Pithy Title Here

Traveling as much as I do, the reality is that meals happen in airports now and then. It's tough to eat well on the road, especially in the airport, which can sometimes be a wasteland of quickly reheated frozen entrees. That said, there is a trend of better food coming into airports. If you have an extended layover, there are even good options in some terminals. If you've got 90 minutes in Seattle, Anthony's is the place. Even Phoenix Sky Harbor, recently home to disgusting options in Terminal 4 has opened some full-kitchen places where you can get good Mexican food and more. But you don't always have 90 minutes. Fast food - or something quick - is often a necessity. That or you get to take your chances with whatever food your airline happens to be selling on your flight. From traveling around, here are some of my favorite bad-for-you-but-local options, many of which can offer a taste of the city where you are laying over. Fair warning: many of these could kill you....

Fall has long been my favorite time of year. I love all seasons, but there's something about fall... maybe the invigorating crisp air. Maybe the sound of the band playing in the background during college football games. Maybe it's just the leaves turning. I'm extra excited this year because, for the first time since departing New York City in 2005, I have a real fall to enjoy. After five years of wondering if I need to put shorts on for Thanksgiving dinner in North Carolina, the weather in Seattle is gloriously stereotypical fall. The leaves are turning, I can see my breath the moment the sun goes away. Fall isn't a group of decorations here. I've already worn several sweaters this fall. Amazing. I think one reason I love the season, though, is the smells. This happens outside with the cool air, the wet fallen leaves and the like. But inside, especially in our home, is where things go to another level. My wife is a fantastic cook and this time of year means soups an...

Several months ago, I wrote about the kinds of food we eat. Here we are in the waning days of October and I am proud to say six months later that Sarah and I made some changes... and observed some things along the way. Essentially, we decided that when cooking at home, we'd try to use whole foods as much as possible. The lower case whole foods, meaning foods that haven't been refined/processed as much as possible. We said we'd start one meal at a time. So breakfast is where things start. This turned out to be easy. It mainly involved ditching the store-bought cereals with all manner of additives, preservatives and other stuff that I cannot pronounce and, once a week, making our own oat-based granola cereal using unrefined ingredients. I was already baking my own bread, so shifting to whole wheat bread was a snap. For two people who enjoy baking and cooking, none of this seemed like a chore. And mt breakfast didn't really change. I always have cereal and toast. On weeke...

We watched Food Inc. the other night. I read The Omnivore's Dilemma several months back (Sarah is starting it soon) and last night I started In Defense of Food . All of this is reinforcing some things that I had suspected, showing me some new ways to look at things and... generally making me immune to hearing about what we should be eating. Among the many points that are at very least worthy of discussion by everyone: Why do we want to ingest food that wasn't raised like what it's supposed to be? For instance, cows shouldn't be eating corn. In fact, corn makes cows sick. Yet, for reasons of economics (corn makes a bigger cow faster so you can sell more meat at lower prices), that's the way it works. Chances are you wouldn't want to eat mutated fish or some sort of anything that has been brought up in a way that wouldn't occur in nature. Yet, that's what we do for the most part. I already hear the "that's why I'm a vegetarian!" cries. ...

You know the saying "you are what you eat?" I have a whole new view on it since I read Michael Pollin's The Omnivore's Dilemma last fall. Now, don't get me wrong, I still grab myself a Bojangle's Supremes combo every couple months. But the book demands you look not only at what you eat, but also at your place and role in creating the food you consume. What the book basically gets at is that, if we are what we eat, what we are is corn. Piles of corn. High fructose corn syrup. Corn oil. The chicken you eat at most restaurants? Fed on corn. Beef, too, which is actually really bad for cows. Pollin gets into the reasons for all this. And I couldn't do it any justice by typing all the reasons here... you should just read the book. What's interesting is that Pollin isn't some holier-than-thou warrior for vegetarianism. In fact, he's pretty clear on the idea that simply looking at a human shows we're supposed to eat some meat. Our teeth hand...

One of my readers asked for a new blog post. That's a solid 20%-25% of the readership (hey, prove me wrong in the comments). So... Just got back from a trip to Baltimore/Washington. In fact, today was the third time I've found myself in BWI airport in as many months. But today was the first time I was able to have crab in Maryland in years. WIN. The thing is, anymore, the crabs you get in Baltimore aren't from the Bay. There is a long, unfortunate story about why. That said, regardless, Maryland people know how to cook them some crab. Ate lunch today at G&M Restaurant in Linthicum , MD. Ridiculously huge crab cakes made of generous lumps of crabmeat . Old Bay? Oh yes. Got me thinking... what food MUST I have when I travel someplace? Some thoughts: Pizza in New York City - While I have found fantastic pizza in the South - some as good as NYC's - there's still something about grabbing a slice in some standing-only place in Manhattan. Also, many pi...