Our latest Globavore Interview is with Coral Sisk from The Curious Appetite.  She spends part of the year in Florence as a gourmet writer and tour leader for culinary wine tours. Check out her bio below. 

Coral, lost in Florence. Photo by Beatrice Mancini

1. Who are you and how does food play into your travels? I’m a food blogger currently in Florence and lead food and wine tours. Food plays into my travels for work research but also for pleasure as I’m a full-blown foodie!

2. You’re at your favourite eatery with three companions (fictional, living or dead).  Where (and when!) are you, and who are you with? For imagination’s sake, I’m at The Walrus and the Carpenter slurping oysters and bubbly in my hometown of Seattle with Stephen Colbert (modern day Renaissance man), Ruth Reichl (my food critic hero) and Dante Alighieri (the original Renaissance man).

3. What are your favourite foods? Oysters, raw meat tartare, sashimi sushi, truffles, chocolate, gelato and cupcakes.    Ed’s note: hmmmm …. chocolate truffles or wild-grown, pig-snuffled truffles?

4. Is there anything that you’d never eat? What is it and why? I have been in the epicenter of offal for some years now but have not brought myself to eat brains or testicles. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

5. What do you crave but can’t get whilst on the road?  How do you satisfy the craving? Organic, natural peanut butter or dark chocolate peanut butter cups. Negotiating with my friends to bring me PB is part of the agreement for visiting me in Italy.

6. What food are you embarrassed to admit you like to eat? Mayonnaise.      Ed’s note: Mayonnaise? What’s embarrassing about that?! (Well, embarrassing for me because once I ate it and got food poisoning, and that wasn’t pretty at all …)

7. What / where do you dream of eating, but haven’t yet had the pleasure? At a 3-starred Michelin restaurant.

8. Strangest meal?  Cow teat and nerve panini in Florence.     Ed’s note: Oh my.  Yes, that certainly counts.

9. Ever had food poisoning while traveling? Any advice to share? Yes. When I first got to Florence, I ate liver paté which made me really sick. Make sure you know in advance where to find nearby pharmacies and English speaking doctors/hospitals.

10. Have you fallen so much in love with a foreign dish that you learned to make it at home? What’s the story? I first started working with cooking classes in Florence and became intrigued with fresh pasta from scratch. I decided to make it a part of my culinary habits whenever I host special dinner parties because it is a symbol of my time working with grandma and mamma cooks who are the culinary gatekeepers of the old world.

    

    Photo by Beatrice Mancini.

11. What’s the first thing you eat after returning home from a long trip? If eating was involved, usually fruit and salad. If it’s returning to the States, I stock up on sprouted grain bread and fresh ground peanut butter that I can’t find beyond the west coast.

12. Favourite foreign ingredient you wish your home supermarket carried? Bulk peanut butter, ground fresh from organic peanuts.

13. Country / city where you’ve found the best food? Details please so we can check it out too! I am a bit biased, but I think Palermo has some of the best food I’ve had in Italy — as well as deadly delicious sweets!

14. Country / city where you’ve found the worst? What made it so awful? Las Vegas. I really hated how buffet and corporate the food was, not to mention expensive. I know they have a reputation for amazing chefs, but everyday eating really sucked.

15. Do you have favourite markets for a) buying stuff to eat b) finding unusual things (which you may or may not want to actually eat!) and c) just for taking photos?Borough Market in London, Pike Place Market in Seattle and Sant’Ambrogio Market in Florence — for all of the above.

16. If money were no object, where (and what) would you eat? Sushi in Japan. Especially at Jiro in Tokyo (the 3 star Michelin restaurant).

17. Do you have any food regrets? Not liking papaya.     Ed’s note: I spent almost 40 years not liking papaya.  I learned! 

18. If you could invent any ice cream flavour, what would it be? (yes, I am looking for ideas to add to my ice cream repertoire!)   Black sesame and honeycomb gelato.

19. What do you love and hate about food writing (yours and/or in general)? I love that food writing is actually something that people like to read about. I hate that there is negative backlash against the art of food criticism and I don’t see as much critical analysis of food experiences. I have noticed a rise in more superficial accounts of food experiences. This could be partly due to the new rise of restauranteurs threatening legal action against food writers for unsavory opinions (no pun intented.)

20. You’re having surgery tomorrow and there’s a reasonable chance you’ll lose your ability to taste (oh the horrors!). What would you choose as, essentially, your last meal? Sushi, oysters and loads of Champagne. Gelato for dessert, of course.