Last year, on a visit to the medieval village of Provins I was delighted by this beautiful little carousel: Sadly, no one was riding the horses or jumping into the hot air balloon basket. The music wasn’t playing and the carousel guardian slouched in his seat, puffing cigarette smoke into the hot afternoon air. The…
Category: Travel – bon voyage!
Travel, travel and more travel
L’Hostellerie aux Vieux Remparts
Last summer, Monsieur and I enjoyed a lovely weekend with my Belle-Mère. Somewhat of a culture vulture, she took us to visit a medieval village called Provins. We parked up, bought our entry tickets for the village (yes, unless you lived there, you had to pay to visit) and hopped on one of those funny little white…
The Shangri La of healthy breakfasts
This is a breakfast that works with a diet: inspired by the healthy breakfast menu at the Shangri La hotel in Singapore. The field mushrooms are filled with low-fat cream cheese (I use Philadelphia light with chives), then sprinkled with low-fat olive oil and a little parmesan cheese and popped into the oven at 180C…
Smoked Salmon at the Hotel Metropole, Hanoi
Smoked salmon is so easy to get wrong. Buy the over-farmed or rapid-cure variety and you may find yourself pulling bits of bland stringy stuff out of your teeth, wondering whatever happened to the true taste of the smoked salmon of yesteryear. Get it right, from a fine farmer of happy salmon and the situation flips on its head; silken folds…
A First Class First Taste of Smoked Salmon
Smoked salmon seems to pop up everywhere these days, in all sorts of guises, but it wasn’t always the case. I had to reach the grand old age of twelve before relishing my first taste of this fine fish-lover’s fare. My mother and I had been upgraded to First Class (!!) on a transatlantic Pan Am flight, in…
A Walk in Central Park, New York City
We’ve been to the Red Flame Diner, the Frick Collection and the Whitney. Now it’s time to clear our heads of comfort food and culture so Monsieur and I head across to Central Park. Every time we’ve visited together, we’ve spent a little time in this glorious lung for the island of Manhattan, and every…
Sofitel, New York City
DSK: a trio of letters synonymous with scandal, sex and the Sofitel Hotel in New York City. When Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then-head of the IMF found himself embroiled in a hotel housemaid’s accusation of sexual assault earlier this year, Monsieur and I were transfixed before the television, not because of yet another (yawn) politician making the…
Sunday Brunch at Petite Abeille, New York
There are four branches of Petite Abeille, or ‘Little Bee’ in New York City, each with Belgian charm and all proud of their reputation as being the providers of an excellent weekend brunch. Alas, house rules say no reservations are possible; you have to present yourself in person and be prepared to wait. Monsieur and…
L’Epicurien – the cocktail
A very epicurean tipple… with recipe.
Bicycle in Arles
Cycling in London freaks me out – too much badly-behaved traffic for my liking. But this bike fills me with daydreams of cycling through French fields, with a baguette, a ripe brie and a bottle of something chilled and chablis-like in my basket. I have a red and white gingham picnic cloth, the sun shines, there are…
Protected: Cornucopia Restaurant, Trastevere, Rome
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Su Nuraghe, Sardinia
Picture the scene: it’s late morning at Sardinia’s Cagliari Elmas airport. Monsieur and I have been awake since dawn but haven’t had time for breakfast. The low-cost airline has high-cost sandwiches which we avoid, mostly because they already look curled and cardboardy, and the coffee looks like something that might spurt out of a long-disused farmhouse tap. Monsieur…
Epicurienne 