Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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Sardinian Seadas: A Sweet Souvenir

Sardinian seadaCooking wasn’t much on my mind when I first arrived in Sardinia five weeks ago. Learning Italian, yes. Writing, yes. Expunging the recent stresses of New York and beyond, yes. That’s what I’d come to do.

But Sardinia and its charms instantly beguiled me, its platters of pane gutiau (a traditional flatbread drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and baked to crackling deliciousness), spicy mussels and garlicky fried shrimp reeling me in ever deeper.

In Alghero, I’ve had the great fortune of not only eating tremendously well but also having terrific food gurus to watch in the kitchen. Among them is a lovely soul — Angelina Demartis, a local high school teacher who comes from a long line of Algherese women who have taken great joy in cooking well and feeding the ones they love.

Angelina occasionally holds cooking class dinners at her home in downtown Alghero and one night, I got to be a part of one of them. Which is how I came to discover the intense pleasure that is Sardinian seadas.

So when my hardy Let’s Lunch club decided on sharing a recipe they’ve brought back with them from faraway travels, Angelina’s seadas instantly came to mind …

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Pasta & Co. (Alghero, Italy): Sampling the Sea

IMG_6833One of my first nights in Sardinia and my Italian school classmate Caroline and I are on the prowl in the twilight of Alghero.

After a tough morning of language lessons and a long afternoon in the sun, Caroline, an apprentice chef from Norway, and I are starving. She has a place in mind, one that she thinks looks good. And so we wend our way down a few narrow cobblestoned streets and cross a piazza before coming upon a restaurant sign that I can’t help but wince at: Pasta & Co.

Pasta & Co.? Surely, I didn’t traipse across thousands of miles to eat at a restaurant that sounds like it belongs in the Mall of America.

Since Caroline is in the business though, I figure there must be something to this place. So, in we went …

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Bia Bistrot (Edinburgh): A French-Gaelic Mélange

Donkeyote GarnachaAmid the fashionable cafes and boisterous eateries of Edinburgh’s Morningside neighborhood is a little storefront so unassuming it’s easy to breeze right on by.

I had, in fact, done just this on a few occasions before D.B. pointed bia bistrot out one day. The fact that he liked the place — and had eaten there regularly — is noteworthy. This is a man who has given just four Edinburgh restaurants his stamp of approval in all his years here. And bia bistrot is one of them.

When we finally made it in for dinner this week later, I certainly saw why …

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Nantucket: The Art of Winging It


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I’ve always envied people who can look in a fridge, grab a bunch of things and whip together an impressive meal.

The times that I’ve done that, I’ve managed to oh, muster up a ham scramble.

As someone who entered the kitchen fairly late in life, my insecurities always get the better of me. So when it comes to cooking, I’m much more of a planner — I like to think things through a fair bit first if I’ve never made a dish before. I’ll look up dozens of recipes before settling on what to make. And I’ll read a recipe several times over to plan any changes or additions before setting foot in the kitchen.

But, watching the ease and freedom of chefs who cook purely by instinct — that confidence always gets me. I can’t help but feel like the child on a tricycle, watching far braver kids whizzing past on ten-speed bikes.

How to bridge that gulf?

In the kitchen of a little beach cottage on Nantucket, I started taking baby steps.

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