Instead, Jon’s only requirement was to hunt down the best Philadelphia Cheesesteak.

The problem was that we would only end up at one because there’s only so many cheesesteaks one can eat in a weekend. So, would it be Jim’s, or Pat’s? Tony Luke’s or Geno’s? Those four cheesesteak creators were apparently topping the lists from Jon’s research, which included a visit to this comprehensive cheesesteak site, a consultation with his friend David, a former Philly resident and adoring food consumer, and the concierge at the Sofitel in Philadelphia.

In the end, we couldn’t find parking near any of them except Jim’s, so Jim won. However, I gather they are all very similar experiences: long lines and waits. Pictures of celebrities, mostly from the 80′s, standing with Jim/Pat/Tony/Geno. Low-maintenance eating area. Perhaps giant cans of Kraft Cheez Whiz lining the wall with cans of mushrooms. The sounds of metal spatulas chopping up steaks on the stove and cooks yelling out orders.

We ordered cheesesteaks with provolone, peppers, onions and mushrooms with ketchup squeezed on top. And the verdict: Jon thought it was tasty, but he didn’t think it was any better than the ones served at the Hoagie Hut in Chicago. Though I’m really not a hoagie or cheesesteak connoiseur, I also admit I did not think it warranted all the hunting for parking spaces and waiting. It wasn’t like there were any hidden or secret ingredients in the steaks: plain steak browned with onions and peppers and canned mushrooms. New York has its advantage of high-fluoride water to make the best bagels and pizza, Boston has its swarm of Maine lobsters and clams to make New England chowda, and Chicago has its audience who desire deep-dish pizzas. Sorry, Philly, you’re going to have to try a little harder.

There’s an astronomical clock tower in Prague where statues of the Four Evils hang out:  Greed, Death, Vanity and the Turk. I suppose back in the day, the Turks and their Empire weren’t terribly popular, but if their food was anything like it is today, there’s good reason for the Czechs to be awfully jealous and resentful of the Turks.

But this is not about a restaurant in Prague. Sorry, I didn’t encounter any mind-blowing eating in Prague. We head south, to a more exotic land, where darvishes whirl and carpets fly: the land of Turkey; and more specifically, to a culinary treasure: Ciya Sofrasi.

This restaurant lies on the Asian side of Istanbul, and is far from a best-kept secret: many a Western publication has visited, reviewed and raved about it. And now you can see why. The restaurant’s purpose was to uncover ingredients and recipes lost in Turkish history, or to bring secrets from remote parts of Turkey to the great city and incorporates them into some of the most amazing dishes ever conceived. The restaurant sees its fair share of tourists enough to be patient while they try to read the all-Turkish menu. You won’t be finding the typical kebabs and whatnotbabs here. The waiters, in turn, will ask you to trust them as they bring out a selection of deliciousness, such as hummus and falafel and lamb and eggplant dips and fancy kebabs and soups and grain salads, accompanied with pita. The highlight is dessert: fruits, nuts and even tomatoes pumpkin candied into sugary bites with creme fraise. Even if it looks and sounds skeptical and strange, as I thought, it’s a worthy experience that, tragically, can’t be replicated anywhere in the U.S.

The restaurant is actually split into two locations across the street from each other, and require a ferry ride from the historic center. A absolute must visit. What really should be one of the Four Evils is Missing Dinner at Ciya.

Address: Caferaga Mah. Güneslibahce Sk. No:43 Kadiköy – Istanbul
Tel: (216) 330 31 90

Dress Code: Casual

Price: $6-$9 plates

Directions: ask your hotel. I can’t remember.

Across the Charles River of Boston, there lies a nice little community of Cambridge, where some of the smartest scholars in the country come to teach and do research (Harvard and MIT). How do they feed their brains? I’d like to believe, if they are truly smart, that they go to East Coast Grill.

And if you’re a smart visitor, you’ll skip the touristy gooey clam chowdahs and lobster rolls on stale bread for East Coast Grill’s version of Clam & Corn chowder with sweet potatoes and chiles. (Of course, you can be dumb and eat there too – but if you’ve chosen to go there, clearly you are intelligent.)

This little casual pocket on Cambridge Street in Inman Square  has arguably the best oysters in town, along with a complete raw bar, seafood platters and a grill pit. It’s a chill atmosphere, where the smoky air smells like hickory and beef and Handi-wipes are a necessity. Combining New England seafood with southern grill and meats, this dinner-only and Sunday-brunch joint leaves you heartily filled, content and happy. Try a dozen PEI oysters and a platter of fall-off-the-bone spare ribs, Memphis style. Or perhaps some local Jonah crab claws and a 1/2 chicken, spit-grilled. It’s where comfort food came to grow up. Reservations are accepted on Sundays through Thursdays for parties of five or more, but it’s first-come, first-serve on the weekends. Be prepared to wait, as it’s a popular restaurant, but all that waiting ideally makes you hungry, which is essential. Start with a drink from the bizarre tiki lounge.

Address: 1271 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Mass. 617-491-6568
Price: Entrees are $15-$27.

Dress code: Jeans-and-Tshirt. Watch for splashes of BBQ sauce.

Directions: Take the Red Line to the Central Square T-Stop. When you come out to the street, head down Prospect St. Follow Prospect St. to the 5th light. Turn left at the 5th light onto Cambridge St.

(above: an amazing food stall at the market in Florence)

Surprise! It was about time I started in with one of my favorite activities and highlights of traveling: eating. Soon you’ll start to find entries specific to food highlights, ingredients, and all those deliciousness that will make your mouth water from reading my blog. Kind of like when Jon and I went to see Ratatouille, and started getting very hungry watching the characters cook the cartoon dishes. If you click on the “Chomping Around Town” category on the right, you’ll see I’ve already labeled some previous entries with this one so you can enjoy a little gastronomique tour around the world. Keep your eyes – and appetites – open. Bon appetit!

-Find an empty place along the Eastern Shore of Maryland. (We chose Janes Island State Park near Crisfield).

-Tie a chicken neck to a piece of twine and toss into water. Hold other end. Wait to feel a tug. Start yelling “Jon! Jon!” because Jon has the long-poled net. Get your visiting college roommate and husband to do the same. When Jon is too slow to respond, start screaming “JON! THE CRAB IS GETTING AWAY!”

-You and Jon pull the crab out of the water. Check to see if it is a boy or a girl. Do not try to touch the crab as Jon did, causing it to pinch his finger mercilessly and causing Jon to start shrieking in pain, flinging his hand violently to shed his finger of the clamped-on crab, and then toss the crab I worked so hard to catch back into the water. If it is a she and/ or less than five inches wide, toss back in.

-Repeat until you have more than a dozen crabs (to feed four people). Then steam crabs in stockpot saved from college over campfire grill, which roommate cannot believe you still own (the stockpot, that is), season with Old Bay, and dig in. If you didn’t catch enough, you can order them from a restaurant in town.

-Take rain cover off tent so you can see the stars through the tent at night and allow for more air circulation. In the middle of the night, when it starts raining on you, start yelling “Jon, Jon! Go outside and put the rain cover back on!” Get other members of the tent to say the same thing.

Yes, poor Jon, but he’s a good sport.

I first read about Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the award-winning classic, Jacob Have I Loved, about two rivaling siblings growing up on a fictional island off Crisfield. The resentful sister spent much of her days poling around on her skiff and fishing out crabs in the same manner. Today, on consulting Googlemaps, I would gamble to say that it is actually Smith Island, which is served by two ferry routes – one to Crisfield, the other to Sunnybank on the Maryland-Virginia border.

The second time I heard about the Eastern Shore was in Wedding Crashers, when Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson don plaid pants and boat shoes to hang out with a politician’s family on their waterfront estate.  No crab was involved, which was too bad, but the romantic moment on the beach bike ride is on Assateague Island, where we tried to get a campsite, but had to book it back in winter.

Upon moving here, I started getting wind of the Eastern Shore as DC’s Hamptons or Cape Cod, except with less hoity-toity pretend-high-class and more digging into crabs. The idea is to one day get a joint vacation house with my sister and her husband so we can pile all our “extras” (furniture, bedding, pre-marriage dishes and pots, artwork, etc) into this joint house and have a place to go together, like at Christmas and random weekends. Turns out, in the six years that they’ve lived here, my sister and husband have never made it to the Eastern Shore. So this past weekend, Jon and I took my friend Grace and her husband Chih, who decided to escape the clutches of New York for a nature retreat, to explore this chunk of Maryland, the “right lung” as I described to Chih. Grace and I, who hadn’t lived together since 1998, decided to get re-acquainted as roommates by squashing into one tent with our respective husbands.

We packed for camping on Janes Island State Park, right next to Crisfield, overstuffing the back of Jon’s Xterra with camping supplies galore, including pillows and sheets. We drove across a few bridges, several cornfields, farm stands with Double Yolk eggs, small towns, big towns, strip malls, waterways, until we reached our camp site, 20 feet from the water. The camp sites were separated from the water by a long green lawn, where people set up dinner to enjoy by the sunset. We got bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes, some which splattered blood when we slapped them dead, and Chih and Grace took home a few ticks in their clothes (more nature than they really anticipated). People were fishing for crabs all along the waterway and pulling up enough for dinner, so we decided to try it ourselves the next night.

We scored only four crabs, one which I killed when I threw it in the cooler of ice and it suffocated in fresh/ ice water. The other one we also had to drown because it was completely wrapped in our net and Jon did not want to get pinched again. The other three died of natural cooking causes. They were delicious. We ended up buying another half dozen because we didn’t catch enough. The couple at the campsite I really wanted had taken their canoe out into the middle of the Janes Island waterways with the net and bucket and caught a dozen giant crabs. We had taken out canoes to the same area and spent lunch time on the beach and splashing around in the warm ocean, but didn’t think to go crabbing in the area. Well, I did think about it, but I could only picture the crabs getting loose in the canoe. At least now we have a crab trap and net to add to our future vacation home.

Some more pictures. Enjoy!

above: Jon walking along the dock at Janes Island.

left: Chih and Grace paddling

right: Chih sleeps in

Above: Beach along Chesapeake edge of Janes Island.

Anyway,  there is really very little to do except go to the beach. Well, on a rainy day, you’re stuck going to the mall or staying in the Best Western on US Highway 1 watching TV. Amy and I finally dragged ourselves out of the oddly comfortable down comforters of the BW and drove over to the Food Shack for lunch. Normally, a place called the Food Shack in Jupiter, Fla. might steer us back to Chili’s where we had lunch the day before. But since it was suggested by the wedding guide provided by the groom and bride, and then at the rave reviews of one bridesmaid, a British girl who proclaimed it “the best meal I’ve ever had in America”, we decided to take a chance.

Well, with that, it really was an incredible meal. Definitely the best I’ve ever had in Florida. It was a fish place, a specialist, with at least six varieties (three that were Florida-only), and a variety of preparations. It could be crusted in macademia nuts, or sweet potato crunchies, garlic, or tandoori. I went for the sweet potato crunchies on tile fish on top of a bed of greens with papaya, and sweet coconut rice on the side. We split the macademia-nut encrusted white chocolate creme brulee cheesecake. Amy was so transfixed by the restaurant that she would probably fly back specifically to dine there just one more time.

The Breakfast Club

Ah, Chicago. What I find most interesting about Chicago is not the city itself, but how connected with its suburbs I’ve become. My first taste of Chicago was a t-shirt from my cousin who went to Northwestern, but he spent most of his time outside it, in Evanston. Then I watched all the movies by John Hughes which were about suburban Chicago kids, with later additions like Home Alone and Mean Girls. Then in college I met a bunch of Proud Chicagoans who, upon finding out I was from the New York area, would argue why they were cooler because they were “from Chicago” and I was “from New York”. I would then find out none of these “Chicagoans” were actually from the city either, which made us basically the same – just city wannabes from the suburbs. (Interestingly enough, the true Chicagoans, raised in the city proper, were less vocal if at all). Some of them came as far as Zion, Ill. which is basically in Wisconsin, and those people were the proudest and loudest of them all.

I, myself, spent a year in Chicago (Lincoln Park, specifically) studying at Northwestern to become a TV news correspondent, but like that idea, my memory of Chicago has somewhat faded. Then I married a Chicago suburbanite. And now that Jon and I have spent quite some time recently in the northern suburbs of Chicago, it only seemed proper to dedicate an entry to the greater metropolitan area famous for breakfast clubs, sixteen candles, adventurous babysitting or being pretty – in pink. If you’ve got a day off, like Ferris Bueller did, here’s a way to spend it. And now I’ll stop being clever with the movie titles.

(Note: I realize that a large percentage of this readership is from the northern Chicago suburbs, thanks to a certain enthusiastic reader/ mother-in-law. So please, feel free to comment or add your own suggestions!)

Ravinia.  Every city has a summer music festival, and Chicago’s is Ravinia (www.ravinia.com), located in Highland Park. Much like L.A.’s Hollywood Bowl, or D.C.’s Wolf Trap, or Boston’s western getaway to Tanglewood, the locals tote their cute wicker picnic baskets, candles, fold-up tables, pretentious cheeses and bottles of wine to sit under the stars and listen to touring artists. This year’s line-up includes the several appearances of the Chicago Symphony, the Gipsy Kings, the BoDeans, Pink Martini, the Beach Boy(s) (I think only one is still alive) and my favorite: Diana Krall. Since Chicago’s rush hour traffic is one of the worst I’ve ever sat through - even next to Los Angeles – there’s a Metra train that stops directly at Ravinia. Take it.

Windsurfing on Lake Michigan: People are so fixated on how ridiculously cold it is in winter in Chicago that they forget to tell you how ridiculously hot and humid it is in summer. I sweated through ten t-shirts a day that summer just by standing outside waiting for a bus. Finally, I gave up on taking eight showers a day and headed to The Northwestern Sailing Center on Northwestern University’s campus to learn how to windsurf. If I wasn’t cooling off by catching breezes off the lake, I did by falling into the water. There are also sailing and catamaran classes available at the center. 2311 Campus Drive, Evanston.

Chicago Botanic Gardens. As beautiful as the architecture and lake are downtown, everyone needs some greenery and pretty flowers, or a great place for engagement photos and that kind of thing. The Chicago Botanic Gardens, located in Glencoe (nearish Ravinia) are a good getaway and a popular wedding spot. Other than that, I don’t know much more since I’ve never been there, although it’s a future destination plan. 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe.

Norton’s Restaurant. I have to mention this Highland Park hotspot because it is always packed and because I never knew there were really places where everyone actually knows your name – I thought it was just a song. Its jolly, reliable neighborhood atmosphere with its classic American menu is a like quintissential American restaurant found only in a comedic movie, except it actually exists.  My in-laws play characters in this movie restaurant in that they’re such regulars that the owners were even invited to our wedding. It’s also great for families and large groups, and the burgers and steaks are as tried-and-true as any Midwestern steak joint should be. I also like their logo because it has a hat, too. 1905 Sheridan Road, Highland Park.

Charlie Beinlich’s Food & Tap: This bar/ burger joint is Jon’s insistence, and he does have a holey t-shirt with this logo on it, so I will let him describe. JON: “Well, uh, it’s more of a bar than anything. There’s no menu. The menu is up on a wall. The burgers are incredible. They, like, melt in your mouth. Uh, it’s kind of dark in there, like a neighborhood bar.” ME: “You’ve just made this place sound like a dark bar with no menus and a great burger.” JON: “Well, that’s what it is. It’s a very unique burger.” ME: “Why is it unique?” JON: “Because of how it melts in your mouth. It’s soooo yummy. Where is the peanut butter?”  To get more specifics about what Jon’s talking about, you’ll have to go there yourself.  290 Skokie Blvd., Northbrook.

The rumors of coupledom are true: you stop going out at night and stay in like lame people. But this was Barcelona, and  restaurants don’t even open for dinner until 8:30pm, and stay open past 1am. Which Jon and I took advantage of one night, each blowing about $100 (thanks to the good ol´ sinking American dollar in late 2007) on a tapas dinner at El Rovell del Born (photo right), (c/ Argentina, 6, tel: 93.269.04.58)  which included not one but two pitchers of sangria. Later we stumbled down the street for dessert wine at a bar, two macarons in a dessert shop resembling a jewelry store with cookies displayed in glass cases, and then two dozen oysters and a bottle of wine at Vildsvin (Ferran, 38, tel. 93.317.94.07) around 12:30am. Yes, they were shucking away past midnight. Wine is really cheap in Barcelona restaurants, so the only reason we partook in the bottle is because it cost 10 euros and not because we necessarily needed any more to drink. We paid for it in the morning with a massive hangover in our hostel (yes, hostel. I was probably the oldest person there) where I slept in on my top bunk.

A quick aside on hostels. It had been nearly 12 years since I spent the night in one. And boy had I risen in life: no more dormitories! We splurged on the private room. Of course, as two graduate students we had no income which is my excuse for being stuck in a hostel. Still had to share a bathroom. But its was entertaining posing as a college kid among the other ones studying abroad there.

It was still a lot of fun being one of the gazillion tourists who frequented the tackiness of Las Ramblas (photo, left) and hoarded their way towards the Gaudi monuments that dot the city like poofs of dough exploded over buildings. Since it was the off season, however, the majority of sites were covered in scaffolding for renovation, so many of our pictures are of us standing in front of what appears to be a construction site. I happen to like the fact that Barcelona´s architecture is kind of ugly.

Even if you don’t have four months but maybe more like four days, you can still enjoy Paris like a local live-in tourist. Here’s my guide – but check back often because I’ll post more Parisian favorites.

Where to stay

Since most Parisians don’t live in hotels, rent a pad. I often try to rent an apartment in different cities and pretend to be a local, which is way more fun than playing the tourist. I found my apartment on Paristay.com. The site comes with detailed photos, amenities, and a map with the apartment’s exact location. While it came with a finder’s fee, it was far less sketchy than the apartment I nearly took on Craigslist which promised me an amazing one-bedroom in the Latin Quarter for 500 euros ( there is no such thing). I was more fortunate than my fellow Los Angelican James, who signed a lease, wired a deposit and showed up at a restaurant which was supposed to be his apartment, and the guy mysteriously cancelled his phone number and email address. Since my one-bedroom in the Bastille came with a pull-out couch, James camped there until he found a new place. Note: don’t expect a lot for your money. I shelled out 1000 euros a month for my one-bedroom which was more than I wanted to spend. My friends who did find luck on Craigslist landed one of those attic-rooms with a shoe closet for a bathroom, a couple hot plates, kitchen/ bathroom sink, tiny table and futon while we were in town once for a wedding. I believe it was nearly as wide as our armspan, but it was clean and cost about $60 a night, and made them feel like locals for the week. (Right: entryway to chez moi)

Food

There were a few places I shopped. One was Monoprix, the grocery plus scattered throughout the city where you could buy a sweater, foie gras, computer equipment, wine, leeks and bath towels all in the same place. I found my map book there (a blue vinyl-covered hand-sized atlas called Paris et Banlieue, which covers all of Paris and its outskirts and is a godsend). Make sure you bring a dictionary with you, because I had a lot of trouble determining which was the low-fat milk and which produce signs corresponded to which basket of vegetables. My favorite was purchasing wine on the bottom shelf, which was between 2-4 euros a bottle, and tasted better than any wine in supermarkets back home.

The other was the farmers’ market at Boulevard Beaumarchais, leading to the Bastille pillar. There are several around the city, but this was the closest to me. On Thursdays and Sundays I would hoist two large shopping bags (by this time I had acquired two reusable ones and contemplated buying one of those fun grandma carts that all Parisians owned) and a wad of cash to make the rounds for fresh leeks, tomatoes, salmon, mussels, wine, cheese, potatoes, baguettes and the occasional roast chicken. Again, the dictionary came in handy and phrases like “une livre” were helpful (meaning a pound, or half a kilo, rather than asking for “une demi-kilo”). The best was sending  non-French speaking Jon off to the market with a shopping list and having the merchants pick out the coins from Jon’s palms because he couldn’t differentiate the euro coins yet.

When my sister came to visit, she was wary of going out to dinner with the baby so we went off to the market and my brother-in-law, who is a great cook, dished out elaborate meals in my little kitchen. For snacks, we munched on sauccisson, cheeses, fresh baguettes and wine. Quelle vie!

On non-market days, I would stop at the local boulangerie for baguettes, the bouchier for meats, the poisonniere for fish and mussels (they didn’t sell seafood at Monoprix) and the fromagerie for amazing incredible cheese. I also became rather friendly with the owners of the produce market on the way from the Bastille metro, particularly since they were Chinese, but they spoke to me in French, which was an odd cultural twist.

Note: this is not a suggestion for the four-day trip, but if you are anywhere near the outskirts or have a car and a strong desire to see Carrefour, the French version of Walmart on steroids, you can buy almost anything, including great French souvenirs. I found several decks of French cards, where the King is an “R” for “Roi”, Queen is “D” for “Dame” and Jack is a V for something I forgot. It takes a while to win poker in Paris, but you figure it out eventually. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to shop there unless you’re on a roadtrip to wine country… coming soon.

(Right: Going to Carrefour after a day of wine tasting makes for some interesting shopping. This is our Czech friend Klara. She may still be a little drunk here).