SpiceLines

Thin, fragile white corn tortillas from Tonali Restaurant make all the difference in these succulent lamb tacos. Instead of starch, you taste the rich flavorful meat and its zingy accompaniments--avocado, red onion, cilantro--all drenched with lime juice.

Sometimes great palates coincide—and then diverge.

Right about the time I was in San Antonio devouring Las Salsas’ divine barbacoa de borrego, John T. Edge seems to have been meandering through Austin’s many breakfast taco joints. He encountered a lot of chorizo, eggs, beans and ham, mostly wrapped in flour tortillas and consumed with, uh, soy milk lattes.

Then he threw down the gauntlet : “When it comes to breakfast tacos, Austin trumps all other American cities.”

Really?

In “A Mix of Cultures, All Folded Together,” (The New York Times, March 10, 2010, p. D20), Edge nibbles at the origins of the breakfast taco. Are they Mexican? American? Or both? “Some ingredients , like refried beans and chorizo, taste Mexican….But breakfast tacos may owe as much to the American fast food industry as they do to the taquerias, say, of Guadalajara,” he writes. Edge goes on to define the Austin breakfast taco: “…inspired by Mexico, but not Mexican, a composite food reflecting two cultures.”

Maybe that passes for the real thing in a town where flour tortillas appear to be stuffed with Jimmy Dean sausage--but I doubt it.

London bound today...longing to peek at old maps of the spice routes, or a tattered broadside for a coffeehouse auction of nutmegs and peppercorns...stopping at Miller Harris to sample The Petales perfumed with Turkish rose absolute and a dip into the perfume library...then supper at Ottolenghi. We've been cooking our way through this vibrant Middle Eastern-inflected cookbook and can't wait to see how Yotam and Sami work their magic with pomegranate and lemon...

In Lisbon someone we know is running the EDP half marathon, a 13 mile sprint along the Tagus River--we'll be there, looking for her among the 30,000 others that will be flashing by. There'll be soulful fado, of course, and azulejos, those exquisite blue and white tiles that cast enchantment on our honeymoon...a whirl through the new Museu do Oriente with treasures from the glory days of Portugal's far flung colonial empire...a taste of pastel de nata, eggy cinnamon- dusted pastries at the Antiga Confeitaria de Belem....and port, lots of port especially in Oporto....

See you in April!

In the medieval Alfama, a gaudy modern peacock struts across the wall of an atelier of azulejos. Higher up, real peacocks guard the ramparts of the Castelo de Sao Jorge, a 9th century Moorish fortress.

Memory can play such tricks.

In my mind's eye, Lisbon was a sea of azulejos.

Every palace, convent and house was covered with mesmerizing tiles from centuries past.

But when we splashed into Lisbon on a wet spring afternoon, there were no azulejos anywhere. Only faceless buildings, undistinguished and unadorned.

At first I thought the tiles had vanished. Victims of euro-based prosperity, itself now largely an illusion.

But then....