The travel season begins

Here's a conundrum. Eating is one of the most-anticipated joys of travel for me (yes, I suppose you might say I look forward to it with relish.) So why is it that the best vacations begin with long journeys that afford the most unsatisfying eating?

On long flights, I worry that there won't be enough to eat, so I stash some snacks in the carryon bag. We worry that the first meal won't happen soon enough, so we eat something unsatisfying yet fattening in the airport (we'd arrived with an hour to spare, of course.) On each leg of travel, we both eat everything the airline provides: the spongy roll, the banquet meal, overcooked and underheated, the dessert that we'd pass up if it were available under any other circumstance. We're stuffed, yet unfulfilled.

An hour later, we're bored and a little peckish. We eat some of the stashed chocolate. Later, we eat more of it. Now we're guilt-ridden, and not in the good brimming-with-cheesecake way. The time changes as we arrive in Europe. The airline feeds me breakfast at my body's midnight. We eat a second, equally unhealthy and empty-calorie-laden breakfast on the connecting flight to our destination. Had there been an airport layover, we'd no doubt have stopped for coffee and who knows what else, for a total of three breakfasts. So two breakfasts isn't even a record. We arrive in Gothenburg, Sweden just in time for lunch.

From now until October, I'll be reporting on food and travel experiences from Sweden, to Norway, to the United Kingdom. It'll be up from here.

Marching Orders: Really Simple Reconnaissance

Let's say that you're planning a trip somewhere., You buy your guidebooks and read the two pages that describe the eating culture at your destination. You leaf through the restaurant recommendations. Sometimes there's a list of annual festivals, and one of them might happen at the place you are during the time you're there.

But nobody knows what's going on better than the local newspaper, and you can often subscribe to an RSS feed for the foodie news. I discovered an event in Fort Lauderdale (admittedly, the place that I actually live) by watching the feed for the Sun-Sentinel, my local paper. The event popped up in my BlackBerry when I was leaving town, but I signed up and downloaded my tickets using borrowed wi-fi in FLL airport. By the time I reached my destination, the event was sold out.

Sponsored by local downtown restaurant Himmarshee Bar & Grille and the newspaper, drinks were two-for-one and free hors d'oeuvres paraded out like we'd crashed a great wedding. Executive chef Chris Miracolo sent out Island Spiced Shrimp & Yucca Bobos (the staff kept saying "Want some more bobos?" just because it was so much fun), Wild Mushroom Risotto Cakes, Petite Lump Crab Cakes, Bloody Mary Braised Short Rib Tostadas, and Duck and Sweet Potato Empanadas.

These foods were pass-around, but somehow they managed to get a condiment or sauce on every one of them. The "bobos" (like a hush puppy, really) were served with "drunken" mango relish, the risotto cakes with cambozola fondue, the crab cakes with pickled habanera tartar and quite a kick, the tostada with lemon-scented micro salad and horseradish aioli (all that on a tortilla chip!) and the empanadas with port-apple compote. Some of these bites were presented on a fat stick. A bobo Tootsie-Roll pop. Quite the yummy interlude.

There were some door prizes, which somehow got away from us, but we met a terrific neighbor (and fellow foodie) that we hope to see again, and Sun-Sentinel writer John Tanasychuk wandered through the crowd and made us all feel like we'd met a celebrity.

So I'll be spending some time today finding the local newspapers and feeds for each of the places I'll be visiting soon.

It's still travel if you're in your home town

We're visiting family in the Philadelphia area. While I was touring the farmer's market in LA, I couldn't help but think about Reading Terminal Market in my home town. I hadn't done more than rush through for decades now. Today, on a foray to Center City (what downtown is called in Philadelphia), I slowed down to smell the pretzels.

This downtown marketplace is right in the train station at Reading Terminal. The Reading Railroad is long gone, the suburban train lines now managed entirely by SEPTA. The station itself has been renamed Market Street East, to be helpful, as it's located on the east side of Market Street. But it's Reading Terminal to most of us who grew up here. So I'm a touring foodie in my own birthplace.

On the site of the outdoor markets dating back to the days of William Penn, the original market opened in 1892. The trains could deliver the goods to merchants, and homeowners could have their orders placed on the passenger trains heading out of town for pickup near their homes.

The space is enormous, all things considered. Since the two downtown rail lines were connected some years ago, Reading Terminal Market has risen in prestige and attendance. A large area has been outfitted with tables and chairs, so that you don't have to eat your cheesesteak standing up. Two of the 80 vendors can trace their history back to a century ago. And the Pennsylvania Dutch are well-represented, something you don't see in markets in any other big city. Men in straw hats and women in sheer bonnets work the booths, selling Amish delights such as shoo-fly pie and homemade jams.

Farmers' Market and 3rd Street Tasting Tour

The Farmers Market and 3rd Street Tasting Tour takes you through the bustle of the old open-air market in LA. Mention this market to locals and they get sentimental. On our 3+ hour visit, we ate our way through the market while learning about Frank Sinatra's pizza parlor and the buried secret recipe for caviar cheese. We ate the equivalent of a large meal, albeit somewhat inside out, beginning with a donut and ending with sushi, with French macaroons and candy and grilled meat sandwiched in the middle.

There are dozens of vendors, though oddly few farmers anymore. One of these vendors sold homemade sausages in combinations like "duck, elk and wild boar", "alligator andouille", and "artichoke garlic". A spice shop offered an explosion of hot sauces, whose fiery names bordered on obscenities. I won't repeat them.

Here's one vendor explaining the origin of his sausage mix. Hint: it doesn't sell pork when you remind us that pigs are cute.

Saturday Farmer's Market in Santa Monica

It isn't hard to find a farmer's market in Southern California, and we strolled through one on Saturday morning. This market focused on organic foods, which meant that they were sort of expensive, considering the lack of middlemen in the distribution process. Some of the stands were covered with mosquito netting, proof, it appeared, of no insecticides in the growing process.

Though we weren't in a cooking mood, or even an eating mood, it was a visual feast. Carrots in kaleidoscope colors, fruits brimming from baskets, and here you can see arugula in bloom. Edible flowers indeed.

Marching Orders, continued: Eat as though you're far from home, even when you're not

What does a traveling foodie do for a restaurant when visiting a place that's just like home? Here I am in LA for the weekend. One solution to the quandary of new food experiences is to find an ethnic eatery that's at least new to you.

Victims of odd flight schedules and time changes, we were starving when we finally got away from the airport in a rental car. We stopped at a Persian restaurant in a strip mall. The decor was ordinary, but the service was attentive, as it probably is in Persia/Iran today (at least I've found this to be true in Turkey and Syria). A lunch plate the size of dinner was under $10.

Check out how Tajrish Persian Kabob House presented our $4 soup appetizer.

Marching Orders

This is the place for tips that make the travel eating experience what it should be. For example, the rule "if it grows together, it goes together" especially applies when you've changed latitudes. If you're in New England, eat a salad that contains apples and cranberries. When you're in the Mediterranean and all around you are hedges of rosemary, make sure that some of it lands on your plate.

This isn't just a way to eat while you're on the road. Eat the way the local people do, and you'll feel as though you're one of them.