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Have Fork will Travel: Vacation Food Finds, Delicious Detours and Tips. · Family Tree Food Stories

• 0:00
  Hey Sylvia.
• 0:00
  Happy Travel Day.
• 0:02
  It's almost time, you know, it's, Memorial Day, and then
• 0:06
  I guess what, it's summertime.
• 0:08
  It's like the beginning of the travel season.
• 0:10
  My wheels are getting hot and ready to roll
• 0:13
  that's true and it's midsummer now, so people are really taking off and have been
• 0:18
  some places, so we'll have a lot to report on because they've already been out there
• 0:22
  and been doing it and gonna do even more.
• 0:23
  August is huge for travel, right?
• 0:26
  Trains, planes and automobiles.
• 0:27
  let's eat up and see what's going on.
• 0:29
  Now you've got a couple of cool stories of when you started
• 0:32
  yeah.
• 0:33
  when you were kids.
• 0:34
  Right.
• 0:34
  I'm gonna date myself.
• 0:35
  Okay.
• 0:36
  Back then there was no interstate and we would go to my
• 0:39
  grandmother's house in Kentucky.
• 0:40
  I was raised in Ohio, and I remember it was so magical to get in that car
• 0:45
  because at that time when no one ever ate out, it just wasn't a big deal.
• 0:50
  It was the fast food was just emerging, and, but we, waited with just such
• 0:54
  anticipation to get to the Ohio River ready to cross over into Kentucky.
• 0:59
  There was the big boy,
• 1:01
  Ooh.
• 1:02
  boy and I don't even remember what we ate, but it was like, I'm sure
• 1:06
  hamburgers and french fries and all the things I was always deprived of.
• 1:09
  And there was that big boy
• 1:11
  Was it like the big statue with a kid?
• 1:13
  With a little curly do
• 1:14
  yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:16
  That people are probably buying up everywhere because I know they've
• 1:18
  closed all the fishes here in, in Lexington and maybe even Kentucky.
• 1:22
  You know, Nancy, one of these days we'll have to talk.
• 1:25
  It's a, this kind of dying breed of those kind of places, and that's
• 1:29
  almost a sad thing, you know?
• 1:30
  they served a purpose, you know?
• 1:33
  outside of the restaurants from cows to horses to big
• 1:37
  Chickens.
• 1:38
  Yeah.
• 1:39
  Yeah, up in Massachusetts there was a giant seahorse, and I remember when
• 1:43
  everybody was saying they were gonna take down the seahorse and no, it's a
• 1:46
  No.
• 1:47
  No,
• 1:47
  There was nothing there.
• 1:48
  But this ratty old seahorse in
• 1:50
  but
• 1:50
  mana poise at Massachusetts.
• 1:52
  Special.
• 1:53
  And it's sort of along the lines, and we've talked about this before.
• 1:56
  when the interstate system came
• 1:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:59
  then that really started changing.
• 2:01
  Family travel and chain restaurants sprang up.
• 2:04
  And I remember talking about this, like, you know, cracker Barrel was
• 2:07
  the place, and if you think about it.
• 2:09
  The one thing in favor of all of that, and I love Cracker Barrel,
• 2:12
  so but you had consistency of food, unlike the little tiny towns.
• 2:17
  Now, if you went into the little tiny towns, you might
• 2:20
  find something called a what?
• 2:22
  A blue plate special.
• 2:24
  Diners.
• 2:25
  Oh my gosh.
• 2:26
  Well, you know, diners were always the good place to find the right
• 2:29
  food and the whole story about the blue plate special trying.
• 2:34
  say that three times fast.
• 2:35
  Right.
• 2:35
  I found was really interesting.
• 2:37
  So that was started back somewhere in the 1920s and it was a US and Canadian
• 2:43
  was the thing in the diners and it went through about the fifties and apparently
• 2:48
  they actually served the food on a blue plate, which I didn't know right.
• 2:52
  Yeah.
• 2:53
  I wonder who came up with that.
• 2:54
  Fascinating,
• 2:57
  right.
• 2:58
  Well, and I, I don't know about you, but something about blue and food,
• 3:01
  unless it's a straw, uh, unless it's a blueberry, not a strawberry, I
• 3:04
  just like, ugh, you know, I don't,
• 3:06
  I know
• 3:07
  ShopRite up, up north had changed all the interior of their
• 3:11
  stores to this bluish color.
• 3:13
  I couldn't shop there.
• 3:14
  Something about the color blue and food just, it just turns me off.
• 3:17
  But anyway, I guess that was sort of a way to say, okay, they're the cheap people
• 3:22
  eating on the blue plates, especially
• 3:24
  But they sort of have become iconic, for the, when you think about
• 3:27
  it, it was usually like, uh, what do they call those restaurants?
• 3:29
  a meat and greet or something, where you get a meat, like a roast beef, and
• 3:33
  then you get three of those kind of vegetables that are just absolutely
• 3:37
  cooked to death, like green beans.
• 3:38
  never heard of that term.
• 3:40
  Meat in
• 3:40
  Greet
• 3:41
  Yea, Meet and Greet.
• 3:41
  It's restaurant term, and, and here's why it's, such an interesting term
• 3:45
  because it's a simple kind of restaurant.
• 3:47
  ' cause you have the choices of meats and then you can have
• 3:50
  your choices of the sides.
• 3:52
  And so it's kind of interesting.
• 3:54
  People talk about it being a little bit easier than the cook
• 3:56
  to your order kind of thing.
• 3:58
  But Cracker Barrel.
• 3:59
  Kind of took over Cracker Barrel and other kinds of things, the chain
• 4:02
  restaurants that, kind of grew up.
• 4:04
  And there's a variety of them today.
• 4:06
  But, uh, the small town diners kind of went away, didn't they?
• 4:10
  Along with some of the little
• 4:11
  But
• 4:11
  when you get a really good diner, if you're traveling
• 4:14
  you can't help but going in.
• 4:16
  And there's that sense of nostalgia.
• 4:19
  Right.
• 4:19
  And they're
• 4:19
  usually,
• 4:20
  the burgers are usually the best at a diner
• 4:22
  I know.
• 4:23
  I know.
• 4:23
  Because they are probably not as good for you as they should be, but they taste good
• 4:27
  Yeah.
• 4:28
  But, a fried burger on a grill is, just like a grilled cheese sandwiches,
• 4:32
  really good when you're traveling.
• 4:34
  But then there's also beyond that, I don't, I don't know about you, but I
• 4:38
  remember getting in the car as a kid, half the fun was packing up all the
• 4:42
  stuff that mom and dad would let you eat
• 4:43
  Oh
• 4:44
  yeah.
• 4:44
  Oh yeah.
• 4:45
  Oh, I know.
• 4:46
  I don't know what that would've been.
• 4:47
  'cause now it would be for me.
• 4:49
  ' cause I remember we went on a road trip to Maine.
• 4:52
  this is wild Nancy.
• 4:54
  Gotta listen to this one.
• 4:55
  We got in a, they rented a gigantic suburban, which is
• 4:59
  one of those gigantic Chevys.
• 5:00
  It's like a living room on wheel.
• 5:02
  And I remember at the time it was during COVID and it was with my son and
• 5:06
  daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.
• 5:08
  And we crammed ourselves into this suburban, I don't know why we had such
• 5:12
  a tear to get to Maine, but we did, and we rented a beautiful house in Maine.
• 5:17
  But to get there, we were 19 hours in this suburban, and I remember we had
• 5:22
  like, popcorn in one kind of place.
• 5:25
  I had enough room to just reach into a Doritos package.
• 5:28
  There was more room for food than there were for people.
• 5:30
  And there were no restaurants open.
• 5:32
  So when you stopped, you could order it and they to go window, but
• 5:35
  you had to eat it outside because remember, nobody could eat inside.
• 5:37
  yeah.
• 5:38
  Boy.
• 5:39
  Talk
• 5:39
  19 hours,
• 5:40
  Right.
• 5:40
  19 hours with how many kids in a car
• 5:42
  two little kids, and they were tiny kids at the time.
• 5:45
  It
• 5:45
  are we there yet?
• 5:47
  It was very strange.
• 5:48
  But no, but Maine was beautiful though, I have to say,
• 5:51
  So did you go and travel for the lobster
• 5:53
  We did lobster rolls.
• 5:54
  We did do that.
• 5:55
  you could get 'em to go
• 5:57
  now?
• 5:57
  Did those lobster rolls have butter or were they mayonnaise lobsters.
• 6:01
  Oh my gosh.
• 6:01
  You know, I don't know.
• 6:02
  Tell me about that.
• 6:03
  So there's two kinds of lobster rolls that you can have.
• 6:06
  One is the lobster roll that has the mayonnaise and the onions and
• 6:09
  the celery and everything in it.
• 6:11
  So it's, it's very good and it's on a hotdog bun, usually
• 6:14
  a soft bun type of thing.
• 6:16
  then there's another kind of lobster roll, depending upon whether, I
• 6:20
  think you're like a traditional New Englander or a Southern New
• 6:23
  Englander, and that's just a lobster.
• 6:25
  Fresh lobster in the bun and it's slathered in butter.
• 6:28
  Oh, now you're talking my language.
• 6:31
  See, I I
• 6:32
  don't like butter on my lobster.
• 6:33
  Nope.
• 6:33
  I just like, nope.
• 6:35
  I just like, plain lobster.
• 6:36
  Just, just give it to me plain.
• 6:38
  Nothing on it, no garnishes.
• 6:40
  Nancy, you're a weirdo.
• 6:41
  Okay.
• 6:41
  Did I ever
• 6:41
  I'm not weird.
• 6:42
  I'm a purist.
• 6:43
  I'm a purist.
• 6:45
  Oh man.
• 6:45
  That butter on lobster sounds so good to me.
• 6:48
  I don't know what I had, but it was good.
• 6:49
  So,
• 6:50
  But when we're traveling, but wait a second, but when you're traveling, don't
• 6:53
  you always ask people where they eat?
• 6:56
  I mean, where do you go?
• 6:57
  You're traveling across country.
• 6:58
  Where are good places to go eat?
• 7:00
  Where should you eat?
• 7:01
  What's the best thing to do?
• 7:03
  And how do you create that experience and that food and that travel and everything?
• 7:06
  And because I, half the memory is the food that you're eating along the way, right?
• 7:10
  And it's that togetherness.
• 7:12
  It bonds you with people They ask you, they knew you were in Paris, and
• 7:16
  where do you go when you're there?
• 7:18
  you've been there and you love telling them, and then you
• 7:21
  love hearing the feedback.
• 7:22
  And that's among the friends and.
• 7:25
  So the question is how can you share that knowledge with more people?
• 7:29
  And one of the things is you're encouraged to do online communities.
• 7:33
  This is where the internet is very good.
• 7:35
  It gets a wrap on a lot of things, but if you share, particularly if you have
• 7:39
  a sharing group, maybe a travel group that you form on Facebook or something,
• 7:43
  it's a good way to find out, like Duluth, Minnesota has some great places.
• 7:47
  Now I don't suspect I'm gonna have very many people who will be seeking that,
• 7:51
  but I mean, every place has its thing and
• 7:54
  Yep.
• 7:54
  Well,
• 7:54
  and.
• 7:55
  Right.
• 7:55
  And one of the best experiences that I had, I think when traveling with, with
• 8:00
  friends and with family members was with a, group that I belonged to a, group
• 8:04
  called the International Women's Forum.
• 8:06
  And I went to Italy with mom.
• 8:08
  Mom didn't wanna go out one night, she was just exhausted.
• 8:12
  So I went with this other couple and they always traveled with a Fodor's Guide.
• 8:16
  You know, one of the fodor's Guide the
• 8:17
  Yeah.
• 8:18
  Oh yeah.
• 8:18
  I love those.
• 8:19
  Their, sort of goal was to go to all the four and five star Fodor's restaurants.
• 8:25
  one of the best meals that we had in, the Amalfi Coast was there in, I think
• 8:30
  it was Office of Outta Sorento, was this restaurant just overlooked the
• 8:34
  Oh, I was gonna say the place made the thing, didn't it?
• 8:38
  oh, the best tomatoes I have ever had on this planet.
• 8:42
  And the best.
• 8:43
  It was Buffalo.
• 8:44
  It was like homemade, creamy, buffalo mozzarella cheese
• 8:46
  that was just to die for.
• 8:48
  And the view was amazing.
• 8:50
  And of course, the company, yeah, was
• 8:52
  Oh yeah, but you know, the place can make a place, you know,
• 8:56
  The surroundings, the atmosphere.
• 8:57
  you know, the best storytelling is the story you create in my mind.
• 9:01
  I can see myself sitting there and, but I also have to tell another
• 9:05
  thing about traveling or anywhere.
• 9:07
  having just reopened my restaurant, I'm kind of interested in this.
• 9:10
  I had a fellow, Signal me to come over and say he was a martini snob and I'm
• 9:15
  waiting ' cause I don't drink martinis.
• 9:17
  Right.
• 9:17
  And he said, now the restaurant was open for one day at this point.
• 9:21
  Okay.
• 9:21
  So we're still putting a lot of things together.
• 9:24
  And he said, where are the martini glasses?
• 9:27
  I was appalled when I figured, when I looked down and saw what
• 9:30
  they had put his martini in, and I said, well, the next time you
• 9:34
  come, there will be martini glasses.
• 9:37
  And so we got them the next day, but how did that happen?
• 9:40
  put a martini in an old fashioned glass.
• 9:42
  Don't do that.
• 9:42
  you know, I agree.
• 9:43
  So when you're traveling, it's not just the environment and the people
• 9:47
  you're with, but it's everything else.
• 9:49
  As, as my uncle Ken, who was quite the actor and singer would say the.
• 9:54
  That, that's round everything
• 9:55
  Cout.
• 9:56
  So,
• 9:57
  Ah,
• 9:58
  but I am a, I'm a glass knob too.
• 9:59
  if I'm at a lovely restaurant and my wine glass has that little rim on
• 10:04
  that sort of like a bubble edge rim,
• 10:05
  it's like, You know, they cheap down on the glass.
• 10:08
  Really?
• 10:08
  Give me the glass that has the
• 10:10
  think about that.
• 10:11
  yeah.
• 10:11
  It's like little Cokes taste better than big Cokes.
• 10:13
  Okay.
• 10:14
  I'm just
• 10:15
  right.
• 10:16
  But how do you get the best advice when you're traveling for beyond
• 10:19
  friends and family members of where to eat and where they've been?
• 10:22
  How do you get the best advice on where to go when you are someplace?
• 10:26
  And I think, you can talk to the concierge or the hotel or someplace else, but just
• 10:31
  talking to people who are on the streets or next to you or in line somewhere,
• 10:36
  right?
• 10:36
  Yeah.
• 10:36
  yeah, yeah.
• 10:37
  Oh no, that's what they say.
• 10:38
  Like for instance, when I was looking into all of this one thing,
• 10:41
  I looked at my kids just got back from Mexico City and ate street food,
• 10:45
  and I'm like, for a minute I'm like.
• 10:47
  Street food.
• 10:48
  Wait a minute, Mexico City, wait a minute.
• 10:50
  And then I started researching it and there are some dangers with street food,
• 10:55
  but they said, look for the locals.
• 10:57
  Look where the locals are going, not the touristy places.
• 11:00
  And also look for food that's not been prepackaged.
• 11:03
  And you don't want something that's been laying around and you wanna
• 11:07
  see if people are using gloves.
• 11:08
  Just these little tiny tips that you can follow to find, you know,
• 11:13
  safety when you're out there because you don't wanna be Anthony Bourdain
• 11:17
  and eat whatever in the world.
• 11:19
  He did, oh, by the way, I was in Japan for a sabbatical and they asked me
• 11:22
  before I went three weeks, and they said, what kind of food do you eat?
• 11:26
  This is the meat story,
• 11:27
  Yeah.
• 11:27
  And I said, I don't eat any like raw stuff.
• 11:30
  Well, I eat seafood.
• 11:32
  But no.
• 11:32
  What they did is they would get every meal, I mean, every
• 11:35
  meal, I got a giant steak.
• 11:37
  Well, I'm not, I am not a big eater, but I think the prize was taken by
• 11:42
  one of my colleagues on the trip, about 15 of us, he ate dancing shrimp.
• 11:47
  Now you know what that is.
• 11:48
  I sure do.
• 11:49
  Oh, yeah.
• 11:50
  No, you bite the head off first, but no, no, no,
• 11:53
  no.
• 11:53
  No, I am not biting the head off something that was alive and then No.
• 11:57
  Who was that?
• 11:58
  yeah, no, I'm drawing a blank on his name.
• 12:00
  Who, who was the, the musician who, the rocking, who did it?
• 12:03
  Ozzy Osborne who would eat to
• 12:04
  bite the head off of, bite that head off of a bat on stage.
• 12:08
  Ah, Ozzy Osborne.
• 12:09
  Sorry, Ozzy, I'm not eating with you.
• 12:12
  But anyway,
• 12:13
  Ah.
• 12:13
  so, so there's a big effort or there's a big, travel interest in food festivals,
• 12:18
  Yeah.
• 12:19
  It's festivals, big deal festivals.
• 12:21
  But but I wanted to say that culinary tours are on the increase.
• 12:25
  And who would you think, which age group would you think?
• 12:29
  Are the top attenders of, people who invest in these tours.
• 12:32
  That's tours, not festivals.
• 12:34
  the tours, I would say the 50 plus.
• 12:36
  I would've too, but it's research I found now.
• 12:38
  Maybe you could find other, most popular among millennials.
• 12:41
  Really
• 12:42
  looking for authenticity.
• 12:44
  Followed by, yeah, followed by Gen Z. They like novelty followed by Gen
• 12:50
  X. Are seeking culture and comfort.
• 12:53
  And finally, baby boomers,
• 12:55
  Who want meat and potatoes.
• 12:57
  tradition, comfort.
• 12:59
  Well, let's take a break and then we'll come back on, different food
• 13:03
  tours and travels and, really how to get the best meal while you're out
• 13:06
  there traveling and experience right.
• 13:18
  So let's jump back into the car or, I'll strap myself into the plane
• 13:22
  seat and talk about the next food adventure and travel where we're going
• 13:26
  because, everything tastes better.
• 13:27
  I think when you're on the road.
• 13:29
  I don't know what it is, even if it's bad, it's always good, isn't it?
• 13:33
  Just sort of the anticipation of it.
• 13:35
  and by the way, you might just be having to strap yourself into a
• 13:38
  space capsule at some point, right?
• 13:39
  Culinary travel in the
• 13:40
  stars.
• 13:41
  Maybe it doesn't matter, I mean, you're not gonna make it too long.
• 13:44
  Yeah.
• 13:44
  E Elon.
• 13:45
  Musk.
• 13:45
  I'm saying Leon Musk,
• 13:47
  Anyway, uh and so yeah, there is this skyrocketing interest in culinary tours
• 13:53
  that's brought on by the internet.
• 13:54
  It's brought on by just, we know all these things now, like, at my
• 13:58
  restaurant just hired at Puerto Rican, I. Chef who also was given kind of an
• 14:03
  infusion of that Kentucky Southern food and kind of does a combination thing.
• 14:07
  So you have all that international interest, and so you're looking
• 14:11
  around and you're looking for local sustainability.
• 14:15
  Nancy, this is what we are about.
• 14:17
  Family tree, food and stories.
• 14:19
  People are seeking something and we know that, that's why they're doing
• 14:23
  cooking classes, culinary trails, food festivals, study culture, because food
• 14:28
  doesn't happen in a vacuum, right?
• 14:30
  Food happens with culture all around it.
• 14:33
  There's just something about Italy, You imagine grandma's in the kitchen,
• 14:37
  I mean, whether grandma is or
• 14:38
  Nonas Nonas are hot right now.
• 14:41
  Yeah.
• 14:41
  Nonas are hot and and you're finding your roots through food.
• 14:45
  ancestry.com and all those places are also saying, come and join us
• 14:48
  I have a question for you, Sylvia.
• 14:50
  You know, everybody talks about what you want eat when you're traveling.
• 14:53
  You want to eat Italian, you want to eat Chinese, you want
• 14:55
  to eat French, you want to eat
• 14:57
  Greek, whatever it is.
• 14:58
  Do you ever hear anybody saying, we're traveling, I wanna eat American?
• 15:03
  No.
• 15:03
  You know, you don't, unfortunately.
• 15:05
  Right.
• 15:05
  However.
• 15:06
  Wait, I've got a story on that one.
• 15:08
  So there was a friend years back who, was doing some studies over in Italy
• 15:14
  and she was in a little town outside of where the university, I'm not sure
• 15:18
  where it was, where she was traveling, where she was studying, but she would
• 15:22
  make, try and make apple pie there.
• 15:24
  Well, it was hard to find the apples and make apple pie, but when she
• 15:26
  did, all her friends said, oh my God.
• 15:29
  And they asked her in Italy, her roommates and her friends.
• 15:32
  To make American food for them.
• 15:35
  I love that.
• 15:36
  So she went back one year later on after she graduated and, got a
• 15:40
  job and decided to quit her job.
• 15:42
  She went back to Italy where her grandmother lived and wanted to open
• 15:46
  up a little bakery called American Pie and it, well, chocolate chip
• 15:51
  cookies, apple pie, everything.
• 15:54
  Strawberry rhubarb pie.
• 15:55
  But you know what?
• 15:56
  Her downfall was not her food.
• 15:59
  Her downfall was all the regulations in Italy that she had to have a, she
• 16:04
  had to have a, a permit to serve milk.
• 16:06
  Milk and cookies.
• 16:07
  You can't have milk without cookies, right?
• 16:08
  And vice versa.
• 16:09
  She had to have a permit to have a sign.
• 16:10
  She had to have a permit to have not just one chair, but two chairs.
• 16:13
  She had to have a permit to serve water.
• 16:15
  She had a permit for people to sit down.
• 16:16
  She had a permit for people to stand up, and it was just crazy.
• 16:20
  she said eventually.
• 16:21
  You kind of had to learn to like ignore the permits and hope you
• 16:25
  didn't get caught or pay them off.
• 16:27
  I'm like, oh, well, I guess that happens here.
• 16:29
  But I thought it was a fascinating story about how American food was hot
• 16:35
  Yeah, I think that is fascinating.
• 16:38
  I've heard other Italy stories like that too.
• 16:40
  But you still don't hear about Americans asking for American
• 16:44
  Yeah.
• 16:44
  Well, you make me think we call our food New American.
• 16:48
  What is New American?
• 16:49
  Come to think of it.
• 16:50
  Hmm.
• 16:50
  I don't know.
• 16:51
  I don't know.
• 16:51
  Is it a burger piled high so you can't get your mouth around it
• 16:55
  It depends on where you are.
• 16:57
  Yeah.
• 16:57
  I think there's too much of that with American food.
• 17:00
  It's like trying to outdo each other with the biggest thing.
• 17:03
  to taste
• 17:04
  I've seen these things advertised on, television.
• 17:08
  They're awful looking.
• 17:10
  I mean, they're just huge.
• 17:11
  Right.
• 17:11
  imagine
• 17:12
  getting your mouth I can't believe I ate the whole thing.
• 17:14
  It's the old, it, um, Pepto-Bismol or even the Salzer, plop,
• 17:19
  plop, fizz, fizz commercial.
• 17:21
  I mean, no way.
• 17:22
  Uh, I think.
• 17:23
  One of the things that I like are places that do portion size as well.
• 17:27
  and American food is kind of noted for being huge portions
• 17:30
  and I don't think that's good.
• 17:31
  I think, I think we should savor food, not just gorge ourselves on food, but you
• 17:37
  know, who am I?
• 17:38
  Who am I?
• 17:39
  But there is some reasons why people are, and we've talked about that.
• 17:42
  And then food festivals.
• 17:44
  Hey, food festivals are big.
• 17:46
  Some of the ones are bigger than others.
• 17:48
  so you've got Taste of Chicago, deep Dish,
• 17:51
  Well, and you have you, I think you have the garlic festival out in California.
• 17:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:55
  Here's one I love the Salon.
• 17:57
  The Chalo
• 17:58
  Paris
• 17:59
  up.
• 17:59
  Chocolate Fashion Show.
• 18:01
  It can take 20 hours up to 20 hours to construct a suitable chocolate dress.
• 18:07
  Oh, I think it did melt me in chocolate.
• 18:10
  You, it can't crack and it can't melt.
• 18:12
  So, you know, I mean, you know,
• 18:14
  How
• 18:14
  kind of heated up.
• 18:15
  I don't know how you would do that.
• 18:17
  I don't know if they, it's additives or what and don't even
• 18:20
  why it takes up to 20 hours.
• 18:21
  I mean, it's like, it take me like 10 days.
• 18:23
  But anyway, uh, I love that.
• 18:25
  and
• 18:26
  I'd walk outta there naked because I'd eat my, I'd eat my
• 18:28
  dress.
• 18:29
  I would be eating my there somes.
• 18:31
  It was pretty good.
• 18:32
  Yeah.
• 18:32
  You don't want pictures of that one, sorry.
• 18:34
  Charleston Wine and Food Festival and I've been to that one with my chef.
• 18:38
  But low country culture in food and low cul, low country culture
• 18:43
  in food is really interesting.
• 18:45
  Uh, what they call it, the gula, Geechee hop, and John came from that
• 18:49
  cultural microcosm, Carolina Gold Rice.
• 18:52
  Came from there too.
• 18:54
  so yeah, that one's a fun one because, you know, it's like everything
• 18:57
  that's just like shrimp and grits and all that kind of stuff, a very
• 19:00
  similar thing to your New England.
• 19:03
  the low country boil kind of looks.
• 19:04
  New England dish.
• 19:06
  It is, but it's very different.
• 19:07
  Very
• 19:08
  It's very different.
• 19:08
  It's spicy and they tend to have crawfish, not lobster, not
• 19:11
  Maine Lobster in, New England.
• 19:14
  a lobster boil is lobsters, corn, potato.
• 19:18
  and depending upon where you are, it could be linga or sausage stuck in there too.
• 19:23
  So Massachusetts a little bit more, the Portuguese has linguica
• 19:27
  And it adds a little bit of spice, but we did a low country boil for
• 19:31
  mom's celebration of life at home.
• 19:33
  And I tell you, it was delicious, but it was yy, it was, uh,
• 19:38
  light your tongue on fire.
• 19:39
  But it
• 19:39
  was
• 19:39
  Really.
• 19:41
  Ah, but if I went to Charleston, that'd be something I'd wanna partake of.
• 19:45
  I
• 19:45
  Right.
• 19:46
  soup or
• 19:46
  something else.
• 19:47
  So, very
• 19:48
  good.
• 19:48
  Yeah.
• 19:48
  Sounds really good.
• 19:49
  And
• 19:50
  then.
• 19:50
  Carolina Rice is really good too.
• 19:52
  Yep.
• 19:52
  And of, of course, when you travel out west, we think of from here on the east
• 19:56
  coast, traveling west is like California and and Arizona, but you've got central
• 20:00
  states, big corn festivals, and I would call that all American Central.
• 20:06
  Central American food.
• 20:07
  It's burgers, it's corn, it's potatoes, it's
• 20:11
  beans, it's everything simple and fresh and good and fried,
• 20:16
  like fried butter, right?
• 20:19
  Food, fries, butter.
• 20:20
  Well, you're making me think of state fairs
• 20:22
  Right.
• 20:23
  on a stick, right?
• 20:24
  Anything is a mistake.
• 20:25
  So, but that's part of, part of that is part of food travel and food tourism.
• 20:29
  You know, there's actually a World Food Travel Association, which
• 20:33
  I find was rather interesting.
• 20:35
  And they focus on, gastronomic heritage and destinations, and that's kind of cool.
• 20:40
  I mean, I would love to travel the world and
• 20:42
  Well, let's do, yeah.
• 20:43
  right.
• 20:44
  Wouldn't that fit our mission?
• 20:45
  I mean, finding all these different traditions.
• 20:47
  I'm there.
• 20:47
  I love it.
• 20:48
  Um, October Fest, who hasn't heard of that?
• 20:50
  Right.
• 20:51
  now I will tell you there are some dangerous places to go on
• 20:55
  culinary tours for food safety.
• 20:57
  At the top of the list is India.
• 20:59
  Hmm.
• 20:59
  I don't know why.
• 21:00
  Kenya, Sri lanka.
• 21:02
  Indonesia, and then Mexico is right there in the middle.
• 21:05
  Egypt, Singapore, Morocco, the Caribbean, and El Salvador,
• 21:09
  you know, I think this is really an interesting subject because
• 21:12
  as kids we always, don't drink the water, that kind of thing.
• 21:15
  But as we've gotten more sophisticated over time and a little older, my
• 21:20
  assumption I. I say never assume, but No, I'm gonna say assumption
• 21:24
  was that that's all gotten better.
• 21:26
  So you can travel more in a culinary kind of style and not worry about
• 21:30
  that, but I would imagine still you have to be careful about health and
• 21:34
  sanitary conditions no matter where
• 21:36
  you go.
• 21:37
  Uh, particularly with street food, and unfortunately that sounds
• 21:40
  like the best kind of stuff.
• 21:41
  you're wandering around, um, bull and there you're wandering around that.
• 21:46
  The
• 21:46
  Gigantic market, and you're going from place to place, then what you
• 21:50
  want is that local flavor in the little booths and things like that.
• 21:55
  and you know, I guess sometimes you just build up your resistance.
• 21:58
  I don't know.
• 21:59
  Or you just put up with the stomach ache you have afterwards.
• 22:02
  I'm not real big into
• 22:03
  No, I'm not real big into that.
• 22:04
  I don't wanna, I, if I'm traveling, I don't wanna live in the
• 22:07
  bathroom unless it's gold plated.
• 22:10
  I, I know.
• 22:10
  But the other thing is that I know my, our good friend and our frequent contributor
• 22:14
  to our Facebook pages, Freda Merriweather, went on a pasta making tour of Italy.
• 22:19
  And so you go over there and you make real pasta and supposedly, I have no proof
• 22:24
  Well, isn't all pasta real?
• 22:26
  I don't know.
• 22:27
  Well, one of the things, pasta in Europe is made from.
• 22:31
  The kind of flour that is lower in gluten and yeah, they say it's better.
• 22:37
  I don't know.
• 22:38
  I think we need to do a field trip and find out,
• 22:40
  I think we have to, yeah, we have to do a write off on this one for
• 22:44
  sure.
• 22:44
  this would be Ethel and Lucy.
• 22:46
  We would love it.
• 22:47
  stomp some grapes while we're over there.
• 22:49
  You know,
• 22:50
  But on travel I. One of the first places I will ask somebody for before we go
• 22:56
  anywhere is what's the big fancy food market like when we were in Berlin?
• 23:00
  KeDaWe amazing.
• 23:02
  I mean, it's Oh yeah, they're like, they're like sax fifth avenues of food.
• 23:08
  Or Bergdorfs of food and they're gorgeous, how things are packaged
• 23:12
  and just it displayed as an art form.
• 23:15
  So, I enjoy that when we're traveling anyway, versus just having my
• 23:19
  meatballs rolling around on a plate.
• 23:21
  I don't,
• 23:21
  the most exotic thing you've ever eaten
• 23:23
  on the
• 23:23
  exotic thing I aver ate, I would say.
• 23:28
  Probably not that exotic.
• 23:29
  I had never had rabbit before we went overseas and so I tried Rabbit, a
• 23:32
  rabbit pate and that was very good.
• 23:34
  I love Escargo.
• 23:36
  That's pretty good.
• 23:37
  To me that's exotic and some people tricked me into that in Florida.
• 23:41
  Was the scene of the crime and I was in a job interview and we were
• 23:45
  having dinner and they said, here, Sylvia, this tastes really good.
• 23:49
  I didn't know it was escargo and I'm just not an adventuresome eater and ate it
• 23:54
  Well, when we moved to, when we moved to Florida, Bob kept, I'm looking for
• 23:58
  Gator head, I wanna eat gator head.
• 24:00
  So
• 24:01
  they're doing a lot of gator up here.
• 24:02
  Yeah.
• 24:03
  yeah,
• 24:03
  we've, we've,
• 24:04
  your gators this
• 24:04
  we've had some alligator.
• 24:06
  That's okay.
• 24:07
  I've never had bear, I've had elk and.
• 24:10
  Is
• 24:11
  Never had, oh, you know what I had, which was strange, and I
• 24:13
  thought this was also traveling.
• 24:15
  I was out in Arizona with some, some friends.
• 24:17
  We did a girlfriend trip and had, pickled prickly pear strips of the cactus.
• 24:23
  Yeah.
• 24:24
  I don't think I'd eat it again.
• 24:25
  It wasn't that it was bad, it just wasn't
• 24:28
  great.
• 24:28
  Yeah, just didn't, wasn't
• 24:30
  It didn't, no, it didn't ring my taste buds,
• 24:32
  didn't, didn't z
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 24:35
  no.
• 24:35
  But other than that, I'll try things.
• 24:37
  I eventually like calamari if okay, I don't do tentacles.
• 24:41
  No.
• 24:42
  Uh, no, no,
• 24:43
  no.
• 24:43
  Octopus is not on my to-do
• 24:45
  list.
• 24:46
  are too smart.
• 24:46
  Octopus.
• 24:47
  They are.
• 24:48
  an octopus is my spirit animal.
• 24:49
  I say because gosh, you know, you can change your outfit at the blink of an eye.
• 24:53
  I know they're amazing actually.
• 24:55
  They're very amazing.
• 24:56
  one of my fun trips as I went with our governor on an economic development
• 25:00
  trip to Mexico and got to see the plants that they make tequila from
• 25:05
  agave.
• 25:06
  the, got it.
• 25:06
  Yep.
• 25:07
  Yeah, it was beautiful.
• 25:08
  Just acres and acres of agave.
• 25:11
  That's another fun thing to do is see the origins of some things.
• 25:14
  ' cause now I pay attention to tequilas.
• 25:17
  We have a baby blue agave.
• 25:18
  I'm not sure it would, it would create anything more than a thimbleful, but
• 25:22
  I have a little baby blue agave that I hope will grow big one day that, I call
• 25:26
  my Audrey plant after my mom because.
• 25:28
  We traveling and saw when it was huge.
• 25:30
  It must've been like nine feet tall, probably ready for, being, harvested
• 25:34
  outside of an Airbnb that we're at.
• 25:36
  And I thought of the little shop of horror.
• 25:39
  The plant's name was Audrey.
• 25:40
  My mom's name was Audrey.
• 25:41
  So guess what, we have a baby audrey
• 25:43
  Audrey.
• 25:45
  Oh, that is so cool.
• 25:46
  It is so funny how we, uh,
• 25:48
  do you name your food after your parents?
• 25:50
  well, I'm on the search for a single tomato plant.
• 25:54
  Just want one.
• 25:54
  Don't want more than one.
• 25:55
  As a tribute to my dad.
• 25:57
  There you go.
• 25:58
  I wanna find one.
• 25:59
  I've just gotta go out there and find one.
• 26:01
  I mean, I sneak into somebody's garden and take one tomato
• 26:03
  plant.
• 26:04
  should not be too difficult.
• 26:05
  it?
• 26:06
  Should be not too difficult to find.
• 26:07
  And speaking of tomato plants, the one, they have very unusual
• 26:11
  tomato plants down here.
• 26:12
  When you're traveling, it's always interesting to see the sort of
• 26:15
  the flora and fauna from a food perspective wherever you are.
• 26:18
  But I had never heard of everglade tomatoes.
• 26:20
  Have you?
• 26:21
  No, I haven't.
• 26:22
  They're apparently, little teeny tiny.
• 26:24
  They're like the size
• 26:25
  of small like currents.
• 26:27
  They're tiny.
• 26:27
  They're tiny, and they're sweet, and they grow abundantly on these bushes.
• 26:31
  So I've had one that a friend gave me and said, try this.
• 26:35
  Like, oh my gosh, it was like candy.
• 26:36
  It was so
• 26:37
  Oh,
• 26:38
  delicious.
• 26:39
  But.
• 26:40
  Everglade tomatoes.
• 26:41
  So anyway, but traveling the world is really fascinating when you do
• 26:45
  it with your taste buds and a fork, I think it's better to travel with
• 26:49
  a fork than a friend sometimes.
• 26:51
  Right?
• 26:52
  So,
• 26:52
  And it's all about capturing that culture, tradition, taste.
• 26:57
  And the beauty of the world today is we can do that.
• 26:59
  and the memories, the memories that, that make it real and
• 27:02
  strong is.
• 27:03
  You'll always bring it back and try and recreate it.
• 27:06
  And I do that a lot.
• 27:07
  It's like, it looked like that.
• 27:08
  Let's see if I can make it taste like that.
• 27:10
  Yeah, that's the challenge the place isn't there.
• 27:14
  No, no, it's not.
• 27:15
  It's not.
• 27:16
  But, um, you put a little Parisian music on in your kitchen or a
• 27:20
  Mexican, we can vex
• 27:22
  absolutely.
• 27:23
  Put the
• 27:24
  music on and fire up the grill and see what you can create.
• 27:28
  Recreate your food, travels
• 27:30
  at home.
• 27:31
  So with that, I'm ready to fire up the grill back here at home and well
• 27:36
  fire up the oven and see if I can make something French and delicious.
• 27:39
  you go girl.
• 27:40
  We'll see you soon and we'll hear you soon.
• 27:42
  Take care.
• 27:42
  Bye-bye.
• 27:43
  Goodbye.
• 27:43
  I.
• 27:51
  Um, you wanna hear a story about Italy?