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Tucked between Russia and Turkey, the Republic of Georgia is renowned for great food: cheese dishes, pickles, breads and stews. This is a cuisine that you should not miss.

And on summer evenings in the capital, Tbilisi, the air is fragrant with the smells of one of Georgian cookery's highlights: grilled meat, or shashlik.

You can find good shashlik at restaurants with white tablecloths, but the very best in all Tbilisi is said to be at a roadside stop called Mtsvadi Isalamze. It's an unassuming place with rows of wooden picnic tables in an open yard.

The grill is a brick hearth where Giorgi Kavelashvili follows the traditions of his native Kakheti, the easternmost province of Georgia and the nation's wine country. Kavelashvili is 19, but he grills with absolute confidence, because, he says, "In Kakheti, everyone knows how to make shashlik. So I studied it from my childhood."

One of the secrets, he says, is the wood.

Here, shashlik is grilled on burning grapevines. Kavelashvili demonstrates by hefting a big bundle of grapevines onto the hearth and setting it alight. The vines burn quickly, leaving a heap of finger-sized coals that he rakes into an even bed of fragrant heat.

"Georgians, and especially Kakhetians, know from very, very ancient old times that only [this] type of wood is much more better to make shashlik," explains Nani Chanishvili, my guide and translator. She's a linguist, a professor of the Georgian language and a connoisseur of Georgian food.

What the Georgians of ancient times discovered, she explains, is that the aromatic smoke and high heat from the vines seal in the juices of the meat.

Perhaps the best test of the griller's skill is how well he cooks kebabs made from finely minced meat, usually lamb, that's mixed with spices and squeezed by hand onto the skewer.

Good timing is everything, because Kakhetian kebabs are cooked very close to the coals, and it's easy to overdo them.

Giorgi's kebabs pass the test perfectly: They are juicy and full of flavor from regional herbs, spices and sweet-smelling smoke. They come served with fresh, chewy Kakhetian bread and, of course, Georgian white wine.

Why white? As Chanishvili explains, Georgians like to drink a lot of wine when they speak — and "that means, only white wine, only white," she says, "because it is not possible to drink, for example, four, five, six, seven liters of red wine — then you will be dead. That's not right. But white [wine], yes, you can."

Chanishvili doesn't drink much herself, but she insists that her father could drink as many as 14 liters of white wine during a single feast. Then again, a real Georgian feast is an event that can go on for 12 hours.

According to Georgian tradition, that time should be spent enjoying food, making long and witty toasts, reciting verse and singing.

But be warned: Even 12 hours wouldn't be enough time to sample all of Georgia's delicacies, especially the best of the country's shashlik.

Unfortunately," says Chanishvili, "it's not possible to eat everything."

After what had been a week of calm, violence returned to the streets of Cairo late Monday into early Tuesday.

NPR's Leila Fadel reports that Egypt's health ministry said seven people were killed and more than 200 were injured as supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi clashed with police. From Cairo, Leila filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"Police fired teargas and birdshot at protesters in Cairo's Ramses Square where supporters of the president gathered to demand Morsi's reinstatement. The Muslim Brotherhood-led marches went throughout the city in what protesters called a peaceful escalation. They put up roadblocks and used walls of protesters to cut off streets and bridges.

"The bloody event came as Egypt's military-installed leaders are rushing to put together a cabinet and move forward despite the discontent. There are so far no Islamists in the proposed cabinet which is expected to be formed this week. The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters are refusing to participate calling this military appointed president and his government illegal."

The garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,000 people in April, has spurred the Parliament into action.

The legislature approved a law Monday that makes it easier for workers to unionize. The vote comes amid scrutiny of working conditions in the country after the building collapse outside Dhaka, the capital.

The building, Rana Plaza, housed garment factories that churned out products for some of the world's top brands.

The collapse, the worst disaster in the history of the garment industry, highlighted the global nature of the business — goods made in low-cost, low-wage countries such as Bangladesh being sold in popular Western chains like Zara, H&M and Gap.

Reuters has more on the new law:

"The legislation puts in place provisions including a central fund to improve living standards of workers, a requirement for 5 percent of annual profits to be deposited in employee welfare funds and an assurance that union members will not be transferred to another factory of the same owner after labor unrest."

Calm largely prevailed after a jury acquitted George Zimmerman Saturday night in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Law enforcement and community leaders had prepared for potential unrest, and a general riot panic had been set in place for months. Slate's Dave Weigel sums up the fears:

" 'The public mind has been so poisoned,' wrote Pat Buchanan last year, 'that an acquittal of George Zimmerman could ignite a reaction similar to that, 20 years ago, when the Simi Valley jury acquitted the LAPD cops in the Rodney King beating case.' In fringe media, like the Alex Jones network of sites, it was taken for granted that a Zimmerman acquittal would inspire a race war. The only dispute was about the scale."