So there's the "Labor Day" show coming up (actually a clip show/behind the scenes extravaganza--mostly sweepings from the proverbial stable floor, some previously unseen stuff of varying interest). And that's it for original episodes of Season 4.

In the interim between seasons, there will be some "specials" from time to time--stand-alone projects and ongoing mini-series-within-a series on various food and travel themes.

But rest assured, we are already hip deep into production of Season 5. Which is how I'm writing this from Lombardy, where I'm taking a few days rest and family time after the Mexico shoot, girding my loins for the rigors of the upcoming Venice show. Tracey, Todd, Zach and Nari, are, I‘m told, taking a mule train over the Alps to meet me.

As you may or may not know (or care), we like to use visual and audio "cues" for each new episode of the show--a particular and distinctive sound and look, usually ripped off from a movie we admire. We looked, for instance, at a lot of early Japanese films before shooting the recent Tokyo/Kyoto show, trying to ape that wide-screen, slow panning, carefully composed frame stuff you see in some of them. For the Hong Kong show, we boned up on a grab bag of "New" Asian, from Ringo Lam, Takashi Miike and Kenji Fukasaku, to some of the kookier Korean thriller directors--also the insane "Tokyo Fist" and the "Tetsuo" films.

William Friedkin's terrific "To Live and Die in LA" was the whole and entire inspiration for the LA show's oil rigs and brown hues. For an upcoming DC show, author George Pelecanos's superb Washington based novels--and his work on the greatest dramatic series EVER on television, "The Wire" formed a kind of center of gravity. Our Chicago show was filmed in a state of full-on hero worship, as I've been long besotted by Michael Mann's Chicago-based film, "Thief". For Venice we're looking hard at Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" and Paul Schrader's creepy "Comfort Of Strangers".

Let me stress here that I'm not comparing our shows to any of these masterworks. I'm just saying we like 'em a whole helluva lot--and try to rip off ideas from their cinematography and soundtracks as best we can (in our own cheesy, low-tech way). I'm very proud and happy when commentators--especially those from within the industry-- notice that the camera work and editing on the show have really stepped up this past couple of seasons. Much hard work and a lot of truly ingenious innovation have gone into making the shows: difficult camera movements, jury-rigged platforms, mobile camera mounts, and acts of foolhardy athleticism on the part of the shooters.

I should make particular mention of the brilliant, home-made "Owl-Cam" rig used in the Saudi desert. Basically, it was TWO DV cameras, mounted on a wooden platform so that their shots overlapped, resulting in a super-wide yet cost-effective Cinemascope-like panorama. The work of the editors, too, only gets better and better. Tasked, for instance, with cutting the Tokyo/Kyoto show "as if there's gonna be NO eventual voice-over!" or "make it look like you dropped acid and went to Hong Kong!" they again and again rise to--and exceed the challenge. And the increasingly daring post-production graphics by Adam Lupsha have been adding a new dimension of weirdness to the mix: At the end of the Southwest show, he managed to "make" a 16 wheel tractor trailer jack-knife in front of my car, filling the screen. It was a truly astounding shot. Terrifying--even if you knew it was coming and knew how it was achieved. I thought it was the perfect ending to the show. But, people at the network imagined that BMW, who'd lent us the car, might be displeased to see what appeared to be their proudly displayed vehicle "crushed" into a crumple of blood, hair and brake fluid at the end of the show. Too bad. It was an amazing feat of animation.

When I brag about "the Best Food Porn Ever", it's entirely because of the people I work with, the kind of talent at work on this show--behind the lenses, and back at ZPZ Central. I'm very aware that there would be no show without them (I certainly wouldn't go about the fairly undignified business of appearing regularly on TV without them) --and I am enormously grateful.

What else is coming up? And where?

It's (finally) back to Vietnam. The Philippines.. The Azores. Thailand. Provence. Sardinia. And a Detroit/Buffalo/Baltimore hybrid show which (I hope) will pay low rent homage to Curtis Hansen, Vincent Gallo and John Waters respectively (There will NOT be a Pink Flamingos finale, however). Ethiopia (we hope) Cuba. (We hope) . Back to Beirut (eventually). And beyond.

I get to go to a lot of fantastic places on this show. But you should know that when you see a four minute scene of me eating in a three star restaurant, it represents four HOURS of work for three camera people while I enjoy myself at the table, three to five more--for whoever arrived early to shoot kitchen prep and countless more for the post-production people back in New York. A full "hour" show can take up to NINE WEEKS to edit, mix, color correct and so on.

That said, last week, we were in Puebla. Carlos, my old friend from Les Halles, told us to pull the production van over at the side of the road near his home. The follow cars full of relatives pulled in behind us. And then, there we were, no cameras, only me, the crew, Carlos, Martin (our old Mexico fixer from Cook's Tour days), Carlos's Mom and Dad and cousins and nieces, gathered around the thin wooden board constituting the counter of a tiny, neighborhood taco wagon under a naked light bulb. We stood there, drinking Tecates after a long, long day's shoot; the crew happily tearing into tongue, brain, head, eyeball and tripe tacos dressed with fiery sauce. I was proud then too.

As I said, I get to go to a lot of fantastic places--and see many beautiful things on this show. But none more beautiful to me than today, looking out at the town square, my wife spooning that last bit of foamed milk from the bottom of the cup, my little daughter feeding herself olives with two fingers.

Later, around the next corner, on the next cobblestone street--or maybe the one after, there is the promise of gelato.

And I was happiest during my stay in Egypt sitting under those same stars, a fire crackling and throwing off sparks nearby, belly full of roast lamb, surrounded -- as far as the eye could see -- by nothing but the dark rises of an ocean of sand. But Cairo was another matter.Egyptians are surprisingly friendly towards Americans. One hears "Hello!" and "Welcome!" from passing strangers all the time. And there's something truly wonderful about the drivers in this unbelievably crowded and unruly city. Though there are precious few traffic lights, somehow cars move at a good clip through the bumper to bumper streets. There's apparently a language of car horns -- coded beeps, taps and honks -- containing a fairly vast vocabulary of implications. Cars and pedestrians intermingle in impossible to perceive patterns and yet keep moving. Parking in the narrow, dog-leg back streets of Cairo is a mysterious and cooperative effort often involving driving backwards for great distances. Pythagorus would have been dazzled by the way eight or ten cars move forward or backward to allow one car in or out.

There's those pyramids. Though I never saw them except as shapes, seen through the haze from the window of a passing car.

I was not at ease in Cairo. It wasn't the gun-packing security types we were required to have along at all times. They were nice enough. And our fixer was a great guy. It was the Egyptian standard breakfast of "ful". And the fact that the tourism types didn't want us to see it. (See Rennik Soholt's excellent entry on "The Crew's Blog" to get the backstory on how we managed to actually get that scene). Ful (pronounced "fool") is a bowl or plate of mashed or semi-mashed fava beans which have been cooked in a copper pot -- usually with onions and some garlic -- and served with a healthy dose of olive oil. You eat it with flatbread. A LOT of bread -- usually a big stack which you use to sop up every bit. It's affectionately referred to as a "stone in the stomach". And they mean that in a good way.

Since pharonic times, the poor and working poor have filled up on the stuff as pretty much their principal meal of the day. If you're doing well for yourself, you can get a chopped, hard-cooked egg on top. And some pickled vegetables on the side. Problem is, very few Egyptians are doing well. In fact, most are living on or way below the poverty line. That bread is often the greater part of breakfast lunch AND dinner. And bread, recently, has doubled in price (with the rising cost of flour worldwide). Price supported bakeries, run (ominously) by the army, have been forced to ration, cutting their hours drastically.

The government, such as it is, is of the kind where enormous pictures of a Much Younger Looking Than He's Been in Years Fearless Leader are everywhere. Members of the opposition tend to get arrested just before elections. So Egypt felt like an inappropriate place to be doing a "food" show. Frankly, I didn't feel up to the job. When I found myself on a felucca, shooting a "majestic" waterborne scene on the Nile, and ten minutes out, the mast snapped off under a bridge, it seemed a perfect metaphor for the entire dubious enterprise. We limped around for an additional hour or so, the producer trying in vain to make the best of things, hoping, I imagine, that the audience would be oblivious to the huge, dangling spar, the sagging, sorry-ass sail, the fact that we were limping along like a gimped seagull.

Maybe it's that I particularly like Egyptians and wish the best for them. That our stunted sailboat seemed a metaphor for the hopes and dreams of the many good hearted people I met. Or maybe it was because Egypt was the last episode of season four, and I was just really, really homesick.

In any case, we're well into season five as I write this from Mexico City. I'm down here with my friend Carlos, the chef of Les Halles, and tomorrow, we head out for Puebla to meet his parents, sit down for a big Llaguna family meal. It'll be nice to see where the guy who worked by my side and who now has the job I once had comes from. It's a happier situation for sure. In every cantina, pulqueria, fonda we've visited, there's music. All the songs are very sad -- yet Mexicans seem always to find the beauty, the irony -- and even the humor in often hopeless situations -- and sing about them.

A short, sweet-faced, matronly woman made me quesadillas of fresh cheese and zucchini blossoms in the street today. The fillings cooked inside blue corn tortillas which she made by hand in front of me. They puffed and blistered on the hot metal . As she proudly presented me with the finished product, folding the quesadilla with a final squeeze and passing it to me with her hands, I noticed her fingers were dusted with indigo colored corn flour.

They were beautiful.

The hapless, ZPZ tape-loggers, caffeine-jacked myrmidons who toil away in the filthy sub-cellar of our corporate headquarters, reviewing hour after hour of mind-numbingly repetitive and boring video tape, noticing this spectral apparition, began to lose their already tentative grips on reality. One scene after another, a glimpse here, a face in the crowd there, lurking suspiciously in the background in another scene, down the bar a few positions, pretending he doesn't know me in another -- or front and center; there he is.

It's Albert's very ubiquitousness in the raw footage, his omnipresence -- even in the scenes where the viewer won't see him, that tells you all you need to know about Spain -- and how damn good it is.

Understand: Albert, along with his brother, Ferran, is a chef/owner of the three Michelin starred El Bulli, the hardest to reserve, restaurant table in the world. He's a national hero, an international superstar in the world of chefs and restaurants. Suffice to say that just about anywhere in the world of fine dining, from Shanghai to San Francisco; when Albert walks in the door, the whole place goes on Red Alert. He's used to the very best. If there's a downside to his life in the culinary firmament, it's that too much foie gras, truffles and expensive wine come his way.

As a chef at El Bulli, hugely respected pastry chef -- and as the owner of a casual eatery in Barcelona, he can surely have the very best Spanish ingredients delivered anywhere he wants, quickly, with a phone call. You'd think, he'd be a bit .....jaded by it all.

Yet, there he was at Espinaler, gobbling up those supernaturally delicious, canned cockles and razor clams and mussels like he'd never had them before. Tagging along at Quimet and Quimet, shoveling in the tapas with a big smile on his face. Out in the country, with a silly red bib, a blissed-out expression, sucking down the calcots and the red wine like it was his last meal on earth.

I've never seen anyone so happy to be in Spain -- and (this is my point here) HE FREAKIN' LIVES THERE!!!

All that magnificent food -- all those cool little tapas bars, they're right down the street--and yet, it was like he just landed in Barcelona from Mars. His enthusiasm for his own country, his own heritage, the everyday places and things of Spain was something to see.

Naturally this made me misanthropic and deeply envious.

Why can't I have that? How come I gotta go halfway across the earth -- to like, Singapore, or Hong Kong (or Spain), for instance, to really get MY culinary jollies these days? He's on a magic carpet ride in his own town and I'm like a full-bloom junkie, the honeymoon period over, needing a higher and higher dosage to get off in MY home town of New York!. Why?

The sad fact is, we'll never -- and I mean NEVER have it so good as in Spain. It's not like we don't have great restaurants in Manhattan - -and will surely have many more. And certainly, we can get many of the same ingredients jetted over (more or les s-- if at a steep price). No. It's attitudinal. You can faithfully reproduce the look of a Spanish tapas bar in New York City. You can stock it with all the best, most authentic ingredients, just-jerked from the rivers, streams, soil and seas of Spain. You can staff the joint with the best cooks, dragooned off the streets of the parta vieja. And you'll still never be close to the real thing. Because what your tapas bar needs -- really needs -- is three or four or eight OTHER tapas bars (or casual Spanish eateries within walking distance).

You can't really enjoy this kind of food in a vacuum. You need to graze -- or at least know that you can graze (should the urge arise), bouncing from one place to another, a mouthful or two of what's good here, a glass of tinto, a few mouthfuls of what they do well over there -- another glass of tinto and so on. In fact, the whole customer base has to re-groove to accommodate this notion. They'll have to accept the idea that a small can of tuna -- or clams -- can actually be better than fresh stuff. And worth about $150 bucks.

That the fat of Spanish acorn fed pigs is the stuff of which dreams are made. That there's nothing unusual about growing up with Goya, Dali, Bunuel, and Gaudi. That midnite is a normal time to sit down to dinner.

The best example of What They Do In Spain that We Can and Never Will Do is to be found in the Extebarri scene near the end of the show. Here, at a rustic pub in the mountains near St. Sebastian, grilling has been raised to unthinkable zen-like heights. Hand made charcoals. A separate fire for each individual order. Separate grills -- and custom designed and crafted pans and implements to best achieve perfection.

Ingredients of a quality undreamed of by most mortals. This, in a simple, neighborhood-looking joint with a smoky bar and a self-taught chef who grew up in the village. It's where the Adrias, Arzaks and Aduriz's go for their own pleasure -- high end comfort food.

Back before cable, if you took a baseball bat and smacked it upside a television set in the middle of a show, there'd be a black and white sputter, a flash -- and then white noise and static. That was what my first bite of grilled elvers was like there. And the grilled gambas. And just about everything else in that chilly, wood-smoke smelling kitchen. A jarring, flood of endorphins, then brain overload, and for a second, a blinding light. Momentarily, the synapses shorted out. Sensation returned in a warm, intensely pleasurable afterglow of flavor. It was a sensation that related directly to the experience of a few weeks before -- in Tokyo. At Sukibayashi Jiro. Two seemingly simple things done well -- as well as they can be done. In Tokyo: old school sushi.
In Spain, grilled stuff with a little salt and a light spritz of oil.
Nothing, as it turns out, could be better

There are, on reflection, some similarities between the two destinations: in both cultures, the very best ingredients, presented in all their unadorned, un-fussed with, pristine simplicity, are celebrated and enjoyed with great enthusiasm. The cult of jamon in Spain, for instance, bears some resemblance to the Japanese obsession with the very best tuna. Neither culture requires additional ingredients or garnish to get the point. I love seeing what happens to Western chefs after visiting Japan for the first time. A very fine Italian chef friend of mine returned typically traumatized by what he'd seen and experienced. Weeks later, he still had that uniquely blissed out, confused, sort of hangdog look on his face -- an expression I can only compare to what happens after you've had the first really, really good sex of your life. It's a look that says, "I thought I knew a few things. But apparently I don't." It's devastating. The kind of earth-shakingly wonderful -- yet deeply upsetting event about which great romance novels are written (most, sadly, tragedies). Travel forces you to re-define the meanings of words you thought you knew. Just as watching the lives of rice farmers in Vietnam causes you to adjust your understanding of the word "work", and exposure to hutment dwellers in India requires a reexamination of the word "hunger" , you can never return from Japan and hear the word "sushi" in the same way. Utility sushi is suddenly, no longer enough. You will be at least dimly aware that there's "rice" and then there's a universe of unknowable varieties and subtly different grades and preparations -- about which neither you nor I have enough time left to learn enough about to even fake a conversation with a skilled sushi chef.

When, for a few days, or hours, your mouth comes to know the taste and feel of fish for which the proprietor paid $300 to $400 wholesale ... when you wrap two fingers -- gently -- around slightly warm, crumbly/soft rice -- over which a perfectly cut, slightly dressed piece of mackerel served at just the right temperature has been lovingly draped ... when you realize the old man in front of you has spent fifty or more YEARS just getting these seemingly simple things right, you enter a whole new dimension of food appreciation.

Yakitori: Bits of chicken on a stick are no longer a snack -- but the expression of centuries of thinking about pleasure.

Soba: A noodle is no longer just a noodle. The world turns on its axis -- and plain old vanilla food porn is no longer enough. Tonight, at Sukibayashi Jiro, you will see what is inarguably, some of the very best sushi available on the planet. And no one -- not the nerdiest of food nerds -- can argue that Jiro-san himself, is not among its greatest living practitioners.

I will spare you additional details, giving you time, I hope, to pour yourself a stiff drink, situate yourself comfortably on the couch, position a bucket of ice water nearby, and strap on some extra absorbent adult diapers to avoid embarrassing emissions. Foodies with heart conditions should probably medicate themselves appropriately. The Spain episode that follows next week will only make matters worse. Food bloggers will surely be caused to bleed unexpectedly and inexplicably from various orifices, a fine mist of brain matter and steam issuing from the ears.

A seemingly straightforward scene at "Espinaler" near Barcelona, where we crack open some cans of mussels, cockles and razor clams will cause, I'm quite certain, heads to explode across the internet, leaving only smoldering stumps. The gurgling pipe-loads of dark, African chocolate rumbling beneath the floor of Enric Rovira's workshop, when spread across marble, will no doubt initiate many newcomers watching with that special someone -- to the experience of rolling over into the wet spot. By the time the Extebarri scene rolls around, and the Imperial beluga caviar and the prawns and the freshly made, uncured chorizo and the just-killed baby eels start grilling over their individual fires of hand made charcoals, few will be left alive, I fear, to appreciate the Arzak scene.

You have been warned.

The on camera demonstration of high speed butchering techniques and BBQ prep in the RV kitchen caused, I suspect, bleeding brain-sweats at Travel Channel legal department. "Don't Try This At Home, Kids!" Every once in a while I get to do a show that's total playtime. The car? Free (for the duration of the show). All I had to do was drive it. The people silly enough to entrust me with this expensive piece of high performance equipment only asked that I "have fun." "How does it handle off the road?" I asked, expecting to frighten them. Nope. I was encouraged to beat the shit out of the thing. And I did my very best.

Loaded up the iPod with a "desert-driving mix of ZZ Top, Lynrd Skynrd, Taj Mahal, the Stones, Tito and Tarantula, James Brown, John Fogerty, Prodigy, Steppenwolf and every song I could find with the words "Road" or "Highway" "Wheels" in it. Chris, by the way, my supposedly responsible executive producer and head of the freakin' company, sitting in the passenger seat? Hardly the voice of moderation. "Faster!! Faster!!" he'd hiss, through spittle flecked lips. "Make it jump! Get some air!!" he'd shriek, urging me on -- when already off the road, tearing along at 60 through some dusty arroyo. I gotta work this product placement vehicle racket more often. And I'm open to suggestions from any gearhead fans on what cars might be fun to misuse next.

Other than my first act of product-related whoredom, the Southwest Road Show was notable for a few other features: The return of veteran cameraman Jerry Risius being the most welcome and obvious. As some commenters have noticed and wondered about, we tend to rotate key crew members on tours of duty. Producer Tracey Gudwin, for instance, has been living in Berlin since shortly after the Berlin show and returns for the Egypt and upcoming Venice shows. Jerry, recovering from the cumulative effects of a nacho-related head trauma in the Texas/Mexican Border show and the Beirut experience, returned for the Road Show -- filling in for Zach Zamboni (who was busy shooting the more lucrative feature film Naughty ButtMasters #7).

Nothing is better for a brain bruise and a nervous breakdown than being forced to competitively shove a 72 ounce steak, fried shrimp, bread, salad and potato down your gullet in front of a crowd of hooting Texans (and our cameras). And of course, there was Alice. Cooper that is. About the nicest, most normal guy you could ever meet. It actually makes perfect sense that he own a sports bar -- as he's a sports nut. And I could have spent ten hours easily shooting the shit about 60's era Detroit bands and baseball. I almost worked through some trauma of my own: a Randy Johnson related problem I've had since the Yankees lost to the D-Backs in the play-offs a while back.

It was inevitable, if you think about it, that I should make television, eat BBQ and play with large caliber automatic weapons with Ted Nugent. It was, I think, only a matter of time. In fact, midway through shooting a scene at "The Nuge's" ranch, I got a text from Mario Batali -- inviting me out for drinks or some kind of mayhem. I texted back that I regretted being unable to join him as I was currently unloading a belt-fed M-60 machine gun at Ted Nugent's place. His totally unsurprised response was "Of course you are."

I didn't seek Ted out, by the way. I was summoned. He called a while back, said we should make television together - -and then told me exactly how. When the Nuge says jump? You ask only "How High?" and "How much ammo will I need?" In TedWorld, by the way, it all makes perfect sense.

And finally, this was the episode where I, at last, got to settle the score with Switzerland. Perhaps launching an ICBM at them was a bit much -- but my skin really and truly crawls at even the sight of an Alpine vista. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it has something to do with Helmut, the Swiss/German barber I had to go to as a child. He had one of those wall murals of Lake Geneva with snow capped alps in the background -- and I always associate those images with getting an ugly and humiliating haircut from a stern-looking old guy with a scary German accent. Followed by bullying at school. Even Ricola commercials make me break into a cold sweat.

Lederhosen, Alpine hats, cuckoo clocks, St Bernards, cross country skiers and the Sound of Music make me phsyically ill. They remind me of hair clippings itching my nose, a coiff that would make a middle Brady blush, and the feeling of many tiny little fists in my face as from behind, someone goes for the atomic wedgie . So it was with real joy that I initiated launch sequence. Hell, I ain't ever making a show there anyhow. And their cheese? It sucks.

The end result of the above -- at least (and only) as far as cuisine -- is more often than not, good.

People eat what they eat for a reason. And they tend to cook well for a reason. That reason may no longer exist as a prime motivator -- but it's there if you care to go back and look.

People may not have to eat salt cod in Portugal or "stock fish" in the Caribbean anymore. The days of conquest for one -- and slavery for the other, are long gone. But they do (Cause it's good. Or they've managed to make it good.) The relatively non-perishable, seige-friendly cuisine of Fez, Morocco, the delicious one-time scraps and beans of Brazilian feijouda, the Spam cults of Korea and Hawaii, the bony delights of Malaysian sup tulang, the simple act of coffee drinking relate directly to the collision of cultures and, usually, to people doing bad things to each other.

No reason to fight the Battle of Hastings -- or Dien Bien Phu over and over again, or wring our hands, particularly, over who was right and who was wrong. But it's certainly useful and appropriate when visiting a country, I think, to acknowledge that wars, for instance, happened, and to take note of who won -- and who lost. More often than not, it's why there are still potatoes on your plate -- instead of a starchy farinaceous product, couscous or rice.

I'm not a pundit, an activist, an advocate for anybody. My political views are my own -- and I try -- really try, to keep them to myself. The last person I want to hear talk about politics or the nation's conscience or obligation to the world is some Hollywood ****tard. Some well-paid douchebag who lives in a compound in Malibu has, to my mind, very little of value or interest to say to anyone who's worried about the price of milk.
Neither you (nor I) should have to be preached to by Sean Penn or Leonardo DiCaprio -- from between the legs of a beautiful actress -- (even if I agree with them much of the time). Ditto, anyone lucky enough, like me, to have a job writing and making self-indulgent television.

That said, there are certain things one cannot help but notice when making food and travel television. One tends to notice -- as in Laos -- when one has to be careful about where one steps on the way to one's meal. Or (as in Laos and Cambodia when the people one encounters at meals are missing limbs. To not mention these screamingly obvious features -- how they might have occurred and how they remain factors in every day life, would feel ... bizarre.

It is no slight, for instance, against those Americans who fought along side of the Hmong people -- to mention the final outcome of what happened there. Just as it is useful and appropriate to remind people that the Hmong, our allies, who lost so much in that struggle, still exist. Nothing "political" about acknowledging history. Particularly, when you are about to sit down and eat with it.

On a slightly different front, my crew and I spend a LOT of time in countries where the government's attitude towards human rights is not what you (presumably) or I or the residents of a comfortable, well fed community in say ... the Berkeley area, might find appropriate or acceptable. If -- as has been suggested by some viewers, we have an obligation to avoid ANY country where human rights are routinely violated or where equality of the sexes is not respected, the list of shows we would NOT have shown you at all might include China, Laos, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Russia, Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia and on and on.

If you wanted to put a really fine point on it, you could argue that even Colombia or sybaritic Brazil, don't stand the test of Political Correctness. I doubt, for that matter, that even we do these days. So ... what then? Take this argument to its logical extreme and we'd end up making shows exclusively in Sweden and Iceland.

"How can you make TV in China and NOT mention the oppression of the Tibetan people?!" - Goes one argument. And it's a pretty compelling one. But once committed to shooting in a country, one becomes very aware of those one will leave behind. The people who open their homes to our cameras, who guide us, drive us, feed us -- they LIVE in the places I'm talking blithely about on camera. If I start asking them questions like "So ...How was that re-education camp?" It could put all involved with us in a very tough spot long after me and the crew have gone and are comfortably back in New York.

It's a fine line we have to walk sometimes. But what you should know about the leader whose biquitous and unsmiling portrait hangs on the walls of every home and business in Country X will always be mentioned -- and the fact that it's on every wall should tell you plenty.

Conversely, I believe it to be useless, counterproductive and just ... willfully ignorant to demonize everyone in a country because one finds their national policies or cultural beliefs repellent. The very last thing any of us aspire to do when making "No Reservations" is show you a definitive portrait of a nation, a culture or a religion -- or even a city. It's not the "Best" or "Worst" of anything. It's not even the "typical", necessarily -- though we try and show everyday foods and life as much as we can. This is as true of the Saudi Arabia show as it is of ... the Cleveland show.

At their best, our shows go like this:

I encounter some people -- or take them along. They show me their lives. We go some places --meet some friends. I tell you how that felt to me. THAT'S what we do. Now, if I've managed to convey those things in entertaining -- and possibly informative fashion (good or bad), then I've succeeded. If, inadvertently, I've found -- once again -- that people around the world, more often than not -- are actually pretty nice -- and not THAT different than you and me? Well, great. Score one for optimism. I'm not, however, in the feel good business. But if you're genuinely nice to me and my crew, hospitable and I actually have a good time in your home? I'll make every effort to reflect that feeling.

Defining the "character" of a people is a complex matter. I have had many a warm and wonderful time in places where -- just across town, it is likely that someone was getting their testicles twisted by some very unpleasant policemen. Just as I have been places where Very Bad Things have happened to Very Nice People, I have also met many Very Nice People who have done Very Bad Things.

Where we, as Americans, fall within those parameters, is open to debate. Personally, I embrace that grey zone -- where morality, such as it is, is defined by how we, as individuals, can -- given the opportunity -- treat each other at the table. If nothing else, it's a start.

On "No Reservations," I've sat down to eat with many different kinds of people over the years: Miguel Cotto punches people in the head until they become unconscious -- for a living. Nice guy. Really knows a good place for roast pork. For much of his life, Victor Cherkashin was in charge of all KGB operations against the USA -- and personally oversaw some of our worst and most destructive traitors. Sweetest old man you'd ever hope to meet. And good pickled mushrooms! Ted Nugent (coming soon) holds political views which would make Ghengis Khan blanche. He also knows good brisket. I really like all of them. And I think you should too.

Oh yeah ... Uruguay was really cool. NOT a good place to be a vegetarian.

But the train was here, now. A decision had to be made. And Buffalo was looking like a mighty strong contender. Out of thousands of often terrifying submissions, dark figures muttering at the camera from blood-freckled cellar rumpus rooms, there were actually a few really good ones. Nelson Starr's admirably deranged ode to Buffalo was a snowy masterpiece -- if limited in its culinary offerings. It had the advantage of being close. And that it kind of "rawked".

Augusto Elefanio's enthusiastic plea to take him along to the Philippines, so that he could reconnect with his roots, was also excellent and heartfelt and might get the masses of Filipinos who've been (understandably) hectoring me ("Why haven't you been to my country yet?") finally, off my back.

Eric Rivera suggested Thailand -- from a kick-boxer's perspective, in an articulate, compassionate video presenting a place that was already familiar to me and well known for its outrageously varied and delicious cuisine.

And then there was Danya Alhamrani's earnest, professional looking tape urging me to join her in Saudi Arabia -- just about the last place I would ever have considered going.Unfortunately, for my plans to basically rig this whole, shameful project, to pick some marginally comprehensible, and relatively unthreatening fan and spend a few days shooting footage of me comically avoiding the contest winner -- in like, Bermuda, or Montauk, Danya's video was just so damn good. And Saudi Arabia seemed like such a difficult, even foolish option.

I mean, let's face it, how much fun could it be? Most of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. They're mostly pretty fundamentalist Muslims! Women cover themselves head-to-toe in black. The men wear head dress and white floor length, skirty things! It's hot --really hot. There's NO BEER!! If any destination was predestined to suck, this was it.

But Danya Alhamrani is an extraordinary woman. And the fact that during finalist interviews, she pretty much challenged me to visit her country and still think ill of it, was well, pretty persuasive. She touched that obstinate streak of contrariness in me that little voice that's always telling me that if I'm sure of a thing -- and everybody agrees with me -- then I'm probably wrong.

And it's nice being wrong. One of the delights of travel is finding, again and again that all your preconceptions, all the conventional wisdom, everything you thought for sure was right -- is, in fact, wrong -- or at least, far from a complete picture. Saudi Arabia, it turned out, was fun. Really!

I urge you to take a look at producer Amy Teuteberg's excellent and provocative crew blog. There's not much I can add to that (and what you see in the show) -- except to lavish even more praise on the remarkable Danya, her friends and family. It's only right, I think, that a tough, independent Western woman's perspective should be most useful and relevant when talking about what the experience was like. It is women, after all, who are denied the right to drive, who must cover themselves in public. So, wheel over to the Crew Blog as soon as you can.

I can only tell you that standard male dress in the Kingdom, the "thobe", felt surprisingly ... liberating. Walking through my hotel lobby, there was a strange relief, a comfort in looking exactly like everybody else. And superb testicular ventilation.

And if there was one really big surprise, it's that so many Saudis we met had a sense of humor. This is not what you'd expect after watching "60 Minutes" or "Dateline" or various hard news descriptions of life in the Kingdom. Fact is we met a lot of funny, good natured, very, very generous people over there. They actually had the capacity to laugh at themselves. They were all too aware of how they look to outsiders. They watch "Friends" and "Oprah" and "American Idol".

Many, many of them were educated abroad. They were scrupulously devout in their faith without being humorless. It was a flawlessly organized and executed shoot -- thanks to newcomer producer Amy, the magnificent Danya, and Dania and many friends -- and in fact, a rollicking good -- if alcohol free -- time. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by the show.

As a final note, we will, on some snowy winter day, shoot at least part of a show in Buffalo. And Nelson Starr shall surely be our guide. Bangkok is on the horizon for the coming season. And we would be remiss if we did not have Eric Rivera, with his unique perspective and unusual access along for the ride. Plus, my wife wants to take a week or two in mui tai camp there. And just as the Phillipines are long overdue for a show, Augusto Elefanio deserves to have his dreams come true.

So with luck, everybody, as they say, is a winner.

We've learned some lessons. Some of them, painfully. Among them:

A mediocre food related scene is almost always better than a well-shot bungee jumping scene (or movie extra scene, zip-line trekking, alligator wrestling or trapeze scene).
If you piss off an entire country, you'll get a lot of really wacky posts on your blog--and possibly even incite renewed hostilities with Hungary.
Apparently, I work for the KGB.( I'd forgotten!)
There is a finite appetite for hunting scenes.
When you are advised by official entities that any scene depicting ( insert ethnic or indigenous group constituting 10% or more of the population) will result in a total withdrawal of any and all assistance--including permits and permissions--it's a warning sign.
Ditto when they tell you that you can't shoot any restaurants during business hours--and that you may not show the faces of the cooks. Only hands. Maybe.
Caving scenes are funny. For people who hate you.
Dante, however, is not funny.

So ... what's next? When the mach