I attended two very different tastings this past week, each terrific in its own way, one fancy, one rustic.

Let’s start with the fancy, shall we? Like many of you, I’m feeling expansive today.

Let me start by saying that I’m no great scholar of Italian wines. I’ve spent more time exploring France and California, thanks to a stint in San Francisco. My limited exposure to southern Italian wines has yielded to many sips that were harsh, acidic, and forgettable.

All the more delight, then, to sample the wines of Sicily’s Tenuta delle Terre Nere—paired with lovely food by the young chef Justin Melnick—last Thursday at Tomasso Trattoria. (more…)

Maybe it’s just a lingering patriotic buzz brought on by too much late-night Olympic and DNC coverage, but I’ve been prone to small stirrings of civic pride in visiting my new neighborhood mini-grocery—and a top-notch addition to the overall city food scene, by the way: City Feed and Supply, on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain.

With its cheery red, white, and blue trim and bounty of homegrown goods, this bigger, brighter sibling to the cult-favorite original (near the Stonybrook T) is fast establishing itself as a beacon for the hungry, the eco-conscious, the huddled vegans yearning to eat dairy-free. (more…)

When my colleague Donna Garlough revealed that she had a direct (and, ahem, illegal) line to some prime Okinawan potatoes from Hawaii, I jumped out of my chair. These, of course, are the best sweet potatoes in the world: bright purple, sweet like candy, dry and fluffy like Yukon Golds, and impossible to find in Boston markets (or so I thought—more on that later).

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As more mid-priced restaurants enter Boston’s dining scene, I can’t help but notice patterns emerging. To be a bona fide neighborhood boite, it seems your menu must contain at least two of following: High-end mac and cheese; some sort of pasta Bolognese; anything Milanese; fish and chips; braised short ribs; mussels in a white wine broth; and steak frites.

(See: Dorchester’s Ashmont Grill, Somerville’s Highland Kitchen, the South End’s Rocca, Kenmore’s Eastern Standard, and JP’s Alchemist Lounge and Zon’s. ) 

Lucky for me, I like all of those dishes. But there’s something else I’m seeing everywhere, and it’s ubiquity is really starting to chap my hide: Beets.

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When one encounters a hard-to-find ingredient, deciding how to cook it is no small task. The wrong seasoning, the wrong method, and all the hours you’ve spent tracking down that foraged truffle, wild boar, pomelo—or in my case, purple Hawaiian sweet potato—is for naught.

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If you’ve been following Chowder’s little saga, you’d know that purple Hawaiian sweet potatoes (aka Okinawan sweet potatoes) are, in my humble opinion, the greatest thing since round-trip tickets to Honolulu. Waiting for them to arrive, however, is worse than medieval torture.

After placing our order, (i.e. calling my Hawaii-based mother and pleading for a few measly taters to be sent our way) we waited. Three excruciating days later—okay, it wasn’t that long, but we were seriously hungry by this point—a FedEx box arrived at Chowder HQ containing the coveted—and perhaps illicit—spuds (Hawaiian sweet potato growers are required to quarantine their crop before shipping to the mainland, but we decided not to investigate the matter any further). (more…)

We at Chowder know firsthand the effects of climate on our appetites. All winter, I crave hearty roasts, butternut squash, and mac & cheese. (See also: my weird winter rum aversion.) That said, the “cold weather, warm food” principle only holds true to a point. Right now, it’s three degrees with wind chill. My eyelashes freeze when I walk outside. And I’m fantasizing about all things Hawaii (my parents live there, which means I get to visit on occasion): Palm fronds. Coconut suntan lotion. Purple sweet potatoes. (more…)

During the warm weather months, Boston is blessed with an abundance of local farmers markets. But it lacks a central year-round market along the lines of Seattle’s Pike Place, San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, or New York’s Union Square Greenmarket.

This wasn’t always the case: Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market were once home to a thriving collection of fishmongers, greengrocers, butchers, and bakers (probably even candlestick makers) as far back as the early 1800s. But those vendors were eventually replaced by today’s takeout food stands, making the Haymarket the only year-round source of produce and fish (I’ll leave discussions of quality and atmosphere to another post). (more…)

Welcome to the inaugural post of Chowder, Boston magazine’s new daily food blog, where we’ll share our favorite food finds, restaurant news, advice on where to eat…anything new and interesting in the Boston food world. I’m Amy Traverso, Boston’s food editor, and I welcome your feedback, tips, and questions. You can find me at food@bostonmagazine.com.

So let’s begin, shall we?

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