Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to everywhere. I am your host. Daniel
Speaker 1: Scheffler Today's travel commandment thou shalt worship all things local.
Speaker 1: The way I see it, travel is both a noun
Speaker 1: and a verb. But for the most part, I think
Speaker 1: we use it as a verb to travel, to explore,
Speaker 1: to see, to escape, to lose yourself, to find yourself.
Speaker 1: I think of it so much as a very busy
Speaker 1: doing word. So perhaps that's why travel has a connotation
Speaker 1: of leaving home for another place, another country, another city, upstate, wherever.
Speaker 1: But I'm also the biggest fan of traveling in my
Speaker 1: own city. Maybe that's why I travel for me as
Speaker 1: a noun, the concept of travel more than the doing
Speaker 1: of it. Necessarily, As a New Yorker, I've slept in
Speaker 1: roughly thefty hotels in Manhattan and a few in the
Speaker 1: other borrows as staycations, because when you live somewhere, it's
Speaker 1: so easy to forget all the beauty and excitement of
Speaker 1: the actual place and why I chose to live there,
Speaker 1: especially in a city like New York, because locals have
Speaker 1: the joys of standing in line as a day trip
Speaker 1: at the d m V somewhere in the Bronx to
Speaker 1: get their driver's license, or having to do this crazy,
Speaker 1: insane zig zag dance at the trade of Joe's and Chelsea,
Speaker 1: which takes an entire afternoon, all fending off yet another
Speaker 1: person accosting you to sign up for Dog Knows What.
Speaker 1: Oh New York, The things you make me do. But
Speaker 1: I have a serious love for a staycation. Let's call
Speaker 1: that the noun of travel. And yes, staycation is a silly,
Speaker 1: silly word, so let's rename it. Suggestions anyone, I'm taking
Speaker 1: them at our email address, please. This desire for staying
Speaker 1: in hotels in my hometown and for experiencing home almost
Speaker 1: as a tourist, actually started for me as a young
Speaker 1: boy right in London, maybe the greatest city on Earth.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've heard the saying, right, if you're tired
Speaker 1: of London, you're tired of life. Well apparently I heard
Speaker 1: that loud and clear, and I jumped right into it,
Speaker 1: making sure that travel without travel Darling London was as
Speaker 1: exciting as possible. This was my method at age eight,
Speaker 1: and I haven't quit yet. As an eight year old,
Speaker 1: my needs were centered around Zone one, which is truly
Speaker 1: the center of London. By the time I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: I was heading far east in the city, which in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands was a place for Sunday afternoon
Speaker 1: rave parties that's spilt onto the streets by Monday morning
Speaker 1: as the city was heading to their respectable offices. Now
Speaker 1: that I'm an adult, or sort of an adult, all
Speaker 1: of London feels like a staycation to me, but almost
Speaker 1: as if I can't help it. I've always given all
Speaker 1: my loving to old London Town, celebrating it like it's
Speaker 1: my greatest journey yet. Top of the morning to you.
Speaker 1: The Sunday afternoons of my teenage years were spent with
Speaker 1: fat Boy Slim and duft punk, but at age eight,
Speaker 1: my obsessions were more on the lines of Agatha Christie,
Speaker 1: Rudia Kipling, the great Oscar Wilde and the original vampire
Speaker 1: storyteller Bram Stoker are the writers of my early youth,
Speaker 1: and in fact writers all with a love for the
Speaker 1: classic Brown's Hotel in London, discreet, understated and tipping into
Speaker 1: this sort of Edwardian past. The hotels for the literary
Speaker 1: minded lover of old England, forgotten Old England, perhaps ready
Speaker 1: to take reservations for locals like us to come and sojourn.
Speaker 1: With no great big staircase to dazzle or giant ballrooms
Speaker 1: with crystal chandeliers. This property is just a couple of
Speaker 1: silly old London town houses posing up to form an
Speaker 1: intimate hotel. So it's a young lad, the bookworm, as
Speaker 1: they called me. I easily found my nook ride at
Speaker 1: the fireplace in the front room. For the next twenty
Speaker 1: plus years. The rooms decor changed every few years, but
Speaker 1: the fireplace stayed in my nook remained mine. Mother appreciated
Speaker 1: a staycation as much as I did, and where better
Speaker 1: than a hotel where writers came, spent nights and wrote
Speaker 1: their overtures. As an English major, she approved. In the
Speaker 1: early years, I was so overwhelmed by the Jungle Book
Speaker 1: and would stay awake many a night just imagining myself
Speaker 1: as Mowgli in the forests of India, embarking on these
Speaker 1: tree swinging adventures, all the while staying in the what
Speaker 1: they now call Kipling Suite, named after yours truly because
Speaker 1: this is exactly where Mr Bling was when he was
Speaker 1: letting his mind travel to magical lands like I did.
Speaker 1: But really, to be serious, it was Agatha Christie's character
Speaker 1: Miss Marple, who in my mind was more of like
Speaker 1: a Betty Davis than the scowling Margaret Rutherford. And I
Speaker 1: guess we have to include bothersome Hercule Poirot, who taught
Speaker 1: me about crafting interesting stories. I was mesmerized and followed
Speaker 1: these two characters in the worlds that Dame Agatha Christie
Speaker 1: created to solver who done it. I was, and I
Speaker 1: still am, the proverbial amateur sleuth. It's annoying to most
Speaker 1: of my friends when we traveled, because I'm always Nancy
Speaker 1: Drewing or being a hardy boy and trying to uncover
Speaker 1: something that may or may not have happened. I'll sidetrack
Speaker 1: you for a minute to tell you a funny little story.
Speaker 1: Just the other day, we were staying at this giant,
Speaker 1: fancy hotel in Disney, Florida, were shipping all things local Orlando,
Speaker 1: of course, like that blazing sun, when it became clear
Speaker 1: to us that something was amiss. Deep in the night,
Speaker 1: a woman was sitting at a little little desk with
Speaker 1: an iPad. She was dressed in nothing memorable, and she
Speaker 1: was handling the iPad in a normal Ipadian way. What
Speaker 1: was odd was that she was sitting outside one of
Speaker 1: the hotel rooms, right in the hallway. We walked by
Speaker 1: a number of times in that I'm pretending to not look,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking kind of way, mumbling your room number one,
Speaker 1: sixteen one sixteen, over and over. Right, we've all done that.
Speaker 1: Sex trafficking, said one friend another. Drugs, definitely drugs. I
Speaker 1: know drugs when I see drugs. I felt more Nancy
Speaker 1: Drewish at this point, so I was going with something wilder,
Speaker 1: like she was checking people in for a gambling ring,
Speaker 1: like Molly Bloom would. Of course, this was hours of
Speaker 1: speculation and fun for everyone. Well, my friends found out
Speaker 1: what was really going on the next morning, and it
Speaker 1: was good. Even Miss Marple would have never suspected this.
Speaker 1: A royal family from Africa was staying in a villain nearby.
Speaker 1: The staff happened to be staying at our hotel. Of course,
Speaker 1: what would royal families from African countries do when in Florida.
Speaker 1: They would shop, So our lady behind the desk was
Speaker 1: cataloging all their many, many purchases. Miss Marple would have
Speaker 1: been flummixed. But back to London and Agatha Christie, who
Speaker 1: in her novel At Bertram's Hotel, which is said to
Speaker 1: take place at the Very Brown's Hotel, had Miss Marple
Speaker 1: calling it the perfect mix of Edwardian and Victorian atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Just think about but that even means if you're even
Speaker 1: a slight anglophile. She was commenting on the prim staff
Speaker 1: and elderly guests, and I am sure so many other things.
Speaker 1: So here I am in my nook uttering similar sentiments
Speaker 1: from my nook. I transported myself to Bertram's and I
Speaker 1: played the part of Miss Marple, thinking I could solve
Speaker 1: this murder mystery. In the very hotel I was staying.
Speaker 1: The creaky staircase, the gaunderous hallways, secret passages between the
Speaker 1: town houses, even the back entrances became movie sets in
Speaker 1: my mind, all this fun without really going anywhere. See,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm telling you. Travel is whatever you
Speaker 1: decided should be. And to this day, this is still
Speaker 1: my tradition. As I returned to the hotel every year,
Speaker 1: I stealthily watch every guest who enters the tea room.
Speaker 1: I pay careful attention to how they stir their cups
Speaker 1: of tea. I even lean in to overhear their conversations.
Speaker 1: At night, I peek through the curtains and look down
Speaker 1: on the abandoned London street, wondering who's coming in and
Speaker 1: who's leaving through the doors of this grand old hotel.
Speaker 1: Over twenty years, it's here that I developed a taste
Speaker 1: for murder mystery and for meticulously using clues to solve
Speaker 1: my puzzle. I was taught just how to observe human behavior.
Speaker 1: Why is that lady with the oversized handbag looking at
Speaker 1: her watch? Was that Bellhart pocketing something he received from
Speaker 1: a guest who left the hotel in such a rush.
Speaker 1: Maybe life is all just a murder mystery. But there
Speaker 1: are other ways to worship all things local too, like
Speaker 1: traveling to a place and making it your mission to
Speaker 1: find something so niche and appropriately of the place that
Speaker 1: you can become a little expert. Like going to Japan
Speaker 1: and learning anything you can possibly learn about much at
Speaker 1: tea culture or incredible denim. What if you go to
Speaker 1: Argentina and become this tango expert, exploring different styles, outfits
Speaker 1: drinks to go with your dancing. You're getting my drift right.
Speaker 1: While I chose something I knew nothing about. That's usually
Speaker 1: how I choose my niche activities, not something obvious or
Speaker 1: something I've been interested in before, but rather something totally
Speaker 1: of my usual course of interest, And so I hopped
Speaker 1: south to Madeira, Portugal's southern island, where the tradition of
Speaker 1: embroidery is not only continuing for centuries, but is constantly improving.
Speaker 1: Who would have thought that the home of Christiano Ronaldo
Speaker 1: would open up embroidery to me during my quest for embroidery, linen,
Speaker 1: and all things lazy. I also found a place quite
Speaker 1: like no other. The world has fewer and fewer grand
Speaker 1: dumb hotels left, but here on the cliffs of Madeira's capital,
Speaker 1: form shall, I found Red's Palace, a hotel that withstood
Speaker 1: two wars and the crush of social media, offering a
Speaker 1: gig like me, an entire collection of all things embroidery. Okay,
Speaker 1: so picture this a whole room with glass cabinets filled
Speaker 1: with special embroidery. The hotel did for visiting dignitaries, every
Speaker 1: possible royal family member from Europe, Hollywood starlets, and scary politicians.
Speaker 1: I just settled in at a little table with a
Speaker 1: handy magnifying glass and my little gloves when I noticed
Speaker 1: an elegant lady dressed in navy and a little heel,
Speaker 1: walking over to the notice board near me. She seemed
Speaker 1: to pin something on and off she marched with a
Speaker 1: gleaming smile, throwing my way. Of course. Within seconds I
Speaker 1: was up and scrutinizing the notice born seeking card player
Speaker 1: of excellent skill, willing to play bridge, canaster and rummy
Speaker 1: Games Room, five pm sharp. Sincerely miss edith Ainslie. Of
Speaker 1: course for my show, I changed her name out of deference.
Speaker 1: I cleared my busy embroidery schedule immediately. At moments to five,
Speaker 1: I rolled up at the games room, dressed in a blazer.
Speaker 1: At least, the softly lit, carpeted room was overly quiet,
Speaker 1: and there was this cool breeze coming off the ocean.
Speaker 1: The balcony doors were flung open, and there was this
Speaker 1: mystery woman seated at a four seater card table facing
Speaker 1: the sea. I miss edith Ainslie, and I hope you've
Speaker 1: come to play cards with me this evening. She rung
Speaker 1: a small buzzer on the table and informed me that
Speaker 1: someone will be by shortly to offer me provisions her advice,
Speaker 1: a pink gin, of course, and no cell phones please,
Speaker 1: She added, Oh, and now since we're card companions, she
Speaker 1: offered that I'm I call her Edith. So Edith no
Speaker 1: longer placed any orders. Every staff member knew exactly what
Speaker 1: she'd have and went precisely to deliver it to her
Speaker 1: part of the furniture, as only I could wish. Her
Speaker 1: hands rolled like she had worked casinos her whole life.
Speaker 1: Please grace me with your presence, she smiled. I sat
Speaker 1: down and I didn't get up for three hours. We
Speaker 1: worked our way through most serious canaster of my life.
Speaker 1: She killed me every round. I was a mere jack
Speaker 1: in her game of aces. Baby. So Edith had been
Speaker 1: a guest of Red's Palace since n and this was
Speaker 1: not her first rodeo on some young one on the cards.
Speaker 1: At nearly a hundred, she spends the majority of a
Speaker 1: year at the hotel. As she says, when the English
Speaker 1: weather turns miserable, I swooped down to the island. Her
Speaker 1: mind was filled with the past. Yes, of us, I
Speaker 1: appreciate embroidery, Edith kept telling me. In fact, I have
Speaker 1: my very own set of linen here at the hotel.
Speaker 1: They hand embroidered it for me, not too much, just
Speaker 1: simple patterns that I could tolerate. She told me about
Speaker 1: her childhood and her husband who passed away many years ago,
Speaker 1: her love for little dogs and gin. And then she
Speaker 1: told me how many years ago Sir Winston Churchill arrived
Speaker 1: at the hotel slightly unannounced. If you could believe that, well,
Speaker 1: she said, I offered him my sweet after all, this
Speaker 1: feels like my home, and it's awful queen and country,
Speaker 1: isn't it, And so we quickly had special linen hand
Speaker 1: embroidered for him here in town. Of course, it was
Speaker 1: the talk of funchal even Edith was worshiping all things
Speaker 1: local in every possible way. As I said this to her,
Speaker 1: she said, why, yes, that is what you do when
Speaker 1: you travel. You smoke locals cigarettes, drink local wine, even
Speaker 1: if they are both terrible, and you never hobnobbed with
Speaker 1: other tourists. I of course invited Edith to join me
Speaker 1: for dinner, which was this lavish affair under a cloudy,
Speaker 1: frescoed ceiling sky. Can you say the words snazzy. I
Speaker 1: had a dinner jacket, she had a divine dress, and
Speaker 1: we had this appetite for twirling. Edith was still the
Speaker 1: gem on the shiny sea of dancing and my dream
Speaker 1: hotel guest. As we whilst we romanced all things from
Speaker 1: the past in our simple movement, we could trip the
Speaker 1: light fantastic as I worshiped the now local herself. I
Speaker 1: dressed for both myself and the atmosphere, Edith said, And
Speaker 1: with that, Edith's cup overfloweth offering just a peep into
Speaker 1: the bygones. The ocean was her company with simply the
Speaker 1: quiet lull of afternoon teas served on the very the
Speaker 1: and the mountains slightly covered with mist was the entertainment.
Speaker 1: Days were unnamed and unnumbered evenings all wobbling into one.
Speaker 1: Smoking wasn't banned for anyone yet, and drinking before noon
Speaker 1: wasn't even beheld. Problems were Atlantic oceans away, and attention
Speaker 1: spans stretched into eternal summers of loving. Meeting someone like
Speaker 1: Edith is the very reason anyone should travel. There's an
Speaker 1: Edith at every old world hotel. She's to be found
Speaker 1: on the dance floor, at the dinner dance, or at
Speaker 1: the card table in the game's room. And it's exactly
Speaker 1: there over a chop chop game of bridge, where you'll
Speaker 1: be in the moment without having to think about it
Speaker 1: too much. She'll talk and you'll actually want to listen,
Speaker 1: not way to speak. She'll remind you to make time
Speaker 1: for beauty and laughter. She's the original hostess to a
Speaker 1: good time. Her wit will ensure it in every hand.
Speaker 1: Who knew Madeira the hidden middle sister of Portugal? Home
Speaker 1: to Edith. It's in fact where the literati British delightfulness
Speaker 1: came to elude Europe's glitzy sets in London's pell Mell Pace. Today,
Speaker 1: Maderia holds exactly the same charm beyond the afternoon tea
Speaker 1: and fancy silverware. So leave your technology, behave like a local,
Speaker 1: dress like you care, and come waltz through the past.
Speaker 1: So fair. Let's take a break to hear from our
Speaker 1: sponsors and we'll be right back with more travel from everywhere.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sticking around. Here's more of everywhere. I'm here
Speaker 1: with Harlly Fry, who I tripped the light fantastic with
Speaker 1: two all the time. I've yet to waltz with her,
Speaker 1: but the days could happen. It could happen at any moment.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: I know you spent time living in London. How much
Speaker 1: did you engage with its history while you were there, Like,
Speaker 1: do you have a favorite historical spot? I have a few.
Speaker 1: What are they? Well, I have this thing that I
Speaker 1: really love, Jack the RiPP Um, as do many. I've
Speaker 1: gone on these like crazy historical walks where you can
Speaker 1: like seeing all the places that Jack the Ripper killed people,
Speaker 1: which is so macombon amazing. But that's London Town well
Speaker 1: because it's so old, right, I mean it's literally hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds and thousands really if you want to go
Speaker 1: back to like its earliest foundings of years old. So
Speaker 1: almost any human experience you can imagine has happened there
Speaker 1: at some point in time. That's why there's been plenty
Speaker 1: of maccab things to explore if that's your jam. So
Speaker 1: I have that, And then the Victorian Albert Museum so good,
Speaker 1: so good. And then there's stupid little things that I love,
Speaker 1: Like there's like a Princess Diana plaque in one of
Speaker 1: the parks and I walked by, and I think she
Speaker 1: was such a beautiful representation of grace and good manners
Speaker 1: that it's like a lovely reminder to walk past the
Speaker 1: park and see this kind of historic like new historic thing. Yea,
Speaker 1: so there's that. And then did you know that London
Speaker 1: has these underground tunnels? Oh yes, of course that you
Speaker 1: can go and tour and all of London used to
Speaker 1: be one surface lower, so it's been raised over time.
Speaker 1: Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. We're all thinking
Speaker 1: in some way or another, Right, I love fight Club. Um,
Speaker 1: here's the thing that I think is interesting is you
Speaker 1: can find almost anything in London, like I said, to
Speaker 1: represent some part of some human experience. That might be
Speaker 1: your thing. I know you do not like lists, but
Speaker 1: I have not a list, but just a few things
Speaker 1: that are examples of the kinds of things that people
Speaker 1: could explore should they want to. Did you know that
Speaker 1: you there is a service online that will show you
Speaker 1: where all of the plague pits of London words, and
Speaker 1: you can just walk around and find them based on
Speaker 1: a plague pit. Right, It's quite fantastic. Like they even
Speaker 1: have a full social media representation, so you can go
Speaker 1: check out Historic UK on Twitter and they will show
Speaker 1: you where plague pits are. I mean, in many cases,
Speaker 1: what you're going to go see is obviously not an
Speaker 1: active plague pit, Like it's not gonna be a hole
Speaker 1: in the ground, things have been built up over it.
Speaker 1: As you said, the city has shifted in many ways.
Speaker 1: But for me it's always important because I like history,
Speaker 1: even if they're not necessarily visible examples immediately available to
Speaker 1: my eye. Just to take a quiet moment and stand
Speaker 1: in a place like this and recognize that you are
Speaker 1: in the same place where something significant happened is can
Speaker 1: be sometimes very humbling, very moving, but also there's just
Speaker 1: like a part of it to me that it's like
Speaker 1: this isn't to diminish the sadness of something like a
Speaker 1: plague pit, but like it's really neat that we have
Speaker 1: the information available to us that we can travel the
Speaker 1: world historically as well as just geographically. Well close to
Speaker 1: where I spend a lot of time in Permlico Road
Speaker 1: is where the original Chelsea Bun House, where Chelsea Buns
Speaker 1: were invented, and that you can go and find in London,
Speaker 1: like so things that are seemingly silly, it's all part
Speaker 1: of like London history. Yeah, I mean you can also
Speaker 1: go visit, uh the place where the execution doc used
Speaker 1: to be located, where pirates were hung. Also another fascinating
Speaker 1: thing and the thing that I love about these is
Speaker 1: like there's there's no cost to it. You can just
Speaker 1: looking up online and you're often running do you know
Speaker 1: about the blue plaque thing? So you've probably seen them
Speaker 1: because you lived there and they've been there for a
Speaker 1: long time. The Blue Plaques of London are like historical markers.
Speaker 1: It was started in the eighteen sixties actually like this
Speaker 1: idea of having these particular plaques that will mark historically
Speaker 1: significant places where particularly historically significant people did things. And
Speaker 1: the fun thing is you can just walk around London
Speaker 1: and if you have an eye out for them, you'll
Speaker 1: see them on various buildings and it it might give
Speaker 1: you, you you know, an interesting point of reference. Like I said,
Speaker 1: they're more than nine hundred of them around London, so
Speaker 1: odds are good. No matter what neighborhood you're going, you're
Speaker 1: gonna spy one. The group English Heritage actually runs it
Speaker 1: now and they have even made an app so that
Speaker 1: it's kind of interactive and you can one. It will
Speaker 1: help you find things if you're looking for particular types
Speaker 1: of historical places, um like if you want to look
Speaker 1: at the plaques that mark women who are involved in
Speaker 1: the suffrage movement, you can literally make your own tour
Speaker 1: that way or you know, literary people or any number
Speaker 1: of other things. But also you get like a little
Speaker 1: free education basically along the way. And again it costs nothing.
Speaker 1: You just go run around the city. You don't have
Speaker 1: to pay for a tour. It's all self guided. You
Speaker 1: stop and have lunch when you want. But you can
Speaker 1: get like this way deeper understanding of the area, even
Speaker 1: if you just want to keep it like the neighborhood
Speaker 1: or your hotel is there were going to be plaques
Speaker 1: there almost definitely, and it just again it gives you
Speaker 1: that sense of like we're all part of something bigger.
Speaker 1: We talked about that all the time, that our place
Speaker 1: in the world, our place in the world is that
Speaker 1: we're all making history in some way or another. We
Speaker 1: we don't have to sit in a seat of government
Speaker 1: or be you know, part of a royal family. Everyone
Speaker 1: is part of the story of history and this is
Speaker 1: kind of a nice way to engage with that. And
Speaker 1: that's what I really love about it. It makes history
Speaker 1: way more real when you're standing in the place where
Speaker 1: it happened. I have to sweet London stories to tell you.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I love most about London
Speaker 1: is that did you know as much as I'm in
Speaker 1: uber slash lift person, black cabby drivers do a rigorous test.
Speaker 1: When you want to become the famed black cab driver,
Speaker 1: you have to do a test called the Knowledge and
Speaker 1: it involves memorizing every single street in the entire capital.
Speaker 1: Believe it, you cannot make a mistake. So their knowledge
Speaker 1: is when you get into a black cab, you can
Speaker 1: give them any street and they would be able to
Speaker 1: find it. Love it. The other amazing thing I have
Speaker 1: to tell you is I used to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in Permlico and Warwick Square and one day
Speaker 1: I saw this man and he had falcons on his
Speaker 1: arm in the park and he told me that he
Speaker 1: runs the Falcon Society off London, like these are just
Speaker 1: random people in the city. And I was like, how
Speaker 1: many falcons are about to arrive on your arm? And
Speaker 1: he was like three and three falcons like swooped down
Speaker 1: and like sat on his arm, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I am here to train anyone who would like to
Speaker 1: learn about falconry. They live in the Tower of London,
Speaker 1: which there's other birds that live there too, but these
Speaker 1: particular falcons live there. And he told me this like
Speaker 1: insane story about what he does with the falcons. He
Speaker 1: trains them to send messages. That's fantastic. That's like old
Speaker 1: world London and you can go and experience that. But
Speaker 1: that's the stuff that I really love about London, Like
Speaker 1: it has a little something local for everyone. It's like
Speaker 1: the obvious Bangers and Mash wonderful pub on the corner,
Speaker 1: but it's also all this other weird stuff that's like fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I really think, like what's beautiful about it? I
Speaker 1: mean we both just talked about a bunch of things
Speaker 1: that have no like admission ticket or booking time required.
Speaker 1: Oh you really have to do is just keep your
Speaker 1: eyes open. That history is still living all over London. Right,
Speaker 1: what else should we talk about? Holly, give us more
Speaker 1: London history things. I have a slightly more modern history
Speaker 1: thing that is actually am It's like a warehousing museum,
Speaker 1: but it's very much up my alle of fun. It
Speaker 1: is called God's Own Junkyard. Yeah, it's the best. It's
Speaker 1: a Neon museum. It's just old Neon signs that have
Speaker 1: been decommissioned, but they're cared for and kept active and
Speaker 1: taken care of and to me, that's another great way
Speaker 1: to kind of look at a city's history because commerce
Speaker 1: drives development in almost any big city in the world,
Speaker 1: and as a consequence, you really get a sense of
Speaker 1: what things have been important in terms of being economic
Speaker 1: drivers in a city at various points in time, versus
Speaker 1: what things have fallen out of favor, And to me,
Speaker 1: that's like part of the great thing. But also it's
Speaker 1: just a great place to go because you get a
Speaker 1: big sense of how artistic styles have shifted over the years,
Speaker 1: which again kind of informs your knowledge of like local flavor.
Speaker 1: And it's just I like sparkly things anyway, So from
Speaker 1: that angle, its beautiful, but it is just a fun
Speaker 1: it's kitchy. But then when you think about it in
Speaker 1: those terms about like what it's telling you about what
Speaker 1: has been popular in and necessary in the past versus
Speaker 1: what has also become passe, it becomes an interesting exploration
Speaker 1: of the local history of the area. Right. Well, there's
Speaker 1: this thing called Secret London where there's like all these
Speaker 1: strange like fighting lane yeah, right, and like French cannons
Speaker 1: as street ball ods. Like I love that London has
Speaker 1: and celebrates all this weirdness where like I feel so
Speaker 1: many other cities are trying to modernize in a way
Speaker 1: that they lose all the silliness, Like I really miss
Speaker 1: living in America, Like I really missed the kind of
Speaker 1: wittiness and silliness of British humor because the stuff is
Speaker 1: seen as so much part of the culture and so
Speaker 1: much part of of being local London that it's really
Speaker 1: really celebrated. New York doesn't celebrate that thing, right there
Speaker 1: are I feel like there are pockets of that type
Speaker 1: of celebration throughout the United States, but I don't feel
Speaker 1: like any one city really has it as part of
Speaker 1: its identity the way London. Like London has the Clown's Gallery,
Speaker 1: which is a tiny, tiny, little weird museum about the
Speaker 1: famous clowns, because who doesn't want to see that, which
Speaker 1: is great and super fun, wonderfully odd, great way to
Speaker 1: spend an every mean, they even have like carrying Potter's
Speaker 1: platform nine and three quarters. That's a real thing that
Speaker 1: they've put in at King's Cross. But no other city
Speaker 1: will actually go and implement that, right, Like you can
Speaker 1: go and see where Harry would get onto his fictitious train, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I fucking love that. I love it as
Speaker 1: another museum that I think is super cool and I
Speaker 1: have not been to this one, but it is on
Speaker 1: my list to go when I am next. There is
Speaker 1: pollockx Toy Museum. Do you know that one? Because I
Speaker 1: love toys and my husband and I collect toys. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a little problem and it's largely
Speaker 1: Victorian toys. But it's a museum and a little toy shop.
Speaker 1: That's again a great way to look at the history
Speaker 1: of a place, like what was marketed to children along
Speaker 1: the way. I mean, I think about when the people
Speaker 1: of a hundred years from now look back at like
Speaker 1: game Boys, what on earth will they think of us? Similarly, though,
Speaker 1: we have the opportunity to look back at like Victorian
Speaker 1: England and be like what, why, why did you give
Speaker 1: your child back? But also, you know, there are so
Speaker 1: many beautiful, precious, innovative things that were made simply for joy.
Speaker 1: I mean that speaks a great deal to like the
Speaker 1: values of a time period. Well, I guess with Brexit
Speaker 1: and the kind of uncertainty that's been in British politics
Speaker 1: for such a long time, one wonders what London now represents.
Speaker 1: So many people have left, others are fighting for this
Speaker 1: kind of staunch Britishness, but that identity is being challenged.
Speaker 1: So it's very much what is Britain versus what is
Speaker 1: London like? And London is somehow caught up in the
Speaker 1: crossfire of all this because it's the capital. But to me,
Speaker 1: London is so different to what anyone thinks England is.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably part of the problem, but it's
Speaker 1: the the way that New York is not America. It's
Speaker 1: it's very own thing. London is very much then and
Speaker 1: growing up spending so much time there, it's this reminder
Speaker 1: of like everyone's there and everyone's part of this beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: With every single person, you could possibly imagine every iteration
Speaker 1: of human anyway, Well, thanks Holly, I love spending time
Speaker 1: with you for history. Holly's your girl. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: come and check out stuff you Missed in History class,
Speaker 1: which is my regular podcast. We published two new episodes
Speaker 1: a week, plus one of our classics on a Saturday,
Speaker 1: and you can find us on social media at missed
Speaker 1: in History. Great. I could brush up on some history.
Speaker 1: Everybody could. Thanks Holly, Thanks my love. Let's take a
Speaker 1: break to him from our sponsors and we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more travel from everywhere trade tables up. You're
Speaker 1: returning to everywhere land. Welcome back. I have a few
Speaker 1: interviews for US today, starting with my friend and neighbor
Speaker 1: Jessica Galen, who knows cheese. In fact, she has a
Speaker 1: master's and cheese from n y U. Tell us, Jessica,
Speaker 1: why why do people travel for cheese? Well, cheese is
Speaker 1: an incredible representation of place. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful all expressions of taroar. People talk about it with
Speaker 1: mine all the time, but she's is such a piece
Speaker 1: of the place that it comes from. If it's made
Speaker 1: with care and it's made by artisans who are attending
Speaker 1: well cared for animals and well cared for pastures. So
Speaker 1: the really exciting thing about American cheeses is that there's
Speaker 1: been this tremendous exploration of what it means to have
Speaker 1: American tarar through cheese. It's one of the few categories
Speaker 1: of food where tar has been explored in the US
Speaker 1: in every single state. So that's an exciting opportunity for
Speaker 1: Americans who are looking for a local food experience. Well,
Speaker 1: because people go to France to go and eat cheese
Speaker 1: right like a pilgrimage to cheese. Many Americans travel full
Speaker 1: niche products. They travel for wine. They make a pilgrimage
Speaker 1: full whiskey to Scotland, or they do a pilgrimage to
Speaker 1: Germany for beer. Right, and maybe some people would do
Speaker 1: a pilgrimage to Spain for the cured meats. So my
Speaker 1: whole thing is that I think we could send people
Speaker 1: on a journey of America through cheese. I love it
Speaker 1: because I've gone to Montreal to buy cheese back because
Speaker 1: you can find all this incredible raw I'm pasteurized cheese.
Speaker 1: But you corrected me today when I asked you whether
Speaker 1: you can get raw cheese in America because I thought
Speaker 1: everything had to be pasteurized. You can. And two of
Speaker 1: the three cheeses that we're having today are raw. Okay,
Speaker 1: So why would I want raw cheese opposed to pasteurized. Well,
Speaker 1: pasteurization kills all of the bacteria, all of the microbial
Speaker 1: life in the milk, which was an incredible public health
Speaker 1: innovation when it came into popularity before getting very very
Speaker 1: sick from milk, So this was really amazing to discover
Speaker 1: a method of making milk safe to drink on a
Speaker 1: massive scale, particularly as industrialization came into play an agricultural
Speaker 1: products started to be distributed on more than a farm
Speaker 1: by farm scale. People started collecting their milk all in
Speaker 1: one place and then selling it under a different brand name.
Speaker 1: So there could have been multiple varying qualities of the
Speaker 1: milk that was brought into the communal that and then distributors.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine if you had one farmer who
Speaker 1: wasn't taking care of their animals well and then all
Speaker 1: of their milk got combined with other farms milk, and
Speaker 1: then that milk was sold to many many families and
Speaker 1: many many people could get sick from one contaminated bat.
Speaker 1: So pasteurization was really important innovation. But many academics have
Speaker 1: argued that we've gone too far towards this Pastorian ideal.
Speaker 1: And you know, as with many other areas now people
Speaker 1: are questioning whether being too clean is possible and are
Speaker 1: sanitizing our environments too much. Yes, so we have to,
Speaker 1: but we have to think about what are they good
Speaker 1: microbes that are the bad microbes? Because there are plenty
Speaker 1: of pathogens that are very very harmful, and how do
Speaker 1: we cultivate the good ones while making sure that we're
Speaker 1: creating environments that are not in hospitable to the harmful ones. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now I want to know if I wanted to
Speaker 1: go on a pilgrimage of American cheese, where would you
Speaker 1: send me to. Well, Vermont is one of the states
Speaker 1: that's done an incredible job of cultivating supporting a community
Speaker 1: of artisan cheesemakers who are kind of exploring this concept
Speaker 1: of American tarar and also um returning to the small
Speaker 1: scale notion of how do we take this pasture and
Speaker 1: that's really optimized for dairy animals, but help these farmers
Speaker 1: do produce a product in a way that's financially viable
Speaker 1: for them, because fluid milk is a really challenging commodity
Speaker 1: to be producing right now, and cheese offers this opportunity
Speaker 1: for farmers to be reducing a product that can earn
Speaker 1: them at least a living wage compared to what a
Speaker 1: lot of farmers are struggling with right now with footmolks.
Speaker 1: So for month has been very supportive. California has a
Speaker 1: number of incredible artism cheesemakers, but like I said, every
Speaker 1: state in the country has artisan cheesemakers at this point,
Speaker 1: which is basically only happened in the last thirty or
Speaker 1: four years. It's become a phenomenon. Actual we will not
Speaker 1: talk about it in the same way that they talk
Speaker 1: about French cheese Italian cheese. I think part of it
Speaker 1: is just this kind of self deprecating idea that Americans
Speaker 1: have of our food culture, that we don't have one,
Speaker 1: or that there's nothing further to explore about American food,
Speaker 1: or you know, people kind of throw away the idea
Speaker 1: of American food as burgers and fries. But the fact is,
Speaker 1: there are artisans that are creating beautiful, beautiful food products
Speaker 1: all over the country, and many of them are taking
Speaker 1: inspiration from the European or other traditions, um but they're
Speaker 1: innovating on it, which is that's what makes them truly American. Right.
Speaker 1: They're taking these traditions and in many ways they're improving
Speaker 1: on them, or they're pushing a limit on flavor, and
Speaker 1: they're not bound by these same requirements of how you
Speaker 1: can categorize certain cheeses. So sometimes that's carried through in
Speaker 1: a way that is not quite successful, but in other
Speaker 1: ways they're really pushing the envelope and ways that are
Speaker 1: very beautiful. So so what is the right way to Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: can we talk about cheese plates first? Okay? So I
Speaker 1: like to choose the theme. So I want to American
Speaker 1: Artisanal because it's a nice kind of through line offers
Speaker 1: us an opportunity to talk about worshiping the local. I
Speaker 1: like to bring in variety of styles, of variety of milks.
Speaker 1: So if I had four or five cheeses, what I
Speaker 1: would do is at least one cow goat cheap, potentially
Speaker 1: a buffalo if I could find one water buffalo. And
Speaker 1: you want to organize a tasting from sort of least
Speaker 1: robust flavors to most robust. So if you had if cheeses,
Speaker 1: you might start with a fresh cheese or a soft
Speaker 1: ripon cheese and end with your blue or end with
Speaker 1: your stinkiest. And you want to kind of guide your
Speaker 1: guests through a tasting experience where they or not eating
Speaker 1: a mouthful of something super stinky at first, which demolishes
Speaker 1: the palate for everything else you would be tasted subsequently.
Speaker 1: But people don't think of cheese in the snobby way,
Speaker 1: like cheese is so more approachable than wine. Dated by wine.
Speaker 1: When I was in Valda there in January, I ate
Speaker 1: cheese from cows that were milked during winter, so we're
Speaker 1: eating hay from sheds. And then I ate cheese that
Speaker 1: was held back from cows that ate greenery from the
Speaker 1: grass before winter, and the taste was so different, and
Speaker 1: for some magical moment I was able to stop and
Speaker 1: assess these two things, right. I mean, that's a beautiful
Speaker 1: expression of your sense of place, and not only sense
Speaker 1: of place, sense of time. It matters what time of
Speaker 1: year this cheese is being made, how long it's aging for,
Speaker 1: and whether or not it's pasteurized. If you that was
Speaker 1: probably a raw cheese. If it had been pasteurized and
Speaker 1: all of the microbial life was gone from it, you
Speaker 1: might not have had quite as um prominent an expression
Speaker 1: of the product that the animal was eating, because it
Speaker 1: would have been more equalized between the two. I have
Speaker 1: a whole new respect for cheese cheese making. Meeting you
Speaker 1: and spending time with you has made me really appreciate cheese.
Speaker 1: It's a really incredible art. It's amazing, and it's very
Speaker 1: very hard, and we can't pay them enough for my perspective,
Speaker 1: I think the amount of work that goes into these cheeses,
Speaker 1: you could teaches and cheesemakers should get paid more. Absolutely
Speaker 1: with you, So I was going to come big for cheese.
Speaker 1: She has a real cheese, tell it she is kid.
Speaker 1: And next, if you believe that only New York has
Speaker 1: good bagels, well let's remove your head from the sand
Speaker 1: and let me introduce you to an old friend, Samuel
Speaker 1: Kirkpatrick and a new friend, josh A Bellamy, owners of
Speaker 1: the amazing bench warm of Bagels and Bolted Bread in Raleigh,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Um Sam Kirkpatrick, I'm one of the owners
Speaker 1: of Bolted Bread and one of the owners of bench
Speaker 1: Warmers Bagels and Coffee. I'm the new friends. My name
Speaker 1: is Joshua Bellamy and I am also an owner at
Speaker 1: Bolted Dread and bench Warner's Bagels. For me, the whole
Speaker 1: the bagel shop is predicated on the like overwhelming drive
Speaker 1: that I feel a responsibility to share with the community
Speaker 1: that raised us what we have to offer. And so
Speaker 1: when we opened Bolted Bread, the whole drive for me
Speaker 1: was we we have to This is not something that
Speaker 1: like we want to do, this is something we have
Speaker 1: to do because Joshua and Fulton have these special gifts
Speaker 1: and if we don't share these gifts then we're selfish.
Speaker 1: If we're selfish, then we're bad people. So we have
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. And then after a few
Speaker 1: years of bolted bread, when Joshua worked out a bagel,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, we have to show this to people.
Speaker 1: There's no option. Sweet, tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: why people think you can have a bagel in myself. Okay,
Speaker 1: this gives me really work up. So I thought about
Speaker 1: this a lot because growing up here and then moving
Speaker 1: to Vermont to like kind of learn how to bake
Speaker 1: this sounds insane And I truly don't mean it in
Speaker 1: any sort of like overarded thing. Um, but there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were pretty rude to me
Speaker 1: in Vermont because I was from the South and had
Speaker 1: a Southern accent. And I don't really have a crazy
Speaker 1: Southern accent, but have a slight one. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. Okay, annual a great point in my mind,
Speaker 1: that's very utual, and um, I'm just American. But there's this, uh,
Speaker 1: hopefully as a world, but especially as as Americans. Over
Speaker 1: the last several decades in my adult life, we've like
Speaker 1: moved in sort of a slow and study and like
Speaker 1: a progressive path and how we've treated each other. But
Speaker 1: there's still this like one vested just society where it's
Speaker 1: okay to be a biggest And that's not how to say,
Speaker 1: it's the only vest of just society where biggest you
Speaker 1: still exist, but where it's accepted. And that's like the
Speaker 1: culinary world, like, you know, we all work to build
Speaker 1: each other up. But if you're from the South and
Speaker 1: trying to bake a bagel, then you're in eating and
Speaker 1: you're one what do you know about bagels? Like? And
Speaker 1: this exists elsewhere to you know, trying to make biscuits
Speaker 1: in New York. I'm sure it's the same way. But
Speaker 1: for me is someone from the South, like that's how
Speaker 1: I felt, you know, um, and so I guess the
Speaker 1: fin like step back from it, there's UM in the South,
Speaker 1: particularly in the Southeast where we're from. There's not the
Speaker 1: same sort of like cultural history of bagel baker's um.
Speaker 1: There's not this shared knowledge that has been passed down
Speaker 1: from generation to generation. Generation. You can't get a good
Speaker 1: bagel in the South because there aren't many bagels in
Speaker 1: the South to begin with, But then there haven't also
Speaker 1: been the decades and decades and decades of experience to
Speaker 1: lend two good bagels being baked down here. But I
Speaker 1: think it's important for me personally, and I hope it's
Speaker 1: important for other people to to like push past these
Speaker 1: uh culinary perceptions that we have. I've, in a very
Speaker 1: intimate way, devoted everything that I have to baking really
Speaker 1: good things, and bagels are an excession of that. And um,
Speaker 1: I think that I hope that if people come down
Speaker 1: here and try a bagel, and they can try it
Speaker 1: with an open mine, like this isn't necessarily a Southern bagel.
Speaker 1: It's just a really really good bagel. It's it's not like,
Speaker 1: it's not an expression of your southernness, but an expression
Speaker 1: of your craft, which you have dedicated your life too.
Speaker 1: And here you are, well, that's the idea, right, So
Speaker 1: travel allows you to let go of these prejudices, to
Speaker 1: let go of this idea that something in the South
Speaker 1: has to be sunning. The bagel, for me, is that
Speaker 1: effective representation of that. I mean, the gift of travel
Speaker 1: is that you are not home, You are not in
Speaker 1: your own context, and it can be so lovely to
Speaker 1: find something that reminds you of home while you're on
Speaker 1: the road. But even more so, it can be so
Speaker 1: lovely to just go out in the world and see
Speaker 1: what's out there without judgment and without any preconceived notions
Speaker 1: and without any agenda, and to just let the world
Speaker 1: come to you that way. And when we get an
Speaker 1: out of town or here, what we really want to
Speaker 1: do is to be able to give them joy in
Speaker 1: that moment. And we we think that we're pretty good
Speaker 1: at that. We we like really are proud of what
Speaker 1: we do because it's not based on our geography, it's
Speaker 1: not based on sticking to what you know. It's this
Speaker 1: is what we have. We're going to continue to push
Speaker 1: to express ourselves. So the idea is that if you
Speaker 1: can leave that concept of one of the haslive behind,
Speaker 1: you may have a bad experience. You know, if I
Speaker 1: comment on that well business on a new y being,
Speaker 1: I'm ruding an experience with myself before you even set
Speaker 1: foot in the door. And you are accurate also, but
Speaker 1: it's not and that's okay. Well I had a good time.
Speaker 1: I hope you did too. If you'd like to reach us,
Speaker 1: go to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram, Everywhere pot on Twitter,
Speaker 1: all the website, Everywhere podcast dot com Thanks for hanging out.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Scheffler and I'll see you everywhere