Cuisine

Floating Rock 485 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge 617-455-4009 www.floatingrockrestaurant.com At a little restaurant in a brick storefront in Revere, many Bostonians had their first taste of Khmer cuisine. Floating Rock served dishes laced with chilies, fresh herbs, and the fermented fish paste called prahok to guests from Cambodia and Cambridge alike. For those discovering the bright flavors, the food was a revelation. The restaurant wasn’t glamorous, but it fed customers like royalty, on the cheap.

A San Diego restaurant opened by Junior Seau in 1996 has closed its doors two weeks after the NFL star's suicide. Trustees of Seau's estate say they made the decision to close Seau's The Restaurant in Mission Valley on Wednesday. Trustee Bette Hoffman says in a statement that the decision to close the restaurant was made to honor Seau's legacy. She also says trustees felt the restaurant's future profitability could be in question without Seau's leadership. The eatery's website describes it as San Diego's largest sports-themed restaurant, with 60 TVs offering contemporary...

WHO: Shelley Wiseman WHAT: The former Gourmet magazine food editor lived in Mexico during her teens and after six years in France, returned to start a French cooking school. ‘‘While I was teaching [in Mexico City], I was also learning about Mexican food," says Wiseman, who now resides in Jackson Heights, Queens. ‘‘I went to people's houses and on the street, eating good food, which are the two best places [to experience native cuisine], much more so than restaurants usually.

Fuse Bistro 45 Palmer St., Lowell Hours: Monday-Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 11:30 a.m.-midnight; Saturday, noon-midnight; closed Sunday. 978-323-0424 www.fuse-bistro.com Major credit cards accepted Handicapped-accessible It's easy to find something to love at Fuse Bistro. The cuisine is inventive and the kitchen's thrust is local and fresh. Vegetables hail from Farmer Dave's down the road in Dracut and this time of year asparagus, stunning green and meaty sprigs, rule the menu.

Punjab 475 Massachusetts Ave., ArlingtonSunday-Thursday 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.Reservations acceptedMajor credit cards acceptedAccessible to the handicapped Regional Punjab cuisine is the mother ship of Indian food in America. Although Punjab is only a tiny region in northwestern India and there are more than a half-dozen other distinct regional Indian cuisines, Punjab dishes can be found in nearly all Indian restaurants in the United States.

Fuse Bistro 45 Palmer St., Lowell Hours: Monday-Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 11:30 a.m.-midnight; Saturday, noon-midnight; closed Sunday. 978-323-0424 www.fuse-bistro.com Major credit cards accepted Handicapped-accessible It's easy to find something to love at Fuse Bistro. The cuisine is inventive and the kitchen's thrust is local and fresh. Vegetables hail from Farmer Dave's down the road in Dracut and this time of year asparagus, stunning green and meaty sprigs, rule the menu.

GENOA, Italy -- A few nights before I was to leave, I got in the mood by dining at Mare in Boston's North End. When I told chef Marisa Iocco where I was going, she got a dreamy look in her eyes. "The oil!" she exclaimed. "Ligurian olive oil is the best in the world. " The province of Liguria is little more than a salty rim of the northern Mediterranean where the Apennines shelter the coast from the cold European winter. The pine trees and dairy sheep of the mountains provide the nuts and cheese, the slopes above the sea the delicate olive oil, and the precious strip of arable coastline the intensely...

CHARLESTON - This pastel-colored seaport town sits low and pretty at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper rivers. Lighted with gas lanterns, bursting with blooming oleander and camellias, lined with stately old Federal and Greek Revival mansions, and thick with magnolias, palmetto palms, and live oaks dripping Spanish moss, Charleston looks too good to be true - more like an Epcot pavilion than a real city. But it's not all good manners and living history. Beneath the scrubbed and potted and tourist-ready, an authentic food culture thrives,...

If you snicker at the foams, edible papers and other hallmark foods of haute cuisine, you may want to reconsider. Avant garde chef Ferran Adria says that without those, there would be no Rachael Ray, no Food Network, and eating in general would be a lot less exciting. "We wouldn't have food television shows if we didn't have high-end cuisine," said Adria, who prefers that term to the more popular "molecular gastronomy" or "modernist cuisine" sometimes used to describe his approach to cooking.

DUFFTOWN, Scotland - Traditional Scottish cuisine might not have the best reputation, but Sandy Smart’s take on it should. Smart purchased his 28-seat restaurant, A Taste of Speyside, here in 1997. It is a kitschy bit of the real thing: a red tartan carpet, cases filled with trophies on the wall next to tacked-up coloring-book drawings by younger patrons. Of course, there’s a well-stocked bar with excellent whiskies. For Smart, the key is fresh ingredients, done right.

SANTA FE – It seems almost inevitable that Tabla de Los Santos restaurant in the Hotel St. Francis would be run by chef Estevan Garcia. Like the rest of the property, the "table of the saints" has an austere Spanish Colonial decor that suggests a monastery — and Garcia is a former Franciscan friar. Garcia grew up in New Mexico's upper Rio Grande valley, watching his mother cook for a family of 11. Before entering the religious order, he honed his skills as a line cook in Santa Fe restaurants.

Six volumes, 2,438 pages, 46 pounds and $625 added up to two hefty awards Friday for Nathan Myhrvold's cookbook, "Modernist Cuisine. " The massive and much lauded tome on the science of food and cooking by a former chief technology officer of Microsoft was named cookbook of the year by the James Beard Foundation, a nod to the growing influence over food culture being wielded by the so-called molecular gastronomy movement. "Modernist Cuisine" also took home a second Beard award in the category of cooking from a professional point of view.

Located in the center of Roslindale Square, Suya Joint, opened in February, is small and sparsely decorated. Photographs ofbaobab trees on walls and pictures of lions over the host stand let you know you are in an African restaurant. You'll also see signs asking you to keep your conversation from getting too loud, which seem out of place early in the evening. As it gets later and groups come in to eat, drink, and catch up, the energy gets more lively and fun. It may take you a while to get noticed here.

PUTNEY, Vt. — These are the last-minute directions to the house where cookbook author Crescent Dragonwagon lives: "All-wheel drive is de rigeur [sic] during mud season. Which at this moment we're in! (It's also sugaring time . . . not unrelated as neighbors sugar and their truck does tear up the already mucky road.). " It's very quiet for the last few miles, few residences, and nothing but mud. But once inside the 18th-century farmhouse, there is relief from the endless slog.

PUTNEY, Vt. — These are the last-minute directions to the house where cookbook author Crescent Dragonwagon lives: "All-wheel drive is de rigeur [sic] during mud season. Which at this moment we're in! (It's also sugaring time . . . not unrelated as neighbors sugar and their truck does tear up the already mucky road.). " It's very quiet for the last few miles, few residences, and nothing but mud. But once inside the 18th-century farmhouse, there is relief from the endless slog.

Dosa Temple is a family affair. The original location in Ashland is owned by Gokul Krishan, who found the perfect location for his Southern Indian restaurant right down the street from a Hindu temple. He decided to make the menu entirely vegetarian. Last December, his cousin, Gopala Krishan, opened a second spot just outside Union Square in Somerville, and brought the chef, Siva Kumar, with him. For those accustomed to Northern, and British-influenced, Indian cuisine - dishes like creamy tikka masala, butter chicken, and coconut milk curries - Southern Indian food is a new...

When Paula Deen announced this week that she has type 2 diabetes, critics of the Food Network's star Southern chef responded, "What did she expect?" They have a point: Deen's oeuvre could double as a foods-to-avoid list for anyone trying to cut back on fat and calories. Deen's perennial critic, fellow celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, upped the ante, knocking Deen for taking an endorsement deal for the diabetes medication Victoza. "Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later," Bourdain tweeted.

Byblos 678 Washington St., Norwood 781-762-8998 www.byblosrestaurant.com Hours: Tuesday through Thursday 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 12:30 to 8 p.m. Reservations accepted If, when you visit an ethnic restaurant, you can bring a friend who has grown up enjoying the cuisine at family gatherings and holidays, you are very lucky. If, as you sample various dishes, your friend is transported back to childhood days recalling delicacies made by a grandmother, you have hit the culinary jackpot.

As a young woman, Irish-born-and-bred Darina O'Connell went to work at Ballymaloe restaurant, owned by Myrtle Allen, one of Ireland's finest cooks. Darina eventually married Myrtle's son, Tim. In 1983, the two started Ballymaloe Cookery School and Gardens in East Cork, which hosts guests from around the world. Darina Allen has written several award-winning volumes. Her "Irish Traditional Cooking: Over 300 recipes from Ireland's Heritage," in which she went on a quest to save the old cuisine, was published in 1995 and just reissued in a handsome new edition.