I’ve been busy traveling, and am just about to head off for a couple more trips, so briefly, my life in food for the past couple of weeks:

First, I was browsing in Barnes & Noble and got to flipping through a Turkish cookbook, which made me think I should really call that Turkish guy I’d met at the lamb roast. He’d given me his number, but I hadn’t called him because…I don’t know why. I guess because I suspected he was my brother’s age. So it did take me salivating over pictures of leek salads and grilled meat to work up the enthusiasm for calling this hot, nubile dude, which is really the weirdest kind of social exploitation–I guess I’d imagined some rosy future of Turkish in-laws, kindly women who would teach me all kinds of fascinating secrets of Ottoman cuisine. So I guess it’s good not much came of the couple of dates (in the loosest sense–one “date” was Sunday dinner at Tamara’s, with him looking baffled as we all wore aprons on our heads, drank like fish and cackled like idiots), or I would’ve had to admit I was just using him for his culinary heritage.

I also went on a too-short trip to Amsterdam. Under the guise of stuffing maximum entertainment into the even shorter itinerary of Karine and her friend Mike, we went almost straight from the plane to the Albert Cuypstraat market, where we stuffed our faces with frites with mayo, and then hot stroopwafels, which are totally different from the supermarket package ones, which are more like cinnamony shoe leather. The fresh ones are perfectly light and crispy, with the super-buttery caramel filling just oozing out. Then on my way out of town four days later, I stopped back at the market for another stroopwafel dose and a herring sandwich. It was tempting to eat the Dutch triple-play (frites, herring, stroopwafel) all in one go, but I’m sure I would’ve been sick.

Also I ate some mushrooms, which I’ve never bothered doing in Amsterdam even though they sell them fresh at “smart shops.” For some reason it’s OK to sell them fresh, but not dried–maybe because the packaging for the fresh ones is so wholesome: they use those same plastic boxes you get fresh herbs in here. Anyway, one problem I have with hanging out with heavy drug-doers is that they never think of eating, and I’m forever ducking down some alley to grab a meal, and inevitably missing the most fun part of the outing. So for once the tables were turned and I sort of came to at 5 a.m. and realized the only thing I’d had for dinner was some gingersnap ice cream from Australian Homemade–and of course the mushrooms themselves, which were actually kind of tasty but not really filling. Which contributed to my feeling suicidally exhausted when the birds started to chirp, and I had to jump into bed double-quick to shake that sickening feeling of my life crumbling around me–a sensation I get every time I stay up too late, and only when I stay up too late.

I felt a little better, but still kind of shell-shocked, when I ate dinner at the great Ethiopian place, Semhar, the next night. This is the place Peter got yanked into the kitchen to be shown “the holes, the holes!” in the bread, and he eventually got the injera recipe from the owner. Anyway, it was tasty as usual, with especially hot chile and a nice creamy spinach dish too.

Finally, back in Queens for one day, we all went out for Korean for Joel’s birthday. Peter organized the trip to Flushing, and he chose extremely well. But we were so famished we fell on the pan chan like locusts, and then we had to quick nab all the meat off the barbecue just as it was done, and then I swear we were done with dinner in less than 20 minutes, all reeling back and staring at each other warily and kind of waving our chopsticks around, still ready to pounce on some overlooked morsel of raw crab, or fish jelly, or crispy rice.

So I’ve eaten pretty well, if frantically, over the past couple of weeks, and I’m off to Mexico to eat more. In the name of research, of course, I really should eat at about five restaurants a day. I’ll see what I can do.