Before most people are awake, Pero Salva has baked a day’s worth of bread over an open fire, milked the cows, fed the chickens and used a broom made from twigs to sweep the dirt walkway in front of the house she shares with her husband and three children.As the roosters crow and a muezzin sings the Muslim call to prayer, we take our places for breakfast on the floor around a table fashioned from a

Travel July 22, 2011

Summer salads are the culinary workhorses of picnics, potlucks and patio parties, and pasta versions are more plentiful than mosquitoes.But isn’t it time to use your noodle ― or rather lose your noodle ― and expand your potluck palette?There are plenty of great-tasting salads sans pasta that are fresh, light and capture the essence of the season much better than mayo-laden macaroni.Find inspiratio

Food July 22, 2011

Quick swirl.A beautiful Bordeaux Blanc with a bouquet of acacia, lime and fresh-cut grass. A blend of 40 percent Sauvignon Blanc with an equal amount of Semillon and 20 percent Muscadelle, the 2009 from Chteau Lamothe de Haux has the bracing minerality that makes these wines such terrific summer drinking. And this one is a particularly wonderful bargain.Drink it as an aperitif, with chilled shellf

Food July 22, 2011

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ― Efforts to preserve and restore several iconic dresses from the Oscar-winning Civil War movie “Gone With the Wind” have uncovered what might be painful for die-hard fans: Some of them simply can’t be made to look like they did on screen.Stitching and holes can be repaired and extra feathers added years ago can be removed, but the dresses are old, badly faded in spots and in on

Film July 21, 2011

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) ― A Spanish collector plans to auction what he claims is a newly discovered 8-mm version of a film purportedly showing Marilyn Monroe having sex when she was still an underage actress known as Norma Jean Baker.A Marilyn Monroe expert, however, says the actress in the film is someone else, considerably heavier and less feminine than the legendary film star.“That’s not M

Film July 21, 2011

Amid the crush of “Twilight” fans and displays of upcoming movies and TV shows, the comic books that started it all at San Diego’s annual Comic-Con are still there championing the heroes.It was four decades ago that the first Comic-Con was held at an aging downtown hotel, attracting only a handful of major guests. This weekend, some 130,000 fans will roam the San Diego Convention Center at what ha

Film July 21, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) ― In 1964, an enterprising 18-year-old snapped pictures of the Beatles’ momentous first U.S. concert in Washington, D.C.On Wednesday, Christie’s auction house said it sold 50 silver gelatin prints that the photographer, Mike Mitchell, made from the negatives for $361,938. The images, plus photos from another Beatles concert, had been estimated to fetch a total of $100,000. This file

Performance July 21, 2011

About 15 people from different countries delved into dishes with such names as “Kimchi Pasta” and “Seafood Pancake of Seine River” on Wednesday at the Institute of Traditional Korean Food in Waryong-dong, central Seoul. “I didn’t think that it would be this good. The purpose of my travel is to taste Asian food and I finally found things I can really enjoy. The flavors are really nice and soft. In

Food July 20, 2011

DALLAS ― Michael Decker is always reachable. The 42-year-old creative director from Dallas sleeps with his phone nearby on his nightstand. From when he wakes up and checks it until he sets it down before bed, his phone is constantly with him.“It’s an intrusion into your own private life,” he says. “It leads to burnout if you can never turn it off.”Decker, who owns an iPhone, a laptop and an iPad,

Technology July 20, 2011