Spain promises a total ban on golden visas - but one country is reintroducing its scheme

If your idea of Spain is eating paella, dancing flamenco, and improving your Spanish, Catalonia might surprise you.

The tonka bean, a wizened-looking South American seed, is beloved for its complex almond-vanilla scent, often appearing as an ingredient in perfumes. Outside the United States, it has also long been utilized by chefs, but studies have indicated that coumarin, a chemical compound in the plant, can cause liver damage in animals, and the Food and Drug Administration banned the bean in commercial foods in 1954. Now, with reports that the minuscule amounts used to impart big flavor are harmless (and the F.D.A. seemingly not particularly interested in enforcing the ban in recent years), tonka is showing up on dessert menus here. Thea Gould, 30, the pastry chef at the daytime luncheonette La Cantine and evening wine bar Sunsets in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was introduced to tonka after the restaurant’s owner received a jar from France, where it’s a widely used ingredient. Gould says the bean is an ideal stand-in for nuts — a common allergen — and infuses it into panna cotta, whipped cream and Pavlova. Ana Castro, 35, the chef and owner of the New Orleans seafood restaurant Acamaya, discovered tonka as a young line cook at Betony, the now-closed Midtown Manhattan restaurant. Entranced by the ingredient’s grassy, stone fruit-like notes, she’s used it to flavor a custardy corn nicuatole, steeped it into roasted candy squash purée and grated it fresh over a lush tres leches cake. And at the Musket Room in New York’s NoLIta, the pastry chef Camari Mick, 30, balances tonka’s richness with acidic citrus like satsuma and bergamot. Over the past year, she’s incorporated it into a silky lemon bavarois and a candy cap mushroom pot de crème and whipped it into ganache for a poached pear belle Hélène. “Some people ask our staff, ‘Isn’t tonka illegal?’” she says. Their answer: Our pastry chef’s got a guy. —

Tourists are flocking to Costa Rica, with visitors trying to get a taste of the Blue Zone lifestyle that promises better-than-average health and longevity.

Since our American family moved from South Carolina to Madrid, I've been slowly adapting to all things Spain.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charissa Enget, a content creator and cybersecurity architect who gained her graduate degree in Thailand. It has been edited for length and clarity.

More tourists than last year are visiting Spain and staying in short-term rentals, according to the Spanish government’s latest data.

Singapore has been recrowned as the country with the world’s most powerful passport in 2024.

Although certain parts of Spain can be overcrowded with tourists, I've found some lesser-visited spots that shouldn't be overlooked.

Some have called it the parenting tax: when caregivers are forced to pay for the privilege of sitting next to their children on a flight.

The war between the Greens and the Blacks has gotten off to a brutal start throughout House of the Dragon season two, resulting in tragic deaths, gruesome injuries, and an awful lot of scheming. The series, which sees the reign of Westeros heir Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) threatened by her half-brother King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), has brought its battles to the shores of Cornwall, the forest of Bourne Wood, and the streets of Cáceres, Spain. Like its predecessor Game of Thrones, the fantastical HBO series has built its vast world using a combination of sets and real-world locations—with the help of CGI, of course.

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I was seated across from a tall Spaniard dressed in black jeans and a checkered shirt. We'd "met" a few nights before on a dating app, and I was doing my best to keep the conversation flowing. It wasn't.