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2005 Archives:
December 2005:
Density. We all cope with it, yin and yang it, embrace it, avoid it. If you’re slipping into the latter gear, your best plan may lie in the Bugs. Canada’s Bugaboos, one of the continent’s premiere climbing arenas, offer an infinity of contenders for Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. The hitch is that they are so remote, most of their alpine treasures are never seen, inaccessible unless one can fly over vast areas with near impenetrable undergrowth and no roads. But for enough nickels, you can pick a season and hike and climb, or ski, not with cape but with helicopter.
Africa is splitting apart. That ripper, slow but sure, provides some of the world’s most rewarding escapes. The last time it split, it gifted us South America. For now, we must happily settle for a rift valley that runs from Ethiopia through Botswana. Rift valleys bring nutrients from water flows, eroded plateaus and the earth’s crust. Africa’s rift valleys give us our earliest discoveries of our ancestors, and the world’s most treasured conservation systems. Travel them.
"From right across the rink, a girl in a short black skating-skirt topped by a shocking-pink fur-lined parka, sped like an arrow across the ice and came to a crash-stop in front of Bond. Bond felt the ice particles hit his legs. He looked up. It was a face he recognized — those brilliant blue eyes, the look of authority now subdued beneath golden sunburn and a brilliant smile of excitement. Who in hell?"
November 2005:
According to Lakota legend, all of the universe was given a song and each part of the universe was given a piece of the song, but only in the Black Hills can the whole song be heard.
By age 21, I had been riding for 16 years. Like many horse-crazy girls, my equestrian education spanned the horizon of New England-based horse camps, riding stables, and, eventually, my own horse.
No one will confuse Daniel St-Pierre with one of the trendy chefs who garnish the pages of food mags these days. I’m talking about slick, Nehru-jacket-clad pretty boys accompanied by an army of tall blonde "personal assistants."
October 2005:
Was I on the right mountain? I told myself it shouldn’t matter, since only about 15 feet of altitude separated Punta La Marmora and its barely less lofty twin, Bruncu Spina, the two highest peaks on the island of Sardinia.
I now know that when blending a smoothie for a dolphin, you need to watch out for squid tentacles.
What’s the most beautiful spot in the state of New York? For my money it’s the rear-window view from The Sagamore, the penultimate luxury resort on Lake George in the Adirondacks.
September 2005:
The driver brings the cab to an abrupt halt at the curb of the Piazza Matteotti in downtown Cagliari. He throws the gearshift into park and turns his head to the backseat.
In the movie, "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation," there is a scene where Jimmy Stewart goes bird-watching with his son-in-law’s boss. He is shown a silly way to walk so as not to spook the bird-watcher’s quarry: a barn swallow.
Julian Serrano is one of the top five chefs in the world today.
Aug 2005:
First I see a brown mass just behind the brushy bend around which I am negotiating the kayak. Then as my view widens past the bend, I see the legs and the head submerged in the water.
When we checked into our hotel, there was a phone message waiting: "How’s two o’clock tomorrow?"
My search for the best traditional French restaurant in Canada has come to a happy ending.
July 2005:
I returned to Guatemala, this year, after a hiatus of nine years and found the country on the mend after decades of internecine wars.
The most fulfilling travel experiences are, and always have been, a matter of perspective. A tourist views a destination from a distance, a hands-off-outsider.
My search for the best traditional French restaurant in Canada has come to a happy ending.
June 2005:
I'm sitting on the deck out in back of Lilly's Garden Guest Home, just outside O'Leary, Prince Edward Island. In a vivid, cloudless sunset, the red dirt of the newly furrowed potato fields – which begin where the lawn ends – looks like hot lava.
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island - During the oyster eating contest at Mavor's Bistro & Bar in the Confederation Centre, two women in black evening dress and red, white and black boas were throwing down bivalves with the best of them. Irwin, the contest judge, was decked out in Anne of Green Gables' famous green dress and straw bonnet, plus ersatz red braids framing his wrap-around sunglasses.
"The opening of L’eau a la Bouche in Ste.-Adele in the early 1980s was a labour of love, one that combined a great deal of naîveté and idealism with an abiding passion for the pleasures of good food."
May 2005:
I arrived on Elba too late for Napoleon's funeral. I know. Even if I had gotten there at the right time -- 1821, the year the emperor died -- Elba would have been the wrong place. Napoleon died on St. Helena, his second island of exile. Long afterward, his body was shipped back to Paris where it remains today in a marble sarcophagus at the Invalides.
Where can you find a brilliant French chef turning out the best steaks in a relaxed, comfortable and classically New York ambience? It’s a no-brainer: Nick + Stef’s Steakhouse & Bar (9 Penn Plaza at Madison Square Garden) is a revelation for its quality, service and attention to detail.
April 2005:
All that rain that has had California awash in mudslides this past winter has resulted in a wash of a vastly different nature out in the deserts east of Los Angeles. These areas are awash in wildflower carpets that local residents are describing as the bloom of the century.
Shortly after the men left, a late field of pack ice muscled in, a solid sheet of pans chafing island granite, the white glim of it stretching to the horizon. It was moving steadily on the Labrador current but was so featureless that it seemed completely still. − "River Thieves," by Michael Crummey.
Craig C. Shelton is that rare amalgam of intellectual, artist and innovator. In the argot of the gastronomic universe, he is a trailblazer and perfectionist–two qualities that are not mutually exclusive in the all-too-safe-and-comfortable domain of high-end French restaurants.
March 2005:
The Mitchell Great House on Folly Point, near the Portland/Port Antonio area on Jamaica's northeast coast, is almost too appropriate as a metaphor for what is going on here. The mansion was built by an American millionaire named Dan Mitchell at the turn of the 20th century.
Nature seems to have a prescient notion that development will eventually obliterate her handiwork, so she tries to preserve some of her best efforts, sometimes by tucking them off in remote corners of the globe.
Go ahead and add Jason Merrill to the “A List” of great young chefs cooking in the best restaurants in the USA today.
February 2005:
For three years now, my husband and I have been lugging winter sports equipment − cross country skis, ice skates, snow pants and boots − to Quebec City for our annual winter visit.
It’s 3 a.m. of the Monday after Ash Wednesday, and by decree, Basel, Switzerland is as dark as if an air raid siren had sounded. I step off a tram that turns back on a detour, following the tracks toward the city center.
Daniel T. Jackson is a purist, an Old School chef who has reinvented American Regional cooking at the historic Woodstock Inn & Resort.
January 2005:
There are shows, then there is Cirque du Soleil. To say that this one of the most dazzling, creatively constructed theatrical experiences anywhere will only sound like hyperbole until you experience it.
Last fall, 10 Americans drove 350 miles from McAllen, Texas into Tamaulipas, Mexico. Our weekend mission was to explore El Cielo, an International Biosphere Reserve per UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) guidelines. Like Virginia Eastern Shore’s Barrier Islands, this cloud forest exemplifies how humans and nature can coexist harmoniously.
Julian Serrano is to cooking what Pablo Picasso was to art − a genius! This statement smacks of hyperbole. And yet the plain truth is that it’s the stone-cold bottom-line in analyzing Serrano's vast talents.
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