To go to the spice market, I had to go into a glove of salesmen who tempted me with colorful displays of dried fruits and olives in a rainbow of hues or stacks of bread from the oven. The shops in an alley of dressmakers and swords would have been familiar to Roman legionaries who did their shopping on this market in biblical times.
I was looking for fresh spices for a lesson this afternoon at an innovative practical kitchen school at sea: the Oceania Cruises Culinary Center, in collaboration with Bon Appétit magazine. The dozen passengers who had joined me during the shopping trek of the Riviera, the new ship from Oceania, benefited from the help of two guides, as well as our mentor, Noelle Barille, chef of the scho