ColumnA step-by-step guide to making sure you travel like a food lover.

“You can’t eat yet.”

My tablemates were ready to dig into their meal when my best friend and travel partner Rachel alerted everyone that they had to wait for a few.

“Just one second,” I said, while whipping my phone out to snap a quick photo.

“She does this a lot, you just have to get over it,” my friend said matter of factly, with a slight eye roll.

It occurred to me then and there that most people don’t take a photo of everything they eat. Let’s not go overboard here: I don’t photo document every single thing that ever crosses a plate in front of me. I do however like to have inspiration for other meals, and when it comes to travel it’s all about keeping a visual diary of all the new foods that were experienced. Again, normal for some, not so normal for others.

But there’s just something about the right composition of your passport, a postcard and a double espresso that you don’t want to miss out on. If you have mastered how to pretend you’re a foodie, now you’re ready to travel like one, and this guide will help you do just that.

1. Take the Same Daily Photo

Every day is a little better with good food porn, and this way you have a good visual comparison of what you consumed during your travels. Choose one meal or a specific thing to photograph every day. It could be your morning cup of tea or coffee or simply your daily afternoon snack. Get creative.

2. Order Sparkling Water With Everything

Because espresso never tasted better. Just be aware that when you do so on your flight home you might get a “what is the deal with everyone ordering sparkling water? Do they think they’re French?” from your flight attendant.

3. Keep At Least Two Photographic Devices on Hand At All Times

You never know when you need to take a photo, and sometimes the DSLR is just too obnoxious. You have to maintain a level of class after all, and sitting by your meal with a huge camera in your lap through the entire meal isn’t really the way to do so.

4. When All Else Fails, Use Your Journal.

Keep a notebook and write down meals, ingredients and translations of new food related words. It will be like your own food encyclopedia when you’re done.

5. Befriend a Local and Make Them Order

Forget Yelp and Travelocity and every other restaurant recommendation service out there. Find someone that knows what they’re talking about and ask them for advice.

6. Spend Quality Time in a Local Grocery Store

It doesn’t need to be a fancy market, because in this case, the more basic the better. Some of the best food adventures can be had in the biggest of supermarkets, because you get the chance to find out what locals eat on an everyday basis. You’ll never know what you might find.

7. Always Say Yes

Unless of course this is in regards to an in-flight meal, then go with your own sense of culinary discretion. In other words, you do not need to say yes to that odd looking potato, jello sausage thing with a cold mini sausage served on Lufthansa.

8. Write Down Every Single Meal and Where You Ate It

When you’re later asked for food recommendations by fellow travelers you won’t be stuck saying to yourself, “what was that one cute place by that one river called?” Flipping open to page 6 of your food journal and knowing exactly where to tell them to go is much better.

9. Plan Your Day According to Food Stops

Why stand in line at museums when you can plan your entire itinerary around breakfast, lunch, dinner and frequent coffee breaks?

10. Learn to Say “Cheers” in Every Language of the Places You Are Traveling

Not only will you impress locals, but you’ll seem so worldly when you come home and refuse to cheer in your native tongue. Worldly or pretentious, depends on your friend circle.

11. Forget Your Normal Self-Imposed Food Restrictions

Just say yes to carbs, dairy and more. Because why would you want to miss out on fennel seed salami pizza? You wouldn’t.

12. Select Airlines Based off of Food Selection

Air France? Almost as good as actually being in France. KLM? Always a good selection of hearty European breads. China Airlines? They happen to serve really good Chinese tea.

13. Carry a Spork At All Times

You never know when you might need it.

14. Avoid McDonald’s and Starbucks At All Costs

You’re traveling, no need to be the obnoxious American who can’t ditch their chain food habit.

15. Learn About The Process From Something Basic

Take a class on cheesemaking, or a tour of a winery. Learning the background and history of a local specialty makes it that much more special.

16. Always Choose Cheap Lodging in Exchange For Being Able to Splurge on Meals

Five stars all the time is certainly not an indicator of a good culinary trip, but if you can order that aperitif or go all out and get the dessert without thinking about what it will do to your pocketbook, you’ll be much better off. 10 person dorm room in a hostel? If it means you get an extra bottle of local wine at dinner, by all means.

17. Be Willing to Mark the “Foods and Seeds” Section on Your Customs Card Just to See What Happens

Chocolate does not count.

18. Find a Couple of Key Items That You Always Buy Abroad to Add an Extra Level of Foodie Pretentiousness at Your Next Dinner Party

You can’t deny how much fun it is to say, “try some salted licorice! I stocked up last time I was in Europe.”

19. Get Lost

Leave the map and guidebook at home and let your stomach guide you. Whether you end up at a farmers market you didn’t know about, a hole-in-the-wall candy store or a friendly neighborhood joint, you’ll always be pleasantly surprised.

20. Celebrate the Unknown

You don’t have to always know what you’re eating. Life is more fun that way.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: How to Travel Like a Foodie appeared first on EcoSalon.

Life on two wheels.

With 95 miles of bike lanes, Warsaw is full of life on two wheels. The wide Soviet-style streets make for plenty of room for cars and bicycles, and you don’t have to stand on a street corner long before seeing someone ride by. In 2011 the city even hosted the Cycle Messenger World Championships.

Despite a sometimes complicated system of lanes and rough terrain, bicycles are just as much a part of everyday life here as they are in other European cities.

On the Move documents our life on two wheels. Have your own On the Move worthy photo? Send it our way! Email pictures tocontact@ecosalon.com.

The post On the Move: Warsaw, Poland appeared first on EcoSalon.

An exclusive EcoSalon playlist inspired by the streets of the old world. 

You squeeze your way past a busy cafe table, you dodge a Vespa, you nearly miss a run-in with a bike; there’s nothing quite like a European stroll. In the spirit of travel and exploring new cities, this week’s playlist is dedicated to the time spent wandering the sidewalks of a new city. Not because you have somewhere to be, but because you have somewhere to enjoy.

SIDEWALKING♯ by BehindTheWalk-In

10 Songs for the European Sidewalk from ecosalon on 8tracks.

Track list:

1. Sidewalk Of The City – Syd Dale & His Orchestra
2. Safari Strut – Whitefield Brothers
3. Douceur Tropicale – Michel Lorin et son ensemble
4. Madrid – Collage
5. Perdido – Gene Krupa
6. Primitive Spirit – Raymond Guiot & Guy Pedersen
7. Slowrama – Pierre-Alain Dahan
8. Hashish Party – Georges Garvarentz
9. Maïlys – Cortex
10. Mah na mah na – Piero Umiliani

Like what you hear? Check out our entire 10 Songs series. 

Image: Anna Brones

The post 10 Songs To Walk Down a Foreign Sidewalk To appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnHow do you say “cheers” in Hungarian?

“Normally they have rooster testicles, but I think they’re out of them today.”

Right.

We were staring at the wide array of meats behind the glass, busily snapping photos of everything from beef lungs to goose liver, knowing perfectly well that meat photos aren’t necessarily the most appetizing of food porn. With several floors of fresh produce and more meat than you can handle, the Great Market Hall, the largest indoor market in Budapest, has plenty of it, and Carolyn Banfalvi, owner of Taste Hungary, a Budapest-based company that offers food, wine and market tours, was taking us on a quick run through to make sure we knew all about fried fat and the importance of duck meat.

When you want to explore food culture, the market is often a good place to start. It is here that I learned that in Hungary, bacon is a big deal, the Hungarian countryside is full of fruits from apricots to blackberries and because wild mushroom picking is a popular pastime, there’s a “mushroom office” in many markets, where you can take your mushrooms to get checked, just to make sure you’re not eating anything poisonous.

Food is a central component of my plans anytime I travel, so it was no surprise that I was attempting to take in an entire food culture in five days.

“What is a classic Hungarian dish that we should eat?” I asked our apartment host Krisztina, a fashionable and savvy young Hungarian that was intent on giving us a long list of “underground” places to explore.

“Well, there is of course goulash, but it’s so heavy and not a summer dish, so please don’t eat it,” she responded.

“We will certainly not,” I responded. Always take the advice of a local.

Which is exactly how I ended up at a taco bar drinking fröccs.

A few nights earlier, Krisztina and her boyfriend Vandy had taken us out to explore the local ruin bar scene. What started as people taking over abandoned buildings, mostly in the Jewish quarter, and setting up makeshift bars, has turned into quite the scene, the kind of place where you’ll pick out a few tourists, but mostly you’re surrounded by hip Hungarians that ride single speeds and talk film and art. For the most part, they’re in courtyards, with packed seating and a mixture of low lighting and funky fixtures. My kind of place.

“So what do we order?” I asked.

“Fröccs,” said Vandy.

I quickly scribbled it down in my notebook, attempting to correctly pronounce it about five times first. Note: Hungarian is hard. Fröccs is a popular drink combining wine and soda water, mixed with varying proportions depending on how much you’re feeling like drinking, and for summer it’s perfect.

“Egészségedre!” Vandy and Krisztina pronounced, holding up their glasses.

More pronunciation repetition and scribbling in the notebook; it’s important to know how to say “cheers” in multiple languages after all.

Goulash may not have been on the list of recommendations but at least now I was well aware of how the cool urban crowd was spending their evenings. Budapest has a convivial culture, sitting in open courtyards in the summer and hunkering down in cozy basement bars in the winter. On Kazinczy street there is a handful of them, and you could spend an entire evening going from courtyard to courtyard, checking out the garden decor at Szimpla to sitting in a hammock chair at Köleves Kert. The winding cobblestone street is filled with bikes, parked up for the evening and entrances decorated with hanging lights.

“It’s two different worlds,” said Vandy, referring to the difference that the season and weather has on drinking habits, as he poured us a shot of Unicum. “You can’t leave Budapest without trying this!”

He was referring the the classic Hungarian herbal bitters, that is such a part of Hungarian culture that I later saw sample shots of at the airport at 8 in the morning. Just for the record, 8 is too early for herbal bitters. But at midnight in a ruin bar, it’s the perfect night cap. Just as tacos are the perfect street food.

Given my personal taco obsession, it came as no surprise that I would somehow end up eating them, even in the middle of Central Europe, but the beauty of globalization is that even in Hungary you can eat chicken paprikash for lunch and tacos for dinner. Sometimes exploring a food culture reminds you of how small the world has become. But because the Hungarians are good at preparing meat – when I asked Carolyn if there were any vegetarians in Hungary she said, “well, just a few” – the tacos were excellent.

Bacon, tacos, herbal bitters, the popularity of pickles and the large amount of hip people on single speed bicycles… Budapest was almost starting to feel like Portland. With more Hungarian of course, and less vegans. Add to that the extensive culture of cafes and the city is one continuous experience of eating, drinking and talking with people.

As a Hungarian proverb goes, “Good coffee should be black like the devil, hot like hell and sweet like a kiss.” And that’s exactly what you get in the multitude of kávéház that line the city streets. A double espresso and a classic Hungarian pastry will do good things at any time of day.

Jó étvágyat!

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: Budapest, The City of Coffee, Fröccs and Paprikash appeared first on EcoSalon.

VideoBetter than music on your iPod.

Why isn’t every commute like this?

Symphony Orchestra flashmob in the Copenhagen tube from MAKROPOL on Vimeo.

The post Video: Symphony Orchestra Flashmob in the Copenhagen Metro appeared first on EcoSalon.

An exclusive EcoSalon playlist avec la musique française. 

We like to call this one 10 Chansons Marchant Vers la Liberté et L’égalité. Listen and get in the French spirit.

Liberté et l’égalité by BehindTheWalk-In

La Liberté et L’égalité from ecosalon on 8tracks.

Catch this and all of our playlists on 8tracks.

Meteo – Praline et Toni

Madeleine – Noël Nickel

Coeur à l’index – Muriel

Histoire Ordinaire – Moderne

Triangle – Janco

Somewhere in the Night – Stereo

Games – Francis Rimbert

L’Obsession d’Archibald – Space Art

Equinoxe 4 – Jean Michel Jarre

Psyche Rock – Pierre Henry

Like what you hear? Check out our entire 10 Songs series. 

Image: fancycanoe

The post Celebrate Bastille Day With a French Playlist appeared first on EcoSalon.

The endangered butterfly has become an ideal  insect for scientists measuring the damage of climate change

A new study published in Ecological Entomology shows some species of butterflies adapt much better than others to warming temperatures, especially in mountain landscapes.

Which are most at risk? It appears butterfly species which emerge later in the year or fly higher in the different elevations of a mountain range in central Spain have evolved to reproduce in a shorter window of time, and as a result, may fare worse than those that emerge over a longer period of time.

“We’re already expecting localized extinctions of about one third of butterfly species, so we need to understand how climate change will affect those that survive,” says Javier G. Illan, with the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University.

Illan’s group of researchers working at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid studied flight patterns of 32 butterfly species for five years at different elevations in a Mediterranean mountain range. They noted the delays in flight dates that occurred as a result of elevation change.

Butterflies are ultra sensitive to climate change and therefore good models for understanding the broader scope of ecological effects linked to insects in terms of pollination and herbivory. In fact, their flight dates are said to be good indicators of future responses to climate change .

Meanwhile, the Brown Argus has defied the odds. The rare British butterfly with orange and white spots near its wingtips is thriving rather than disappearing as a result of extreme temperatures as predicted.

As reported by Scientific American, the insects are on the move and expanding their range northwards some 40 miles, according to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. This means they are no longer solely dependent upon a single plant species, the Rockrose, which grows on south-facing slopes and absorbs the warmth the butterfly’s caterpillars require.

The Rockrose plant’s choice is cool weather, hosting caterpillars on the underside of leaves on south-facing hillsides, but balmier summer conditions has prompted the butterfly to warm up to new plants such as the Dove’s Foot Cranesbill.

This ability to adapt and expand north shows promise for some species. But according to ecologists, large range retractions in the south cannot be counterbalanced by the expansions in the north. In fact, About ten percent of all of Europe’s butterflies face extinction due to climate change, along with loss of grassland habitat from intensive farming and abandonment of traditional farming in Europe, forest fires and the expansion of tourism.

The same culprits threaten 14% of dragonflies and 11% of saprophytic beetles, according to the European Red List report for the European commission. Among the species listed as critically endangered – the striking Madeiran large white butterfly not spotted on the island of Madeira in twenty years; and the Macedonian Grayling which has suffered habitat loss due to quarrying.

Recently, Richard Pearson, a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, cited the Red List in a New York Times Opinion page, warning us that a mass extinction is afoot. Some 20,000 species of animals and plants around the globe are deemed high risks and such a rapid loss of so many has only occurred five times in the past 540 million years. Around 65 million years ago, the last mass extinction wiped out the dinosaurs.

Writing about the pending loss of life on the planet, Pearson, who is the author of Driven to Extinction: The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity, suggested “this should keep us awake at night.”

He also urged us to invest in ecosystem services considered public goods. “We need to put a realistic value on nature, and we need effective environmental legislation that protects entire ecosystems.”

The post Some Butterflies Doomed, Others Thrive, with Climate Change appeared first on EcoSalon.

VideoEveryone needs a little Paris.

Pair a good song with shots from a week in Paris by some talented filmmakers and you get one uplifting travel video that will make you want to immediately jet to the City of Lights.

The post Video: Allo Allo {Deux Américains à Paris} appeared first on EcoSalon.

Oui, oui, Paris.

When good Americans die, they go to Paris. -Oscar Wilde

You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what’s so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden. -Allen Ginsberg

Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art. -Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The national characteristics… the restless metaphysical curiosity, the tenderness of good living and the passionate individualism. This is the invisible constant in a place with which the ordinary tourist can get in touch just by sitting quite quietly over a glass of wine in a Paris bistro.” -Lawrence Durrell

Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past. -Michael Simkins

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life. -Thomas Jefferson

But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight. -Ernest Hemingway

America is my country and Paris is my hometown. -Gertrude Stein

The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay, I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café. -Oscar Hammerstein II

It is perfectly possible to be enamoured of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French. -James Baldwin

Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman. -John Berger

People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain… or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris. -Roman Payne

Paris ain’t much of a town. -Babe Ruth

Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant. -Honoré de Balzac

You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can’t. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights. I mean come on, there’s nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe. -Owen Wilson as Gil in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris

In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. -Jean Cocteau

Secrets travel fast in Paris. -Napoleon Bonaparte

Coming [to Paris] has been a wonderful experience, surprising in many respects, one of them being to find how much of an American I am. -Augustus Saint-Gaudens

I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely. -Josephine Baker

Paris… is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail. -Edmund White

The whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music… it is worth anyone’s while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in everything. -James Thurber

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation. –Ernest Hemingway

Lise: Paris has ways of making people forget. Jerry: Paris? No, not this city. It’s too real and too beautiful. It never lets you forget anything. It reaches in and opens you wide, and you stay that way. -Leslie Caron as Lise and Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan in An American In Paris

Everything ends this way in France – everything. Weddings, christenings, duels, burials, swindlings, diplomatic affairs – everything is a pretext for a good dinner. -Jean Anouilh

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half. -Charles de Montesquieu

Paris is the city in which one loves to live. Sometimes I think this is because it is the only city in the world where you can step out of a railway station—the Gare D’Orsay—and see, simultaneously, the chief enchantments: the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs Elysees—nearly everything except the Luxembourg Gardens and the Palais Royal. But what other city offers as much as you leave a train? -Margaret Anderson

When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise. -Henry Miller

Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets – as vast and indestructible as nature itself. -Anne Rice

What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world! -Charles Dickens

A final reminder. Whenever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh. -Kate Simon

That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me. -Marion Cotillard as Adriana in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris

I love Paris when it sizzles. -Cole Porter

For in Paris, whenever God puts a pretty woman there (the streets), the Devil, in reply, immediately puts a fool to keep her. -Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

Good talkers are only found in Paris. -Francois Villon

I am going to enjoy life in Paris I know. It is so human and there is something noble in the city… It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for everybody to see. -Katherine Mansfield

In Paris, our lives are one masked ball. -Gaston Leroux

Even the pigeons are dancing, kissing, going in circles, mounting each other. Paris is the city of love, even for the birds. -Samantha Schutz

It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Paris is simply an artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris initiates no dramas. They are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. -Henry Miller

There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even – the French air clears up the brain and does good – a world of good. -Vincent Willem van Gogh

Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I’d never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn’t know what. Maybe it was something I’d forgotten or something I’ve been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me. -from in the final vignette of Paris Je T’Aime

The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older – intelligence and good manners. –F. Scott Fitzgerald

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris. -Friedrich Nietzsche

She’s one of those third year girls who gripe my liver… You know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture… They’re officious and dull. They’re always making profound observations they’ve overheard. -Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan in An American In Paris

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. -Mark Twain

To err is human. To loaf is Parisian. -Victor Hugo

I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood… I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world. –Michel de Montaigne

There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. I wake early, often at 5 o’clock, and start writing at once. -James Joyce

It’s Paris. You don’t come here for the weather. -Adrian Leeds

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. -Ernest Hemingway

Paris is always a good idea. -Audrey Hepburn as Sabrina Fairchild in Sabrina

Images: Aih, Jess Wood, Bruno Candeias, Panoramas, Vincent Ros

ALSO CHECK OUT:

50 Best Quotes About New York City

30 Best Quotes About Travel

50 Best Quotes On Change

Classic Quotes from Hollywood’s Original Leading Ladies

Want to see more quotes? Go here.

The post 50 Famous Quotes About Paris appeared first on EcoSalon.

The top stories at EcoSalon for the first week of 2012. 

A new year is exactly the right time to question – am I in the right job? Here are 10 telltale signs you need to do exactly that.

Could you create just one canful of trash this year? This lady can show you how.

We show how you can strut your stuff like Alexa Chung.

…and start the year with the “big clean” called Oosouji.

Finally, if you’re heading further afield this year, these 40 Gorgeous Photos of Europe may give you a few ideas!

The post The Friday 5: Year Ahead Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.