Bon Appetit

For me, it’s always the food—whether it’s from a food truck or fine dining that widens my perspective and makes my vacations and work trips more memorable. I like to scour the James Beard Awards semifinalists, which helps me plan road trips and side trips, imploring me to check out a nearby town just to try a café or a bakery. The 50 Best Restaurants lists in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East encourage diners to visit cities within those regions for exceptional dining experiences. Even Bon Appétit’s very own Best New Restaurants list is a helpful guide for great places to eat throughout the US. In the last few months, I ate shawarma after landing in Abu Dhabi that was tender with fresh, crunchy pickles. I slurped ramen…

Every morning taquerias throughout San Antonio fill with construction workers, nurses in scrubs, college students, and hurried families, all finding salvation in an iconic staple: the breakfast taco. No dish cuts across income, class, and geography quite like this combination of Mexican and American culture. The dish represents the best of the city, nestled in a warm tortilla. People have been combining breakfast ingredients and fresh tortillas in Northern Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley since at least the early 1900s. Today, breakfast tacos are enmeshed in the fabric of Texas. As anybody who has spent time in San Antonio can attest, the city is home to some of the best in the state, with a style all our own. Much like a proper Neapolitan pizza lives or dies by…

ONE-POT FRENCH ONION PASTA All the savory-sweet flavor of the iconic soup is captured in this baked pasta. Loaded with a wealth of caramelized onions, white wine, and fresh thyme, this recipe even allows for cooking the pasta right into the soupy base before topping with plenty of Gruyère and broiling. RECIPE BY JESSE SZEWCZYK 4–6 SERVINGS 3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil4 large onions, thinly sliced2 tsp. Diamond Crystal or1¼ tsp. Morton kosher salt, plus more1 tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more6 garlic cloves, finely chopped4 tsp. chopped thyme¾ cup dry white wine1 lb. lumache (snail shells) or other medium shell pasta1 oz. Parmesan, finely grated (about ½ cup)5 Tbsp. unsalted butter1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard2 tsp. sugar2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce8 oz. Gruyère, coarsely grated (about 2 cups)Thinly sliced chives (for…

Between 1990 and 2004 the volume of Aussie wine exported to the US exploded, from around 550,000 annual cases to a whopping 20 million, led by “critter” wine brand Yellow Tail and its many cheap and cheerful companions—as well as pricier balls-to-thewall reds like Mollydooker. The latter were showered with lofty point scores by renowned American critics of the time, who had a penchant for “bigger is better” wine styles that rarely lived up to the hype. Soon Aussie critter wines—popular wine labels depicting cute animals—had competition from elsewhere in the world and a price war ensued, which Australia couldn’t win. Worth about $718 million at its peak in 2007, Aussie wines sales now account for just $202 million in the US. However, thanks to a small but mighty group…

WHY WE LOVE IT When I was visiting my parents recently, my mom requested that I cook a dinner using up some scallions and cilantro on the precipice of wilting. How serendipitous that a recipe beloved by readers and staff alike—Kendra Vaculin’s Gorgeous Green Shrimp—exists. With a quick whirl in the blender, the tender herbs, plus jalapeño, olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic, produce a verdant, mildly spicy sauce that blankets a pile of seared shrimp. A drizzle of yogurt, equal parts striking, tangy, and cooling, tempers the sharper flavors. The meal got two thumbs-up from my mom, and I got points for clearing out the fridge. A win all around. —Li Goldstein 4 SERVINGS 1 baguette, sliced on a diagonal 1" thick5 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more…

One month after Calvin opened his Cantonese American restaurant, Bonnie’s, in Brooklyn, we found out I was pregnant. We couldn’t wait to tickle our baby boy’s tiny toes and kiss his chubby cheeks, to read and sing to him, to be a family. Most of all, we couldn’t wait to cook for him. So naturally, we were ecstatic when Levi’s first teeth popped through. He became astonishingly ravenous and ate whatever we ate: pasta tossed in a fermented bean curd butter, fatty pieces of cha siu, big slices of watermelon and orange. And his appetite only grew. When he turned one, he fell in love with a steamed silken tofu coated in a beefy black bean garlic sauce—one of the many dishes Calvin developed for our Cantonese American cookbook, Salt…