By Melissa Clark I was raised to believe in savory tomato salads. My mother ritually dressed them with garlicky, mustardy vinaigrettes, heavy on the tang, with pungent notes from olives, blue cheese, anchovies or canned tuna. The sweetest thing I ever saw paired with raw tomatoes during my childhood was corn, but only once. It was an article of faith for my mom that it was a cook’s duty to add contrast — and tomatoes were already sweet. I lived by this credo for decades — unt

By Tariro Mzezewa Earlier this year, Jake Williams, a filmmaker and content creator in Toronto, made his long-awaited return to one of his favorite places on Earth: Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. After traveling to Disney World and Disneyland multiple times a year since childhood and becoming an annual pass holder as an adult, Williams hadn’t been to a Disney park since 2019. “As someone who went all the time, it’s crazy to me that I hadn’t gone to a Disney park in th

By Ondine Cohane In Italy’s Tuscany region, the Val d’Orcia, with its rolling fields and untouched landscape beneath the dormant volcano of Monte Amiata, seems created for photo ops. Within it, the town of Pienza is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture, designed by the famed Bernardo Gambarelli, better known as Bernardo Rossellino, in white travertine marble and surrounded by palazzi, which he also built. This summer, a new path leads visitors from the town’

By Eric Asimov It’s a question I hear frequently after one of my periodic roundups recommending 20 wines under $20: “Why so few California wines?” It’s not that bottles under $20 from California are rare. I see plenty. The problem is that most are not particularly good, certainly not on par with what I can find from elsewhere in the world, including other American regions like the Finger Lakes, in New York. California produces great wines. But most cost more than wines of sim

By Melissa Clark As a Caesar salad enthusiast, I’ve seen my share of crouton stand-ins. Some are quite good (crumbled pretzels, fried chickpeas, toasted pumpkin seeds), while others are mere wannabes. (Wasabi peas, ahem. Dried apple chips? Don’t get me started.) But not a single one holds a candle to that queen of crunch, the frico. A traditional Italian nibble to serve with drinks, fricos are thin wafers native to Friuli, in the northeast, typically made by frying grated har

By Pamela Paul It’s not easy not being a dog person. Everyone loves a person who loves a dog. Dog people are fun-loving and down to earth. Dog lovers are all-American, and among animals living in people’s houses, dogs are decidedly the popular favorite; they like to chase things and play catch. A dog, in turn, is man’s best friend. I once moderated a conversation for The New York Times between Susan Orlean and Julie Klam, both authors of books about dogs. They chortled over t

By Shaan Merchant A day in Brihuega during the lavender bloom requires only one set plan: Get to the fields by sunset, to view an unexpected, lush swath of purple as far as the eye can see, with the orange glow of the Spanish sun directly behind it. Brihuega, a small medieval town in the roughly 4,700-square-mile province of Guadalajara and about an hour’s drive from Madrid, is surrounded by farmland, villages and nature preserves of brown and soft-green hues. But each year i

By Emily Anthes Over the last two decades, a flurry of scientific studies have demonstrated, over and over again, that dogs are social savants, highly attuned to human cues. But even as canine cognitive science flourished, few researchers bothered to probe the social skills of cats. After all, dogs were descended from the social gray wolf and had been intentionally engineered to perform specific roles alongside humans. Cats, on the other hand, were descended from the solitary

By William Fleeson The Canal du Midi, entirely hand-dug and hailed as an engineering marvel on completion in 1681, offers a refreshing alternate take on French travel: a bikeable path through the towns and landscapes of the country’s south. Traversing Occitanie, the canal gives cyclists of all skill levels access to parts of France that are rich in history, yet sometimes passed over by visitors with (only) Paris on their mind. When I discovered that the canal was manageable f

Denise Rivera, Patricia Vigoreaux, Ada & Gilberto Monzón By JUDY GORDON-CONDE and JENNIFER CONDE-POWERS Inspired by the art of “En la barbería no se llora (In the Barbershop you don’t cry)” from the artist Pepón Osorio, present at the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico Gala, was held at the renowned Grand Salon at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Resort & Casino. The exquisite event was designed with a “Nuyorican Baroque” flair, with more than 850 fabulously dressed guests enjoying the ce