During a busy evening on Main Street in Flushing, the sight of a food cart grilling skewers of meat doesn’t seem out of the ordinary on a thoroughfare filled with street vendors. After hanging around long enough, though, it becomes clear that this cart is different from similar ones up the block. The most obvious difference is its operator, Ekrem, a young man from western China’s Xinjiang region who shows an intense care for each and every skewer of his Uyghur-style barbecue. As he effortlessly and gracefully flicks the perfect amount of his secret spice blend on each bit of meat (all of which are quality cuts), he tells us that nothing in them is artificial, gesturing up the street to indicate that the others in the area do not have the same exacting standards.

Athens, unofficially known as the Big Olive, has many delightful spots for a picnic in all seasons. Okay, in summer perhaps you’d rather be on the beach – and that can be arranged if you hop on a bus or tram for the southern coastal suburbs of Voula, Vouliagmeni and Varkiza – but in the city proper you can spread your meal on a hillside with a view of the Acropolis. With the weather often sunny and mild even in February, all you need is a little DIY initiative and the ability to resist the temptation of a snack at one of the many “fastfoodadika” or a sit-down meal in an air-conditioned taverna.

Back at Culinary Backstreets Istanbul headquarters in 2012, every once in a while a conversation would arise about how çiğ köfte had emerged as a sort of fast-food franchising opportunity, with young entrepreneurial types starting up these meat-free meatball joints in all sorts of Istanbul neighborhoods. We all agreed it was much cooler than opening a KFC or an Orange Julius in the food court (though the former has been making its mark across the shopping malls of Turkey for a while now), and we were happy to see the ambitious souls of Turkey setting their sights on the bulgur meatball stand instead. The bespoke lokma shops and waffle bars may come and go, but çiğ köfte has its forever fans of all generations – and a new clientele now that it has caught on to its vegan marketing potential.

The first few blocks of Baruthane are lined with a smattering of restaurants, barbers, television repair shops and dry cleaners, though in recent years a flurry of third-wave coffee shops and bars has arrived on the street. While this is a positive development for the young adults that patronize these establishments, there is the inevitable concern that their proliferation will cause a spike in rents and tarnish the quaint character of this beloved neighborhood. It is for this reason that we were thrilled to see a new establishment open up on Baruthane that reflects the classic small-business character that makes this area so special. Köy Börek is run by Abdullah Kral, a cheerful 53-year-old teddy bear of a man who makes some of the most delicious börek we’ve ever had – and we’ve had a lot. (Kral means king in Turkish, and we are prepared to crown Abdullah bey the king of börek.)

Addy has cornered the Astoria market in Kenyan cuisine. Even so, large portions of his menu are devoted to dishes familiar all around the world, and popular with all ages. They include a dozen or so flavors of chicken wings and a fistful of burgers, some basic, some overloaded. (Lean forward over the plate, is our advice, when biting into a Juicy Lucy.) To our surprise, the American South stakes a claim at Addy's after all: The country-fried steak, served atop mashed potatoes and accompanied by a brimming cup of gravy, is one of the best we've ever had. Because mishkaki is new, at first, to most of Addy's clientele, he's simplified the presentation rather than risk confusing his customers. Typically, at a Kenyan roadside stall, mishkaki is served with flatbread, the meat arrives on the skewer, and the customer adds sauces and other accompaniments to his or her liking. In Astoria, mishkaki is served with rice and a salad, and the chunks of meat, sans skewers, are already seasoned, à la Addy. We can practically taste the sizzle.

“We want to show people what Greek cuisine is really like. It’s not just souvlaki, gyros and moussaka. So in July and August when we’re closed, we travel all over the country looking for recipes, and because we love Greek wines too, we find recipes that go with them,” Xenophon says. We took a long time studying the menu – nibbling on their own olive bread – because even the dishes that sound familiar are not always what they appear to be. Take, for example, spanakopita (spinach pie). Here, it’s actually a salad. Moreover, their cheese dip, myttotos, made of three white cheeses plus black garlic, “goes back to the time of Hippocrates,” and the liver with apples, a combination we’ve never heard of, is a recipe from Karditsa in the northern Greek region of Thessaly.

The red storefront and Cyrillic lettering made it clear this was not just another kebab shop. Hesitant at first, we scouted around the outside – the restaurant is tucked into a side street, flanked by a shipping office and a construction site, and does not appear to exist on Google Maps. The menu, written in dry erase marker on a board hanging from the wall, was entirely in Mongolian. Nevertheless, armed with the names of a few traditional Mongolian dishes – khuushuur (a sort of meat-filled empanada), mantuun buuz (dumplings) and tsuivan (noodle stew) – gained from some cursory YouTube research, we sheepishly approached the counter. As we attempted to order, our host smiled. “I’ll make you something, don’t worry,” she assured us, and ran into the kitchen.

The trick to cooking calçots, a special Catalan spring onion, is simple: a good charcoal grill. The heat from the glowing embers is crucial to creating the perfectly scorched exterior (the black outer skin is then peeled away, leaving the tender and juicy inner bulb). Fire and smoke – along with exceptionally fresh green onions – are really the only ingredients here. The popular ritual of the calçotada, in which families and friends gather together with the sole purpose of eating calçots, traditionally takes place between the months of November and April, the peak season of this special green onion. For particularly large celebrations, groups crowd around an open barbecue, with sarmientos, or vine shoots, creating the perfect flame to blister the onions just so.

Manuela, like many Neapolitans who emigrated abroad, used to make periodic trips home to see her family. On one such trip in 2012, she went to her grandmother’s house for Sunday dinner. As one does in Naples when a relative returns to the ancestral home, her grandmother prepared a ragù sauce for her. It was a simple meal, but one that would forever change Manuela’s life. When she finished eating, Manuela made the ceremonial scarpetta (dipping bread in the remaining sauce). Then a flash of inspiration came to her. “I thought, ‘Why isn’t there a place where you can eat only meat sauce? Where you can do the scarpetta like at home?’” she tells us.

The most characteristic Greek dishes, the ones all Greeks know from their mothers and miss when away from home, are known as tis katsarolas, or “of the pot.” They can be meat stews or vegetable stews, often cooked with generous amounts of olive oil. Although one can find these dishes in many tavernas and restaurants in Greece, they are very rarely done correctly: bad ingredients, dubious oil and lack of freshness can affect both texture and taste and give unappetizing results. In Athens, however, Taverna tou Oikonomou in Ano Petralona specializes in this type of home-style cooking and does everything deliciously by the book.

Getting ready for a recent New Year’s in Harlem, the Hungarian side of the family was craving a traditional pot of lentils that needed a hunk of smoked pork knuckle. Where to find one with the right flavor in New York City? After some calls and searching, we headed out to Muncan Food Corporation. The address brought us to a storefront along a strip of low-rise brick buildings in Astoria, Queens. Inside the front door we were blasted with smokehouse aromas. To the left: racks of sausages, pâtés, cold cuts – all kinds of dried and cured delicacies dangling from hooks overhead.

Damis Pithis has led a global life. He left his home on the island of Chios at the age of 17 to move to London. There, over the years, he built a successful career in the shipping industry. But at the age of 48, he felt like it was time for a change. Leaving behind his life in London, Pithis moved back to Greece with a dream: to build a farm. This decision didn’t come completely out of the blue. Damis has long been an avid hunter, and through this hobby he was able to visit several farms while in England, which in turn helped shape his vision. He dreamed of building a beautiful farm that was in tune with nature and respected the local landscape, where he could rear healthy, happy animals, including cow breeds that were new to Greece.

Bios in Athens’ Keramikos neighborhood officially opened in 2003, but it all began two years earlier, when the Bios Cultural Organization was first founded as an audiovisual, electronic music festival held in various warehouses near central Athens. Following his instincts, Vassilis Charalambidis, the founder of Bios, decided to refurbish a beautiful Bauhaus-style building right on the corner of Pireos and Salaminos streets to give the festival and organization a permanent home. This innovative project had an immense impact on Athens, and very soon Bios became a kind of landmark and meeting point for creative young Athenians with an inquiring mind and a special love for their city. Its main goal over the past 25-odd years has been to promote contemporary arts, new technologies and creative, free thinking.