Last weekend I had the opportunity to talk travel and food with Mark DeCarlo in Bloomingdale, Ill., about 30 miles west of Chicago. Along with being an actor, producer and television host, DeCarlo is a travel and food expert.

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With his wife he wrote A Fork on the Road: 400 Cities, 1 Stomach, and together they host the A Fork on the Road show. Both projects give tourism tips, recipes, and fun travel and local stories. While the Fork series is lighthearted, DeCarlo is serious about food and travel.

DeCarlo talked about travel being the best way to educate yourself through talking to people of all walks of life. He said food is the number one question when you talk travel, and I couldn’t agree more. When I asked for his top American food cities, he listed New Orleans, Chicago and Miami — surprisingly edging out New York. He mentioned Miami for the variety, including South American, Caribbean, ribs and more.

For travel, he named the Jazz Fest in New Orleans as his favorite destination.  He passionately talked about the food, the sights and people from all over coming together in the beautiful city.

DeCarlo’s time was limited, but I could have spent all day talking food and travel with him. His enthusiasm for both is palpable and contagious.

In the spirit of DeCarlo, I dined at the nearby Minami. While they have a full menu, we focused on and completely devoured several sushi rolls. If there were more of us, we would have ordered the Sushi Boat, which looked awesome. This was possibly the best sushi I have ever had.

Before leaving the area, I picked up some cannoli from Chicago Pastry. The secret to excellent cannoli is the cheese filling, and Chicago Pastry does it to perfection — I like to consider myself a cannoli elitist. It is worth the 30-mile drive from my home. Their other baked goods look great, but I never stray from their cannoli!

It was a fun day highlighted by my unexpected travel and food conversation with DeCarlo. Of course, the superb food also helped, but DeCarlo would have appreciated that!

— John Wroblewski, distribution specialist