“A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Adventures Around
the World”
Lonely Planet, $14.99
Food and travel are inseparable and indeed for many travelers offer some of the most indelible memories of any travel experience. In this book, editor Don George has collected 38 of what he calls “life-changing food adventures” that illustrate the role food plays in our travel lives. “It can be a source of frustration,” he writes, “or a fount of benediction … awful or ambrosial.” Whatever the experience, he maintains, food can take travelers into a “deeper and more lasting understanding” of a people, a place and a culture.
The writers represented in this unusual anthology range from well-known travel veterans (Jan Morris, Pico Iyer, Tim Cahill) to famous chefs (Anthony Bourdain) to some, such as Simon Winchester, known for other kinds of nonfiction. The destinations and meals are varied, too, from Jerusalem to Genoa, Italy; Myanmar to Outer Mongolia; boar and couscous to mangos and peanut butter.
The vast majority of the contributors are not household names. Author-adventurer Lawrence Millman prefers destinations that do not have any Internet access — the more remote, the better. Rhona McAdam, a Canadian poet and food writer, is the author of soon-to-be published chapbooks of “food” poetry and writes here about a meal in the mountains of Crete. It is her selection that perhaps best exemplifies the philosophy of this mouthwatering collection as she concludes with the words of a local villager, “We are all brothers when we eat.”
“Make the Most of Your Time on Earth: 1,000 Ultimate Travel
Experiences”
Rough Guides, $29.99
Beginning in Britain and Ireland and ending in the polar regions, this second edition to what its editors consider 1,000 of the “ultimate” travel experiences is an appealing and entertaining romp to the four corners of the world. Two hundred experiences have been supplanted with new ones.
As editor James Smart explains, the experiences here were “driven by taste but also opportunity.” Many of the adventures have a cultural cast to them. Hence, travelers are invited to “hoard books” in the Welsh literary town of Hay-on-Wye, where secondhand bookshops stand like sentinels in front of ancient Hay Castle, “crumbling” at nearly 1,000 years old. For the physically inclined, the editors suggest climbing Mont St. Michel in France, cycling in the Dutch countryside or going camel trekking in the Sahara. On the other hand, culinary adventurers can gorge on chocolates in Brussels or eat like a Newfoundlander in St. John’s (try the soft-boiled salt cod made with crumbly chunks of bread and drizzled with fried fatty pork). Truly unique adventures include washing an elephant in India’s Rapti River or spotting kiwi birds in New Zealand.
And for those who want to mix literature (of the Hemingway kind) with athletics, there is always running with the bulls in Spain.
“Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers”
Sasquatch Books, $16.95
Nancy Pearl is known as America’s favorite librarian. The author of “Book Lust,” “More Book Lust” and “Book Crush,” she returns to her favorite topic, books, with this entertaining guide to more than 120 destinations around the world. But let’s be clear: Pearl is not a traveler in the traditional sense.
“I am not an enthusiastic traveler,” she writes. In fact, she admits that she is “barely a traveler at all.” She explains to the curious reader that she is not a fan of travel for various reasons. She is, she says, paralyzed by the minutiae of travel: making itineraries, choosing dates, deciding what and what not to pack. What’s more, she is frustrated by her own inadequacies — namely, her inability to speak another language. In addition, she is “anxious” when leaving the security of familiar places (“by the seemingly simple act of leaving my house”). For these reasons, she calls herself “a virtual traveler,” and thus this book offers up travel from a decidedly armchair travel perspective.
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Here she includes her favorite armchair travel narratives, biographies of explorers, memoirs, novels set in various destinations around the world, as well as some history. She arranges her titles in alphabetical order from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Sometimes she just makes a list of books that she recommends on a particular destination, but most of the time she briefly discusses the books and the destinations they describe, such as in “Boston: Beans, Bird, and the Red Sox,” “Nebraska: The Big Empty” or “Oxford,” which she divides into the categories of nonfiction, mysteries and literary fiction.
A must for armchair travelers everywhere and, of course, for the many fans of Nancy Pearl.
“Moon Handbooks: Santa Barbara & the Central Coast”
Avalon, $16.95
Until recently Santa Barbara was considered a mere stopover for those visiting Los Angeles, but this first edition makes a strong case that the area can be a destination in itself.
In addition to laid-back Santa Barbara, the guide includes descriptions of the small beach town of San Luis Obispo, the region’s wineries (more than 400) and the towns of Ventura (artsy with a strong surfer vibe), Ojai (spiritual) and Paso Robles (easygoing with a rural, farmland feel) — all distinctive in their own way.