My favorite part of the back-to-school routine is treating myself to a new lunchbox. I haven’t been a student for a long time. Nonetheless, the chill in the air and the tips of the crisp leaves as they start to change justify a shiny, new lunch tote. I bring my lunch lots of places — to work, on drives lasting longer than an hour or two, to the pool when I have the chance to catch my kid’s swim practice.

Football season has finally returned and you know what that means — tailgating time. To make each game day delicious, ICE and the New York Jets are teaming up for a new season of The Official Jets Cooking School. Learn how to tailgate like a pro alongside the pros — ICE chefs and pro players from the J-E-T-S (Jets, Jets, Jets!).

Yannick Alléno may not be a household name in culinary circles in the United States, but he is a chef on the cutting edge of avant garde contemporary sauce-making techniques. He’s the president and founder of Groupe Yannick Alléno, but more importantly, he is the chef-proprietor of Le Pavillon Ledoyen restaurant in Paris, which has been rated as one of the top restaurants in the world in numerous guides and received its first three-star rating in the 2015 Michelin Guide for France.

It's no new news that New York City is known for its incredible eats. Manhattan's restaurant scene is a constantly evolving mix of avant garde concept restaurants, storied and respected, high-caliber eateries and hidden, hole-in-the-wall gems. And while each borough offers up something unique, every few years or so a new section of the city experiences a fresh wave of restaurants, bringing a resurgence of inventive new fare to the area.

Earlier this year, on a trip to Guatemala, I found myself sitting in the secret tasting room of a local mezcal producer in the colonial town of Antigua. My friend Adam and I had walked through a bookstore, which opened into a bar, then crawled through a tiny door in the back and perched on low stools. There, we sampled tastes of the smoky and complex tequila derivative, mezcal, poured by an exceptionally knowledgeable bartender.

“During the Qin Dynasty, a scholar was studying for an exam. He went to a park on an island to study. The scholar’s wife wanted to bring him noodles for lunch and she had to cross the bridge.” Simone Tong (Culinary Arts, Culinary Management ‘11) was filling me in on the legend behind “crossing the bridge noodles,” also called mixian ( mee-syan), the Yunnan province specialty that New Yorkers are eagerly slurping at Simone’s new East Village restaurant, Little Tong Noodle Shop.

While it’s back-to-school season for most, class is always in session at ICE. More to the point, cooks are perpetual students for whom the learning never ends, no matter our level of skill or experience. Ideas and inspiration that fill our social media feeds are at our fingertips 24 hours a day, but I still rely on — and often prefer — books and magazines.

This past August, some of my family members and I went on a Baltic cruise. In every port and country where we stopped, I was curious about the local cuisine. We had taken several tours, but it was only in Helsinki, Finland that we took a dedicated food tour. Here’s a “road trip report” of what I learned - and in many cases ate — in this lively seaside city and country capital.

One of the most beautiful cities in North America is Quebec City, which sits on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Canada’s Quebec province. The city’s historic district was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985. Of all the cities in North America, Quebec City is as French as a city can be without actually being in France.

As the world’s population continues to grow, urban, hydroponic farming seems an increasingly viable option for feeding the world well and nutritiously. With just light, water and few other little factors, you can grow a tremendous amount of food indoors vertically — meaning growing crops upward, rather than in the ground, which exponentially increases the available surface area for planting.