Florian Pinel

  • Khachapuri Recipe

    For this Georgian cheese bread, I favor a soft dough made with yogurt and baking powder, but you could also use store-bought dough.

  • Ice Fishing Is Amazing, If You Can Stand the Frostbite

    Despite freezing temperatures, frostbitten fingers, labyrinths of fishing lines, and sex-toy-like fishing gadgets, ice fishing is surprisingly rewarding—even before you catch your first fish.

  • Georgia's Cheese Bread Might Be Better Than Pizza

    Khachapuri is a cheese bread that's found all over Georgia—the country, not the US state—in at least a half-dozen varieties, sometimes topped with eggs and butter to turn a simple meal into a total gut bomb.

  • Becherovka Is Better Than Cough Syrup

    With its origins as a medicine, Becherovka is akin to Fernet, Unicum, Jägermeister, and Chartreuse. It’s herbal, it’s bitter, and it’s the antithesis of everything that’s pleasant and enjoyable, but some people manage to love it.

  • I'm Happy to Have a Computer Help Me Cook Better

    A few years ago, I joined IBM's new cognitive cooking project—better known as Chef Watson. Instead of just another technological crutch, Chef Watson could be the first specimen of a new generation of smarter cookbooks.

  • Uzbek Plov Recipe

    A cousin of pilaf and pulao, plov is the national dish of Uzbekistan.

  • In Uzbekistan, A Bowl of Greasy Rice Will Make or Break Your Marriage

    Most people who visit Uzbekistan head to Samarkand and Bukhara, but the spot for real-deal Uzbek cuisine is Tashkent. There, I found horse meat pasta salad and copious amounts of plov, a delicious dish of rice and meat that's said to seal the fate of...

  • I Ate Dinner in a Tajik Hellhole

    Ask the average Westerner what they know about Tajikistan, and they'll probably draw a blank. (Is it a country? Isn’t there a war going on there?) Which made finding out more about qurutob, its national dish, even more interesting.

  • Qurutob Recipe

    Skip the terrifying cab drivers of Dushanbe by making Tajikistan's national meat-and-bread dish at home.