Welcome to Food and Happy New Year. I'm Kate Bittman. Before we jump into today's episode,

reminder that you can email us at food.atmarkbitman.com with any questions or comments.

Guest recommendations are also welcome.

We're always looking for good people to talk to so let us know who you'd like to

hear from. And please check us out online at bitman project.com.

Our new site is growing.

We've got a recipe database full of Mark's best recipes,

plus wonderful recipes from other people, and we're adding to it literally every day. We'll get back to that conversation in a minute, but first I want to talk about

something that lots of people ask me about when it comes to global cuisines.

There is something magical about eating a cuisine in the place where it originated.

One of the reasons for that is that the dishes that define fine cuisine are built around the produce that's native to a place.

It's why the feta and tomato and a Greek salad tastes so perfect in Athens,

or the artichokes in olive oil in Rome are to die for.

They have a certain sweetness and tang that you can get close to, but not easily replicate.

And not surprisingly, one of the best ways to get a sense for how something should taste

is to visit a region of the world and sample a dish in several forms from lots of different

neighboring areas.

Then you can appreciate the local variations as well. And the most

efficient way to do that, for me at least, is the first class experience of a Regent Cruz.

I was able to do that on our recent all-inclusive tour of Asia. I had a

hankering for seafood, well I always do, seafood that you don't get easily in the

U.S. and I had just an incredible experience in the fish markets of Busan, just overwhelming

...