"I was born in the fires of an ancient forge in the hills of the Hindu Kush," begins our storyteller—a gold stater minted under Eucratides, a Hellenic ruler of Bactria for a decade in the mid-second century BC. His gold, some said, was mined by giant ants.

Experimenting with exotic game and seasonal, local produce, Chef Waldy Malouf has left his mark on some of New York's top menus. Now he's atop Rockefeller Center, where his refinements and inventions are polishing that pinnacle of elegant eateries, the Rainbow Room.

For 600 years, camel caravans as populous as towns bore varied cargoes along the poorly watered Darb al-Arba'in, or Forty Days' Road, that linked Sudan and Egypt. Today, the herds are smaller, the route is shorter and the camels themselves are the commodity. But the herder's lot is not much changed: hot days, cold nights and an unsparing desert challenge.

Naïve but crafty, devout but endearingly foiblesome, deft of wit and ever a tweaker of pretension, Nasreddin Hoja, mounted on his omnipresent donkey, is Turkey's beloved, mythical trickster, clown, wise fool and folk hero. His exploits and misadventures, now beyond counting, are found in every corner of Turkey, passed down through generations.

From the earliest days of its domestication in the terraced Yemeni highlands, Coffea arabica spread until coffee, in its myriad varieties, became the world's most popular prepared beverage. Though Yemen now exports less than one percent of the world's coffee crop, experts still say its beans are among the best. What makes them so good?