Travel - Rubbing shoulders with Rick and Rachael

I'm in Chicago for an extended weekend and the highlight so far has been dinner at Rick Bayless' Topolobampo restaurant here in the windy city. Fellow made the reservation close to two months ago and even then the earliest seating we could get was 9:30 p.m. Good job I was still running on Tucson time and it was only 7:30 for me. I've long been a fan of Chef Bayless' modern take on traditional Mexican dishes so to eat at the source was a much anticipated event.

I'm always wary of hype that surrounds chefs and was even more so on this occasion because of what I considered unrealistic - two months in advance reservation and only a late seating available. In many ways Tucson is a small town and almost 30 years in the Southwest has sheltered me from the sheer enormous number of people who populate America's large cities. Coming from a town where it's considered a traffic jam if you don't make it through the light first time, huge cities are always a shock to my senses and somewhat overwhelming. I do like Chicago - when here I'm in Greek Town and can walk to the lake; restaurants and coffee shops are on every corner; deli's are a dime a dozen and the shelves are stocked with foods from around the world. I'm more than happy not to drive here!

But back to Topolobampo - it did not disappoint! Much smaller than I anticipated and jumping. We were seated promptly at 9:30 - by then I was ready to eat the white table cloth. We both opted for one of the five course tasting menus and accompanying flights of wine. My adventure began with a salad of heirloom, locally grown tomatoes and progressed through a sublime squash blossom soup, mahimahi two ways (poblano seared and beer battered,) then onto a morsel of perfectly cooked lamb in a dark pasilla chili sauce and the meal capped with a dessert full of mint and Mexican chocolate - devil's food cake never tasted so good! Truly a wonderful meal and although five courses sounds gluttonous, in reality it is a true tasting menu so we were able to walk, not stagger out at ten minutes past midnight.

I was seated on a bench along the back wall and close to my neighbors at the next table - a group of four women and two men. The woman closest to me freely engaged me in conversation, offered me tastes of her food and was in general perky and friendly. Part way through the meal Chef Bayless visited their table, squeezed himself in next to me and entered into a lively discussion about food in general and his recent winning appearance on Top Chef Masters. It was only when he left that I realized the young woman next to me was Rachael Ray. She was in town to film a show and told me they were to film a segment at Chicago's Green City Market in Lincoln Park the next morning - we made a note to avoid that scene and hit the market later. For anyone interested, the program airs September 14th.

We did hit the market Saturday morning after first spending three hours at the Chicago Botanical Gardens - what an oasis and treat for a garden lover. I highly recommend a morning there. Green City Market was a lively happening. So much more freshly harvested produce than at my Tucson farmers' market - the Midwest truly is a cornucopia of produce. Heirloom tomatoes, ripe peaches, plums and nectarines, onions of every imaginable size; carrots in colors of the rainbow; purple, yellow and orange potatoes no bigger than a little finger - bliss. We bought fruit, little potatoes, and armload of basil, poblano chiles, tomatoes, slender green beans. And we munched our way through on tiny "hand pies" filled with lamb and cabbage and tomatoes and chicken.

Sunday we headed for the newly opened modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago - not all that keen on the most modern of the artists exhibited but I did enjoy the classical modernists - it's a thrill to stand in front of a Picasso, to walk around a Giacometti sculpture and sneak a quick touch of a smooth surfaced Brancusi.

Another couple of hours flew by people watching in Millenium Park - parking ourselves on a bench in the midst of the action around the Crown Fountain (Spanish sculptor Juame Plensa)it was a delightful way to spend time people watching. The fountain is a cityscape "beach"; families were out in full force on what was a perfect afternoon - children cavorted in the water and those in the know waited for the images on the fountain to change and the water flow to become a full force stream. Lots of soaking wet kids heading home at the end of the day! The enjoyment of the visit was somewhat marred by a $24.00 parking fee. Ouch.

I love my life in Tucson but am always reminded, when in a big American city, of the diversity here in this country and how much I love that too.

Travel - Bangkok, San Antonio - no reservation, no problem.

As Summer winds down and kids head back to school it's a great time for travelers who are able to be flexible about travel dates to search for deals. I had fun this last two days checking out various resort hotels around the country looking for bargains and they do exist. Best bet is to go to web site of a chain (Marriott for example) you like and look for a link that indicates "specials" or "deals". Another good bet, if you don't mind being pro-active is www.vrbo.com (vacation rental by owner) . I just got a fantastic rate, 20% of asking price on a rental in WA state. I checked out locations I liked, looked at properties and then looked at the availability calendar. Where I saw a large gap between renters I simply wrote an e mail and made an offer figuring 20 percent of something is better than nothing. Two didn't reply, one did. My time involved? - all of thirty minutes.

Traveling solo? Check out the following site for last minute openings and bargains. www.gapadventures.com click on "specials". This morning there were 25 percent discounts for September/October travel to the Greek Islands, Borneo, Bangkok, Peru, Costa Rica and more. The company has been around for a long time and specializes in adventure /activity (but not crazy) vacations. No penalty for being a solo traveler and they will hook you up with a compatible room mate wherever they see a fit.

If you can throw a couple of things into a bag and head for the airport, check the major carriers for last minute offers on weekend getaways. You can really luck out if you live in a hub city such as Chicago, Atalanta or Miami. Miami to Aruba $129 each way this weekend on American Airlines - grab your swimsuit! Destinations may not always be top on your must see radar but a little research can open a whole new world. A couple of years ago I did a "what the heck" dirt cheap weekend round trip to St. Louis and had a great time exploring.

Heading for Europe without hotel reservations? My favorite site is www.laterooms.com - well below published rates in good hotels. Other old standbys for hotels and flights within the US are www.kayak.com, www.hotwire.com.

We'd love to hear your "don't break the bank" tips for getting away. Let us know if you've tucked away some great web resources for future use. Meanwhile I'm off to Chicago for a very long weekend. Was about to book with Southwest but just for kicks checked AA and got an identical deal with better times. I'm really torn on the whole subject of planning ahead vs last minute - I guess you have to take your chances. Right as I was finishing up this entry my Travelocity alert came in offering me Tucson/ San Antonio, two nights hotel, round trip plus car $372.00 - hmm , haven't seen the Alamo in a couple of years and I have memories of an amazing burrito at a cafe on River Walk.

This must be the day for sending out offers - Elderhostel e news landed in my box minutes ago offering two for one deals on Near East Highlights: Cairo, Upper Egypt, Petra and the Sinai Peninsula - now that's one I will explore. www.elderhostel.org offers last minute discounts too. Check out the website and click on "Last Minute."

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Travel- Kigale, Addis, Tucson -Farmers' Markets.

I'm just in from browsing through my local farmers' market here in Tucson and was struck by the animation and energy of my fellow shoppers - the same energy surrounds markets throughout the world. Music, kids, scents, voices, pushing, reaching, sniffing, squeezing. Something about outdoor food markets be they humble farm stands or bustling city block size creates energy.

On my recent trip to Africa, my route in Addis Ababa to the coffee shop took me past impromptu roadside stalls piled high with the seasonal green turning to red mangoes, papayas and bananas. Just mounds of somewhat bruised, often fly ridden, fresh fruit. The scent from the fruit heavy in the air, the impulse to reach out and buy a mango, a bunch of bananas almost irresistible. These were not the pretty, gussied up fruits snug in beds of green in neon lit, refrigerated shelves that we are used to here; this was fruit picked at peak, tossed into a truck, sometimes into a sack and carried on back or bicycle to the corner to be sold. The vendor, most likely a middleman, scrabbling for a living. Out in the country, tarps sheltered roadside displays of tomatoes - the stall usually tended to by very small children - their market , passing trucks whose drivers buy for a pittance and re sell on the city streets.



In Rwanda displays were more orderly. In the capital Kigali, the clean streets, neat houses - strikingly clean after the squaler of Addis - garden "hedges" of banana and papaya trees; women in brilliant batik dresses balancing Carmen Miranda style flat baskets loaded with coconuts, sweet potatoes, mangoes, tree tomatoes, avocados, weave their way deftly between traffic, pausing at yet another stall to assess the quality, ripeness of the offerings. On the road out of town passing through miles of rich land, every inch straight up the mountain side packaged into neat fields and tended by hand. More often than not a whole village chips in labor to help a neighbor get a crop into the ground or harvested. Corn, rice, maize, coffee, tea and of course "the Irish" as a standard potato is called. Bicycles, often being wheeled up hills, laden with sacks of potatoes, great branches of green bananas.


Eggs for sale miles from anywhere - a dozen at a time packaged in palm frond baskets, themselves a work of art.


On the coast in Kenya, mounds of coconuts, strings of fish, boys shimmying up trees to dislodge papayas. Wherever there is food and people, there is energy and apart from dress, language and prices - I see little difference between that energy in farmers' markets here in town and the street activity in Addis.


But there is a difference in taste - never have I eaten such juice rich - dripping down my shirt and running up my arms - mangoes. Flavor never experienced before - more mango taste than I thought possible. And the bananas - the pretty bunches in the supermarket here are a nodding cousin to these just picked, perhaps not pretty but incredibly creamy and rich fruits. There is something to be said for locavore moment; the buying what's in season and within a specific radius of home. Fruits and vegetables don't travel well at their peak.

"Here lady, here" the woman with the tin roofed stall on Bole Street in Addis would call as I walked past. "Good, good...." and she'd hold out an offering. Same thing at St. Philip's today - "Here, try the melon" the farmer from Dragoon urged me. I did and juice dripping down my chin I bought two of them. They have traveled very little, just from the fertile Alter valley in Cochise County. I watched a farmer from the same area cover his display of sweet corn with burlap he had dipped in ice water - "they like to stay cool" he told me, "heat dries out their sugar very quickly". I bought corn and funny shaped purple heirloom tomatoes grown just seven miles out of town but not without first taking in the fragrance of freshness.

The children were not in rags squatting on the ground this morning; no goats, sheep and donkeys wandered between the haphazardly placed stalls; the dogs the opposite of mangy and flea ridden were lining up for "gourmet, organic, gluten free" treats; the vendors arrived in their pickups and SUV's , none of them came in by bike nor hauled the sacks on their backs and certainly none of them would curl up under burlap to sleep. There were no horrible deformed, perhaps deliberately mutilated, children here crouched in the road, a pitiful vegetable or two in the dirt in front of them. The single cent they begged for in return for rotten produce they themselves had scavenged rthier only hope for eating that day.

Most of the in vendors in clean, beautifully landscaped St. Philip's Plaza today had sowed the seeds, hoed the land - though perhaps not by hand- and tended to, worried about their crops. Outdoor food markets whether the language Swahili, Amharic or English, have the same buzz, the same energy world over. The contrast between third and first world is humbling.

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Travel -Sometimes You Just Don't Fancy Octopus

Familiar Food in Strange Places

One of the best things about traveling in my book is the adventure of immersing myself into another culture - casting off pre-conceived stereotypes about people, food, customs. My favorite type of vacation is to rent or swap a house in unfamiliar place, figure out how and where to shop and then get cooking. Unfortunately I run across fellow travelers who do not share my enthusiasm for the unfamiliar. Is anyone familiar with that delightful British play - Shirley Valentine? When Shirley lets on to people at the next table in Greece that the fish they are eating is octopus, the woman faints!

I have memories of a former room mate's parents visiting when I was first in America. Always an intrepid cook I'd sweet talked a lobster fisherman whose daughter I taught , into giving me six beautiful small lobsters. Armed with my as then un dog-eared copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (I still have the book) I prepared Homard Thermidor for the visiting parents. "Oh dear", sniffed room mate's mother, "George and I aren't keen on foreign food. I think we'll just have a cheese sandwich".

In my wild and wandering youth I hitch-hiked from Calais to Istanbul on a wing and prayer and student budget. I remember being taken in by a family in Yugoslavia; father had served in the resistance and befriended many British troops. I had a lousy sinus infection; had broken up with the boyfriend I'd begun the journey with and was feeling very sorry for myself. In a whitewashed kitchen, one wall lined with history books, another with huge hooks for hanging meat, we sat around an oilcloth covered table communicating in gestures and odd words in English and French. No iGoogle translator back then. Their kindness to me was touching and I guess I was homesick. Offered a bowl of a very unfamiliar soup I burst into tears. There was consultation, much nodding, prodding. The youngest child scurried off to grandma's house next door and returned with a jar that was placed in front of me. Pickled onions from England! "Now you are happy" the mother said beaming, wiping my face with her apron. Now I was happy - something familiar. Two onions were sliced and placed between great slabs of dark bread - pickled onion sandwich. Ah, the fall back on the familiar; comfort food to comfort in a foreign land!

Most recently in Ethiopia I was growing weary of the heavy starch laden, spiced dishes where all ability to identify the ingredients was masked by a cooking technique that involved deep frying followed by boiling. We were invited by an Ethiopian to a party. "Bring an appetizer from your country" was the response to our "What can we bring?". Lord, in a country where even Cheese Whiz and Ritz crackers are not to be found we went into a huddle. My son had recently received a shipment of frozen meat from Kenya and there, in the box nestled bacon! Got it. The local bakery was a source for crispy, fresh mini baguettes. Lettuce and tomatoes were readily available. Pureeing roasted red peppers into Hellman's mayonaise (purchased at the embassy commissary) the "gourmet" mayo was slathered on the baguettes and BLT's Addis style were assembled. We cut each baguette into bite size pieces and secured them with a toothpick on which was skewered a cornichon. They were a hit.

I took my then 9 year old grandson on the equivalent of a grand tour a few years ago. Days of traveling, cruise ship lavish buffet lines, incomprehensible menus and a general overwhelming of the senses had him a bit low when we explored Malta. In a restaurant in St. John's Square in Valletta he read the menu and with a quivering lip said "there's nothing to eat". "American?" asked the waiter. We nodded. "Wait one minute". He bustled off returning 15 minutes later with a toasted cheese sandwich for Ben. The kid's face lit up. "That was the best food we've had" he announced. His joy was completed by the arrival of a root beer float. "I know America " the waiter said, "you like food that speaks your language". How true.

Fish and chips in Johannesburg last month while getting through a family crisis; canned tomato soup during a sand storm in Libya; corned beef from a tin courtesy of a stranger whilst stranded at railway station in Greece in the wee hours and everything closed; eyes closed tasting hot dogs loaded onto a skewer - I had been expecting sheeps' entrails hence the eyes closed! Familiar foods in strange places. All part the journey.

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Up Before Dawn - The Road Calls

Serves me right for going to bed at 8:30 last night. Still, dawn here up in the mountains is spectacular as the light creeps over Escudilla in the east and slowly fills the valley. Right now the light is blue, the pond silver. Watching the pond wake up in the morning is a sight I can never get enough of.

I have to head "down" today.- back into the desert and the heat. I feel as though I've neglected my Tucson house for months now while away in Africa and then, three days after getting back, decamping up here. This early morning, ancy to get on the road feeling reminds me of childhood travels. My father made us practice pack - right down to putting on the clothes we'd be wearing for travel and then lining up outside with our suitcases waiting for a taxi - yes, he was in the military!

My packing for this 254 mile road trip involves throwing a couple of things in the car, making sure nothing will rot in the kitchen whilst I'm gone (editing this now down in the flat land and sad to say - in my haste to get moving, I left a fully packed cooler on the kitchen counter!) and organising the dogs. Dogs are still sleeping. The two big borrowed ones are a breeze but my own dog, Hamish, knows when we are leaving the mountains where he has total freedom and he takes off and hides from me. It's a short road trip with coffee for me stop at Java Blue in Springerville, one "pee" stop before Globe and then the final run "down" through Winkleman, Mamoth and Oracle. Major challenge is to find a place to leave a bag of kitchen garbage. The dump in the vicinity doesn't open until 9 a.m (two brief opportunities a week, Saturday and Tuesday) ; I'm going to trust that the guys at the truck weighing station outside of Springerville will be obliging (they were) and let me use the dumpster there - otherwise it will be a "hold your nose" ride - garbage plus three dogs with a distinct eau de pond aroma.

I've done long road trips with Hamish and quite enjoy his company along the way. In general I find dogs to be excellent travel companions - they don't object to the music you play and make nothing of long silences. No, "why aren't you talking to me - what's wrong- are we there". Oh, and of course no eye rolling and tutting when I ask for directions.

I do have one sticky problem this morning. There's been a bird in the great room for three days now and despite all my efforts - windows open , screens taken out, trout net on the end of an 18ft. extension pole - I've been unable to get it out. I know where the expression bird brain comes from. I'm going to leave a log of bird seed and bowl of water on the rock hearth and hope I don't come back to a rotting corpse! And I also have to fill the hummingbird feeders and leave a re-fill made up in the fridge so a neighboring teenager can come over and re-fill them for me.

First pale pink of dawn showing now. I've just checked that the roll-over to the August issue of Connections for Women went smoothly (well done Genny) and it's time to make a cup of tea , rouse sleeping dogs and head for the hard top. I love driving early morning.

Made it home in under 5 hours and into the blast furnace of a Tucson Summer.