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I am the lookout, perched on the front of a three-wheeled trici traveling down a dirt road in Pomuch. Rafael is pedaling. His head swivels from side to side. We are on the hunt. He is a gregarious and enthusiastic gourmand, who spent the day cooking and sharing recipes, including this one for a free-range meat source: iguana. This is what he told me:

1) Attrapelo! First you have to catch it. Find the iguana's hole, and you set up a wire, a noose around the hole. Then you wait, wait, wait for the iguana to come out. Then you grab it! Squeeze it tight, though, because iguanas like to fight.

Or, if you don't want to wait, you take your ule, your slingshot, and you take a rock and tak! You better hit it in the head, too.

2) Matelo! Kill it.

3) Quemelo! You take the iguana like this, and you lay it in the fire, until the skin is all burned and you can scrape it off. You see?

4) Abrelo! Cut him like this- slowly draws hand from throat to navel- like you were performing an operation.

5) Cortelo, y Salelo! Chop your iguana into several large pieces. Salt to taste.

6) Cocinelo! Oh, you can put the iguana in a delicious soup, with onions and chiles, or if you want to you can fry it in oil, then squeeze a little lime on top! So good! You can put it in tamales, or in stew. Anything!

“There, there's one!”. Rafael waves his hand towards a pile of rocks. I missed it entirely. We turn around, approaching slowly, silently. To no avail. The iguana has retreated to the safety of his hole. “Be-ey”, Rafael sighed in Mayan: that's the way it goes.

Note: Wondering what to do with the moles that are tearing up your garden? Rafael recommends serving them in adobo sauce.

Aside from a startling number of bakeries, there's not much to do in Pomuch, but there's plenty to look at. I had come for the pan de pomuch -more on that later- and after meeting the bakers I took a slow wander down the town's main street. The hot, hard-packed dirt road was dotted with sleeping dogs. Men relaxed in the shade, shirts rolled up to their armpits. Groups of students in neat school uniforms crowded onto the benches in the central plaza. A few vans passed, and the streets were crowded with trici-taxis, bicycles that have been chopped and welded onto two-wheeled benches with bright awnings and curtains.

In front of one house I spotted a hand-lettered sign advertising Tamales de Holoch. I pushed past the metal gate, which opened onto an lush courtyard and a traditional thatched wood home. A woman appeared in the doorway and gestured for me to follow her inside, where she sat at a small table loaded down with bowls of food.

Gérard Rubaud's bakery is perched at the top of a swooping road overlooking the Westford valley. Concerned about the two black labs that circled my car as I crested the hill, I hesitated at a crucial moment, then retraced my tracks in reverse before taking another shot. The drive continued upward, between undulating walls of stacked firewood.

The interior of the low wooden building where Gérard works is filled with burnished golds and warm browns that conjure bread's wheaten hues. The walls are lined with wood and the shelves with cookbooks. A battered Larousse Gastronomique sits on the expansive surface of a work table. The windows frame a grey and snowless landscape; its harsh lines underscore the glowing warmth inside the room. Smiling, Gérard comments that “this is a church of baking!”, and it's true. As his hands have shaped many thousands of loaves, baking shapes his life. He follows the nocturnal schedule of his lévain, a carefully nurtured wild yeast culture. When I arrived late in the morning, he was preparing his final batch of loaves, ending a work day that had started at 10:30 the night before.

I turned 25 in Wisconsin's moist August heat, when summer storms rumble in on steaming afternoons, cooling the air. We ate on the back porch by a gnarled apple tree, while mosquitoes buzzed halfheartedly, dazed by the sun. Daniel's parents made a feast, which we ate with beloved friends. Pork loin marinated in sour cherry juice, salad and corn, cold beer. After the meal, guitars came out, as did this miraculous cake. Four moist layers chock full of poppyseeds, enclosing sweet vanilla custard and slathered in a luxurious pile of whipped cream.

After digesting a while, we piled in the car and drove to Pulaski for our second consecutive day of their Polka Days festival. Four stages, each with a live polka band. Refreshments included bratwurst, blood soup and Milwaukee's best beer. We danced up a storm that night, heels flying, sweating buckets, swinging in circles on increasingly treacherous dance floors.

We came home exhausted, and headed straight for bed. Mostly. I hesitated just a moment before the fridge, contemplating the last slice of cake. Well, I thought, it is my birthday, after all.

Check out the recipe for this amazing cake, after the jump.

When I stepped into Krin’s bakery kitchen, I immediately thought of the Keebler elf commercials that made me drool as a seven years old. I’ll explain. Those commercials imagined a world where grocery store cookies are made by charming creatures in hollow forest trees, who lovingly dunk each one in chocolate before sending them to the neighborhood Walmart. Of course, those Fudge Stripe cookies are made by factories in towns like Cincinatti, Ohio, and if anyone touches them at all, you can bet it’s a full grown shift worker.

Krin’s deliciously almondy, salty, chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons are for sale in stores all over this area. While she is known to many, I bet the average customer hasn’t seen her kitchen, in a charming farmhouse at the foot of the Green Mountains. It is every bit as magical as the fictional elf tree. When I stepped inside and got a whiff of the warm, chocolaty air, I thought ,“Really? C’mon.”. Four friendly, lovely women stood at a counter in the spacious kitchen. Irish tunes played softly while they took one macaroon after another, and, well... lovingly dunked them in chocolate. Really. The wooden cabinets glow golden in the morning light. The windows look out towards Camel’s Hump, and the rolling racks are filled with tray after tray of macaroons.

Sometimes, the food on our store shelves really does come from enchanted places. It’s nice to know, and adds a little extra savor to the macaroon that I’m nibbling along with my tea. As head cartoon elf J.J Keebler is fond of saying, it’s “uncommonly good”.

Find a list of stores that carry Krin's treats at her Bakery Website

I'm back on the horse, testing recipes for local restaurant A Single Pebble, after my last experiment ended in in hilarity and goop; while staying with my in-laws in Wisconsin, I made a Five Spice Flourless Chocolate Cake, then fell down the stairs while carrying the just-glazed confection to the basement fridge. There was cake on the wall and cake on the carpet, but mostly there was cake ALL over me. It exploded, but as my gracious Mother-in-law Mary assured me while scooping some off the floor, it was also delicious.

Putting that behind me, here's a lovely black sesame cake that I made last night for friends, which we ate over games and conversation on a wet, sleety evening. I got the recipe from Alice Medrich's wonderful book "Pure Dessert", and loved the moist texture, the nubbly crunch of black sesame seeds, and the rich flavor that this cake gets from toasted sesame oil. A keeper! Try the recipe, after the jump.

On a chill December day in Northern Vermont, Slow Fire Bakery is a haven of warmth, the air thick with the rich tang of sourdough. The steamy windows frame a landscape of bare trees, and the cement-grey sky illuminates a bakers’ workbench, raised on cinder blocks and covered with the same fine coating of flour as every surface in the simple room. The space is dominated by the graceful arch of a brick oven which the bakers, Katie Ekstrom and Scott Medellin, built by hand over the summer. While patiently baking in tiny batches at home, they built layer upon layer of bricks; like the naturally leavened breads they bring to the Farmers’ Market each week, the growing oven would not be hurried.

When the cement shell finally cured and hardened, the trickle of pastries and enriched breads that Scott and Katie brought to Saturday market became a torrent of loaves. Their miche, a hearty mix of wheat and rye flours shaped into a substantial round, became a favorite of mine, eaten toasted and slathered with sweet butter and a sprinkle of sea salt. Their diminutive ladybugs- wheat rolls studded with chunks of barely sweet chocolate- are wonderful too, as is the raisin bread, a complex, crusty loaf that redefines the insipid and spongy raisin loaves that line grocery shelves and won’t survive a single dunk in hot tea.

Baking is a solitary job, but my kitchen is crowded with cooks. I draw much of my inspiration from others’ work, and I love how food can be a glimpse of their lives, a seat at the family table. Propped up in bed, I read cookbooks like novels, and the scents and flavors of each recipe are like characters in the story. In this way, the warm cinnamon in a Spanish stew echoes footsteps left by Andalusian Moors, and the jewel-bright citrus in a holiday cake recalls long-ago pilgrims, returning home from Jerusalem laden with exotic fruits.

So when I have the opportunity to work with a chef, and see what things look like from someone else’s kitchen, I jump at the chance. On a chill, grey, afternoon this December, I sat down with Chef Chiuho Duval, to share a pot of Jasmine tea and to see if we might collaborate on desserts for her restaurant, A Single Pebble, which is acclaimed for it’s traditional Yangtze valley cuisine. After she approached me, my mind began to race through the palette of rich spices that are available to Chinese chefs, and my notebooks filled with scribbled ideas, and sketches of plated sweets.

It was a lovely conversation, and for me, a delightful challenge emerged: to develop a dessert menu to complement the complex and flavorful food that Chiuho’s kitchen serves. Those pages of ideas and pictures have until spring to grow into finished plates but I decided to start right away, with this Coconut Flan, infused with the heady scents of rosebuds and coriander seeds. I wanted a silky, creamy dessert that would be a refreshing balance to a highly spiced, or fiery meal. Coconut is widely used in Chinese cuisine, including in some classic sweets, like the delicious steamed coconut buns that are often served at Dim Sum. Like good cream, fresh, rich coconut milk has a complex, almost floral taste, and I wanted to underscore that with the addition of crushed, dried rosebuds, and coriander seeds, which are beautifully aromatic, and add a haunting flavor to both savories and sweets.

And... it worked. I loved how the flan dissolved on my tongue, and the subtlety of the coriander added an unexpected complexity without overpowering the flavor of the coconut. Click on "Read More" below for the recipe!

After eating the last fried green tomato, I picked up a chicken thigh and learned that when cooked just right, even bones taste pretty good. Busy Bee Café, I love you.

Atlanta is serious about soul food, and I’d been narrowing down the considerable options since booking my flight to Georgia. I’m all for spontaneity, but there’s only so much fried chicken I can eat in three days, and I didn’t want to take any chances on flavorless breading or dry meat. There was a rare Internet consensus that The Busy Bee Café is where it’s at, so my sister and I headed across town at four in the afternoon, finally hungry after our southern-style breakfast of sausage and biscuits blanketed with pale sausage gravy .

Wedged between a barber shop and a convenience store, The Busy Bee’s frosted glass front is covered with some serious-looking iron bars. When we stepped through the front door, though, we found it homey and welcoming, with cozy booths and a friendly waitress. A specials board announced oxtail soup and peach cobbler, and the tiny room was lined with framed, signed photos of everyone from Jill Scott to Jay-Z. We slid into a booth by the wall and opened menus that read like a story: long-simmered neck bones, chicken giblets in gravy, ham hocks, okra, sweet potatoes... I couldn’t have been happier, though I suspect that in Atlanta, a Yankee is anyone who opens a menu at The Busy Bee Café and thinks “Wow, chitlins!”.

Not that we needed the menu. Fried chicken, corn muffins, collard greens, and fried green tomatoes were the order of the day, washed down with sweet iced tea. The chicken was sublime, piping hot and covered with a crackling, crisp layer of salty, spicy breading. The meat underneath was perfectly moist and so tender it slipped away from the bone if you breathed on it. The fried green tomatoes showed me where I’d gone wrong before (hint: more fried, less tomato), and when I finished mine I was left coveting my sister’s.

After demolishing a bowl of peach cobbler, we left the Busy Bee in a daze, wondering if we’d ever be hungry again. If we are, though... it’s straight back to the Bee.

On a recent visit to Montreal’s Jean Talon market, mounds of glossy fruit vied for attention with languid lobsters, cured sausages on strings, and tidy stockades made from tinned maple syrup. Not to mention the snacks- after wandering the aisles for a bit, we retreated to a corner table with a bowl of sardines, fried whole and full of slight, crunching bones. Dredged in a piquant blend of herbs and flour, they were delicious, and swabbing them in cool, creamy housemade tartar sauce was a perfect balance to their salty taste. The covered market, unlike the tiny fish, went on and on, so after our meal we dove back into the fray of tourists and locals, tasting apples, sidestepping old ladies trailing wheeled market bags, and reveling in the boisterous sounds of Canada’s largest French speaking city.

Every time I come North, I vow to widen my scope, and I have, somewhat. I’ve roamed the gorgeous botanical garden and explored the modern art museum, but my city time is mostly devoted to eating. And wandering. Wandering while eating. Eating, then wandering until I’m caught by an intriguing shop window, or wafting scent.

As much as I try to branch out, Montreal’s street are irresistible to the hungry, itchy footed traveler. The walkable city center is alternately gritty and bustling or leafy and tranquil, with distinctive neighborhoods. The cobblestone lanes of the Vieux Port are lined with classic stone doorways where uniformed touts call out invitations to touristy bistros, switching fluidly between French and English. A kilometer to the North, a Portuguese neighborhood is dotted with smoky rotisserie chicken joints, some blocks sporting several in a row. (hint: go to the one with the line down the block!).

I try to strike a balance between exploring new places, and visiting my favorites- the following are just a few of the spots I like the best in Montreal . I love to start a city day with a sack of Saint Viateur bagels from their tiny bakery on rue Saint Viateur Ouest, where bakers direct a 24-hour landslide of the classic sesame variety from the wood fired oven into long, polished troughs. The shop has no tables, so I take my treats a few blocks down the rue to Café Olimpico, where a latte in a slender drinking glass goes down well while rubbing shoulders with the regulars- a steady stream of old Italians and young hipsters, comfortably sharing tables and mutual taste in tapered pants.

An amazing stop for sweets is Patisserie Kouign Amann, named for the deliciously chewy, sugary, and flaky pastry from Bretagne. The eponymous specialty is the way to go- I’ve never seen kougin amann at any pastry shop outside of France, and even there it’s a bit off the beaten path. Salted butter give the layers a pleasant tang, and it’s covered with a crisp layer of caramel from the dousing of water and sugar that it gets before it goes in the oven. Mmm!

When I tear myself away from the bakeries, I head straight to Chinatown for dumplings. At 1084 Boulevard Saint Laurent, Restaurant Mai Xiang Yuan serves up huge orders, and they are scrumptious! Last weekend I tried the pork and oyster dumplings, which were a wonderful, super umami combination of briny shellfish, and highly spiced ground pork. I had my first jellyfish at Mai Xiang Yuan, too… very chewy, and sort of what I imagined jellyfish would taste like while poking dead ones with a stick. Hmm.

Leaving Montreal in a car littered with crumpled maps and sesame seeds, I always pass a dozen places that tempt me to stop, even while the calm of home beckons. The odds are good that I’ll polish off the bagels before I cross the border, though, and even gross jellyfish salads are hard to come by in Vermont, so I keep my passport handy- I know I’ll be back.