Planet on a plate

A spot just northwest of Milan has to be the epicenter of the most exciting plates on earth these days. Since its opening on May 1, the Milan Expo 2015 has been hosting the most notable chefs, as well as humble cooks from all over the world to display their culinary creations or traditional dishes of national or regional pride. It is no coincidence as the theme of this year's expo is about food. Titled "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life," the Milan Expo is the showground of all countries displaying whatever they have related to food and agriculture. It is not likely that a visitor can ever leave the fair hungry. 

Early in the morning yesterday, despite the lousy weather with miserable dripping rain, visitors did not refrain from standing long hours in lines to get into the most popular pavilions. As far as I could see the countries with the longest cues were Korea, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and of course the hosting country, Italy. One team member from the Italian Expo organizers whispered to me that his favorite country was Kazakhstan. Apparently the Turkic countries took the fair seriously, and did their best to attract visitors.

Azerbaijan also received good reviews in architectural terms. Being originally an architect, I round Russia, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Austria, Thailand, Hungary, China, Monaco and France architecturally interesting but unfortunately not Turkey, which had to build a hastily executed design at the last moment. 

I'm writing these notes from the breakfast table of Nutella, trying to set a Guinness record for the longest international breakfast table on earth. The guests are from all over the world uniting fifty-six nations around a single joyous breakfast with copious amounts of Nutella spread...