My friend Erika, a true-blue native New Yorker, told me
recently that you know you’ve lived in New York a long
time when you can chronicle the different restaurants that
have occupied a single building. So it’s official: I’ve
lived in New York City a long time.

My favorite way to get to know a place is through food. More
than just eating out, I like to leave with a recipe or two.
In 2000, I traveled to Hungary for a second time to attend
my dear friend Julie’s wedding. We celebrated at the top
of a mountain overlooking Lake Balaton. A hefty Hungarian
cook stood over a cauldron of steaming goulash, which we ate
at long picnic tables with crusty bread and homemade wine.
Despite the fact that the cook was dripping with sweat,
bare-chested and wearing an apron without a shirt (see
photo), I was not shy about sidling up to the caldron for
more. (Sweat is part salt, so what’s the harm?) Sadly, I
was unable to get the recipe out of this mountainous
gleaning man.

Every fish from Chile’s 2,600-mile Pacific Ocean border
seems to be for sale at Mercado Central, Santiago’s famous
fish market. The ornate hall, featuring ironwork shipped
over from Victorian England, is packed with fishmongers
gutting and selling everything from edible barnacles called
picorocos to the shelled sea urchins, erozos, to
multi-tentacled creatures that I had never seen or heard of
before.