Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri. I’m in a hotel room that is some respects criminally luxurious. Perhaps I should explain: I’m cozied up by a fireplace in a two-bedroom, two bathroom suite overlooking the city’s Forest Park. It is the kind of hotel room that in fact does not encourage the kind of exploration I am if not prone to, then at the least, find myself ultimately yearning for.

Still, I’m not one to swat away a nice hotel room, and when you’re in town, I’d encourage you to find a fireplace at the Chase Park Plaza to snuggle up by. The movie theatre but a few floors down has allowed for an ever so slight scent of popcorn oil to waft up through the air vents. Films and food: I’m hooked.

Just like the smell of popcorn triggers a memory, rekindles fiery emotions left to otherwise char in ignorance—so too do many smells and tastes for me. Food and in fact the travel associated with food is about people and about place, the core, elemental values of (my) memory.

I have just returned from an adventure to, unbelievably given the frigid rain outside, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. It’s a custard stand, and I wouldn’t be the first to sing its praises. But, perhaps more importantly—it is fervently anchored in its surroundings. Ted’s sweet, milky custard whipped up to a stiff mix called a ‘concrete’ is a taste that defines this place. Surely, one could get a custard in many places, but that Ted Drewes taste seems to anchor itself to this city, and the city to Ted.

City loyalists abound sing the praises of their local treats: Skyline Chili (3-ways) and of course, the meat and oats mix of goetta in Cincinnati, the boiled Sabrett hot dogs of New York, Al’s Italian Beef in Chicago. Indeed, one taste of any of these foods is not simply sustenance, nor is it about fine dining in the least—its about celebrating the local and the unchanged in spite of or in light of tremendous urban turbulence around us.

On this cold night, scarfing down a concrete in the company of friends, we are undeniably in St. Louis. We didn’t really need ice cream, and I’m the first to admit my sweet tooth has probably lost its nerve endings. But, for a guy on the road, a foodie on the road, a taste like this reminds us all of where we’ve been and allows us to pause before picking up a napkin and considering where we’re headed.

Such a title already suggests the kind of culture-blur that happens when one leaves the comforts of one space and moves in to another altogether different one. The weather was decidedly cooler Saturday, a crisp, clear autumnal (or pre-autumnal, yes?) night that produced wispy clouds and a breathtaking sunset. While I’ve done my best to attempt to capture the beauty of sun falling in to the horizon line of the North Sea, you may just have to take my word for it. Standing on top of the Oprean—a building of glass and limestone that is part ballet hall, part opera house, 100% urban park—I looked out, to one side, on the capitalists transforming Oslo’s modest skyline, while on the side, the chilly coastal waters still rippled from the passage of yet another cruise ship.

This morning, the Operaen had been taken over by the Norwegian Bokklubben—a book fair/sale of epic proportion. Now, as the sun was falling behind it’s elusive angles, the roof played host to a film screening. In a literary twist, this film, Swedish as you’ve by now surmised, was based on book two in a three part series by Steig Larsson. Larsson achieved something of a cult popularity in Scandinavia when his trilogy hit bookshelves only after the writer himself had suddenly (and quite sadly) passed away. The ensuing year has been a chance to eulogize the man who became the voice of Northern Europe, whose commercial and critical success has been loud, proud, significant—but all sadly, long after his early demise. Few have taken up the practice of truly using the setting of chilly winters in Stockholm, or a dock in Oslo, with as much nuance and skill—in doing so, he earned the affection of plenty in these parts.

I was at the movie, oddly enough, with one guy I had met at cafe from Spain, and a girl who worked at said cafe, herself from Boise, Idaho. He was a graduate student in Salamanca; she was working through a visa program similar to one I had once used in the UK—learning Norwegian (she was already convincingly local with her six foot stature and blond hair). And together, we, a rather motley crew, enjoyed the cool air, the camaraderie, and a rarity in Norway: a freebie. The film, and, as it turns out, a bagful of hot muscat rolls (boller). We made no pretense about this night being fleeting and beautiful—no pretending to take down numbers and emails and promising to “facebook you later”. It was organically derived connections between three people—in a moment, in a place—and when it was over, we’d all have a great night under the Oslo stars.