Experiencing New Worlds And Foods

In her 30 years as a journalist, Linda Ellerbee has been to every corner of the world. Whether out in the field with a camera crew, or traveling alone in a foreign land, Ellerbee has not only been there and done that, but she's tasted it, too.

She's chronicled her experiences in a new book, "Take Big Bites: Adventures Around The World And Across The Table." Click here to read an excerpt.

The title, Ellerbee tells The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith, reflects her attitude about life, besides being about food. After her travels, she says, "I bring the food home with me, very often on my own body."

Sampling some of the dishes she writes so fondly about, Smith asks her the story behind Pho, a Vietnamese soup.

"The first chapter was about going to Vietnam, right after they lifted the embargo," Ellerbee says, "And my son was with me. And it was 7:00 a.m., in the marketplace. We stopped at a stall and everybody else was eating this for breakfast. And I just pointed and said, 'We'll have that.' And my son looked at me and said, 'Soup for breakfast?' And I said, 'It's another country. Try it.' And I fell in love with it. And now you can get it in cities all across America."

The soup Smith tasted is a tepid version of the one Ellerbee had in Vietnam. "They add a lot of chilis. Nobody's will taste the same," Ellerbee notes. "Whatever you put in it makes it yours. And that chapter is actually kind of about whatever the prism you see life through, because it's about going to Vietnam, with all of its resonating in our hearts. And my son, who was born at the end of the war, and another fellow who had been a Navy oral surgeon, identifying young Americans by their remains, and how the three of us approached this country very differently."

And yet, Ellerbee says she most enjoys traveling alone, when she can truly absorb all that foreign lands and cultures have to offer. She writes, "It's possible to become so involved with each other you could be in Outer Mongolia and never once have a conversation with an Outer Mongolian. Alone, you're forced to engage with a people and a culture, both of which, presumably, are different from yours."

So it is no surprise that to write her book she went to Greece, where she knew no one.

"I didn't speak the language, and it was seven hours ahead of New York. So I would have time to write. I, of course, ate myself silly," Ellerbee says and includes her experience there in the book. "That chapter is all about what it's like to go and live by yourself, to live alone, on an island far, far away."