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This week we peek at the fantasy life of a house in Tuscany with Michael Tucker, author of Living in a Foreign Language, A Memoir of Food, Wine and Love. Sally Schneider author of A New Way to Cook gives us a fresh take on pears, and Seattle chef Tom Douglas explains the trials and tribulations of becoming a "gentleman" farmer.

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Roasted Pears

Sally Schneider gives us this dessert recipe. Use pears that are not fully ripened for a warm treat. Get the full recipe.

Features

Jane & Michael Stern, P & H Truck Stop, Wells River, VT

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P & H Truck Stop in Wells River serves up good old-fashioned comfort food from a bilingual menu to accommodate truckers coming into the States from Montreal. The fries with gravy is another nod to their customers from north of the border.

Step inside the door and you're hit with the luscious aroma of fresh baked bread. It stars in their really good open-faced hot turkey sandwich (Michael says the mashed potatoes on the side aren't so great so go with the fries.) The homemade rolls and pies are first rate. Don't pass up the maple cream pie served in trucker-huge slices.

Check out the charming murals depicting life in Vermont painted by local artists.

P & H Truck Stop
Route 302 and I-91 (Exit 17 off I-91)
Wells River, VT
802-429-2141

New York, NY: Tapas Bars

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Mike Colameco, our go-to guy for good eats in the Big Apple, likes these tapas bars:

Tia Pol
287 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY
212-675-8805

Tia Pol in West Chelsea is a tiny spot run by a husband and wife team. Good food.

Boqueria
53 West 19th Street
New York, NY
212-255-4160

A young crowd keeps the high tables filled at Boqueria, a busy spot near Union Square Park. Mike says the paella is the best in the city.

Suba
109 Ludlow Street
New York, NY
212-982-5714

The owner of Boqueria and his partner have done a spin-off restaurant called Suba on the lower East Side. Although not necessarily a tapas bar, the Spanish/Latin food is good.

La Nacional
239 West 14th Street
(Between 7th Ave. and 8th Ave.)
New York, NY
212-243-9308

This is Mike's favorite, and practically unknown to many New Yorkers. It's a little hole-in-the-wall in an old building and always crowded with Spanish ex-pats. The chef is great!

The Not-So-Big-Kitchen (and House)

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With a mortgage crunch, a weak housing market, environmental worries and downsizing Baby Boomers, trend forecasters say the demand for sprawling McMansions with designer everything and $100,000 kitchens is cooling off. Architect Sarah Susanka pioneered the not-so-big philosophy of housing design. We love her ideas, which are illustrated in her Not-So-Big series of books. For more information take a look at Sarah's Web site, www.notsobighouse.com.

Tom Douglas

Star chef Tom Douglas has six restaurants, a bakery and a radio show in Seattle. He makes a line of specialty foods and writes cookbooks like Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen and Tom's Big Dinners. This guy is always on the move. When we heard he recently purchased a farm in a small Central Washington town we knew there was a story there. We'll hear about Tom's adventures as a gentleman farmer. We guarantee laughs.

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