We took the overnight train west to Batumi, on Georgia’s western edge. The train arrived at 7 am and we set off with Giorgio, who we met in our sleeper car. For breakfast he introduced us to khachapuri, one of his favorite Georgian foods. Khachapuri is basically a bread filled with bread, cheese and butter. […]
The Rolling Fire Blog
Wood-oven trail, stop #4: Close encounters in Tbilisi
Wood ovens are everywhere in Tbilisi. Everyone said so, from former residents to the owner of our guesthouse to the Tourist Information Center staff. Everywhere, everywhere, just go to any bakery! As you may have guessed, a story that starts out so optimistically may actually be headed for something else. We did indeed find lots […]
Wood-oven trail, stop #3: The twenty-foot grill in Baku
Baku, Azerbaijan is a chaotic mix of new construction amidst the detritus of earlier layers of construction. A few remnants of ancient Baku have been turned into a display piece, lovingly preserved as a Unesco world heritage site. Baku seems to have rather mixed feelings about preseving its more recent past. In 1900, a third […]
Wood-oven trail, stop #2: Socca in Vence
I took the bus up into the hills from Nice. It wound up through the hills on a beautiful sunny morning and brought me to the end of the line in the little town of Vence, where I’d come to look for a socca stand that David Lebovitz mentioned in his blog. Happily, it turned […]
Setting out on the wood-oven trail: the south of France
The south of France… first stop on the wood-oven trail! I’m in Nice, looking for socca. The great charm of socca is the way it unites opposing qualities: it manages to be both light and filling at the same time, plus it has a wonderfully tender texture but a crisp crust. It’s an all-around perfect food in […]