The late Raymond Walter “Johnny” Apple, Jr. assumed many roles over his 40-plus-year career at The New York Times: bureau chief in Albany, Lagos, Nairobi, Saigon, Moscow, London, and Washington D.C.; correspondent during 10 presidential races; Vietnam War reporter — and truly passionate eater. This last role gets top billing in a new collection of Apple’s artciles that is fiesty, painstakingly researched, and often simply mouthwatering. The more than 50 essays in Far Flung and Well Fed ($27; St. Martin’s Press) first appeared in Saveur, the Times, and Town & Country. Apple began compiling the book before his death in 2006; his stepdaughter Catherine Collins stepped in to finish it with the editors. Organized geographically, the book follows Apple’s travels throught the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The collection describes characters such as Oregon morel hunter Jack Czarneck; tidy history lessons, like how the popularity of San Marzano tomatoes led to the rise of the Italian canning industry in the 1800s; and regional cuisines, celebrating, for example, Philadelphia’s water ices, cheesesteaks, hoagies, scrapple, and soft pretzels.

Apple, well-versed in virtually all culinary styles and subjects, kept a small bag packed with Tabasco sauce and a tiny pepper mill in case of a sudden call abroad. As his friend Calvin Trillin once wrote: “Apple is someone who seems equally famished whether he’s sitting down to dinner at a three-star French restaurant or at a crab shack; he is what A.J. Liebling would have called, admiringly, a feeder.”

From the Fall 2009 issue of Sherman’s Travel magazine.

Despite China’s 21st century emergence as a major economic power, a lot of the country still remains hidden behind closed doors . . . but not for long. On September 23, Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific launched brand new China Experience tours designed by local experts to provide unparalleled VIP access to normally off-limits attractions. Starting at $3,000 a pop, these all-inclusive, ultra-exclusive expeditions offer behind-the-scenes peaks of protected heritage sites scattered throughout Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai – like The Forbidden City’s Imperial Palace tea room, Xian’s national treasure vault, and Pit #5 of the famous Terracotta Warrior Museum (normally only open to archeologists). In addition to dining with locals in a traditional courtyard (“hutong”) and taking private tai-chi lessons, visitors can explore the better-known Great Wall and Tiananmen Square (pictured). Read the rest of this post »

At least three new cultural spaces are turning heads this summer: 1) The new Jean Nouvel–designed Danmarks Radio Concert Hall of Copenhagen (pictured) wears an electric blue sheath. Inside, its four venues of various sizes include digs for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. 2) In May, the massive Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago opened to the public. Renzo Piano designed the glass-and-limestone structure to house the museum’s modern and contemporary collections. 3) Winding describes both Zaha Hadid’s futuristic design of the MAXXI in Rome and its prolonged gestation. And now Italy has its first national museum of contemporary art and architecture at last.

The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City is currently showing “On the Money: Cartoons for The New Yorker,” with around 80 original cartoons published from 1925 through the 1990s that square off with the subject of money and how it defines us (January 23 to May 24). In Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art, in its new Diller Scofidio + Renfro building, is hosting a survey of work by Shepard Fairey, the street artist famous for his now-iconic Barack Obama poster (through August 16). The Guggenheim Berlin is presenting “Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s,” a look at paintings created from photographs, a movement that evolved from Pop Art by artists such as Charles Bell, Chuck Close, and Ralph Going, whose Airstream (1970) is pictured above (through May 10).

From the Feb/March 2009 issue of Sherman’s Travel magazine.