Spata (pop. 10,000) lies just 20 km east of Athens and is probably best known as the location of Athens International Airport. But the town is more than just a gateway into and out of the region – especially at the end of June. That’s when Spata hosts a festival to honor St. Peter and St. Paul, the official protectors of the city. The highlight of the festival comes at the end of the last day, June 30, with a glorious communal meal: Enormous quantities of braised beef that have been cooked for 12 hours over a wood fire are served to all the citizens of Spata and visitors to the town.

In Catalonia around the summer solstice, we make one of our most traditional liqueurs, ratafía, for which the herbs, fruit and flowers that are macerated in alcohol must be collected on Saint John’s Eve, or June 23. This highly aromatic digestif has long been believed to have medicinal properties. There’s even an old Catalan rhyme along those lines: Ratafía, tres o cuatro al día (“Ratafía, three or four per day”). Different versions of the liqueur have been made for centuries in eastern Spain and some regions of France and Italy but, like the other herb liqueurs throughout Europe, they originated from the Ancient Roman and Greek custom of macerating fruit and herbs in wine, from Arabian perfume distillation and from the sophisticated medieval distillations in monasteries and convents that created the first aguardientes, or grape-based, medicinal liqueurs.

Editor’s note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked Asia-based photographer David Hagerman where he stops first for food when he arrives in Mexico City. Hagerman’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Saveur, Food & Wine, AFAR, SBS Feast and the Wall Street Journal, among many other publications.

Charming and surprising, Fehmi Özsüt has an easy, no-worries smile that belies a life full of unbelievable stories and intense work. Every day, even on weekends, he wakes up at 3 a.m. in order to run his kaymak business. A quivery clotted cream made from water buffalo milk, kaymak is served with honey and bread for a rich and filling breakfast. Since 1915, Özsüt’s family of Albanian immigrants has run the Karaköy Özsüt muhallebici, or milk pudding shop. Now he is carrying the torch and managing a small water buffalo farm to supply the main ingredient for the shop’s traditional desserts.

The cosmopolitan island of Aegina sits in the center of the Saronic Gulf, a few miles away from Piraeus – close enough for a quick day trip from Athens. Aegina may not have the gastronomic reputation of the Cyclades or Crete, but it does have its famous pistachios, the first Greek agricultural product that earned the European Union’s Protected Designation of Origin status, in 1996. Pistachio trees arrived in Greece around 1850 and were first cultivated in Zante. A few years later, a local named Dr. N. Peroglou decided to cultivate pistachio trees in Aegina using rootstock from Syria. Over the years, local farmers grafted the Syrian trees with those from Chios, yielding a new variety that produces superb nuts.

Anyone who has spent time in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia (or, “the ’Stans”) will have developed a deep and lasting appreciation for the cuisine of the Uighur, a Turkic people spread across the region whose homeland, Uygurstan, lies across the border in western China.

In a couple of days, Brazil will be the center of the world. And over the course of the World Cup, Rio will host seven matches, including the big final. Needless to say, the city is already packed with visitors from all over the world, all of them hoping for a ticket to watch at least one of those matches at legendary Maracanã Stadium. But only a privileged few will get to see the beautiful game in person; most people will support their national teams in front of a TV. But where? Inside a boring hotel room? Of course not. Everybody will be on the streets trying to find a good place to watch the games and have a lot of fun at the same time. And in Rio, watching soccer matches at bars is a national sport that is almost as important as the futebol itself. Here’s our list of the best “watch-and-drink” bars in town.

Tea is to Turkey what fizzy, watery beer is to Milwaukee - consumed in copious amounts, a desired chemical reaction takes place, but its real value lies not in the taste but in the ritual of swilling. Without noticing it, tea has snuck its way into daily life for us. We never really enjoyed the flavor of standard Turkish tea, but it is part and parcel of the rich Turkish experience. In Kars, memorably, we guzzled it from a pockmarked, coal-fired samovar stamped with a Russian crest as we sat in the shade beside a river. In the eastern Black Sea, it was the offer of a tea that brought us into a village çayhane, where we eavesdropped on the local men speaking their Pontic Greek dialect, as they warmed their feet around a stove. Tea unlocks doors.

The hardest part about dining in Hong Kong is choosing among the overwhelming number of options. It’s one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, with more than 7 million mouths to feed – and many with demanding palates. You can stand on just about any block in the city and find several affordable eateries above, below and across from you (kind of like Starbucks in Seattle).

The cuisine of Antep deserves every bit of the praise it receives. In the southeastern city known as the gastronomic temple of Turkey, the world’s most refined kebab traditions are obsessively guarded by a cadre of traditional ustas in the local grilling institutions. Baklava workshops are steeped in an odd mixture of science and voodoo that would titillate Willy Wonka himself. But coming down from a grilled meat and sweets binge, the body wants dolma, pilav, börek and çorba – the home-style food that is strangely absent in Antep’s restaurants.

Editor’s note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked Michael Costa, head chef at the award-winning restaurant Zaytinya, in Washington, D.C., where he heads first for food when he arrives in Barcelona. El Passadís del Pep is home to the best, most authentic Catalan seafood in the city. There is no menu but they curate the experience in such a warm, kind way that you may find that you prefer not to have to deal with a menu. The cooking is classic, minimal and serves only to enhance the natural beauty of the ingredients. No Egotarian Cuisine here, just excellent product treated with respect.

Spring arrives at the markets in Istanbul with a great deal of color and fanfare. Vendors arrange peas in perfect diagonal rows, displaying their goods to lure you into a multi-kilo purchase. Men furiously carve out artichoke hearts and toss them into lemon-water-filled bags, step around massive piles of trimmings and hand you what feels like a new goldfish purchase. Fava beans are ubiquitous in their fuzzy pods, although less appealing because of all the prep work that comes with them. Best to enjoy fava beans in a restaurant, zeytinyağlı-style (with olive oil) and or in our favorite preparation, a garlicky mash like the chefs make at Müzedechanga in the Sabancı Museum.

Editor’s note: We asked writer Anya von Bremzen where she heads first for food when she arrives in Barcelona. She is the winner of three James Beard awards, a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure and the author of five cookbooks, including the recently published Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing.Most Barcelona tapas haunts, old and new, pay homage to the bares de producto, the astounding ingredient-laden kioskos (dining stalls) of the buoyant Boquería market. It might be crowded and touristy but on my first morning in town, Boquería is still my Holy Grail. The best time to go? Around 10:30 a.m., when the stalls are less crowded between lunch and dinner. Right by its entrance, I stop to pay my respects to the legendary chickpea-and-butifarra sausage stew at Pinotxo. Its owner, the venerable Juanito Bayen, is now nearing 80 but looking dapper as ever in his satin vest and bow tie. Juanito is still a maestro of counter banter, spiking coffee with brandy for dour resident fishmongers, plying Japanese tourists with pristine razor clams, smiling for cameras next to Ferran Adrià.

It is impossible to sleep late in Gaziantep, despite the tranquility of the historic quarter, the calming, hunker-in-and-go-back-to-sleep effect of the hotel room’s thick stone walls and the comforting, dusty smell of antique furniture. Even the promise of a nice breakfast spread served between 7:30 and 10 a.m. could not keep us from hitting this ancient southeastern Turkish city’s streets. At 6 a.m., we were rambling through Gaziantep’s coppersmiths’ bazaar. As we walked by, the metal shutters of spice shops were thrown open in a clattering roar, whooshing an aromatic cloud into our path. Street sweepers worked their beat with twiggy, homemade-looking brooms as groups of shopkeepers lingered over the first of many more teas and smokes at the corner çayhane. Exiting another artery of covered bazaars, we stepped out into bright morning light, which shot through the brooms of street sweepers at rest, creating crazy mangrove-like shadows on the sidewalk. We were close now, so close we could smell it.

Editor’s note: Award-winning cookbook author, chef-restaurateur and television personality Rick Bayless is a renowned expert on Mexican cooking and a frequent traveler to Mexico City. He recently shared with us his list of must-visit places in Condesa, Roma/Roma Norte and Polanco.