At one o’clock in the afternoon on a December day in Alghero, Sardinia, I was staving off jet lag in the most sensible way: eating tiny shrimp, mussels, razor clams, calamari and fried moray eel in La Boqueria, the city’s fish market, while drinking a sparkling Vermentino di Sardegna called Akènta. The fishmongers’ stalls were already being washed down, having sold all the seafood brought in early that morning. But on the premises is a tiny trattoria with a blackboard menu of the day’s offerings, and by the end of this midday meal, I felt as happy and effervescent as the...
