I just got back from a long weekend in Dublin (about which I will write more later), and in a few weeks I’ll be heading off for a long weekend in Baltimore for a friend’s wedding, and a few weeks after that I’ll be heading back to Ireland for Christmas, and during all the in-between times I will be completely snowed under with schoolwork and translation work and practicing for gigs with the band, so I have neither the time nor the money to take another trip anywhere right now, BUT…it’s taking all my willpower not to just book a flight from Gatwick for the end of this month so that I can go to the Salone del Gusto in Turin.

The Salone del Gusto is basically a gigantic, 5-day-long food orgy in Italy (as if every day wasn’t a food orgy in Italy). I get a little light-headed when I read about what’s going on there: "taste workshops" on everything from German wines and cheeses to coffee to culatello; live demonstrations by international chefs in the "theater of taste"; special dinners all over the city of Turin and the surrounding area; and, most breathtakingly, a market for Italian artisanal food consisting of 15,000 square meters of meats, cheeses, confectionery, oils, spices, grains…and that’s not even counting the "World Market" for food producers from all over Europe. They even make special provisions so you can send your purchases directly back home, so you don’t have to cart smelly cheeses and heavy hams back on the plane with you.

Oh dear, it all sounds so wonderful I could just cry. It was almost a year ago that Jeremy and I flew off to Bologna on a whim, and I’m feeling the very, very, very strong desire to do something similar right now. But no. No, no, no. Must…not…buy…plane…ticket…