FAVS

2. LEE DANIELS: Any Philadelphia pretzel stand—there is something about the water in Philadelphia that makes the pretzel bread perfection.

Daniels, a Philly native, is a filmmaker and co-creator of Empire

3. JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Las Cruces, N.M., small, farm-grown jalapeños and my sister Sara’s roasted and hand-peeled long green chiles! It is part country perfume and part ecstasy. What makes this come together are the brother-sister conversations while we’re chopping the jalapeño into piñata-colored pico de gallo and peeling the long-tall green one at the kitchen sink. Outside the kitchen, the mural sky with the Organ Mountains reminds you that the earth provides many gifts—joy on a plate, the palette, planet and la familia.

Herrera is the U.S. poet laureate

6. JEFF GARLIN: Every summer I go to the weekend matinees at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. This summer they are showing masterpieces by Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder. Watching classic movies in this classic theater is just a big bowl of wonderful.

Garlin, a Chicago native, stars in The Goldbergs

7. BEN STEIN: Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho. Hardly any development or boats and incredible sunrises.

Stein is a writer, lawyer and actor

8. JOHN CHO: A few years ago, a friend took me to King’s Burgers, an old-time spot in Northridge, Calif., with $5 pastrami sandwiches. It’s run by a Korean family, and—as I was told—the son had become a high-end L.A. sushi chef and then returned to help his mother run the business. He had opened a counter in the shop, where we ate world-class sushi surrounded by families in flip-flops having burgers and Coke. In America, creativity can pop up like a blade of grass through the sidewalk.

Cho, an actor, stars in the upcoming film Star Trek Beyond

10. LOIS LOWRY: My house, which is on a hilltop overlooking a lake in rural Maine, faces east. Early in the morning, when I watch the deer grazing in my meadow as the sun rises, each day seems filled with promise. There is no place on earth I’d rather be.

Lowry is a Newbery Award–winning author

11. WYNTON MARSALIS: You can go anywhere on our roadways. They’re very democratic and a masterpiece of mass cooperation and organization, like veins that run through the country. Even though they need work, the basic infrastructure is there. And many of them, like the Pacific Coast Highway and