Puglia, Italy:

You can tell from the map that Puglia (or Apulia as it is often also written) is different to much of the rest of Southern Italy. The road atlas pages are not stained green with parks and mountains. Barring a smudge of green north of Taranto, they are white all the way through to the tip of the 'heel'. What's more, the roads are not rimmed with green any longer and radiate in a spoke pattern from town centres, much as they do in France.

Puglia is a large region, extending from the far south to the border with Molise. Most of it is flat agricultural land known for its durum wheat, almonds, grapes, olives, tobacco and vegetables. Puglia produces almost half of Italy's olive oil and more wine than any other Italian region, with 25 DOC wines. Some poeple predict Puglia is 'the next Tuscany' - as far as tourism goes, anyway. 

The amazing Castel del Monte is a 13th-century castle situated in Andria in the Apulia region of southeast Italy. It was built by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II during the 1240s and was unfortified as it was never planned as a defensive fortress. Now a World Heritage Site this octagonal building was constructed according to strict mathematical principles.

Perhaps the most distinctive buildings of the area are the trulli houses. There are hundreds of them, almost identical: conical stone roofs, often with occult-looking signs painted in white on them, and round whitewashed walls. A major surprise is that mostly a trullo is not separate and round as a yurt is, for instance. Usually several diminutive towers are linked to a single base so it is no wonder they are generally described in the plural, trulli. Perhaps this came about over time as families grew, it was easier simply to build on another trullo.

Theories abound as to how these buildings came about, and especially why they occur in only this area. One is that there was a tax on buildings in this vicinity in the 15th century. The local people chose to build something they could dismantle quickly when the inspectors were said to be coming. It's a cute story, but all the trulli seem rock-solid, and to disassemble one - even with days of notice would be a major undertaking.

...read more in Just a Little Italian. Available on Amazon...

Pangkor, Malaysia:

Three dollars (well, about that, at least) return. That was the price of the ticket from Lumut, a small coastal town in western peninsular Malaysia, for the ferry which crosses the narrow channel between the mainland and Pangkor Island.  It'sa crazily-cheap trip to total relaxation.

With the waves are literally just metres from your room, and the beach, seemingly cut from a postcard, is this world's most delightful kilometre to walk along? Especially when cute rhesus monkeys peer out at you as you do so?

In the village of Pangkor, about eight kilometres from the resort, you'll see silver mounds of those same tiny fish heaped in doorways at the edge of the bay. Women in head scarves squat around the shimmering piles, sorting them ready for market. A pretty picture to take home, perhaps, but the smell in the humid heat might almost made you vow never to eat that nasi lemak, again.

Three hundred years ago, Pangkor was captured by the Dutch and the ruins of their fort may still be visited. Originally this was an island inhabited by natives living in tiny fishing villages on its rim. Developers came eventually, trading employment and money, perhaps, for privacy. 

Finally when it's  time to leave this romantic spot, its that same budget ticket back to Lumut.   Read more.....

Peru, South America:

Peruvians take their food seriously. "They are the gourmets of South American cuisine," says Peruvian pisco importer Luis Almenara. "It is one of the top five cuisines in the world."

He cites the many influences - Spanish, Moorish, African, and Chinese - that have contributed to the complexity of many dishes and adds, "Peruvian food has the most variety - more even than the USA."

Corn is big in Peru, and rightly so humitas is the simple homespun bread of the Incas. Basically a cornmeal dough moulded around cheese then wrapped in corn husks and steamed, it is delicious and nutritious.

Also popular are crisp little beef empanadas de carne, the semicircular Peruvian meat pasty - baked, not fried as they are in Mexico, and betraying their Moorish heritage by being dredged with icing sugar. 'Peruvian hamburgers' of slow cooked pork slices stuffed  into crusty French bread rolls and served alongside deep-fried cassava (yuca frita) are delicious, but carb-loaded!

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Potatoes:

Potatoes, called by some wags an 'Irish avocado', were not planted in the Emerald Isle until l584.

Explorers in Ecuador only thirty years before this had discovered natives eating a tuber which they called pappas, and the Spanish called batata. The later nickname 'spud' derived from the three-pronged fork used for lifting the mature vegetable.

For a while potatoes were prohibited by the church because they were not mentioned in the Bible and therefore were believed to be evil. The French too were very wary of potatoes to start with, so much so that Louis XVI resorted to trickery to get the peasants to try them.

By erecting a fence and guarding his potato patch rigorously, he aroused their curiosity enough so that when he purposely left them unattended, just as they were finally ready to use, he found to his delight, that they had stolen the lot!

A member of the nightshade family, potatoes have one deadly aspect. Their leaves should never been eaten, neither should the flesh if it is turning green. A build up of solanine can cause depression, diarrhoea and nausea. To prevent this, store potatoes in a cool dark spot and use within a couple of weeks. Discard any with sprouts or green spots.

Potatoes can be used in a variety of ways, boiled, mashed, baked, fried as chips or crisps and while many associate them with weight-gain, a potato actually has much the same kilojoules as a banana. The problem begins with the way we prepare potatoes - frying or baking in oil adds many kilojoules - or what we add to them after cooking, such as cream, butter or sour cream.

After decades of only using one or two varieties of potato, Australians can now find several more in their fruit and vegetable markets: creamy fleshed desirees, pink skinned pontiacs, long finger-like pink fir apples, kifflers - a long thin potato ideal for baking - and pinkeyes, a small round potato with a lighter skin and excellent for potato salads. Perhaps soon we will see the purple congo a potato with a dark flesh. Potatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C (a 90g potato has about a third of a similar sized mandarin) as well as other vitamins including B6, minerals, and fibre.

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Pomegranate:

Pomegranates were called the 'apple of Carthage' by Pliny. The name actually translates as 'grain apple' and you can see why when you cut one open. Both Buddha and Mohammed believed that eating it would purge the body of envy, but even the Bible mentions it as a source of delight or decoration.

Pomegranates contain pelleterine, a chemical than can induce an altered state of consciousness and perhaps this explains why Buddha said it would help with intuition.

A symbol of fertility, it was the fruit given by Venus to Paris. The Moors planted an avenue of pomegranate trees in Granada, and even today they are incorporated on the city's coat of arms. The fruit skin and bark of the tree are an ancient remedy for tapeworm.

This fruit is high in vitamin C, fibre and potassium, and while its many seeds make it less suitable for eating as it is, in season the fruit may be rolled to break the seed capsules and the juice drained off and frozen for later use. Even the seeds may be frozen whole to use as a beautiful red garnish. Store at room temperature unless split, then refrigerate.