Watertown, MA. March, 2005

Before this month is over, I want to pay a final tribute to Nick’s grandmother who always said, “August is the beginning of winter.” (SLS reader Miguel from Coimbra tells me that in his native Portugal they also say primeiro de Agosto, primeiro de inverno -- “first of August, first of winter.”) Believe it or not, this is a full-color photograph that I snapped from my back door just after a winter snowstorm. If you live in New England, as I do, March is an excellent time to plan a vacation, preferably somewhere that is colorful and in full bloom. (I often visit my friends in the Southwest.) By the time March rolls around, everyone I know (even those irritating friends who claim they love winter, love snow) has pretty much had just about enough of icy, slushy, cold grey days. What may have seemed decorative back in December when the snow was novel and new, now is burdensome and a daily nuisance. (I wondered if this past year, as I no longer had to contend with commuting an hour each way to work, I would view things somewhat differently. I didn’t.) By early April, there is some hope in the slant of the sunlight, the slight warming, the quick melting of any lingering snowfall. But March, no. Eliot got it wrong. March is the cruelest month. By a long shot.

Spice Bazaar, Istanbul. June, 2007

Sausages? Candy? Both! Within the vast reaches of Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar just about anything is possible. Beaded and sequined bellydancer costumes hang next to heaping displays of ground peppers and herbs. Local cheeses follow mountains of henna and halvah (one of which is labeled “viagra” for alleged tourist amusement.) But here, fronting almond-stuffed apricots and dates and an assortment of hazelnut and pistachio delights, sits the mysterious Adana Sucuk. Linguistically confusing at first (Adana is a Turkish city famed for its spicy ground-meat kebabs; sucuk means sausage), the offering is actually a popular Turkish sweet. Walnuts (the variety shown here) or pistachios (used for Antep Sucuk) are sewn onto a length of string and then dipped repeatedly into boiled, thickened grape or mulberry juice. As the liquid adheres and solidifies, the treat comes to resemble its namesake sausage. It’s chewy, surprisingly not so sweet and is, as they say, an acquired taste. Still, Turks we know smile from within at the very mention of these “sweet sausages,” so evocative are they of a childhood spent before the onslaught of Western-manufactured brand-name candies from Nestlé.

Coimbra, Portugal. October, 2009

Vegetables. Sometimes I get so caught up in the meat and fish dishes regional to the places I’m visiting, I don’t get enough vegetables. Especially odd because I eat so many of them regularly at home. I remember the first time I went to Europe, I came home ravenous for green beans. And on a recent trip to Madrid, Jay and I decided to try a salad restaurant...a mistake we won’t repeat. On that same trip, we’d already eaten our way through the Asturian and Basque meat dishes on “our list” in Madrid, sampled the grilled octopus and other delights in Santiago de Compostela and made our first stop in Portugal. And along with our chanfana (wine-stewed goat) came a generous platter of Brussels sprouts, a godsend for these two vegetable lovers. Especially as they arrived mercifully unadorned, unlike many of the other vegetable dishes in Portugal. Salads don’t seem to be a strong point here in the land of memorable roast meats and chicken, grilled fish, stewed shellfish and fried everything. Don’t get me wrong. We love all of these things. A lot. But we do sometimes miss our greens.

Watertown, MA. October, 2010

David Leavitt may favor Rose Macaulay. And countless others lean toward Jan Morris, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux. But for me, the best travel writer is still Truman Capote. He observes, doesn’t miss a trick, and serves up with a gossipy delight the stories of the places and the people he visits. His collection The Dogs Bark. Public People and Private Places (containing several earlier books including Local Color) is a wonderful series of travel sketches such as this one here, his account of a 1950 train trip through Andalusia. (In the same volume, he also writes about Haiti, Hollywood, New Orleans, Ischia, Brooklyn, Tangier and elsewhere.) Eminently readable and engaging, the writing seems as intimate as a late-night phonecall from Truman the C, filled with details, insights, rambling asides. He lived in Taormina for awhile in a palazzo called Fontana Vecchia, and his tales of the townspeople (who thought he had the evil eye; his housekeeper refused to return) and of Lola (the pet crow he acquired and later brought with him to Rome) let you in on more about that cliffside Sicilian town than any guidebook from Frommer or Lonely Planet. The centerpiece of the book is his account of his winter 1956 trip to Russia (“the first of its kind ever attempted by an American theatrical group”) with the company of Porgy and Bess. Bureaucracy, official welcomes, citizens of Moscow, lack of privacy, the Cold War, the cold period...nothing escapes his delightfully evil eye.

Tünel, Beyoğlu, Istanbul. June, 2007

The city has neighborhoods, the neighborhoods have sections, the sections have even smaller enclaves. Addresses in Istanbul can be complicated. Not so the invitations to sample the cuisine. All along the pedestrian Istiklal Caddesi, from our start in Tünel Square up to Taksim at the other end, kebap shops, bakeries, street vendors...all serving up a rich roster of, well, Turkish delights. Here at Konak 2 “kebap ve lahmacun salonu,” Iskender is top of the bill. Also known as Yogurtlu kebap and Bursa kebap (from the city in which it was allegedly invented, where it’s generally more expensive and where several Bursa shops wrangle to legally claim its invention, one company going so far as to officially register the name “Iskender” as its own), it’s made from a skewer of marinated grilled lamb cubes, served on a bed of cut up pide bread (puffy, not the flat pita we’re familiar with), topped first with a spiced tomato sauce, then with a butter sauce, then with a garlicky yogurt sauce. Some recipes use beef or chicken, some put the yogurt on the bread before the meat is layered on, but I saw none of those variations during my visit to the City of the World’s Desire. And if you don’t fancy Iskender, look at all the other kebap options on that menu. Eaters, on your mark!

Cartagena, Spain. November, 2010

Flexibility. Not my strongest suit. Planning, prepping, making lists...my great strength. So you can imagine how I’d prepared for our Barcelona-to-Lisbon sailing, our first cruise, with stops along the way in Mallorca (where Jay had spent some of his childhood), coastal Andalusian ports, a brief stop in Portimao before arriving in Lisbon. I’d even booked flights and hotels to allow for a brief stay in each end city. And a good thing I did, too. Why? Twenty-four hours before leaving for the airport (almost on the dot), an email arrives from the cruise company. Mechanical failure. Change of ship. Cruise shifted a day later. Change in itinerary. No Mallorca. OK, what could I change? What was out of my hands? I scrambled online and found a cheap same-day round-trip flight from Barcelona to Mallorca during our “extra” day there and booked it. I was on the phone with the cruise company who offered a complimentary hotel stay (and meal vouchers) for the extra Barcelona night. I shortened the Lisbon hotel reservation. And then I tried to get some sleep. Unsuccessfully. But still, the new itinerary featured unexpected and welcome stops in Valencia, Cartagena and Tangier. "Go with the flow," they say. With some effort we did.

Vatican City. October, 1986

Yes, that ceiling, that chapel. Jam-packed with tourists who seem progressively to disregard the “Silencio” notices posted about so that the guards frequently have to “ssshhhh” them in an amusingly systematic fashion. But there is a way to have this chapel all to yourself, if only for about five minutes. I can’t remember how I learned this, but it works. Be among the first on line when the Vatican Museums open (arrive 20-30 minutes before opening time, Mon-Sat 9am), and after you’ve paid your admission fee (you can book online; or save the 15 Euros and go on the free last Sunday of the month, 9am-12:30pm), race in the opposite direction from the signs pointing to the Cappella Sistina. (To be extra sure that this route still works, check museum maps online in advance or on paper as soon as you enter.) You’ll pass through some rooms of lesser Vatican treasures (sculpture, armor, etc.), past Raphael’s magnificent School of Athens (you can go back later) and you’ll arrive at the fabled chapel through what most people use as their exit. Photography is (allegedly) no longer allowed. But if you time it properly, you’ll have several minutes there all to your silent self. Look up.