Slices of strawberries bordered by pillowy puffs of pistachio cream. The fluted caramelized crust of custard-y canelés. Tidy layers of dark chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream and almond biscuits in an opera cake. The term “culinary arts” is at its most appropriate when considering the work of a pastry chef. Especially when the pâtisserie is hidden in the back of an art gallery. Parenthèse Enchantée is the second act for Nathalie Gnaegy. “Cooking was my weekend pastime,” she explains. Nourished by sharing food with her family and coworkers, she “progressively veered towards baked goods, more welcome at the office than a half-eaten whole tuna,” she winks. Her appreciative officemates insisted she should “bake professionally.”

When people ask me what’s my favorite time of the year here in Athens, I always say it’s spring and particularly April. That is when all the Seville orange trees lining the streets of Athens – both downtown and in the suburbs – blossom and perfume the whole city. I can spend hours walking around and inhaling the wonderful scent. The common orange is believed to be a naturally occurring hybrid between the pomelo and the mandarin. There are many different varieties and other hybrids that have evolved, but they generally fall into one of two categories: sweet (citrus x sinesis), which includes varieties such as the navel orange, the Valencia orange, the blood orange and the Jaffa orange, or bitter (citrus x aurantium), which includes the Seville orange, the trifoliate orange and the bergamot orange.

Greek Easter was extraordinary – in the truest sense of the word – this year. Despite the fantastic weather people had to stay at home to celebrate, quite a lonesome setup compared to the crowded daylong outdoor feast that we are normally used to. Despite being at home, my 7-year-old son and I did all the same Easter traditions, just in smaller quantities. One of the most fun traditions for children is the “egg breaking” ritual. We dye eggs on Good Thursday; this year, since my son is into space and Star Wars, we used that as inspiration and dyed our eggs like planets – we’ve got plenty of time, so we might as well use it creatively!

Another Instagram Live series we’re launching is CB Cooks, which will bring our walk leaders into your home for a live cooking demonstration. First up is Carolina Doriti, our Athens bureau chief, who will be cooking <em>galatopita</em>, a Greek milk pie, on Sunday, April 19, at 11 a.m. EDT (GMT-4). If you want to cook along with Carolina, here are the ingredients you’ll need (although all are welcome to come watch, even if you’re not cooking).

In Spain, preserving the rituals of Lent – historically a period of 40 days of prayer, penance and pious abstinence from eating meat that leads up to Easter – was up until the second half of the 20th century mostly the responsibility of priests. Nowadays, however, it is more often the country’s chefs who are shaping the observance of Lent, by both maintaining and updating its delicious culinary traditions, which are still very much a part of Spain’s contemporary food culture. Each country where Lent was customarily practiced has its own special dishes in which meat is replaced with other protein-rich ingredients in order to fill the stomach. In Spain, the “king” of Lenten cuisine is cod (bacalao), introduced in the 16th century by Basque fishermen who had begun to catch it off the faraway coast of Newfoundland.

Growing up in Oaxaca, la gelatina rosita (“pinkish jelly”) was a biweekly ritual – every other Saturday, our mother would return from the market with this special dessert. It was so ingrained in our routine that we couldn’t imagine life without it. In fact, on a family trip to Mexico City, we were shocked to learn that gelatina rosita wasn’t readily available. Did they know what they were missing? It was only when we were older did we learn the proper name of this precious Oaxacan specialty: nicuatole. Some say its etymology can be traced back to Nahuatl (one of the many Indigenous languages spoken in ancient Mexico), specifically the words necuatl (“agave honey”) and atolli (“liquid corn”). While this may be true, it doesn’t quite portray what nicuatole is, not really.

The southern city of Adana is synonymous with kebab, and for good reason. Not only is the spicy grilled skewer of meat named after and originating from the city perhaps the most iconic and beloved style of kebab in the country, Adana also boasts the highest number of excellent kebab joints per capita anywhere, according to our unofficial but heartily conducted research. Therefore, we would be utterly remiss to neglect to mention our favorite kebab joints in the city: Ciğerci Mahmut, İştah, Kaburgacı Yaşar, Yeşil Kapı, and Ciğerci Memet. But Adana’s deep and rich food culture goes beyond the kebab, and during our numerous visits to this energetic, dynamic and truly excellent city, we’ve delighted in discovering its other specialties.

In a few years time, one might look back at the year 2019 and feel a bit sorry for it. That’s not for lack of delicious things to eat: record numbers of restaurants continue to open – although fierce competition means around half shut their doors within two years. But 2019 risks being forever overshadowed by 2020, when Tokyo will host the Olympics and Paralympics for the first time since 1964. It certainly is a preparatory year for the anticipated influx of overseas visitors. Fortunately, the city was able to lay claim to hosting the Rugby World Cup and did very well, both at demonstrating Japan’s omotenashi (hospitality) at its best and in the national team beating Ireland, causing one of the biggest upsets in the tournament’s history.

The backstreets of Istanbul's Osmanbey quarter are loaded with fabric shops, while the adjacent thoroughfare of Halaskargazi Avenue is a busy shopping area lined with chain clothing stores and hotels. Come here for a cheap shiny suit, but don’t expect to find rewarding culinary adventures, as most of the area's restaurants offer fast food that manages to be both overpriced and underwhelming. Given all that, we were thrilled when Mahir Lokantası rolled onto the scene in 2015, bringing to the table a fine-tuned rotating menu featuring daily regional specialties from every corner of Turkey. “We make a variety of dishes from the Black Sea region, the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts and Eastern and Central Anatolia,” Mahir Nazlıcan, the restaurant's namesake and head chef, told us.

At a typical pâtisserie orientale, the front window is often stacked with towers of sweets – honey-soaked visual merchandising to entice passersby to pop inside. Some pastry shops line their walls with colorful geometric tiles and Moorish arches, the icing on the Maghreb cake. Pâtisserie Orientale Journo goes for a decidedly more subtle approach. Though located a block from Marseille’s main drag, the Canèbiere, this unassuming shop is somewhat lost in the shuffle of the pedestrian Rue de Pavillon. The few tables scattered out front suggest that there’s food to be found inside but the open storefront is bare – save for a giant five-gallon water jug propped on a stool, with a hand-scrawled sign “citronnade – 2 euros” beside it. That’s all the advertising needed for a pastry shop that has survived by word of mouth for 60 years.

A visit to Varsos, a culinary landmark in Athens that looks much the same as it did 60 years ago, is like traveling back in time to one of the city’s grand patisseries of the 1950s. The venue, which is still in the hands of the Varsos family who originally opened it, is one of the most famous of Athens’ old-style coffeehouses and is the only one that has kept its traditional charm over the last several decades. Varsos was established in 1892 in central Athens, but it is the wonderfully old-fashioned Kifisia location, to which the patisserie moved in 1932, that has made the venue famous. At the beginning of the 20th century, Kifisia was a holiday destination for rich Athenians, and their stately summer mansions still dot this beautiful yet ever-expanding northern suburb, which is now popular with professionals, families and expats.