Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

Recently I attended the first Beijing International Culinary Competition. There have been many China wide culinary expositions, but this was a first that included highly accomplished foreign chefs....

I love Bangkok. I even love arriving here, slipping into the languorous heat of this fabulous city. Food, traffic, sex, pollution: this town has it all. Far from the austere majesty of Beijing, the befuddling hubbub of Hanoi, the dilemma that is Delhi, Bangkok screams and teems. All pinks and...

Have you ever visited somewhere and it stayed with you for a time after you left? Not in a nostalgic way, but in a way that lingers, like it has reached in and altered you slightly. That's how visiting Cambodia was for me.

It's impossible to be here and not...

New Zealand cuisine has come of age.

When I was growing up here, restaurant culture was just beginning and eating out was considered to be an indulgence, a rare treat. Ironic really, considering that, as I remember, most of the restaurant offerings were pretty terrible: hardly a treat at...

There are over 38,000 eating establishments in Shanghai. I'll give you a minute to let that number sink in.

OK, so maybe "eating establishments" is too lofty a term for a street cart with a furious wok and some dodgy animal bits, but you get my point. From deep-fried bumblebees...