They'll appear on the fan site--for those who wish to click on them. I wrote the damn things--so there's nobody to blame but me if they're not as quick, nasty--and funny as I think they are. And I want to thank Andrew Zimmern and Samantha Brown in advance--for their extraordinarily good humored participation in one particularly lurid episode. I hope we don't freak out their fan base.

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.