Field Notes from Europe and the Mediterranean
Explore Europa
Named for a Phoenician princess abducted by Zeus and carried to Crete, Europa came to mean the Mediterranean world and the continent beyond it. Follow me through Europe's past and future, its wild places, its challenges, its enchanting cuisines and cultures.
What Is Europa?
A Continent and Its Inland Sea
Europe is hard to draw. It is less a continent than a crowded western peninsula of Asia, and the sea that shaped it belongs to three continents at once. The Mediterranean touches Europe, Africa and Asia, and for most of recorded history it was the center of the known world, crossed by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans and Venetians, each leaving their gods, crops and words on its shores.
So my Europa is Europe and the Mediterranean together: the olive and citrus coasts of Sicily, Malta, Iberia and the Aegean; the cities and cheese valleys of the Alps; the Baltic shore of Poland; and the far North Atlantic, where Iceland’s cliffs hold the last of the puffins. It reaches across the water to Tangier and Tunis, which the sea has always joined to Europe more than it has divided them.
- 3continents on the Mediterranean shore
- 9 milesthe Strait of Gibraltar at its narrowest
- 2,400 mithe Mediterranean, from Gibraltar to the Levant
- 5.3 millionyears since the Atlantic poured back into a dried-out Mediterranean
From the Sea to the North
My stories, from the Mediterranean outward.
- The MediterraneanSicily, the Adriatic and the AegeanThe inland sea at the center of it all: Sicilian coasts, the Venetian Adriatic and the Greek islands. The Sicilian citrus and Maltese cheese stories have their own panels below.
- IberiaSpain, Portugal and the StraitThe peninsula at the western door of the Mediterranean, from the Costa Brava to Lisbon and the Rock of Gibraltar.
- The NorthThe Baltic to IcelandBeyond the olive line: the Pomeranian coast of Poland and the seabird cliffs of Iceland’s Westfjords.
- Sketch JournalsInk and watercolorMy drawings from five places, Hamburg to Sicily.
A Series in Eight Parts
The Citrus Kingdom
A journey around Sicily, one town and one citrus at a time: how a strange fruit from the far end of the world came to rule the island, from the orange groves of Palermo to the volcanic slopes of Etna. The first five parts are here; three more are on the way.
Part IPalermo and the Citrus KingdomHow a strange fruit from the far end of the world made Palermo the capital of a citrus kingdom.
Part IICefalù and the Sour OrangeAn amaro at dusk, a forgotten rootstock, and the bitter orange that quietly held up Sicily.
Part IIILipari and the Colonel’s LemonA strange lemon leads from an island garden to the making of Italy.
Part IVTaormina and the Volcano OrangesLizards, Portuguese ships and blood oranges meet beneath Mount Etna.
Part VVendicari and the Citrus Before TimeFlamingos, a misnamed dragonfly and eight million years of citrus.
Also from Sicily and the citrus trail: Sicily Sketch Journal · Sicily Map · The Marrakech Orangerie
A Continuing Series
Travels with the Imaginary Maître d’Fromage
Every great journey needs a guide. Mine is imaginary: a cheese traveler whose trail begins in the medina of Tangier and wanders north through the sun-baked towns of Spain and Portugal, up into the Alps, and back down to the stone fields of Malta and Gozo, following the handmade cheeses of the Mediterranean world.
MoroccoTangier and the Imaginary Maître d’FromageEvery great journey needs a guide. Ours is imaginary, and his trail begins in the medina of Tangier.
Spain and PortugalMission in the SunSix cheeses, two countries and one very small rental car.
The AlpsAppenzell and the Constellation GalliaTravels with an imaginary fromager in Bavaria and Switzerland.
MaltaThe Ġbejna Journals in MaltaFrom Neolithic seafarers to modern refugees, the hidden history of Malta is written in cheese.
GozoThe Ġbejna Journals in GozoIn M’dina and the fields of Gozo, ġbejna ends its 8,000-year journey through Maltese history.