Here, to ring in this new year, is an ode to what should be the next great culinary star from the country of Georgia, the perfect vessel of unadorned cholesterol, the cosmic collision of flour, butter, egg and cheese: Khachapuri.

Links:

R&K weeklong culinary journeys: The League of Travelers

Georgian market tours: Meet Me Here Tbilisi

Mexico City Market Tours: Eat Like a Local

Market Tours everywhere else: Culinary Backstreets

Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan

Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes, Through Darkness and Light

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Now that it's cold and flu (and COVID) season, it's time for Georgia's Dayquil of the gods: the pomace brandy called Chacha. Host of The Trip Nathan Thornburgh explains its appeal.

Seize the chacha by Ansel Mullins

Nikalas Marani on IG

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The Trip from Roads & Kingdoms and host Nathan Thornburgh is back, with a tight new format, plus lots of distilled alcohol and Soviet helicopters in Georgia's Caucasus Mountains.

The Light of the Caucasus: Photographs by Yuri Kozyrev

Georgia: Q&A with Photographer Natela Grigalashvili

Abkhazia: Paradise Lost

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Roads & Kingdoms online

R&K Instagram

Return to Catalunya video series with Bourdain and Goulding

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Holding a diverse community together in a time of gathering threats is no easy act. Barcelona's Chief Rabbi thinks he's up to the task.

Prior Chief Rabbi of Barcelona “Europe is Lost”

The Hidden Stories of Barcelona’s Jews

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21st generation winemaker Pepe Raventós talks about his family's 500 or so years of Catalan winemaking.

Raventós i Blanc’s Sparkling Wines

Rudolf Steiner lecture trashing wine

Penedés tourism site

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Drinking Scotch and talking to a man who is really, really excited about Big Tech.

Zoltan Istvan homepage

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Drinking coffee with Eva Castillo, New Hampshire immigrant rights activist

Mira Coalition homepage

Rincón Zacatecano

Puerto Vallarta restaurant

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Gary Hirshberg was a key early supporter of Barack Obama in New Hampshire, and as chairman of Stonyfield Farm, is an icon of the business of organic food. The Trip met up with him just before the 2020 primary to do shots of probiotics and talk politics.

Stonyfield Farm

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Drinking baijiu with Tom Tillotson, whose family has presided over the midnight vote in Dixville Notch, NH for six decades.

Show notes:

Mitch Moxley's Baijiu piece for California Sunday magazine

Tom Tillotson’s China Ski Tours website

Balsams homepage

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Lebanese wine expert and podcast host Farrah Berrou takes The Trip Into the Beqaa Valley

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