Category: Travel

Postcard from Braga, Portugal: Regional Minho dishes and imported flavors

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A Portuguese postage stamp featuring a wheel of São Jorge cheese with a wedge cut out, labeled 'Queijos Portugueses' and priced at €0.80.

Above: Shrimp pinxtos with passion fruit and nuts at O Filho da Mae

The majority of visitors to Braga are day-trippers based in Porto or on cruise ships, as the city is located a mere 30 miles north of the bustling port city. We stayed a bit longer, as we tend to do. Here is a brief look into dishes we sampled in restaurants listed in alphabetical order, plus a bonus from nearby Guimaraes where we were the day-trippers,

When we stumbled into Casa de Pasto das Carvalheiras, we must have looked somewhat bedraggled. Braga was the first place we were staying overnight on land since leaving Austin. The staff welcomed us warmly into the pub-like environment. An easy first stop. Shaved melon brought out the flavor of tuna carpaccio with pistachios; and mussels arrived in a spicy broth. Barley risotto was flavored by paprika and pork sausage, as one expects in this Minho region of Portugal.

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Road trip to art-walk in San Antonio

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Above: Looking northward to downtown from San Pedro Culture Park pathways

If you follow the ruta of San Pedro Creek, you are on a pilgrimage rooted in the past, destined for the future. As in some ancient legend, a city emerged out of these waters. A city bubbled forth out of this spring-fed stream, running from long before there was anyone here to witness it – or drink from it…. If this creek could speak, in whispers of song, or poetry, it might tell the story of the city that it birthed, brought to the light of history, its most extraordinary, and perhaps unexpected, progeny. Whispers of memories, echoes of song, rhythms of poesy, drumbeats and bugles, punctuated by cannonades – and long intervals of peace.”

“A Creek Tells Its Story: The Mythic Narrative of San Pedro Creek,” John Phillip Santos

Our rare quick trips to San Antonio tend to involve friends and family, so exploring the two miles of improvements along San Pedro Creek is taking a while. In December, we walked a small segment of the former degraded ditch that has been transformed into San Pedro Cultural Park.

Rather than repeat the background, here are links to my earlier blogs: first post, 2018; second post, 2024. Below, find images taken along a newer stretch.

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Postcard from Paris, France: Chefs blur borders

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Illustration of a chef's hands arranging a plate with colorful vegetables and a small dish, featured on a French stamp labeled 'Gastronomie'.

Above: Mushroom tarte at Pristine

People who do not accept the new, grow old very quickly.”

A Guide to Modern Cookery, Auguste Escoffier, 1907

We’re already old. We arrived at this stage in but the blink of an eye and certainly have no desire to accelerate the aging process. This is the excuse I offer for not sticking to French food in France.

My hero chefs are those unafraid to pluck ingredients and fuse ideas from many cultures. The evolutionary development of European cuisine as a whole has been speeding along ever since those first traders sailed eastward to discover an explosion of spices and westward to find revolutionary crops – such as tomatoes and cacao.

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