July 10, 2025

Have Fork will Travel: Vacation Food Finds, Delicious Detours and Tips.

Have Fork will Travel: Vacation Food Finds, Delicious Detours and Tips.

When Food Makes the Trip Worth It:

Eat Well and Wander, or Travel Often

Have you ever been on a family road trip, staring out the car window, just waiting to see that giant Big Boy sign? You knew it meant one thing—burgers were coming, and they were going to be good.

That’s what we, Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely, are talking about in this episode of Family Tree, Food & Stories. We’re going back to the days when food made vacations even more fun, from roadside diners and belly clams to those special fancy restaurants you had to dress just right for. However, today, many of us take vacations to search out that perfect meal and to eat—seriously! Culinary travel is now a huge thing, and you can learn everything from how to butcher a pig to make pasta from scratch (if you’ve never tried doing so yourself before).

Hang tight because we’re talking about some of the special meals we’ve planned whole trips around—like shrimp and grits in Charleston or fresh ceviche in Peru. And we’ve got tips about how to eat safely when you're far from home (trust us, you DON’T want to spend your vacation in the bathroom… just ask Nancy).

You’ll also hear:

  • Why food festivals are the new summer vacation.
  • How to find the best local bites, even if you don’t know much about the place you’re visiting
  • What Europeans might be doing right when it comes to food and family.

Bottom line: Great meals make great memories. Whether you're at a food truck or a fancy place, what matters most is who’s at the table.

🍴Listen now if you love:

  • Family road trips and old-school diners, and yes, Blue Plate Specials
  • Food that tells a story
  • Learning how to plan your travels around must-eat places and foods

Come and join us — press play and get hungry with us. You might just want to start planning your next food vacation or weekend trip before this episode’s even done.

Additional Links ❤️


About Your Award-Winning Hosts: Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely are the powerhouse team behind Family Tree, Food & Stories, a member of The Food Stories Media Network, which celebrates the rich traditions and connections everyone has around food, friends, and family meals. Nancy, an award-winning business leader, author, and podcaster, and Sylvia, a visionary author, lawyer, and former CEO, combine their expertise to bring captivating stories rooted in history, heritage, and food. Together, they weave stories that blend history, tradition, and the love of food, where generations connect and share intriguing mealtime stories and kitchen foibles.

@familytreefoodstories #travel #vacation #roadtrip #lobster #mainelobster #foodnearme #restaurantsnearme #statefair #foodtour #howtonotgetsickwhiletraveling #Americanfood #howtonotgetsickonvacation #foodtours #pastatours #bestfoodtours #eatingamerica #seafood

Mentioned in this episode:

Book #1 Midroll 6-19-25 update

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Hey Sylvia.

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Happy Travel Day.

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It's almost time, you know, it's, Memorial Day, and then

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I guess what, it's summertime.

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It's like the beginning of the travel season.

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My wheels are getting hot and ready to roll

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that's true and it's midsummer now, so people are really taking off and have been

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some places, so we'll have a lot to report on because they've already been out there

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and been doing it and gonna do even more.

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August is huge for travel, right?

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Trains, planes and automobiles.

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let's eat up and see what's going on.

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Now you've got a couple of cool stories of when you started

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yeah.

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when you were kids.

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Right.

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I'm gonna date myself.

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Okay.

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Back then there was no interstate and we would go to my

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grandmother's house in Kentucky.

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I was raised in Ohio, and I remember it was so magical to get in that car

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because at that time when no one ever ate out, it just wasn't a big deal.

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It was the fast food was just emerging, and, but we, waited with just such

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anticipation to get to the Ohio River ready to cross over into Kentucky.

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There was the big boy,

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Ooh.

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boy and I don't even remember what we ate, but it was like, I'm sure

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hamburgers and french fries and all the things I was always deprived of.

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And there was that big boy

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Was it like the big statue with a kid?

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With a little curly do

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yeah, yeah, yeah.

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That people are probably buying up everywhere because I know they've

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closed all the fishes here in, in Lexington and maybe even Kentucky.

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You know, Nancy, one of these days we'll have to talk.

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It's a, this kind of dying breed of those kind of places, and that's

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almost a sad thing, you know?

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they served a purpose, you know?

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outside of the restaurants from cows to horses to big

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Chickens.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, up in Massachusetts there was a giant seahorse, and I remember when

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everybody was saying they were gonna take down the seahorse and no, it's a

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No.

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No,

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There was nothing there.

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But this ratty old seahorse in

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but

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mana poise at Massachusetts.

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Special.

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And it's sort of along the lines, and we've talked about this before.

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when the interstate system came

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Mm-hmm.

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then that really started changing.

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Family travel and chain restaurants sprang up.

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And I remember talking about this, like, you know, cracker Barrel was

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the place, and if you think about it.

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The one thing in favor of all of that, and I love Cracker Barrel,

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so but you had consistency of food, unlike the little tiny towns.

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Now, if you went into the little tiny towns, you might

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find something called a what?

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A blue plate special.

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Diners.

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Oh my gosh.

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Well, you know, diners were always the good place to find the right

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food and the whole story about the blue plate special trying.

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say that three times fast.

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Right.

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I found was really interesting.

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So that was started back somewhere in the 1920s and it was a US and Canadian

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was the thing in the diners and it went through about the fifties and apparently

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they actually served the food on a blue plate, which I didn't know right.

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Yeah.

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I wonder who came up with that.

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Fascinating,

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right.

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Well, and I, I don't know about you, but something about blue and food,

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unless it's a straw, uh, unless it's a blueberry, not a strawberry, I

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just like, ugh, you know, I don't,

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I know

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ShopRite up, up north had changed all the interior of their

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stores to this bluish color.

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I couldn't shop there.

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Something about the color blue and food just, it just turns me off.

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But anyway, I guess that was sort of a way to say, okay, they're the cheap people

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eating on the blue plates, especially

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But they sort of have become iconic, for the, when you think about

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it, it was usually like, uh, what do they call those restaurants?

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a meat and greet or something, where you get a meat, like a roast beef, and

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then you get three of those kind of vegetables that are just absolutely

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cooked to death, like green beans.

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never heard of that term.

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Meat in

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Greet

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Yea, Meet and Greet.

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It's restaurant term, and, and here's why it's, such an interesting term

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because it's a simple kind of restaurant.

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' cause you have the choices of meats and then you can have

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your choices of the sides.

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And so it's kind of interesting.

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People talk about it being a little bit easier than the cook

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to your order kind of thing.

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But Cracker Barrel.

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Kind of took over Cracker Barrel and other kinds of things, the chain

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restaurants that, kind of grew up.

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And there's a variety of them today.

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But, uh, the small town diners kind of went away, didn't they?

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Along with some of the little

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But

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when you get a really good diner, if you're traveling

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you can't help but going in.

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And there's that sense of nostalgia.

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Right.

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And they're

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usually,

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the burgers are usually the best at a diner

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I know.

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I know.

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Because they are probably not as good for you as they should be, but they taste good

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Yeah.

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But, a fried burger on a grill is, just like a grilled cheese sandwiches,

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really good when you're traveling.

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But then there's also beyond that, I don't, I don't know about you, but I

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remember getting in the car as a kid, half the fun was packing up all the

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stuff that mom and dad would let you eat

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Oh

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yeah.

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Oh yeah.

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Oh, I know.

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I don't know what that would've been.

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'cause now it would be for me.

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' cause I remember we went on a road trip to Maine.

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this is wild Nancy.

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Gotta listen to this one.

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We got in a, they rented a gigantic suburban, which is

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one of those gigantic Chevys.

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It's like a living room on wheel.

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And I remember at the time it was during COVID and it was with my son and

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daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.

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And we crammed ourselves into this suburban, I don't know why we had such

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a tear to get to Maine, but we did, and we rented a beautiful house in Maine.

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But to get there, we were 19 hours in this suburban, and I remember we had

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like, popcorn in one kind of place.

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I had enough room to just reach into a Doritos package.

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There was more room for food than there were for people.

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And there were no restaurants open.

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So when you stopped, you could order it and they to go window, but

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you had to eat it outside because remember, nobody could eat inside.

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yeah.

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Boy.

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Talk

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19 hours,

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Right.

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19 hours with how many kids in a car

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two little kids, and they were tiny kids at the time.

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It

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are we there yet?

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It was very strange.

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But no, but Maine was beautiful though, I have to say,

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So did you go and travel for the lobster

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We did lobster rolls.

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We did do that.

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you could get 'em to go

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now?

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Did those lobster rolls have butter or were they mayonnaise lobsters.

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Oh my gosh.

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You know, I don't know.

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Tell me about that.

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So there's two kinds of lobster rolls that you can have.

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One is the lobster roll that has the mayonnaise and the onions and

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the celery and everything in it.

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So it's, it's very good and it's on a hotdog bun, usually

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a soft bun type of thing.

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then there's another kind of lobster roll, depending upon whether, I

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think you're like a traditional New Englander or a Southern New

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Englander, and that's just a lobster.

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Fresh lobster in the bun and it's slathered in butter.

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Oh, now you're talking my language.

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See, I I

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don't like butter on my lobster.

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Nope.

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I just like, nope.

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I just like, plain lobster.

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Just, just give it to me plain.

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Nothing on it, no garnishes.

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Nancy, you're a weirdo.

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Okay.

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Did I ever

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I'm not weird.

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I'm a purist.

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I'm a purist.

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Oh man.

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That butter on lobster sounds so good to me.

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I don't know what I had, but it was good.

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So,

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But when we're traveling, but wait a second, but when you're traveling, don't

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you always ask people where they eat?

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I mean, where do you go?

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You're traveling across country.

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Where are good places to go eat?

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Where should you eat?

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What's the best thing to do?

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And how do you create that experience and that food and that travel and everything?

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And because I, half the memory is the food that you're eating along the way, right?

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And it's that togetherness.

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It bonds you with people They ask you, they knew you were in Paris, and

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where do you go when you're there?

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you've been there and you love telling them, and then you

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love hearing the feedback.

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And that's among the friends and.

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So the question is how can you share that knowledge with more people?

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And one of the things is you're encouraged to do online communities.

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This is where the internet is very good.

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It gets a wrap on a lot of things, but if you share, particularly if you have

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a sharing group, maybe a travel group that you form on Facebook or something,

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it's a good way to find out, like Duluth, Minnesota has some great places.

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Now I don't suspect I'm gonna have very many people who will be seeking that,

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but I mean, every place has its thing and

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Yep.

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Well,

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and.

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Right.

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And one of the best experiences that I had, I think when traveling with, with

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friends and with family members was with a, group that I belonged to a, group

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called the International Women's Forum.

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And I went to Italy with mom.

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Mom didn't wanna go out one night, she was just exhausted.

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So I went with this other couple and they always traveled with a Fodor's Guide.

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You know, one of the fodor's Guide the

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Yeah.

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Oh yeah.

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I love those.

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Their, sort of goal was to go to all the four and five star Fodor's restaurants.

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one of the best meals that we had in, the Amalfi Coast was there in, I think

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it was Office of Outta Sorento, was this restaurant just overlooked the

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Oh, I was gonna say the place made the thing, didn't it?

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oh, the best tomatoes I have ever had on this planet.

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And the best.

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It was Buffalo.

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It was like homemade, creamy, buffalo mozzarella cheese

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that was just to die for.

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And the view was amazing.

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And of course, the company, yeah, was

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Oh yeah, but you know, the place can make a place, you know,

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The surroundings, the atmosphere.

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you know, the best storytelling is the story you create in my mind.

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I can see myself sitting there and, but I also have to tell another

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thing about traveling or anywhere.

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having just reopened my restaurant, I'm kind of interested in this.

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I had a fellow, Signal me to come over and say he was a martini snob and I'm

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waiting ' cause I don't drink martinis.

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Right.

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And he said, now the restaurant was open for one day at this point.

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Okay.

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So we're still putting a lot of things together.

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And he said, where are the martini glasses?

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I was appalled when I figured, when I looked down and saw what

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they had put his martini in, and I said, well, the next time you

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come, there will be martini glasses.

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And so we got them the next day, but how did that happen?

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put a martini in an old fashioned glass.

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Don't do that.

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you know, I agree.

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So when you're traveling, it's not just the environment and the people

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you're with, but it's everything else.

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As, as my uncle Ken, who was quite the actor and singer would say the.

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That, that's round everything

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Cout.

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So,

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Ah,

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but I am a, I'm a glass knob too.

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if I'm at a lovely restaurant and my wine glass has that little rim on

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that sort of like a bubble edge rim,

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it's like, You know, they cheap down on the glass.

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Really?

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Give me the glass that has the

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think about that.

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yeah.

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It's like little Cokes taste better than big Cokes.

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Okay.

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I'm just

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right.

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But how do you get the best advice when you're traveling for beyond

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friends and family members of where to eat and where they've been?

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How do you get the best advice on where to go when you are someplace?

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And I think, you can talk to the concierge or the hotel or someplace else, but just

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talking to people who are on the streets or next to you or in line somewhere,

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right?

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Yeah.

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yeah, yeah.

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Oh no, that's what they say.

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Like for instance, when I was looking into all of this one thing,

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I looked at my kids just got back from Mexico City and ate street food,

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and I'm like, for a minute I'm like.

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Street food.

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Wait a minute, Mexico City, wait a minute.

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And then I started researching it and there are some dangers with street food,

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but they said, look for the locals.

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Look where the locals are going, not the touristy places.

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And also look for food that's not been prepackaged.

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And you don't want something that's been laying around and you wanna

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see if people are using gloves.

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Just these little tiny tips that you can follow to find, you know,

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safety when you're out there because you don't wanna be Anthony Bourdain

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and eat whatever in the world.

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He did, oh, by the way, I was in Japan for a sabbatical and they asked me

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before I went three weeks, and they said, what kind of food do you eat?

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This is the meat story,

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Yeah.

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And I said, I don't eat any like raw stuff.

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Well, I eat seafood.

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But no.

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What they did is they would get every meal, I mean, every

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meal, I got a giant steak.

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Well, I'm not, I am not a big eater, but I think the prize was taken by

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one of my colleagues on the trip, about 15 of us, he ate dancing shrimp.

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Now you know what that is.

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I sure do.

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Oh, yeah.

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No, you bite the head off first, but no, no, no,

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no.

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No, I am not biting the head off something that was alive and then No.

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Who was that?

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yeah, no, I'm drawing a blank on his name.

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Who, who was the, the musician who, the rocking, who did it?

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Ozzy Osborne who would eat to

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bite the head off of, bite that head off of a bat on stage.

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Ah, Ozzy Osborne.

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Sorry, Ozzy, I'm not eating with you.

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But anyway,

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Ah.

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so, so there's a big effort or there's a big, travel interest in food festivals,

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Yeah.

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It's festivals, big deal festivals.

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But but I wanted to say that culinary tours are on the increase.

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And who would you think, which age group would you think?

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Are the top attenders of, people who invest in these tours.

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That's tours, not festivals.

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the tours, I would say the 50 plus.

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I would've too, but it's research I found now.

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Maybe you could find other, most popular among millennials.

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Really

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looking for authenticity.

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Followed by, yeah, followed by Gen Z. They like novelty followed by Gen

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X. Are seeking culture and comfort.

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And finally, baby boomers,

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Who want meat and potatoes.

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tradition, comfort.

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Well, let's take a break and then we'll come back on, different food

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tours and travels and, really how to get the best meal while you're out

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there traveling and experience right.

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So let's jump back into the car or, I'll strap myself into the plane

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seat and talk about the next food adventure and travel where we're going

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because, everything tastes better.

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I think when you're on the road.

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I don't know what it is, even if it's bad, it's always good, isn't it?

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Just sort of the anticipation of it.

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and by the way, you might just be having to strap yourself into a

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space capsule at some point, right?

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Culinary travel in the

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stars.

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Maybe it doesn't matter, I mean, you're not gonna make it too long.

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Yeah.

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E Elon.

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Musk.

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I'm saying Leon Musk,

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Anyway, uh and so yeah, there is this skyrocketing interest in culinary tours

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that's brought on by the internet.

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It's brought on by just, we know all these things now, like, at my

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restaurant just hired at Puerto Rican, I. Chef who also was given kind of an

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infusion of that Kentucky Southern food and kind of does a combination thing.

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So you have all that international interest, and so you're looking

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around and you're looking for local sustainability.

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Nancy, this is what we are about.

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Family tree, food and stories.

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People are seeking something and we know that, that's why they're doing

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cooking classes, culinary trails, food festivals, study culture, because food

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doesn't happen in a vacuum, right?

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Food happens with culture all around it.

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There's just something about Italy, You imagine grandma's in the kitchen,

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I mean, whether grandma is or

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Nonas Nonas are hot right now.

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Yeah.

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Nonas are hot and and you're finding your roots through food.

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ancestry.com and all those places are also saying, come and join us

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I have a question for you, Sylvia.

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You know, everybody talks about what you want eat when you're traveling.

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You want to eat Italian, you want to eat Chinese, you want

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to eat French, you want to eat

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Greek, whatever it is.

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Do you ever hear anybody saying, we're traveling, I wanna eat American?

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No.

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You know, you don't, unfortunately.

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Right.

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However.

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Wait, I've got a story on that one.

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So there was a friend years back who, was doing some studies over in Italy

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and she was in a little town outside of where the university, I'm not sure

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where it was, where she was traveling, where she was studying, but she would

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make, try and make apple pie there.

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Well, it was hard to find the apples and make apple pie, but when she

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did, all her friends said, oh my God.

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And they asked her in Italy, her roommates and her friends.

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To make American food for them.

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I love that.

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So she went back one year later on after she graduated and, got a

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job and decided to quit her job.

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She went back to Italy where her grandmother lived and wanted to open

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up a little bakery called American Pie and it, well, chocolate chip

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cookies, apple pie, everything.

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Strawberry rhubarb pie.

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But you know what?

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Her downfall was not her food.

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Her downfall was all the regulations in Italy that she had to have a, she

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had to have a, a permit to serve milk.

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Milk and cookies.

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You can't have milk without cookies, right?

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And vice versa.

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She had to have a permit to have a sign.

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She had to have a permit to have not just one chair, but two chairs.

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She had to have a permit to serve water.

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She had a permit for people to sit down.

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She had a permit for people to stand up, and it was just crazy.

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she said eventually.

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You kind of had to learn to like ignore the permits and hope you

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didn't get caught or pay them off.

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I'm like, oh, well, I guess that happens here.

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But I thought it was a fascinating story about how American food was hot

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Yeah, I think that is fascinating.

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I've heard other Italy stories like that too.

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But you still don't hear about Americans asking for American

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Yeah.

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Well, you make me think we call our food New American.

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What is New American?

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Come to think of it.

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Hmm.

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I don't know.

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I don't know.

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Is it a burger piled high so you can't get your mouth around it

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It depends on where you are.

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Yeah.

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I think there's too much of that with American food.

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It's like trying to outdo each other with the biggest thing.

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to taste

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I've seen these things advertised on, television.

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They're awful looking.

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I mean, they're just huge.

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Right.

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imagine

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getting your mouth I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

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It's the old, it, um, Pepto-Bismol or even the Salzer, plop,

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plop, fizz, fizz commercial.

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I mean, no way.

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Uh, I think.

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One of the things that I like are places that do portion size as well.

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and American food is kind of noted for being huge portions

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and I don't think that's good.

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I think, I think we should savor food, not just gorge ourselves on food, but you

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know, who am I?

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Who am I?

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But there is some reasons why people are, and we've talked about that.

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And then food festivals.

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Hey, food festivals are big.

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Some of the ones are bigger than others.

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so you've got Taste of Chicago, deep Dish,

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Well, and you have you, I think you have the garlic festival out in California.

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Mm-hmm.

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Here's one I love the Salon.

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The Chalo

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Paris

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up.

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Chocolate Fashion Show.

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It can take 20 hours up to 20 hours to construct a suitable chocolate dress.

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Oh, I think it did melt me in chocolate.

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You, it can't crack and it can't melt.

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So, you know, I mean, you know,

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How

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kind of heated up.

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I don't know how you would do that.

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I don't know if they, it's additives or what and don't even

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why it takes up to 20 hours.

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I mean, it's like, it take me like 10 days.

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But anyway, uh, I love that.

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and

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I'd walk outta there naked because I'd eat my, I'd eat my

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dress.

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I would be eating my there somes.

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It was pretty good.

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Yeah.

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You don't want pictures of that one, sorry.

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Charleston Wine and Food Festival and I've been to that one with my chef.

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But low country culture in food and low cul, low country culture

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in food is really interesting.

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Uh, what they call it, the gula, Geechee hop, and John came from that

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cultural microcosm, Carolina Gold Rice.

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Came from there too.

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so yeah, that one's a fun one because, you know, it's like everything

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that's just like shrimp and grits and all that kind of stuff, a very

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similar thing to your New England.

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the low country boil kind of looks.

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New England dish.

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It is, but it's very different.

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Very

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It's very different.

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It's spicy and they tend to have crawfish, not lobster, not

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Maine Lobster in, New England.

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a lobster boil is lobsters, corn, potato.

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and depending upon where you are, it could be linga or sausage stuck in there too.

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So Massachusetts a little bit more, the Portuguese has linguica

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And it adds a little bit of spice, but we did a low country boil for

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mom's celebration of life at home.

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And I tell you, it was delicious, but it was yy, it was, uh,

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light your tongue on fire.

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But it

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was

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Really.

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Ah, but if I went to Charleston, that'd be something I'd wanna partake of.

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I

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Right.

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soup or

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something else.

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So, very

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good.

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Yeah.

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Sounds really good.

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And

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then.

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Carolina Rice is really good too.

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Yep.

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And of, of course, when you travel out west, we think of from here on the east

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coast, traveling west is like California and and Arizona, but you've got central

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states, big corn festivals, and I would call that all American Central.

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Central American food.

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It's burgers, it's corn, it's potatoes, it's

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beans, it's everything simple and fresh and good and fried,

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like fried butter, right?

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Food, fries, butter.

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Well, you're making me think of state fairs

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Right.

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on a stick, right?

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Anything is a mistake.

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So, but that's part of, part of that is part of food travel and food tourism.

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You know, there's actually a World Food Travel Association, which

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I find was rather interesting.

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And they focus on, gastronomic heritage and destinations, and that's kind of cool.

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I mean, I would love to travel the world and

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Well, let's do, yeah.

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right.

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Wouldn't that fit our mission?

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I mean, finding all these different traditions.

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I'm there.

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I love it.

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Um, October Fest, who hasn't heard of that?

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Right.

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now I will tell you there are some dangerous places to go on

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culinary tours for food safety.

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At the top of the list is India.

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Hmm.

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I don't know why.

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Kenya, Sri lanka.

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Indonesia, and then Mexico is right there in the middle.

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Egypt, Singapore, Morocco, the Caribbean, and El Salvador,

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you know, I think this is really an interesting subject because

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as kids we always, don't drink the water, that kind of thing.

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But as we've gotten more sophisticated over time and a little older, my

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assumption I. I say never assume, but No, I'm gonna say assumption

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was that that's all gotten better.

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So you can travel more in a culinary kind of style and not worry about

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that, but I would imagine still you have to be careful about health and

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sanitary conditions no matter where

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you go.

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Uh, particularly with street food, and unfortunately that sounds

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like the best kind of stuff.

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you're wandering around, um, bull and there you're wandering around that.

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The

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Gigantic market, and you're going from place to place, then what you

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want is that local flavor in the little booths and things like that.

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and you know, I guess sometimes you just build up your resistance.

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I don't know.

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Or you just put up with the stomach ache you have afterwards.

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I'm not real big into

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No, I'm not real big into that.

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I don't wanna, I, if I'm traveling, I don't wanna live in the

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bathroom unless it's gold plated.

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I, I know.

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But the other thing is that I know my, our good friend and our frequent contributor

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to our Facebook pages, Freda Merriweather, went on a pasta making tour of Italy.

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And so you go over there and you make real pasta and supposedly, I have no proof

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Well, isn't all pasta real?

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I don't know.

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Well, one of the things, pasta in Europe is made from.

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The kind of flour that is lower in gluten and yeah, they say it's better.

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I don't know.

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I think we need to do a field trip and find out,

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I think we have to, yeah, we have to do a write off on this one for

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sure.

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this would be Ethel and Lucy.

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We would love it.

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stomp some grapes while we're over there.

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You know,

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But on travel I. One of the first places I will ask somebody for before we go

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anywhere is what's the big fancy food market like when we were in Berlin?

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KeDaWe amazing.

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I mean, it's Oh yeah, they're like, they're like sax fifth avenues of food.

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Or Bergdorfs of food and they're gorgeous, how things are packaged

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and just it displayed as an art form.

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So, I enjoy that when we're traveling anyway, versus just having my

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meatballs rolling around on a plate.

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I don't,

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the most exotic thing you've ever eaten

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on the

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exotic thing I aver ate, I would say.

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Probably not that exotic.

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I had never had rabbit before we went overseas and so I tried Rabbit, a

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rabbit pate and that was very good.

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I love Escargo.

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That's pretty good.

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To me that's exotic and some people tricked me into that in Florida.

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Was the scene of the crime and I was in a job interview and we were

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having dinner and they said, here, Sylvia, this tastes really good.

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I didn't know it was escargo and I'm just not an adventuresome eater and ate it

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Well, when we moved to, when we moved to Florida, Bob kept, I'm looking for

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Gator head, I wanna eat gator head.

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So

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they're doing a lot of gator up here.

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Yeah.

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yeah,

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we've, we've,

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your gators this

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we've had some alligator.

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That's okay.

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I've never had bear, I've had elk and.

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Is

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Never had, oh, you know what I had, which was strange, and I

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thought this was also traveling.

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I was out in Arizona with some, some friends.

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We did a girlfriend trip and had, pickled prickly pear strips of the cactus.

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Yeah.

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I don't think I'd eat it again.

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It wasn't that it was bad, it just wasn't

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great.

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Yeah, just didn't, wasn't

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It didn't, no, it didn't ring my taste buds,

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didn't, didn't z

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Yeah.

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No, no, no, no, no.

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no.

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But other than that, I'll try things.

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I eventually like calamari if okay, I don't do tentacles.

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No.

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Uh, no, no,

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no.

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Octopus is not on my to-do

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list.

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are too smart.

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Octopus.

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They are.

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an octopus is my spirit animal.

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I say because gosh, you know, you can change your outfit at the blink of an eye.

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I know they're amazing actually.

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They're very amazing.

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one of my fun trips as I went with our governor on an economic development

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trip to Mexico and got to see the plants that they make tequila from

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agave.

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the, got it.

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Yep.

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Yeah, it was beautiful.

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Just acres and acres of agave.

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That's another fun thing to do is see the origins of some things.

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' cause now I pay attention to tequilas.

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We have a baby blue agave.

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I'm not sure it would, it would create anything more than a thimbleful, but

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I have a little baby blue agave that I hope will grow big one day that, I call

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my Audrey plant after my mom because.

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We traveling and saw when it was huge.

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It must've been like nine feet tall, probably ready for, being, harvested

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outside of an Airbnb that we're at.

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And I thought of the little shop of horror.

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The plant's name was Audrey.

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My mom's name was Audrey.

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So guess what, we have a baby audrey

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Audrey.

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Oh, that is so cool.

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It is so funny how we, uh,

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do you name your food after your parents?

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well, I'm on the search for a single tomato plant.

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Just want one.

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Don't want more than one.

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As a tribute to my dad.

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There you go.

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I wanna find one.

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I've just gotta go out there and find one.

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I mean, I sneak into somebody's garden and take one tomato

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plant.

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should not be too difficult.

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it?

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Should be not too difficult to find.

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And speaking of tomato plants, the one, they have very unusual

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tomato plants down here.

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When you're traveling, it's always interesting to see the sort of

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the flora and fauna from a food perspective wherever you are.

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But I had never heard of everglade tomatoes.

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Have you?

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No, I haven't.

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They're apparently, little teeny tiny.

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They're like the size

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of small like currents.

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They're tiny.

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They're tiny, and they're sweet, and they grow abundantly on these bushes.

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So I've had one that a friend gave me and said, try this.

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Like, oh my gosh, it was like candy.

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It was so

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Oh,

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delicious.

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But.

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Everglade tomatoes.

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So anyway, but traveling the world is really fascinating when you do

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it with your taste buds and a fork, I think it's better to travel with

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a fork than a friend sometimes.

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Right?

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So,

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And it's all about capturing that culture, tradition, taste.

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And the beauty of the world today is we can do that.

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and the memories, the memories that, that make it real and

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strong is.

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You'll always bring it back and try and recreate it.

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And I do that a lot.

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It's like, it looked like that.

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Let's see if I can make it taste like that.

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Yeah, that's the challenge the place isn't there.

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No, no, it's not.

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It's not.

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But, um, you put a little Parisian music on in your kitchen or a

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Mexican, we can vex

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absolutely.

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Put the

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music on and fire up the grill and see what you can create.

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Recreate your food, travels

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at home.

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So with that, I'm ready to fire up the grill back here at home and well

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fire up the oven and see if I can make something French and delicious.

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you go girl.

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We'll see you soon and we'll hear you soon.

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Take care.

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Bye-bye.

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Goodbye.

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I.

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Um, you wanna hear a story about Italy?