Nogales, Mexico. April, 2010

Recently, Jay gave me a book that details business protocol in some 60 countries around the world. Things to do and, more importantly, things not to do. For example, in Muslim countries like Egypt and Turkey, avoid crossing your legs while seated so as not to display the soles of your shoes (or feet) to anyone...a sign of great disrespect. Who knew? Likewise, be careful of that left hand, as in countries like India it is considered unclean. Shake hands and eat only with your right. Also, to be on the safe side, it’s a good thing to remember that a “thumbs up” gesture is offensive throughout the Arab world. Punctuality is approached differently depending on where you travel for business. In the Far East, better be on time (and better factor in traffic jams to make sure you are.) Whereas in Mexico, according to the book, punctuality “although admired is not strictly adhered to in daily life.” It advises us to be 30 minutes late to any dinner at a Mexican home. Unless that home is in Mexico City, in which case we should show up a hour late. Yikes! Perhaps you could kill time by searching for a hostess gift at a store like this. But be careful if you decide on flowers. Yellow flowers represent death and red ones cast spells. So noted.

Provincetown, MA. Spring, 1979

I had just recently moved to Boston. My brother Brien, up for a weekend visit, was still wearing leather jackets, driving motorcycles and looking (somewhat) younger than me. We’d driven to off-season Provincetown with our friend Deborah, who snapped this fraternal portrait on Herring Cove Beach. Years later in Ptown, as I was sitting on the patio of the Café Blasé with my friend Gary, we spotted the sign of a vintage clothing store across Commercial Street, PastPerfect, that was angled around the corner so as to show only the first half above the shop’s door. “Look,” said Gary. “A door to the past!” “Slam it shut,” I suggested. “Nail it shut!” was Gary’s take. Even more years later, I look back and am glad we couldn’t shut that door. I would never have been able to find this photo, this memory of my brother and me during a windy, off-season day on a beach at the end of the world.

Sintra, Portugal. October, 2009

Prepping for a trip is a big part of the fun for me. Researching sites, routes, cuisines, languages, accommodations, restaurants, shops, bus schedules, train tickets, alternate routes...all this allows me to enjoy the trip long before I pack my bags and head for the airport. I had done so much prep for my first trip to Istanbul that on the day I arrived, it felt as if I were returning home. (Or maybe I’d lived there in a past life?) For Paris, I’d mapped out possible routes for my morning run. Ditto Istanbul, Madrid and Lisbon. For business trips to San Francisco and Chicago, I’d gone on Chowhound and asked where a solo diner could eat a good meal at the bar. I want to know where the markets and bakeries are, where the locals buy their cheese, what are the best days to visit Aya Sofia, the Musée d’Orsay, Alcatraz. I suspect Jay thinks travel is effortless because things seem to just happen. Our day trip to Sintra, for example, was so easy because I already knew which train to catch from which station, how to buy the tickets, what we might do when we got there...and where to buy the best queijada (cheese tart) in town. Of course, after all that planning, it’s the unexpected detours that wind up providing the best memories.

Sofyali 9, Istanbul. June, 2007

What a gem this restaurant is. When Nick and I went to Istanbul in 2007, we had our first meal here. And our last. Situated in Beyoğlu at the corner of two small pedestrian alleys, it’s the perfect spot for a lazy, late-evening, outdoor dinner. First up, the waiter comes by with a huge tray (how can he balance it?) on which sit about a dozen small dishes of meze choices: purslane in yogurt, eggplant salad, muhammarah (pomegranate/walnut spread), broad beans with tomato, cheese spreads, etc. Various hot meze are circulated among the tables as they emerge from the kitchen: cheese croquettes, fried liver chunks, etc. You’re almost too full to order an entree, but the variety of fresh fish and lamb choices are hard to pass up. To finish, perhaps a slice of the most perfectly ripe melon, the type (and quality) of which is not to be found stateside. A justifiably popular spot for natives and visitors alike (and mercifully quieter and more genuine than some more touristed locations), it provided us both a blessed welcome and a terrific sendoff in this city that seems designed for the pleasures of eating outdoors.

Campo de' Fiori, Rome. November, 1984

Another market. I can’t help it. Especially when there are artichokes still on their long stems as found here. A “field of flowers” (it was actually a meadow during the Middle Ages) occupying a historic square in the heart of the centro historico, the Campo de' Fiori offers not only fresh produce, fish and cheeses each morning, but also a certain amount of unmatched street theater. It used to be the site of public executions. Now on one end, you'll find the restaurant La Carbonara, whose outdoor lunchtime tables slowly invade the market around 1pm. (Pasta alla carbonara, natch, followed by frito vegetale, an assortment of batter-fried vegetables, including mozzarella-stuffed zucchini blossoms.) There’s also a laundry where the proprietress gets a bit spikey if you show up at the appointed time and your wash isn’t done yet; she calms down and becomes charm itself when you return the next day and it’s ready. Also a crumbling cinema and the first place I’d ever tasted potato pizza back in 1980 when it was still unheard of in the Stati Uniti. My friend Patti snapped this photo of me wearing the suede jacket I’d bought earlier at the San Lorenzo street market in Florence. (Almost 30 years later, I still have it, a bit worse for wear, but then so am I.)

Little Café Poca Cosa, Tucson. April, 2010

I never visit Tucson without eating at "Little Poca Cosa". At least twice. Open only on weekdays and only for breakfast and lunch, the sign in the window tells you all you need to know: “Cash only. No phone. Music loud. Hugs mandatory.” Mandatory, that is, if you clean your plate. This little gem (a diminutive spinoff of the larger and muy chic Café Poca Cosa around the corner) had previously been housed for years in a what looked like Frida Kahlo’s 400-square-foot walk-in closet. A tiny spot that, after 9/11, was handed its walking papers because it was in the shadow of a federal building, suddenly too close for Homeland Security comfort. Now in its new and larger digs, it has kept its faithful well fed and has summarily enlarged its cultlike following. Take a look at my breakfast and you’ll see why folks keep coming back for more: Machaca con huevos, rice, salad, fresh fruit, beans, corn tortillas, chips & salsa...and a magnificently simple agua fresca de limón con hierbabuena. (As soon as I got home, I bought limes and searched out dried peppermint to try to make it myself.) Was I able to finish this huge meal? Hint: Marcela gave me a big hug on my way out.

Cambridge, MA. September, 2009

David was on his way back from painting in Provincetown and I was happy he stopped for an overnight at my house. How to spend a lazy early-autumn Saturday? How about a walk through the Mount Auburn Cemetery? Criss-crossed with byways named Halcyon Avenue, Primrose Path (yes!) and Oxalis Path, this lovely spot of garden not far from Harvard Square provides the final resting places of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Winslow Homer, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Bernard Malamud, Buckminster Fuller, Mary Baker Eddy and several poets named Lowell, alongside many distinguished others with 19th-century names like Patience, Prudence and Joy. In the full-flush, last hurrah of its seasonal glory, the place never looked so radiant and overgrown as on this warm, late-September day. This simple waterlily pond, with all its shadows and reflections, looked to us like something an idle Impressionist might take a fancy to. We did.