Author: Mildred Bell

In Vermont kitchens, there’s a certain stubbornness that has nothing to do with nostalgia and everything to do with knowing what works. Since 2001, the Sunday brunch menu at the Sugarbrook Inn, located off a dirt road outside of Woodstock where the maple trees lean close enough to shade the porch by midmorning, has undergone numerous changes. Pancakes have come and gone. About eighteen months passed during a brief, foolish flirtation with avocado toast. However, the salad of smoked trout has never been taken off the table. The dish itself seems almost too straightforward to merit such devotion. Over a…

Every May, a certain sound occurs in some kitchens: a wooden spoon scraping against a stockpot, the hiss of butter hitting a hot pan, or someone’s mother, grandmother, or great-aunt telling everyone to move aside because the roux requires constant care. For many American families, Mother’s Day seafood isn’t just about one dish. It’s about a chain of hands that have been making the same chowder or crab cakes for fifty years, with each cook claiming that their version is the closest to the original, even though none of them are totally accurate. That’s why recipes that are passed down…

In mid-March, somewhere between a fish market and a trade floor, the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center makes a certain sound: ice crates, the low hum of refrigerated display cases, and someone testing a microphone three rooms away. This area has been occupied by Seafood Expo North America every spring for the past forty years. This year, Booth 181: NOAA Fisheries is tucked away between rows of scallop processors and smoked salmon vendors, manned by people who, by Monday afternoon, appeared to have answered the same difficult question forty different ways. It’s not that NOAA wasn’t ready. A roundtable on…

When a sentence is less severe than anticipated, a certain silence descends upon a federal courtroom. In late January, Dennis Dopico, the Miami seafood executive at the center of what prosecutors had previously described as one of the industry’s most aggressive antitrust pursuits in years, escaped punishment. No headline-grabbing fines, no perp walk footage, and no handcuffs. Just a quiet conclusion to a case that the Justice Department had presented in remarkably strong language just months before. It’s important to keep in mind how this began. In September 2025, Dopico, the vice president of D&D Seafood in Winter Haven, Florida,…

It was not really planned. Around day four, while sitting at a plastic table in Olhão and observing a man fan charcoal with a folded newspaper, the vague craving I had when I first arrived in Faro turned into a habit. I ate grilled fish for thirty days. Very little else. Sea bass, bream, sardines, and sometimes a whole dinner-plate-sized tuna steak. In writing, it sounds constrictive. At the time, it didn’t feel that way. To be honest, the Algarve makes this kind of choice simple. The area is located on Portugal’s southern border, where centuries of fishing customs and…

A good Niçoise salad transitions from feeling like diet food to feeling like something you’d order at a little restaurant by the water in Nice, usually around the second bite. Perhaps that’s the idea. The dish was never intended to be harsh. It was created by people who enjoyed eating healthily and didn’t see why a midday meal couldn’t serve as both a satisfying meal and a source of energy. It’s interesting how frequently nutritionists mention this specific salad on their own initiative. When you ask a dietitian to describe a “complete” meal, a surprising number of them point to…

After the third bend in Bayou Lafourche, there’s a point at which your phone’s GPS just stops working. A guide by the name of Skip (or Romy, depending on who is asking) cuts the engine and lets the boat drift toward a stand of trees covered in moss as the water narrows and the cypress knees crowd in. A small but growing number of travel writers claim that this is the closest thing remaining to an authentic American meal. It’s not a tasting menu. Not a food hall. Somewhere outside of Des Allemands, a fish that had been removed from…

Eating fish in a picturesque setting can lead to a certain kind of disappointment. The plate that arrives tastes like it was frozen for a year somewhere outside of town, the menu features photos, and the view is flawless. It occurs frequently enough that it begins to feel more like a pattern than bad luck. It seems that the food has less to do with the sea directly outside the window the more picturesque the harbor. Because Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, makes such an effort to avoid being one, it serves as a helpful example. Visitors describe passing restaurant after restaurant…

You realize you’ve left the version of the coast that everyone talks about at a certain point along Lankford Highway, after the pine stands open up into salt marsh. There is no traffic. There are no valet stands. Just a few satellite dishes from the NASA facility on Wallops Island protruding over the trees, and spartina grass bending in the wind. That’s typically the first indication that Chincoteague isn’t making a lot of effort to be located. The ponies are well-known. That was accomplished decades ago by the Misty books, and every July, the pony swim continues to attract large…

Something heavier than normal is coming off the trucks this week on a portion of Virginia’s Eastern Shore where pony herds still roam the marshes and the tide controls the schedule. clams in gallons. oyster bushels. To be honest, there’s enough seafood to make one wonder how one tiny island plans to consume everything by Saturday afternoon. The Chincoteague Seafood Festival is returning for its 56th year, and the math alone is overwhelming if the Chamber of Commerce’s figures are to be believed. About fifty thousand steamer clams are waiting their turn in mesh bags. 75 gallons of chopped clams…