Category: Travails of a Guidebook Author

Book Tour Ahoy!

It officially begins tomorrow. Not so auspiciously, I discovered yesterday that I’d jacked up my plane reservations, and was set to arrive at 12.23am, instead of 12.23pm. That’s a mistake I’ve never made before. (Doesn’t help that United’s SFO-PDX flights go at the exact same times, a.m. and p.m.)

Anyway, fixed that. Will arrive in Portland tomorrow (lord willin’) and put on a show at Land gallery, which I am very much looking forward to. And there will be plenty of eating in Portland, of course. Finally, Pok-pok!

And, as I’ve said on shorter-form communication media, it dawned on me that working as a guidebook writer has made me exceptionally well trained for a book tour. All those pansy writers who complain about having to fly to a new city every two days–big deal! Try driving to a new city every two days, in 90-degree heat, in a car with no a/c or power steering. And overscheduling–I invented that the first time I tried to visit all of New Mexico in three weeks.

Also, I’m very good at getting names spelled right. So I won’t be doing what Jeffrey Steingarten did to me when he inscribed a book to “Dora.” (Bad bookstore karma, but I sliced that page out with a razor blade and returned the book. It’s not like I shoplifted books and then returned them, like some deadbeat writers I’ve met.)

Anyhooooo… This is all to say I probably will be too harried to communicate clearly in this forum for the next couple of weeks. (Sad state of affairs when blogging seems to be too long-form.) I will, as ever, be on Facebook, where we also have a page for the cookbook. And this newfangled Twitter thing. I’m at zoraoneill and forkyeah. (And Cooking in Real Time is continuing–not to worry. Also on Twitter at cookrealtime.)

Oh! And I’m still a guidebook writer, you know. I’ll be appearing at WORD! (the best-named bookstore ever) on October 29 to talk about it. I will be totally fried. It will be awesome, and hopefully somewhat coherent.

Fork Yeah. Really. Now. Today.

ffForking Fantastic! It’s here! Officially, today.

I feel obliged to write something and get excited. And get you all excited. And honestly, I am excited. I’m proud of this book–it’s up there with my Moon guide to New Mexico in accuracy and cleverness and so on, but not cluttered up with a lot of telephone numbers and opening hours. Oh, and it’s funnier.

But, alas, very much like the day I got married, my previous obligations have somehow expanded monstrously, so as to render me exhausted and still slogging along under the weight of missed deadlines, and thus unable to fully live in the moment. (You should see the pics of me at city hall with Peter in 2005. The bags under my eyes were epic.)

Suspiciously, the culprit in both cases has been a guidebook job. Six years of doing this work, and I still cannot accurately assess how much time it will take me to finish? I just can’t face the awful truth of how much painstaking grunt work it is. Or perhaps the real truth is that I positively suck at multitasking.

Anyway, I’d type more, but…I’ve got to get back to work. I’m hyperventilating slightly just thinking about it.

You’ll love the book, honest. Even if you don’t like swearing. And if you email me to tell me how much you like it (I hope), I’ll get back to you next week. When I’m out from under my current job.

DIY Cairo

Cairo BakeryLonely Planet just posted a portion of the guidebook I worked on a couple of summers ago: DIY Cairo: streets to stroll.

We were told to add more “DIY” travel–places to wander, rather than specific sites to see. I was really happy with my writing on that book, and this section was one of the pieces I liked best–so it’s nice to see it posted. (Although they cut my advice to accept tea or soda from someone, at some point, in one of your strolls. I stand by it!)

(And that’s one of my own photos from Cairo wandering.)

Good Travel Reading

When I was in Mexico, I got desperate for some English reading material by the end of the month, so I plunked down US$10 for a copy of the newest issue of Dwell, which I was surprised to find in a bookstore on Cozumel.

And what a fine investment! In the back were samples from the new travel mag Afar, which I’d heard whispers of back in the spring. As soon as I got to the Miami airport, I bought myself the full issue.

It’s so refreshing to read a magazine that isn’t explicitly gunning for a particular market segment. Street food and fancy treehouses, fancy French knives and Berber villages… Check it out, if you have a chance. And you should have a chance, because it’s quarterly–just about the pace I can handle for magazines.

With Perceptive Travel, though, I’ve almost completely lost the thread since it jumped to monthly! Fortunately, I did drop in recently and catch “A Dollar and a Dime in Vietnam,” by Richard Sterling. What starts out as just general commentary on the function of small change in many countries turns into a specific story, with a specific moment, the sort of which (for me, at least) is one of the main reasons for traveling.

Even though the odd moments of kindness can happen at home (and Sterling does live in Vietnam), I suspect you’re more open to them as a traveler, when you’re coasting on guest etiquette, as opposed to resident habits. And if you’re lucky, that attitude will persist a little too, after you get back and before you’re back in your rut.

Specific to odd kindnesses of taxi drivers, I just realized that the fact that Egypt was the first place I really traveled has colored everything since. Because Cairo is a hideously polluted, overcrowded city where everyone is out to grossly overcharge you or feed you food that will make you violently ill, well, every place after has seemed positively hygienic, courteous and completely uncorrupt.

And I’m of course grossly overblowing the Cairo stereotypes, but that has a benefit too. When I returned to Cairo in 2007, after nine years’ absence, the stereotype had built up so horribly in mind that I was pleasantly surprised and touched at nearly every corner, when people were polite and not grabby and quoted me an accurate price on a bottle of water.

Still, though, no cab driver ever did what Sterling’s motorbike guy does in his story…

What Guidebook Writers Live For

I’m in the middle of finishing a guidebook update now. There’s this tricky business of writing for your reader (who uses the book) vs. writing for your editor (who may hire you again).

If you think too much of impressing your editor, you can start making goofy choices–including a restaurant listing because the review you wrote was clever, and not because the food was great, for instance. Or doing slash-and-burn cutting to meet your deadline, instead of pruning words out , so you don’t lose coverage of a cool little village.

And, I’ll be honest, it’s my editors who most often dole out the compliments. As for the readers, I seldom hear from them–it’s like throwing the book into space.

Sooo, this is all leading up to an absolutely wonderful email I received yesterday. And just the day before, I’d been bemoaning how my guidebooks for Moon don’t sell much, and are a bit too much of a labor of love. This email makes it all worth it:

Zora – I just wanted to say thanks for writing the Moon Handbook on Santa Fe, Taos & Albuquerque. It was my Bible during our trip to Santa Fe and Taos. I liked your style of writing like when you described the hippies in “recent history” as those who “fantasized about getting back to the land but had no clue how to do it.”

I don’t always follow guide books to the ‘t’ but your recommendations were so good there didn’t seem to be a reason to stray from the ease of having you be our guide.

Thanks again, great job! What a wonderful place Santa Fe is…

So if you like a guidebook–tell the author! They will love you forever, guaranteed. Also, doesn’t hurt to write an Amazon review too…

Link Love: Cheap Food and Travel

Cheapness and creativity converge in two great posts I just read:

Conner’s nitty-gritty on substitutions required for cooking in Cuba reminds me of every expat kitchen I’ve kept and visited. None quite so rough as Conner’s situation, though Cairo required a certain savoir faire. That’s where I foraged for basil in vacant lots. (I just made that pasta, what I call Cairo Noodles, again a couple of months ago–creamy cheese, basil, tomatoes, garlic and loads of olive oil. It stood the test of time, even though I didn’t have the signature buffalo-milk ‘feta’ from the Parmalat box.)

I would love to see a photo or video survey of expat kitchens all over the world, where treasured ingredient X is always squirreled away in the cupboard, and getting ingredient Y calls for a party. I imagine people giving little tours of their kitchens and pointing out all the treats and various little bounties and clever workarounds.

Meanwhile, over at the Frugal Traveler blog on nytimes.com, Matt Gross interviews Lauren Weber about her new book and the virtues of cheapness. The first answer is the most concise reason I’ve ever heard for being generally cheap (and I’m always looking for justifications, as I often need to push back a lot here in NYC, the city where everyone pretends to be wealthy).

And I like her point about how travel becomes boring if money is no object. Whenever I’m visiting fancy resorts for work, I think of that. Sure, it’s fun to go hang out there for a night or two, and imagine that lifestyle. But if I really lived it? Totally boring. Challenge and constraints are good, both in cooking and travel. There’s a whole damn world out there to visit and eat, and frankly I don’t trust my own taste/instinct entirely to take me into the best stuff. Sometimes I need to be forced there, whether it’s due to a shortage of basil or an uncooperative train.

And then, well, this is just funny. Oh, and this, about accents. Love the Pakistan clip at the end. Hooray for Bajira, the new Blanquinou!

Mexico Photos

They’re up, over on Flickr. If you jumped on it when I posted some last night, well, go back, because there are oodles more, plus short videos.

First of all, there’s the giant set of general photos, starting out with all the culinary treats, such as this one:

Pozol de Chocolate

(That’s the cold chocolate-corn breakfast thing I mentioned on Facebook. I don’t mind looking ridiculous in this photo because it was so damn good)

Oh, and:

Lap of Lunchery

Pollo asado tastes better when you eat it out of your lap.

Oh, and, and:

Tortilla Tastiness

Whoever it was in San Lorenzo de Zinacantan who thought it would be a good idea to offer tortillas to tourists after they buy some beautiful embroidery work–I salute you! These were the most amazing and simple tortillas, cooked right there, with this funky cheese and earthy ground pumpkin seeds. The taste of Pre-Columbia.

And near the end, there are a few short videos, like this one:

Oh, I’m giving it all away–go look at them all now!

Then there’s a set Peter took while walking around the block in Campeche: fantastic decay next to old-fashioned living rooms, and sometimes both in one place.

Campeche Block 5

And finally, for the typeface fans, a very small set of goofy fonts we saw.

Hero's

Happy browsing…

On the Road in Mexico

Here’s 3,000 kilometers in Chiapas, Tabasco and Campeche states, from my August trip: Peter at the wheel; Huichol Musical on the soundtrack.

Some notes:
00:05–Hi, sheep!
00:16–Yes, that’s a tuk-tuk! They’re all in the mountain villages where pedal-power triciclo taxis are too tough to manage.
00:22–Downtown Tapachula, with the “uno x uno” (‘one by one’=four-way stop) traffic sign.
00:36–Puente Chiapas, the huge long bridge across the huge wide river/dammed-up-lake between Chiapas and Tabasco. You can’t see it, but the back of the truck in front of us is filled with those rebar rocking chairs I love.
00:52–Villahermosa’s cathedral is unfinished–those spires are the most impressive part. Also love old Bug/new Bug in the same street.
01:04–Those are banana trees hiding behind the hedges. Acres upon acres of banana plantations, in Tabasco.
01:11–Don’t assume Mexico is all humid and hot. It was chilly in the mountains, even in August, and there was lots of fog.
01:17–That sign says “Slow down in the rain.” We didn’t take any chances.
01:40–I only took this clip because Peter seemed to be driving so fast. But through the miracle of video compression, we seem to be speeding along crazily in pretty much every clip.
02:03–I doubt Nissan tested the truck gate to hold the weight of four men….

Mexico: Not as Third World as You Think

Seriously. I left Cancun airport, all gleaming and shiny, with super-clean bathrooms, no lines and free ziplock baggies at security, to return to Miami, where I shuffled through gray, low-ceiling halls, past unexplained barriers and into immigration that looked like it had been wedged into a disused room. While I waited for my luggage, I went to a two-stall bathroom where the doors didn’t lock. Heading for my connecting flight, I could tell I was getting close to the security checkpoint because the hall smelled like stinky feet.

If you haven’t left the US in a while, I’ve got some news for you: We’re falling way behind. In Mexico, there’s free wi-fi in the parks. The roads are fabulously smooth. There are bike paths. People are talking about the economic crisis as something that happened months ago, when that whole swine flu thing got a little overhyped in the press, but things are getting back on track now.

And speaking of swine flu, the Mexican government is sure as hell doing a lot more about it than I ever saw in NYC at the peak of the panic. There are public health vans parked at every town plaza in the major affected zones. Everyone’s washing their hands twice as much as they used to. (And even that was twice as much as we do here in the US. In Mexico, the signs in the bathroom advise you to wash your hands after using the bathroom, of course, but also before you eat. Very wise. If more travelers did this, they wouldn’t get so sick.)

If you’re a little scared of going to Mexico because of everything you read in the news, don’t be. It is a huge country. The narco wars are happening in the equivalent of Detroit and Baltimore, which wouldn’t stop you from visiting, say, the Grand Canyon, right? Speaking of which, the Cañon del Sumidero in Chiapas–fantastic.

And speaking of Chiapas–yeah, everything’s fine there. That uprising? It happened in 1994. Same year Kurt Cobain died, just for perspective. Loooong-ass time ago.

Anyway, just had to get that off my chest before I go sort through all my photos. And an apology is due: I spent this whole trip on Facebook, instead of here. But you didn’t miss too much–there were very few ‘wacky hijinks of a guidebook writer’ episodes on this trip. I did realize that whereas I used to hate how hotel owners would chat my ear off, now I have become the annoyingly chatty one. Maybe that’s because I wasn’t funneling enough of my drive-time musing into my blog. Live and learn… And stay tuned for photos.

New Mexico: A Guide for the Eyes

nmeyesI mentioned Elisa Parhad’s genius new guidebook idea a little while back, but now the book — New Mexico: A Guide for the Eyes — is finally out and for full-on sale.

It’s as savvy and beautiful as I’d expected. Love the turquoise-blue endpapers!

The premise: You’re driving around New Mexico and you notice there are an awful lot of drainage ditches. What’s up with that? Flip through and see the picture of an acequia–and you get all the background on Spanish-Arab irrigation techniques. The zia sun symbol, koshare, and chile ristras all get their due, along with other iconic things like enchiladas, smudge sticks, cowboy hats and biscochitos.

This guide is a total delight to read–and, just as important, it really helps you understand the essential cultural details about New Mexico.

I have just finished yet another guidebook where, in the name of meeting my word-count limits, I had to cut out 95 percent of the random interesting details I’d noticed about southern Spain to make room for opening hours and phone numbers.

I know this data is essential for a standard guidebook — but the kind of info you get from a guide like Elisa Parhad’s is just as key for really getting to know a place.

So…just buy two guidebooks. It’s worth it.

This is more a book for reading ahead of time, or looking up details after you get back home. It’s all glossy color photos, and hardbound in a nice little square trim size. For what it’s worth, there’s a one-page list of really good restaurants, attractions and museums in the back of the book–you’re smart enough to look these places up on your own.

Then, when you’re on the road and need quick reference to phone numbers, maps and opening times, take a black-and-white paperback like mine.

I’m looking forward to seeing the next guides in the series!