Dreaming of wine, fish and trails …

Every now and then, I seem to suffer acute hunger pangs. Not just that simple hunger for something to eat or nibble at, but the need to cook and share food. Especially when I watch a really good cookery programme. 
There is a multitude of these any time of day or night and every day of the week but, sadly, many of them do not have much to do with food. A few glorify kitchen violence while others promote overeating.

Last Summer, I watched a programme that really stirred in me that love of food. That feeling that made me get into a restaurant kitchen instead of sticking with naval architecture. It was Rick Stein’s Long Weekends.
I discovered Rick Stein in the mid-eighties just after I had opened Krimo’s at Seaton Carew. I immediately became a fan of his. I had felt some sort of kindred spirit when I found out that he, too was a self-taught chef.
Over the years, I have watched him travel the world, cooking many national dishes and simplifying them for the home cook. He always does it with integrity, humour, and total respect for local traditions. His own restaurant business is thriving, having spread from the Cornish seaside village of Padstow all the way to Australia.
A few of the locations he visited were off the beaten track and never previously advertised or thought of as popular holiday or foodie destinations. 
The first episode I stumbled upon was his visit to Thessaloniki, in Northern Greece. I discovered that lovely port city during my sailing days back in the late Seventies. 
When I realised that it was part of a series of episodes, I decided to click on the automatic record button to watch them in my spare time.
What a joy it had been to discover the various cities he had visited! From Copenhagen to Bordeaux, Reykjavik to Lisbon, etc…
As I watched him with eager eyes, mingle with the locals, visit food markets, eat and drink in restaurants where local ingredients are cooked with love, I sat there, salivating and dreaming of hopping on the next plane to Lisbon to savour some juicy sardines, Thessaloniki to enjoy an octopus salad, or Cadiz, to devour a slow roasted shoulder of mutton.
How I would give up virtually everything to travel the World on a never-ending culinary tour. 
I would go from city to town, village to hamlet, from North to South, East to West, sampling local foods cooked by chefs, housewives, amateur cooks, and stall holders. I would share my table with anyone who would let me break bread with them while sipping some tea, coffee, wine or beer and regale me with tales of their faraway life and traditions.
As the programme ends, I close my eyes and I am immediately teleported to a Vietnamese beach at sunset to sit drinking beer with the locals while the aroma of grilled fresh fish mingles with the smoke from the barbecue. 
A click of the fingers and I am in a Madrid food market, hopping from stall to stall, tasting morsels of freshly baked breads, marinated meats, pickled vegetables, colourful olives and sipping full-bodied Rioja. 
The next minute, I will be wolfing down the lightest pizza Margherita in the World, to the sound of Tarantella, in a noisy Naples backstreet.
And when I am no longer able to travel, please leave me inside a French wine cellar with enough cheese and bread and maybe a barrel of olives until the day I die.