! So why did I never encounter tamarind during my 15 years working in Syria? The pulp of the tamarind fruit...
I love my jobs – that doesn’t mean I love every minute of each workday, but I’m pretty thrilled with both archaeology and the wine and food business. So, that makes it all the better to be able...
I’ll soon be heading back to one of my favorite areas of Italy: the Maremma. It is a beautiful part of Tuscany, including a large portion that borders the Tyrrhenian Sea. As always, I’ll be...
Tbilisi has an amazingly (to me) large number of wine bars and shops. It seemed there was at least one on nearly every block. With only a few, short days to sample them, I clearly didn’t visit them...
My very first introduction to Georgian wine was via the Finger Lakes; 6 or 7 years ago, I tasted Dr. K Frank’s 2008 Rkatsiteli and absolutely fell in love. As a result, I sought the grape from...
As part of my summer travels for work, I found myself in Italy for 3 weeks. Of course I had fantastic wine and fabulous food, but I also decided to count how many cities in which I drank an Aperol...
Give me your outlandish, eccentric, and bizarre. When I travel, that is what I want. The Schönbrunn Gardens in Vienna are beautiful, yes, but so are the Longwood Gardens — just over 50...
There is a whole heck of a lot of good wine being made in California; so much so that it is difficult to narrow the field down to just 5 wines — as required for the tastings I conduct at Jet...
Archaeology is a fascinating field that makes for a wonderful career. We uncover the material worlds of people to whom no modern links may exist. We ponder questions of their existence...
The mythical Hercules – seeking penitence for some very bad deeds – was tasked with 12 labors by King Eurystheus. Accomplishment of these tasks took our hero across the known world, passing...