My mother-in-law is from Lativa and my father-in-law from Belgium, and this means that I've always been lucky enough to experience a world of flavors at family events. At Christmas time, this almost always includes a tin of very thin gingerbread cookies, a Latvian holiday tradition. I found a recipe here if you're looking to go a little Baltic on your holiday baking. I've previously mentioned Belgian cookies called spéculoos -- these aren't for Christmas especially, they're served with coffee, but I did get my father-in-law several packages of these cookies for the holiday last year, when I was at Le Bon Marche in Paris.

It's a wide world of holiday cookies out there, ranging from the German springerle, Italian buzzolai, Polish ciastka kurcha, Swedish sand cakes and much, much more. What are your favorite Christmas cookies, and have you found any new favorites in your culinary travels this year?

André Soltner, the chef that ran New York City's famed restaurant Lutèce until it closed in 2004, headlines a culinary program at Curtain Bluff in Antigua on January 19th-24th.

It's the third year that Chef Soltner has been involved in this program, which includes cooking demonstrations, cooking classes, lunch with the chef, wine tastings and more. It's a splurge -- rates start at $6,300 for a deluxe beach-front room for the five-night event -- but if you miss Lutèce, this is your chance to recapture some of the glory.

Find more culinary events in January here.

The restaurant: La Purificadora in Puebla, Mexico.

The dish: Cream of Poblano Soup En Croute.

The story: I had arrived in Puebla late, and while this is a city known for its excellent food, I was too tired to leave my hotel. Luckily, the restaurant at La Purificadora is terrific, serving up  delicious contemporary tweaks on iconic local flavors. This soup was a special that evening, and the centerpiece of my meal. It  just the right blend of creamy, spicy smokiness, while the puff pastry cap you see here was perfectly light and remained crunchy even when I dunked pieces of it into the soup.

_{Let's Dish is an occasional series which highlights a terrific part of a terrific meal. Stay up-to-date with Culinary Travel by signing up for my weekly newsletter, or follow me on Twitter.
Photo: Alison Stein Wellner}

A couple of days ago, my husband and I and a couple of friends headed out to Flushing, NY to check out a Korean restaurant called Sik Gaek. We'd seen it on No Reservations, which is, in my opinion, the best culinary travel show on television. I know Anthony Bourdain's bad boy schtick gets on some people's nerves, but I don't mind it -- and I like that he seeks out mom n' pop establishments, places where a traveler might hover outside the door, wondering if they're welcome to enter, and if they'll leave in intestinal distress.

Dinner at Sik Gaek. (Cell phone pic!)

The restaurant was mostly filled with Korean diners, and as we sat down, our waiter fried a couple of eggs in a pan on the burner in the middle of the table and asked "did you see us on Anthony Bourdain?" Yes, we did, and apparently, this is the way that pretty much every non-Korean that eats at this restaurant finds out about it. Judging by the crowds, it's clearly helped business. Especially in these times, such a boost has to mean an awful lot to restaurateurs.

But at the same time, for a culinary traveler, there's something deflating about being recognized as following the path of a television show, the air is let out of the adventure a little bit when they mention the celeb chef who brought the place to your attention in the first place. When I was in Venice just a few weeks ago, wandering around the fish market, I came across a small, well-regarded take away restaurant called Pronto Pece Pronto that has a sign on its door proclaiming "As Seen on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations". Over on Chowhound, one commenter said the sign was off putting.

Watermelon Soju at Sik Gaek

Still, I think it's worth a little deflation to have a unique meal. So back at Sik Gaek, we ordered watermelon soju (which came in carved half of a watermelon) and we, like Bourdain, went for the cheolpan, which was the humongous pot of all manner of seafood. Once it was at the proper temperature, the waiter added a live lobster and a live octopus to the mix and they writhed and crawled until they died. He came back to cut it up with scissors, and they we ate them. (Some people apparently ask to have this process happen in the kitchen, but my feeling is if you're going to eat something, you should take responsibility for what's happening.)

The preparation certainly was unique, and as for the taste? It was good, but not extraordinary. Our dining companions happen to be Korean, and on the drive home, they promised to take us to their favorite restaurant on our next excursion. Friend's recommendations always trump an as-seen-on TV pick, no matter how great the show. I'll report back on our next meal.

If you're looking for an excuse to give the gift of travel, Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay in California has got a good splurge: The Fire and Wine Experience.

On the weekend of January 15th, 2010, the resort will offer a slate of classes on wine tasting and wine blending -- all free for guests. (There's also a workshop planned on s'more making -- meant to highlight a popular snack around the property's fire pits -- although my hunch is that the presentation is going to be more of an opportunity to eat s'mores since they're hardly complicated to prepare. Not that there's anything wrong with that.) The weekend also includes several meals highlighting wine pairings which come at an additional cost, among these, a private reserve dinner, a champagne tasting lunch, a wine brunch. Inquire and reserve when you book your room.

Todos Santos, Santa Fe.

Santa Fe, New Mexico is home to a "chocolate trail", and this continues my series looking at the sweet options that await. Todos Santos, at 125 East Palace Avenue, is a small jewel box of a chocolate shop, so fittingly, one of their specialties is chocolate burnished with edible gold and silverleaf. (The chocolates often take the shape of Mexican symbols, which adds a bit of place specificity, although I think that's a bit gimmicky.) Buy a few to enjoy immediately, and keep this in mind for gifts to bring back home.

Food-loving travelers can be hard to shop for -- the best gift, after all, is a plane ticket to a lovely culinary destination. (You'll find some great ideas of places to go here.)

But if you need something more substantial to wrap, check out National Geographic's Food Journeys of a Lifetime. ($40). As you'd expect from the good ol' gold rectangle, this is a lavishly illustrated book which details 500 food-focused trips and experiences.
Sized to sit on a coffee table, this is a veritable encyclopedia of culinary travel, including a comprehensive overview of what you can expect to consume in the world's best food town, from Hong Kong to Paris to Charleston.

There's terrific coverage of food markets, cooking classes, and loads of handy lists guaranteed to appeal to every interest. For instance, the top 10 cheese tours of France tells you where to find the dairies that specialize in your favorite cheese variety, whether it's Brie (Coulommiers), Camembert (Normandy), Chevre (Loire Valley). Other top ten lists include bike tours for foodies, historic candy shops and a guide to New Year's feasts around the world. So if the book inspires you to book a ticket to, say, Vietnam, for the mid-February Feast of the First Morning (Tet), to sample kho, which is camel stew with fish sauce -- you'll still have plenty of time to pack.

Spritz at Bacaro Bar in Venice

On the other side of the spectrum from the overpriced Bellini that I had at Harry's in Venice, a few Euros on the counter of almost any bar in the city will net you a cheerful cocktail called a Spritz, made with a mixture of Aperol, Prosecco and sparkling water. Aperol is an orange-colored apertif made with bitter orange, gentian (a blue flowering plant), rhubarb and various herbs and roots, you can also get a Spritz made with Campari, which looks redder in the glass. I can see how it would be a perfect summer refresher, although it worked just fine on a chilly early December night. Read more about the Spritz and its history here, a recipe here, and bone up on your liqueurs -- including Aperola and Campari -- here.

Harry's Bar in Venice

The guidebook said it flatly: you have not been to Venice if you've not been to Harry's Bar in the San Marco neighborhood.  Harry's Bar was the very first venture of a young man named Giuseppe Cipriani, who went on to found a veritable restaurant empire, but it all started in what was then a blind alley near the Grand Canal in the city known as the Serenissima.  It's where the Bellini was invented -- that refreshing cocktail made of Prosecco and peach purée --  and it's also a highly elegant restaurant where you're definitely not going to want to turn up in jeans. But that's not why Harry's is deemed essential for visitors. The place has a rich political, cultural and literary history -- Ernest Hemingway hung out there, as did Somerset Maughan, Noel Coward, Truman Capote -- the list goes on and on.