Getting away and eating away

Those of us tapping away in icebound offices are dreaming of the spring getaway…and for many of us, that means a mainland vacation.  For me, as no doubt for many others, that means thinking hard about what we’re going to eat – what regional specialties we can try, what local eateries we can dig up, maybe what local ingredients we can work with.

Most of the time I go hunting on Chowhound, the regionally organized food lovers’ dining review site.  I’ll ask friends for recommendations. But what I don’t usually do is buy a book, even though (or maybe because) there are thousands to choose from.

Publishers have been expanding their food-and-travel offerings, especially in the US.  Perhaps the most visible is Globe Pequot’s Food Lovers’ Guide series, covering the obvious, like Manhattan and San Francisco, but also Oklahoma, and Tucson, and points all over the map.  There’s the Bar Secrets series, for the U.S. and Canada.  And there are the eat.shop guides from Cabazon books.

Among U.S. destinations, one holds the crown these days:  Portland (Oregon, although Maine’s Portland is a righteous eating town in its own right).  From Portland: the Mighty Gastropolis to Hop in the Saddle: A Guide to Portland’s Craft Beer Scene,  the City of Roses is getting one love letter after another from the food scene.

I suppose that if I don’t buy more of these books, it’s because the four of us travel relatively seldom, and when we do go, it’s to places like New York, where the scene changes so rapidly a guide can get outdated within a few months of publication.  But I think they provide a real service to more frequent flyers than our family.