Fort Wayne – There are people who go to the ends of the Earth to discover the meaning of life.

Elizabeth Gilbert, for instance. The author of "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia," spent three months doing exactly what the title of her memoir implies – chowing down on pizza, sitting cross-legged while meditating and, eventually, meeting someone who, according to the movie, anyway, looks like Javier Bardem.

It's easy to envy people like Gilbert. It's especially easy when you realize a trip to Italy can't be managed because you have 17 loads of laundry to wash this weekend and your one responsible friend just broke her leg, so she wouldn't be able to cat-sit, anyway.

But extravagant, surprising and spiritual experiences are everywhere, passport or no passport.

Here are a few options in Fort Wayne.

Eat

Gilbert spent a month in Italy, sampling the local cuisine. And by sampling, we mean horking it down like a long-haul trucker. It's easy to do, says Lisa Williams, a local chef who lived in Italy for two years and spent eight summers studying the food.

"There was one day where I ate four ice creams," Williams says.

Authentic Italian cooking is simple, with few ingredients and an emphasis on olive oil, Williams says. In cooking school, Williams once ate grilled rabbit that, surprisingly, was seasoned only with salt and pepper.

"In Italy, more is not better," she says. "If you have the pasta and it's salted right, you can eat it plain. There aren't cups of cheese and cups of chicken in everything. Good cooking amounts to knowing what you're doing."

In Fort Wayne, Williams lists three dishes as the most authentic and delicious she's tried locally.

The first two can be found at The Italian Connection, 2725 Taylor St., where chef Alex Fiato makes his pasta and ice cream from scratch, she says.

"Something simple there can be outstanding," she says. "And Alex makes his own ice cream and cannoli shells. Do you know how time-consuming that is?"

At Biaggi's Ristorante Italiano, 4010 W. Jefferson Blvd., Williams recommends the roasted beet and arugula salad, which features warm goat cheese, sun-dried cherries and beets.

"Italian cooking uses a lot of vegetables," she says. "Coming from frugal roots, they use meat more as a flavoring agent. There doesn't need to be two pounds of bacon crumbled over the top of something. They say you can know a good chef by the vegetables they use."

Pray

According to local interfaith group Confluence: Northeast Indiana Interfaith Alliance, Fort Wayne is home to many religions including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikh, Hinduism and also Baha'i, American Indian, Wicca and Earth Spirit groups. So opportunities to find spiritual enlightenment are plentiful.

For Jill Harman, owner of Yin Thai Yoga in Roanoke, the practice of yoga is a meditation of the body, a way to achieve peace and enlightenment.

"People practice yoga so they can get to samâdhi, being the object of your meditation, a time when life stands still," she says. "And the experience is very blissful because you've dropped away your struggles and realize that everything you thought mattered doesn't."

Harman has studied yoga for 12 years and believes people want to get in touch with their spirituality so they can hear God.

"God talks to us all the time," she says. "But people can't hear it because our minds are so busy. The point is to get quiet, so you can listen and hear and silence that mind chatter."

Classes in a variety of yoga and meditation styles – from beginning yoga to yin/yang – are available year round at Yin Thai. Call 260-312-2242 for information.

Love

The first step toward falling in love is to love yourself, says Mary Ann Donnell, director of the Fort Wayne office of Matchmaker International. Learn what's important to you – your morals, your values – and falling in love is easy, she says.

"Once you love yourself, love happens so naturally," Donnell says. "And if you're eating and praying and loving? Well, that's everything right there."

The second step toward falling in love? Physical attraction.

"You've got to have it or it'll never work," Donnell says. "You might as well hit the road. I've been married for 30 years, and when I look at my husband, my heart still goes pitter-patter. It's almost like it skips a beat. You know it when you feel it."

But finding someone to fall in love with can be a long process. And don't expect it to happen over a movie, Donnell says.

"You've got to talk," she says. "You can't sit in silence and expect to get to know someone."

Donnell suggests her clients go for a walk on a first date and follow it up by feeding ducks at Lakeside Park, ice skating at Headwaters Park or window-shopping at Glenbrook Square.

"When you window-shop, you're going to find out her favorite color," she says. "And you'll find out things about his lifestyle, too, like what he likes and what he doesn't like."

Good first dates lead to second dates and, hopefully, an opportunity to fall in love. But even when love ends in a broken heart, the journey is worth it, Donnell says.

"I'd rather have a broken heart than a broken arm," she says. "It's better to feel love than to avoid it. Love is it, baby."

edowns@jg.net