Links
Professional Organizations and Continuing Education
ICTA – International Culinary Tourism Association
http://culinarytourism.org/index.php
IACP – International Association of Culinary Professionals
James Beard Foundation
French Culinary Institute
Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School has affiliates worldwide…get on the web site of any one of them and you can link to others
The Guide to Cooking Schools 2004 (new edition yearly) put out by Shaw Guides is the definitive Bible of cooking school information…it’s available through any bookstore or web book dealer
Airline Mileage Reward Programs
When you are booking a flight with a major airline be sure to do some research first to determine who their mileage travel partners might be. With the air industry in economic flux, airlines can be a fickle bunch….mileage partnerships and alliances have a tendency to change at will, so be sure to verify your ability to do the following before booking your flight: accrue your partner miles, upgrade seating class by mileage redemption, or obtain a free flight with your miles. Also make sure that the partner airline gives mileage credit at 100%...some airlines allow only partial percentage credit with some of their partners (British Airways for example), and most reduce the percentage according to the cost of the flight: heavily discounted flights get reduced mileage. Here is a list of major world airline reward programs (US carriers in bold). You can cut and paste to Google to reach any of these carriers, or you can go to Randy Peterson’s WebFlyer web site www.webflyer.com and pull them up to see what deals they might be offering, or see who their flying mileage partners might be (if any):
AeroMexico Club Premier
Air
Air
Air
Alitalia MilleMiglia
American West Flight Fund
American AAdvantage
Asiana Airlines Asian Club
British Airways Executive Club
Continental OnePass
Delta Skymiles
El Al Israel Airlines Frequent Flyer
EVA Air Evergreen Club
Global Pass
Gulf Air Frequent Flyer
Hawaiian Airlines Hawaiian Miles
JAL Mileage Bank
Korean Air Skypass
Lufthansa Miles & More
Mexicana Frequenta
oneworld
Qantas Airways Frequent Flyer
SAS Eurobonus
Saudi Arabian Alfursan
SN Brussels Airlines Privilege
South African Airways Voyager
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Swiss Travelclub
TAP Air
Thai Airways Royal Orchid Club
United Mileage Plus
US Airways Dividend Miles
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
You should be aware that there are many hotel reward programs as well…see www.webflyer.com for a complete listing.
Airline General Information
http://www.travelterminal.com/glossary.shtml
When you need to know all of those complicated travel terms that agents or airlines use when booking tickets, this is the place to go
http://www.simplyquick.com/discount-airlines/airlines.html
This site has a fairly complete list of airlines, both domestic and international, as well as all kinds of different ratings…a good comparison link when checking out air carriers
http://www.world-airport-codes.com/
A good site to verify all of those three letter codes for all of the world’s major airports…jot ‘em down before you leave, and make sure your airline bag tags match your itinerary
Provides info and maps for the terminals of over 200 airports world-wide, as well as transportation guidelines to and from the airport
The Salk Airport Transit Guide, yearly editions, ~$9.95; this little book covers 450 airports worldwide, giving you times, costs, frequencies, routes, addresses, websites, and phone numbers for getting from and to the airport.
A
The Great Circle Mapper web site: plot a path using flight numbers, check mileage, airport codes, airline listings, etc.
http://www.crewstart.com/Site/index.php
Crewstart: The Airline Crew Portal: everything you could want to know if you were airline-affiliated, and covers most anything else having to do with flying/air travel
Run by Skytrax, where visitors rate airlines for seats, airport lounges, services, flights, etc.
JohnnyJet: a complete travel web site; tons of practical info if you seek it out; great links
Travelers send in photos and descriptions (with ratings) of the meals they are served in-flight by a large number of international and national carriers…a real hoot.
Keeps track of your miles for you and alerts you when you have amassed enough miles for a free ticket, email alerts of promotion via email
Seating Charts
Note: Pay extra attention to seat width, seat angle (pitch), and distance between rows…
…after you have booked a flight you can query the airline and find out which of the different seating configurations they will be using on your particular flight (on JAL 747’s for example, there are some 15 different seating configurations in use) then you can select the seat row numbers and seat letters that you prefer (in descending order…have several options thought out), then notify the carrier by telephone or the web site prior to your flight. Note: some seats typically are “reserved” first for those that paid full fare price…lowest price tickets often have the lowest priority when it comes to seating assignments, although polite insistent persuasion can succeed.
http://businesstravel.about.com/cs/airlineseatmap
A web site devoted to the business traveler, but it has a good collection of seating charts and maps from a number of different airlines
These guys map the good and bad seats, listed by type of jet, for major
Run by Skytrax, the definitive guide to first & business-class seating on 60 airlines
Bulletin Board Travel Resource Information Sites
Use Google > “groups” (located in the header above the search blank space): These are open bulletin boards where travelers can query the world at large, and get answers from complete strangers, about things they want to know concerning a destination, a carrier, hotels, restaurants, beaches, etc.
rec.travel.air
rec.travel.marketplace
This site allows you to see what others thought about a particular hotel, restaurant, or service at your destination
Travel Equipment and Supplies Companies
Aside from selling many really nifty products and travel tools geared specifically towards the international/domestic traveler, you will find a wealth of traveling information and travel tips on these sites: i.e. charts for every electrified country in the world: what kind of electrical system they have and what type of electrical plug is required, phone system jack configurations, world telephone code guides, how to pack, travel tips, etc.
Eagle Creek makes a very sensible packing system that we endorse heartily: zippered soft-sided cubes with see-through tops, vacuum compression modular packing bags, shirt folding systems, etc. The Eagle Creek Packing System is sold by many retailers, but you can go to their web site to see the entire line of products.
Travel Electrical Requirements
Electricity plug configuration, power/voltage systems, and phone jack information for the world (invaluable for laptop hook up, digital battery charging, appliance hook up, etc.)
Miscellaneous
One never knows when one might need to know where any embassy in the world might be, or how to contact them…hopefully you won’t!
These guys have the exact correct time for anyplace on the globe, and with daylight savings time you never know….some countries do, some don’t
Money Matters/Exchange Rates
http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic
Oanda.com…instant up to the minute currency conversion for any one of 164 world currencies
Xe.net’s Universal Currency Converter…instant, all-inclusive
www.mastercard.com/atmlocator/index.jsp
http://visaatm.infonow.net/bin/findNOW?CLIENT_ID=VISA
Take your pick…find the locations of ATM machines worldwide
World Weather Site Links
There’s nothing like being able to completely check out the weather forecast at a destination before you pack, and we like to look at several and compare them to strike a consensus…find it here:
www.weather.com (the Weather Channel)
www.wunderground.com (the Weather Underground)
…and of course, you can search the weather at any given locale by using any of the popular search enginesto show local weather prediction sources
Books and Cookbooks Sources
The 300 pound gorilla of booksellers…. and everything else now; usually inexpensive, with good service and shipping, but it’s almost impossible to deal with a human if there is a problem; their recent search function change went way overboard, making it difficult now to search a topic without getting tons of extraneous (and incorrect) listings that have nothing to do with what you’re after…if it ain’t broke! (Amazon needs to partner with Google to fix what used to work just fine)
Functions much like the above, but they have actual physical bookstores where you can fondle the merchandise and decide if you like it before you purchase; their online search engine is also much less frustrating than Amazon’s, and humans are available to help
Jessica’s Biscuit…we’ve always had a fondness for Jessica; great prices and selection
The Good Cook is the cookbook arm of the Book-of-the-Month Club
Books for Cooks has a nice list of international cookbooks and service is peachy
* Kitchen Arts & Letters,
International Guidebooks and Maps
Our approach has always been to consume as much information from as many sources as possible when researching a destination, rather than rely on a single reliable source. The more input you have from guidebooks and web info, the easier it is for recognizable patterns to emerge, the broader the range of your pre-trip knowledge…
Lonely Planet…usually the most detailed of the popular travel guides…good maps included…normally well thought out…obsessed with vegetarianism and pizza restaurant listing sources however (why, pray tell, would one want to travel anywhere to eat pizza {except to Italy, of course}, when a whole wealth of incredible native cuisine awaits?). Be sure to invest in the very well done series by Lonely Planet called World Food, an excellent resource…available for several destinations.
Rough Guide…Lonely Planet’s main competition…generally less illustrated, with slightly more cryptic maps…again with the vegetarian and pizza listings…we usually read Lonely, Rough, Cadogan and Frommer’s and then compare the four
Cadogan’s authors offer some of the best cultural information of the various guide books, often with more detailed restaurant and lodging information; their guides are generally the least dry, the most irreverent and entertaining
Frommer’s guides are a fairly dry read, but they often provide tidbits of info you don’t run across in the others…definitely worth reading
Insight Guides…lavishly illustrated with photos on slick, thick paper and a good source for basic information…usually nice maps and tips…their weight makes them almost prohibitive to haul around while traveling, unless you have someone on board for toting the extra weight
Michelin’s travel site…love their tires, like their web site less…some of their guide books in the Green Series are great, some good, some are semi-lame…you decide
Much like Michelin, many of their guides are really good, some mediocre, and some aren’t worth the bother…check them out at the bookstore
www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
Berndtson & Berndtson Maps: visit their website to see if B & B covers your particular area of interest. B & B is retailed through many websites, and they make our favorite maps, for countries and popular cities. Concise, highly detailed, and easy to read; loaded with extras like metric conversion charts, weather data, subway and metro system maps, etc.; laminated, waterproof, and tough. Atlas likes very much.
North American and European maps and turn-by-turn driving directions.
European maps that zoom down to street level for even small, obscure towns
Covers about a dozen European cities with detailed, zoomable maps that show cross streets and subway stations
General Interest Travel Sites
Michael Palin’s (of Monty Python fame) fantastic travel site which chronicles his global journeys…it should definitely be bookmarked on your computer
http://www.travelerstales.com/
Brought to you by the Traveler’s Tales folks…great books, stories, memoirs, and dynamite travel writing links. A very entertaining and informative site that inspires
Travel and Leisure Magazine’s site…chock full of tasty travel tidbits and articles, but squarely aimed at the idle rich….
CondeNast Traveler Magazine’s web site…lots of ratings, articles, etc. One problem I have with T + L and CN Traveler magazines is that they actually seem to think that most travelers are staying in the $500 to $1500 a night hotel rooms that they like to write about. Most real travelers can’t afford the things these guys discover and promote, and some connection with reality would be desired by the rest of us vagabonds who have a more (ahem) realistic budget.
www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler
National Geographic Traveler Magazine’s site…good articles, tips, message boards, and discussion rooms
Award-winning travel prose site…fantastic writing, great blogs, many links
A site crammed with countless examples of bad (but often poetic) translations into English on signage, product labels, menus, etc from all around the globe….a real giggle-fest
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4rj8j/TOURISTBUD/
Follow the zany hi-jinks of a mannequin named Bud as he gets his picture taken all around the world
http://www.hanttula.com/exhibits/freakyfood/
The
Traveler’s Forums
These sites can be invaluable for researching destinations: correspond directly to fellow travelers that have spent time there, or to people that live in the destination. Tons of useful advice and links from experienced vagabonds.
http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com
www.travelchums.com (for those looking for a traveling companion)
Frequent Flyer Resources
(Helpful for the seldom flyer as well)
http://www.thetravelinsider.info/index.htm
David Rowell’s excellent web site with everything for the frequent (and not so frequent) traveler…reviews on travel tools, toys, and equipment, the straight skinny on the airlines, business class deals, etc. Superb.
http://biztravelife.com/m/jsm.htm
Joe Brancatelli’s incredible site devoted to the whims of the business traveler, with a mind-numbing Cyber Concierge feature…really, all you need to know on the topic of frequent/business travel. Small yearly subscription fee, but well worth the investment.
Randy Peterson’s excellent site dealing with all of the info pertaining to the airline mileage programs, with a complete listing for travel deals, blackout dates, ratings of the programs, etc…in short, the ultimate frequent flyer program resource for the mile-wise
Ed Hasbrouck’s site, The Practical Nomad…a fantastic resource for travelers frequent and seldom, loaded with FAQS on any subject dealing with travel, and Atlas highly recommends his book: The Practical Nomad, 3rd edition
An interactive community forum for frequent flyers…go straight to the source for your info as your peers chat and dish the airline dirt
The center for international business and travel…many links
An informative site that helps you make the most of your miles…everything from how to maximize your rewards to advice about what to do with your miles once (and if) you get them
You should sign up for their weekly “Deal Alert” email for both foreign and domestic carriers
Expat Groups
Expatriates living abroad usually have solid recommendations on things like where to stay and eat, how best to get around, fair shopping prices, where to get services and supplies, how to deal with the local bureaucracy, etc….or perhaps you just want to visit with someone from the old country.
www.aaro.org/links.html The Association of Residents Abroad
Travel Blogs
Blogs (web logs) are the new way for anyone to have a web presence (regular or irregular), to open up your online travel journal for the rest of the world to read (or for the inquisitive lurker to find out first-hand information about a region!!!). These sites let you register and post entries (and photos) from anywhere, and cybercafés are now ubiquitous worldwide.
http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/
www.mytripjournal.com ($59 yearly, but has a sophisticated mapping feature)
Digital Photo Sites
These sites let you store, provide access to, or retrieve digital images through web access while you’re traveling. They might enable you to carry less digital memory or a storage device to lighten your digital load on the road.
www.snapfish.com (small fee involved)
Free Web-based Email Address
You want to be sure that your email account is accessible from wherever you have traveled, and a web-based address enables contact from anywhere. Business addresses can have access problems due to firewalls, and local addresses can have problems with dial up configuration, or they might require long-distance or international dialing to access.
Language Translation Sites
Google searches will have an option at the end of the web page listing, if it’s in a foreign language, asking you if you want to translate this page. Sometimes this feature works fine, sometimes it doesn’t. Regardless, Google is by far our favorite search engine, period.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Babelfish is the best on-line, free translation site. It allows you to translate a block of text that you’ve cut and pasted in, or to translate contents of a web address.
Similar to Babelfish.
Food
General Interest Food
The ultimate culinary web site and the source for the freshest and most creative food writing today…chock full of archived articles, recipes, discussions, and a delicious source for international travel food info: pick a region or city anywhere in the world and you’ll find complete recommendations on where to dine, with impassioned discussions regarding same; on-line cooking school; journals of the start-up restaurant; timely food gossip, etc. A superb site for anyone with any interest in cooking or food
Similar to eGullet…definitely worth checking out, with some good international food travel entries; similar forums for international and national diners, some even more detailed than those on eGullet; we wish that they could get the destinations broken down by region so that researching wasn’t as problematic, but there is a search tool you can use
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ (the
http://www.slowfood.com/eng/sf_cose/sf_cose.lasso (the International site)
The Slow Food Movement:
Fast food and fast society’s döppelganger, devoted to preserving and promoting gastronomic culture, agricultural biodiversity, and traditional foods:
“The antithesis of fast food: a movement dedicated to using the freshest ingredients cooked the old fashioned way… in a manner that follows ethnic culinary traditions.” Slow Food is worldwide, with chapters in most countries where fast food threatens.
http://www.southernfoodways.com/
The
The mission of the
Bruce Cole’s definitive source for the nation’s newspaper food sections, culinary prose, and culinary media sources collected weekly on one site, among many other things
Pat Solley’s delightfully wacky (and always tres intellectual) web site devoted to every tiny nuance of soup…a must see. Check out her new book: An Exaltation of Soup, 2005, Three Rivers Press
Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s companion website to her weekly NPR nationally-syndicated culinary radio show
The web location of Saveur, our favorite cooking magazine…Colman Andrews provides the best magazine coverage of all things international and ethnic…no matter your interests, you’ll find captivating articles
Available on many newsstands and free to culinary professionals…Food Arts magazine is an excellent resource
Dara Goldstein’s magazine of culinary esoterica and scholarship…it’s the deep thinker’s journal of food and culture, and an entertaining read
Website for Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines and their affiliated businesses…many recipes and articles
The Food Network’s website…search options, recipes, gossipy tidbits about your favorite foodie stars (and way more than you ever wanted to know about the ones you hate), etc.
www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food.html
The Food Timeline, assembled and maintained by the Morris County, NJ library project…used as an educational tool for the kiddos, but fascinating to cruise
The food, wine, and travel web site of Sally Bernstein…great guest writers
The new home of the old
The Cook’s Thesaurus: Lori Alden’s site, which started as a listing of substitutes for recipe ingredients (both plain and exotic), but has grown into a very complete online cuisine and cooking ingredient dictionary
Foreign Ingredient Sites (for spices, herbs, fruits, etc.)
These guys have fantastic indices of different fruits from around the world…you have to pay to download or get the CD, but if you just want to see what a weird fruit looks like you can just click…..
Santol’s Tropical Fruit Homepage: nice site devoted to tropical fruits…includes a link to Julia Morton’s comprehensive out-of-print academic treatise, Fruits of Warm Climates (accessible here online)
www.glossarist.com/glossaries/lifestyle/food.asp
Over 175 entries (~19 pages) of online food glossaries, dictionaries, and ethnic food guide links…sweet. You can spend weeks bouncing around in here finding all kinds of groovy cuisine sites
Culinary Spices
Vanns is one of the largest spice companies in the world, and unfortunately, Mick Vann, of Atlas Culinary Adventures, is of no relation to the company or its owners…lots of info available here on spices from all over the globe, and they are a mouse click away
Penzey’s has a huge assortment of spices available from all over the world, and offers great service over the Internet…again, chock full of information on the web and in their catalog, pretty much anything you’d need to know about any herbs or spices
http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/
Gernot Katzer’s Spice Dictionary:…it’s the definitive, über source for spice data and information, and you can find out to say the spice names in dozens of different languages
Cooking Ingredients
These days, a simple web search will yield suppliers of just about any ingredient, with numerous suppliers, allowing the shopper to actually compare prices for hard-to-find items
Kaluystan’s is the preeminent food importer in
…boatloads of links to import suppliers
http://wwkitchens.com/shop/wwkshop.cgi/newpage.htm
…long lists of gourmet import suppliers
http://directory.google.com/Top/Shopping/Food/Ethnic_and_Regional/European/Italian/
…here’s an example of how Google can be used for links…follow this example and substitute whichever region of world cuisine for “European/Italian” (as used here)…or just Google for “Italian imported foods” or similar
Cooking Equipment
Chef’s Catalog: has a good selection, they have efficient service and shipping over the Internet, and occasionally have some great sale prices
Williams & Sonoma: they slowly wander away from cooking towards design, but they do carry good, solid culinary products
Sur La Table: a good product line of kitchen/cooking goods and a fine cooking school
Furi Knives from Australia: our favorite new knives (a fabulously engineered kitchen tool), and their wacky looking blade sharpener works like a gem…the web site has a listing of American retailers and US web sites that carry them…Atlas recommends highly
We love the J.B.Prince catalog…it’s a throwback to the fifties, but crammed full of really cool gizmos and practical kitchen tools…order off the web site, but be sure and request a catalog too
Professional Cutlery Direct …an award-winning web site with a very complete selection of kitchen knives and tools from all over the world, as well as cookware and everything to outfit the kitchen.
Recommended Culinary Travel-Related Books & Media
* Traveler’s Tales: these guys have a whole series of books featuring different destinations (even a book of nothing but culinary-specific travel tales). If you have never been to the destination, you’ll feel like you had when you finish the books; if you have been, the books will instantly transport you back. Their web site: http://www.travelerstales.com/ is a mecca for compiled tales from contributors (well-known and not)…great reading (the books and the web site), highly recommended.
* A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Tony Bourdain. Tony is the author of Kitchen Confidential, the funny as hell, no-holds-barred “kitchen exposé” best seller that got him out from behind the cooking line so that he could do some very serious globe-trotting and global cuisine exploring. The boneheads all talk about Tony divulging the “secrets” of ordering fish…we say that if you have ever worked in a restaurant kitchen, he paints the most honest and revealing picture of life behind the line that has ever been done (warts and all)…and you’ll be rolling on the floor giggling and gasping for breath as you read it. You’ll also wonder why so many people want to be chefs after reading about how difficult the job can be.
Bourdain is quite simply the most dynamic and entertaining culinary author putting fingers to keyboard today. His Cook’s Tour show on Food TV is the best thing on the entire network (even in reruns), and we can’t wait for each episode to see in what far-flung corner of the globe he’ll be in this week. Reruns or not, they never fail to entertain. His fiction works ain’t half bad either. If you haven’t read Tour or Confidential do so immediately, and stay glued to the tube when Cook’s Tour is on Food TV.
His newest title: Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking by Anthony Bourdain, with José de Meirelles & Philippe Lajaunie. Bourdain proves in Les Halles that mastering bistro fare isn’t a stuffy prospect; that it is a process which transforms ordinary ingredients into extraordinary cuisine, and that with a modicum of will and persistence, anyone can do it. Les Halles is a brilliant cookbook of the best of authentic classic French bistro cuisine that manages to also be hilarious, illuminating, wryly acerbic and profane, and most of all, entertaining.
* Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on
* A trio of titles, all with a similar subject matter:
Strange Foods: Bush Meat, Bats, and Butterflies: An Epicurean Adventure Around the World by Jerry Hopkins
Offbeat Food: Adventures in An Omnivorous World by Alan Ridenour
Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects by Peter Menzel & Faith D’Alusio
…all three of these titles deal chiefly with man’s capacity to consume anything below him on the evolutionary tree, originally out of necessity to stay alive, and then adapted because they actually enjoy the flavor or texture, or more often, due to the mistaken belief that it will somehow strengthen the libido and loins. All three are fascinating reading on several levels: anthropological, sociological, humor, and out and out weirdossity. We will travel to several regions that are featured in these books and see some of this action with our own eyes. The heebie-jeebies are guaranteed, but you’ll be surprised with the tastes!
* Michael Shapiro’s A Sense of Place: Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, Inspiration. Shapiro masterfully interviews his favorite travel writing heroes…the writers that can perfectly evoke a travel memory or illustrate a foreign locale with mere words (another excellent title from those Traveler’s Tales folks)
International Governmental Tourism Authorities
Tourism Authority of
Mexican Tourist Board
Spanish Tourism Ministry
http://www3.gipuzkoa.net/turismo/ingles/index.asp
Basque: Gipuzkoa region’s excellent web site
Vietnamese Tourism Authority
Italian tourism authority
Hungarian
http://www.portugal.org/tourism/index.html
http://www.turismo.gov.ar/eng/menu.htm
Argentina Tourism Department
http://www.indonesia-tourism.com/