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we’re not in Kansas, Toto! ;)

eventually I will finish writing about New Orleans 🙂  April is usually less nuts so fingers crossed…

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I arrived in “the big easy”.  The nickname suggested promise – and the friendly guy at Homeland Security in Vancouver had been there and thought I was in for a treat.

And he was right.  The first hint was when I checked in and the guy at the front desk told me about the libertine rules on Bourbon Street.  You don’t normally get to walk around with alcohol on the streets of the United States.

But New Orleans doesn’t feel like the USA.  It’s not quite Europe – or Montreal – but it does have an European flavour you rarely encounter in the land of the stars and stripes.  There is a relaxed attitude to life – and playful vice.  There is a rapturous connection to food and drink.  And there is a sense of hospitality that reminds me fondly of Europeans.

It feels more multicultural than most places I have been in the United States.  I think some of it stems from the history.  Much like Canada, it was a place whose potential was not obvious to 18th century Europeans, so it was tossed like a hot potato between the French and the Spanish with only the hardy and disadvantaged willing to try to make something of the place.

music on the streets

music on the streets

Fighting off the alligators in the swamps and hoping a hurricane wouldn’t wipe out your shelter couldn’t have been much fun but it did mean there was little chance of a hoity-toity Northern European culture developing.  It became a place for mavericks and outsiders.

And musicians apparently 🙂  Of course a lot of great music has come from the streets – and from the oppressed trying to find a way to cope.  In New Orleans you hear all kinds of music.  And some of the best comes from the streets.  It is a music lover’s paradise.

There is music on Bourbon Street – but also on Royal, on St Peter, at Jackson Square, in the French Market… and likely lots of places I never even got to…

One of the other big delights is food 🙂  I’ve already mentioned some of the meals – and beignets…

But there are other treats.  One of the most famous is pralines.  My aimless wandering brought me to Laura’s Candies, a place I can highly recommend.  Lots of free praline samples – but also salt water taffy, the largest truffles I have ever seen in plenty of exotic flavours and – only in New Orleans – chocolate alligators! 🙂

The other big discovery came courtesy of my guidebook… a gelateria (La Divina Gelateria) full of strange and exotic music on NOLA streetsdelights… I managed to score some root beer (locally made :)) gelato and then listened to an incredible band on the street – the serendipity of the streets of the French Quarter.

And you can also play Tom Sawyer and take a real steamboat up the Mississippi.  As a child I dreamed of taking a steamboat the entire length of the Mississippi.  I’m

the mighty mississippi

the mighty mississippi

not sure if that’s even possible but a couple of hours allows one some nostalgia and a view of the city from a new perspective.

And there are also garden tours, cemetery tours, swamp tours… maybe other cities have gardens worthy of tourism but only in New Orleans would cemeteries and swamps make the grade…

I didn’t have time for any of them.  I didn’t manage to find room for bread pudding.  I still have to try gumbo.  And fresh crawfish straight out of the Gulf… there are all kinds of reasons for another trip… the only question is when… 😉

 

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eating & drinking - well, travel stories

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how to celebrate your birthday :)

check out beads on the cat!

check out beads on the cat!

I made the right call 🙂  It has been raining all day and I have been working since 6:30am…

Technically Sunday wasn’t my birthday but I decided I would do a swap and celebrate Sunday and work Tuesday so it felt like a special birthday day to me :).  It ended up being a truly wonderful birthday.  The whole trip really – but especially my last day in New Orleans.

It started when I met up with the new friend I had made on Thursday night (another lovely Southern gentleman even if he was originally born in the north :).  We went to a place called Café Beignet.  It’s something you will want to remember 😉   It’s at 334 Royal Street and is a charming European style café.  But what is even more exciting is that apparently its beignets were featured on the Food Network’s “Best Thing I Ever Ate”.

http://www.cafebeignet.com/

The first time I went in I hadn’t yet learned about beignets so ended up with carrot cake.  But I read the Food Network advertising and thought I would have to go back to have a beignet.

By Sunday, I had already been to Café du Monde, another place you must go when you come to New Orleans.  Café du Monde is next to the French Market.  It is open 24/7 and all they serve are beignets and beverages.  It is apparently one of the most famous places in New Orleans and you will wait in line to buy donuts.  I remembered fondly my trip to Voodoo Donuts in Portland as I was standing in line…

http://www.cafedumonde.com/

Having a beignet at Café du Monde is an experience and I would encourage everyone to do it once.  But the beignets at Café Beignet are much better!  And the line is shorter.

My friend had to catch his plane so I took him to see Jackson Square and the Mississippi en route back to his hotel.  By then I was a bit of an expert on what to see in the French Quarter and he had been in business meetings for most of his visit.  I then strolled around the Quarter a little more and tried to get some better photos for this blog!

looks like england :)

lafitte’s blacksmith shop bar

Eventually I got to Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar.  It’s one of the oldest bars in New Orleans and another stop you should make on your visit.   Apparently Jean Lafitte operated it as a blacksmith shop as a cover for his pirate enterprises.  Not quite Pirates of the Caribbean but….

http://www.lafittesblacksmithshop.com/Homepage.html

The drinks are the same as anywhere else but the ambience is special.  You can imagine you are drinking with pirates 🙂  I also went to Pat O’Brien’s because it’s very

a little old, a little new

a little old, a little new

famous but I would give it a miss.  Maybe the courtyard… but there are lots of more charming places to check out.

I then went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner – and sober up 😉  I planned to go to the Palace Café for dinner.  I am sure it is a fine place but it’s famous too and it seemed impossible to get a place to sit.

And serendipity kicked in again!  I was actually headed for K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen (which was recommended by the bartender at the restaurant I actually ate at so certainly worth checking out) but before I got there I spied something that looked like home 🙂

Generally I like to go with the local culture and not just do things I could do in Vancouver but supposedly this was one of the top 10 new restaurants in Louisiana in 2012.  And I thought it might be a nice change to have a meal without rice or beans on the plate.

It is called SoBou and is unlike anything else I saw while I was in New Orleans.  It’s a place for hipsters :).  My guidebook mentioned some spots for hipsters but I think she isn’t too familiar with what hipsters really do…  They would definitely be right at home at SoBou, which stands for South of Bourbon.  A little piece of hipster Manhattan in the heart of the French Quarter.

Definitely go to this place!  The bartender mixed me up a lovely cocktail.  Unfortunately I can’t remember what he called it – but it’s the kind of place you can trust the bartender to just make you a cocktail 🙂  And the food was divine!

I was a bit obsessed with crawfish due to a random conversation I had had with some locals on Friday.  I’m still not totally sure what a crawfish is and I know I need to eat more of them but I will be back in New Orleans :).  Apparently this is crawfish season so definitely look for some crawfish if you come in March.

They didn’t have any crawfish on the menu so I had to settle for a crawfish bisque with crawfish popcorn, which was divine!  And then I had some Gulf shrimp that had seen some mesquite to go with my apple and pear salad since I was craving some greens – and not collared ones.  It was an exquisite meal and a wonderful birthday present – happy birthday to me 😉

http://www.sobounola.com/

They didn’t have any music though and I wanted more jazz since it was my last night in town so I headed back to the Maison Bourbon where I had had a fleeting visit on Friday night.  Since it was Sunday, it wasn’t too crowded and I actually managed to score a seat at a table.

http://www.maisonbourbon.com/

The house band was playing and they were fantastic!  And they were playing the great jazz of the 50s with lots of solos and improvisation.  I had hit the jackpot.  There was only one small problem.  The ladies room was out of order.  So I decided it was time to find a place with a functioning restroom and went up at the break to buy a CD since the band was so good and I wanted to support them.

Jamil is a modern day Louis Armstrong.  He plays a mean trumpet, has a booming voice that doesn’t need a mike and is a showman with charm to spare.  I mentioned New Orleans was a birthday present to myself and he was determined I should stay for the last set so he could play “happy birthday”.  I told him about my ladies’ room problem.  So he got someone to escort me the ladies in the bar next door so that I didn’t have to leave.

http://www.jamilsharif.com/

It really is something to have “happy birthday” played by a jazz band!  I highly recommend it.  Apparently the Maison Bourbon is dedicated to the preservation of jazz.  It really felt like I had stumbled into a different era.  Since I was at a table all by myself, they asked if I would share with another couple.  It ended up the lady was from Switzerland and had been to New Orleans to hear jazz 40 years ago!

A lot had changed, for course, so I wrote down all my best recommendations for her to try and get a good experience of the music scene in New Orleans.  I didn’t want her to be a random tourist on Bourbon wondering if all had been lost… it really hasn’t… but you need to know where to look.

One of the most poignant moments during the performance was when Jamil and the band did “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  His voice is very close to Louis’ so you really feel like you are listening to the real thing.  I had to fight for it but it was the song we played to close my father’s funeral and I thought it was a great representation of his attitude toward life.  The last time I talked to him was on my birthday so, needless to say, my eyes were moist listening to the song, but in a good memories sort of way.

You would think that would be enough to make it a perfect birthday.  And that was almost the end… I really wanted to hit the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone before I left town as it was one of the few things left on my list I hadn’t yet done.

we are in the south :)

we are in the south 🙂

But it was really late by then and it was Sunday night so when I first arrived it looked like the bar was closed.  But then I spied a side entrance that was still open and there were people sitting at the bar so I managed to order a shot of bourbon just before last call.

The Carousel Bar is pretty cool… it actually rotates just like a carousel, so it’s not that you think the room is spinning – it actually is!

http://hotelmonteleone.com/dining-entertainment/

What a way to finish my birthday – a glass of bourbon on Bourbon Street at a spinning bar.  Made even more special because my wonderful 49th birthday in Portland courtesy of the US Air Force all began because I was drinking bourbon – and they were intrigued by my bourbon flight… that story may make it onto the blog sometime…

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the ghosts of New York past…

My recent trip to NYC was especially memorable as I spent time with three different friends, each one from a different decade of my life and each friendship established via totally different circumstances… but all of whom came together – without actually meeting! – back in 1996.

As I mentioned, in 1995 I decided to fly to NYC to meet up with my friend David who was working in Saudi Arabia at the time.  Only scientists knew how to use the internet back then (you actually needed to know things like DOS commands to use computers 🙂 so we arranged the trip via fax.

It was a roaring success so I went back the following year.  In July really cool people are in the Hamptons but I am never going to be cool so was happy just to be there in my cheap sweaty midtown hotel room.  My friend Sarah was working in DC at the time so came up for the weekend and we ran around in NYC imagining what it might be like to live there.

It was how I learned to love Negronis.  I figured it would be fun to play at being cool so I had read about a place called Pravda somewhere.  It was a bar in the emerging Nolita district of Manhattan too hip to actually have a sign so we had to wander around a bit and finally descend down a staircase and open a mysterious black door… but we found it.  And I suggested we order a Negroni since

bar ngorongoro crater lodge

bar ngorongoro crater lodge

said they were the hot drink of summer 1996.  Our cool factor may not have been really high but at least we were trying hard to not just be typical tourists…

And I really liked the Negroni!  In those days, I didn’t drink cocktails so was always stumped when there wasn’t a cocktail list.  So I started ordering a Negroni.  It took me years to remember what was in it.  It was purely accidental that I discovered it was one of those classic cocktails that gets you respect from the bartender.  Ordering a Negroni almost makes me seem cool 🙂

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroni

There have been lots of memorable Negronis over the years but it will be hard to top the one I taught the bartender how to make at the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge in Tanzania.  The lodge is a bit much but it was my last night in Africa and it was so fancy I could dress up.  I had forgotten though that it would be pitch black when I left the main building to go back to my Versailles-like hut so I freaked out my Masai warrior escort gingerly picking my way along the path in heels.  But I told him I had the balance of an impala – and we made it there without him having to catch me in his arms.  The wood was warped so the door stuck.  His job was to make sure I got into my room so he had to open it – it took some effort!  It had all been a delightful way to end the night – and my Serengeti adventure – so I blew him a kiss.  He blew me one back.  It’s not every day you have a Masai warrior blowing you a kiss 😉

http://www.ngorongorocrater.com/

I haven’t met any Masai warriors in NYC but there has been some kissing there over the years…

Including that week back in 1996… Sarah went back to DC and I was supposed to spend the next Saturday doing a bar crawl on the Upper West Side with my friend Despina.  I had read about all these new bars on the upper West and I had been there before with friends so figured it was a safe neighborhood for us to wander in and maybe have a bit of adventure.  But she had a new job so had to work on Saturday night to meet her Monday deadline.

It was my last night in NYC and it seemed wrong to stay in my hotel room.  At that stage, I hadn’t done much wandering in NYC alone but the neighborhood seemed pretty easy and I figured I would just stay alert – and drink lots of cranberry juice in between cocktails.

It was how I discovered the pleasures of having dinner at the bar.  I bonded with each bartender so I knew they had my back if I needed it.  I chatted with random people who sat next to me.  I eavesdropped on conversations and got a much clearer sense for the culture of the place.  That was also how I met my Mr. Big 🙂

It was the last bar.  I was just having a final cocktail and thought I would likely head home before it got too late.  But a guy came in and sat next to me and we started talking.  He was a junior investment banker.  For the first few years, they work practically around the clock so he was finishing work and having a drink in a local bar before going home to bed.

What really bonded us was that he was Canadian.  It seemed like fate…  going on a random bar crawl alone on your last night in New York and then meeting a fellow Canadian on the Upper West Side far from other tourists just as you were both planning to go home… so we didn’t.  He wondered if I wanted to go to a club in SOHO.  That seemed much more fun than my hotel room and we would be in a taxi so I could just get out if I needed to…

In the end, my attempts at personal safety ended up being quite hilarious.  I thought I shouldn’t let him know where I lived since I didn’t know him very well so I got out of the taxi a couple of blocks before the hotel and walked by myself at 3am on the streets of New York.  At the time, I didn’t realize he had the taxi follow me to make sure I would get to my hotel safely.  And that’s how apparently flowers showed up at my hotel the next day – but I had already checked out.

And – despite evidence to the contrary – he didn’t think I was completely insane and a grand, bi-coastal romance blossomed.  I don’t date people unless I really like them so we have stayed friends and try to meet when I am in NYC to catch up on our lives.  It’s been really wonderful to watch him change over the years.  Even cocky junior investment bankers can mellow into caring dads 🙂  It’s a crazy business with a lot of questionable ethics but that chance night on the upper West has allowed me to see that not all investment bankers are evil 😉nyc 324

I have known Despina the longest.  Our friendship began as pen pals at age 15.  When I was a teenager, I felt closer to her than most of the people in my actual community.  We finally met in person in the early 90s.  She is an artist so our lives have run on very different paths but we both love food and art so we incorporate that into our joint adventures.

We likely know more about each other’s romantic adventures than anyone else in our lives as we have been talking about boys since the point at which we were lamenting no one would ever ask us out on a date 🙂  What has been most interesting is the strange parallels in our intercontinental criss-crossing.  We have both lived in Australia.  When she was living in Paris, I was in Germany so could hop on a train and come to visit.  Now she is back in New Jersey so getting together in person is easier but she is an incredible writer so we still have letters travelling back and forth – they are just electronic now.  I cherish them.  They are full of newsy detail and personal thoughts – far removed from a tweet – and my life is so much richer for it.

And Sarah now lives in NYC!  She has made good on our wild imaginings about what it might be like to live in NYC.  It’s not what we would have imagined back then.  She is married with children now – and the cool factor has migrated beyond Nolita to the Lower East Side.  She’s brilliant and insightful so it was fascinating to hear her initial impressions of life in one of the most famous cities on earth.

And it will make it easier to visit her!  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, most of my friendships have an unusual genesis.  Sarah and I became friends because she was my roommate for 6 weeks in Calgary during the summer of 1983.  I was living in the University of Calgary student dorm so the facilities were pretty limited and her sister lived in town so I barely saw her but our few chats really intrigued me so I made sure we exchanged contact information.  Neither of us has ever had much free time and it’s a bit incredible our paper correspondence survived before the internet.  She is a scientist so she was my first email!  There have been many since.  And some live encounters to supplement the flow of bytes.

The message?  You never know what life has in store for you.  And how random people in your life might align and create new adventures.  If you meet someone you find interesting, be sure to get some contact info – and then just see what happens…  All three of them opened up my world and changed my life – for the better.

 

p.s. one final restaurant recommendation that didn’t fit into the stream of consciousness…  Nomad (from the brilliant guys at Eleven Madison Park)

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how the alphabet has changed!

Technically I am home now but I have a series of posts that developed in my head while I was in New York City so we will continue the travelogue for the next few posts…

Almost twenty years ago I made my first visit to Alphabet City.  Alphabet City refers to the avenues in the Lower East Side named by alphabet (i.e. Avenue A, B, C…).  Not that many years before I had seen a movie (Mixed Blood) about the rampant drug dealing in Alphabet City and how they used underage kids because they couldn’t be prosecuted.  But, by the mid 90s, Alphabet City was being gentrified and it was the latest cool place to hang out.

I wouldn’t have been brave enough to venture down there on my own with the images in my head of packages of drugs being lowered on ropes out of tenement windows but I was hanging out with my friend David from Australia who was fearless.  We connected with my friend Despina and then met up with her sister on Avenue B.  Her sister lived in the neighbourhood so knew what was OK for tourists.

It was still pretty edgy at that time, though, and gave me a little bit of street cred.  Or so I thought, possibly delusionally 🙂   It definitely inspired me to continue further exploration in that part of the city.

nyc 192Each time I come to New York I try to stay somewhere different.  I started doing this years ago because it just seemed the right approach to the city.  I go to Paris to escape into the past and explore history.  I go to New York to see what all the rest of us will be doing next 😉

A couple of visits ago I decided to up the ante a little and not just stay in a new hotel but also start staying in new neighbourhoods so that I could expand my knowledge and experience of the city.  My friend Sarah has recently moved to New York and is living in the Lower East Side. I had already thought I would likely stay there on my next visit so that sealed the deal.

I stayed at the Thompson LES and would definitely give it a thumbs up.  The price was really reasonable for New York, I wasn’t looking into a wall, a parking lot or someone else’s room, and there were some great amenities inside and right outside the hotel.

http://www.thompsonhotels.com/hotels/nyc/thompson-les

The trip started off on a great note.  I got some sage advice from Daniel and got a drink and some excellent food at the Stanton Social Club.  My server was wonderful – and remembered me when I took Sarah back there the next night.

http://thestantonsocial.com/

I was planning to just go back to the hotel and get some sleep after that but I was intrigued by a venue right next to the hotel where a live band was playing to an enthusiastic crowd.  The bouncer seemed not so enthusiastic but consented to let me in.  The band on stage was really good and I was disappointed to learn that they had almost finished their set.

Because I had only caught a couple of songs, I went up to the lead singer and asked if I could buy a CD.  I figured I could at least listen to their music even if it wasn’t the same as a live show.  He didn’t have any change so I got 2 CDs – and an invitation to join them for a drink in the backstage lounge.

He had a whole entourage so I wasn’t expecting him to remember me but I know it’s always fun to have a little adventure when one travels… He was a really gracious guy so I met some members of the band, some of his friends, his girlfriend… and the chance to say I hung out with the band after the show 🙂

Just in case anyone is coming to New York, the venue is called the Rockwood Music Hall.  I ended up there every night for a short while after my friends had gone home.  There was an eclectic line up of musical talent but universally talented musicians.  And I didn’t even need to take a coat with me!

http://www.rockwoodmusichall.com/

You might also want to check out the Jamie McLean Band.  He is apparently from Connecticut but spent lots of time in New Orleans so his accent and his music have a definite southern flair.  And we agreed – as a musician, it just sounds better if you come from New Orleans…

http://jamiemcleanband.com/

The neighbourhood offered lots of opportunities for distraction 🙂   Saturday night I also hit the nightclub on the 7th floor of the hotel and proved I could actually dance in my new 5 inch heels!  You definitely want to stay pretty sober though when you are walking in shoes like that.  But 60% off at the temple to shoes that is the Saks Fifth Avenue shoe department is pretty hard to resist… it is so large it has its own zipcode!  And the shoes are Nicolas Kirkwood red sequined platform heels so I am sure I will get lots of Wizard of Oz references from strangers…

http://www.saksfifthavenue.com

http://www.nicholaskirkwood.com/

The coolest part of buying the shoes was the chat Sarah and I had with the shoe salesman.  I am of course a little shoe obsessed so chatting with shoes salesmen about how Nicolas Kirkwood shoes are better designed than Jimmy Choos… and how Christain Louboutins used to better… and my addiction to Rodolphe Menudier…  it’s just natural but it started a lovely conversation about the effects of Hurricane Sandy, some restaurant recommendations for my friend Sarah… He said we’d made his day.  He certainly made ours.  I am always energized by random conversations with strangers in this impersonal, wireless world of ours.

Another note-worthy adventure – which also involved talking to a lot of random strangers – was our dinner at WD-50.  I told Sarah I wanted to take her out for a special dinner and she wanted to support the neighbourhood, which had been through a lot of rough days thanks to Sandy.  I had always wanted to go to WD-50 so it wasn’t hard to convince me 🙂

http://wd-50.com/

We drank a bottle of fabulous champagne and worked our way through the giant tasting menu.  As part of their tenth’s anniversary, the chef changed the menu and it is now two tasting menus – a giant one full of mad scientist culinary creations dreamed up by Wylie or a smaller one that is comprised of some of the greatest hits from the restaurant’s last ten years.

This isn’t really an official foodie blog and I wasn’t taking notes while we dined because I wanted to catch up with Sarah so I would recommend you go yourself to really understand the experience.  But how can you not love a meal that involves three desserts? 🙂  And includes pine needles that they made in the kitchen.  Like the potato that looks like bone marrow.  I didn’t hear the description properly so left it on my plate as I don’t typically chew on bones… but the servers are as fantastic as the food so he wondered why I wasn’t eating my potato… which looked exactly like the bone in bone marrow…

Those of you who know me are familiar with my issues with funghi.  So you will understand how wowed I was that they didn’t just leave the mushrooms off my steak; they made me an entirely different – funghi free – dish!  As you can tell, I am saying that you should definitely check it out on your next trip to NYC 🙂

Another place to check out is Torrisi Italian Specialities.  No molecular gastronomy but the kind of vibe that I think WD-50 had when it first opened.  If I have the story straight, it started more as a deli-great-sandwich kind of place (called Parm and now next door) but it was so popular they now have a teeny tiny wonderfully unique experience restaurant.

http://www.torrisinyc.com/

If you book on-line and have a party under 4, they say they may seat you at the counter.  But, since I was booking long distance, I figured I would take the chance.  And, having done it, Despina and I would say you might want to sit at the counter!  We got to watch the chef and entourage working the magic.

Like WD-50, it’s a very limited menu.  It’s written on a chalkboard so I think it changes every day with the whims of the chef and the fresh produce available.  You get four compulsory appetizers.  Then you get to choose from two pastas and two mains.  Since nothing involved mushrooms, we decided to do everything on the menu and divide the two choices down the middle.

It was a fantastic meal!  Everything was fresh and wonderfully prepared.  The mad scientist element was quite subdued but it was inventive Italian cuisine… not your grandmother’s spaghetti 🙂   And at the end they gave us a box of treats to take home!  All wildly delicious.  I was really impressed because they actually gave us a second box since we were going to different homes in different countries.  The most exotic was a rainbow cake.  I’m not even sure how they got all the colours but I am sure no toxic red dye was involved.

I also spent a small amount of time wandering the streets near the hotel and popping into a few shops.  They have a Maje and Sandro, faves from Europe.  And Sigerson Morrison is still alive and kicking, in a slightly different location.  The aesthetic looks the same though and the shoes look like they would be comfortable (I had already bought too many at Saks).  When Sigerson Morrison was brand new, I actually got photographed as part of a journalist report on the new brand so have been following them since the beginning…

While the Lower East Side is likely not as squeaky Disney clean as the cleaned up Times Square, I had no problems and saw no heroin being lowered in a basket from a window.  It feels fresh and exciting and I would encourage everyone to check it out.  I know I will be back for further exploration…

I read on the plane that there is a Standard Hotel Lower East Side in the works… on the site of the old CBGB.  As one of the disciples of David Byrne and the Talking Heads, when my friend David excitedly told me his favourite band from Sydney was playing at our first night in New York, there was no question that we would go!  And they were awesome.  I bought the CD and promoted The Cruel Sea in Canada.  One of the tracks even made it onto my iconic 50th birthday soundtrack…

And I had a lot of adventures when I stayed at the Standard in the Meatpacking District.  You may well hear about them at some point… but right now we are trying to get you to check out the Lower East Side – and witness the transformation of New York City for yourself…

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beware of Japanese girls armed with credit cards!

I am still alive!  And hoping to add some new thoughts over the next week and in the year ahead.  I thought 2012 might be a little easier… but apparently not 🙂  And November through February always the scary part of my work year where extracurricular fun like writing gets punted in favour of client needs.

But it’s Christmas Eve so I get a couple of days off.  First, we will journey back to Paris as the tale was never completed.  The great thing with Paris is that everything is a bit larger than life so the memories stay in one’s imagination.

Where Paris really excels is in all matters related to art – that word applied in a very broad way.  And, in Paris, food is art.  I caught the end of some BBC or CNN program while I was in Germany and learned that apparently cheesecake is all the rage in Paris.  Unfortunately details were sketchy because the program was essentially over – but I was intrigued by the shop in the television images…

So did quite a bit of googling to see if I could figure out where I was supposed to go once I got to Paris… I wasn’t sure if I had it right but once I arrived I knew I had hit pay dirt.  And it was well worth the effort.  The bakery is called She’s Cake and is run by a charming woman named Sephora.  I had the fleur d’oranger – amande.  It was delicious and it felt like you had stumbled upon a special neighbourhood secret.

http://www.shescake.fr/

I also discovered I had come during the annual Paris Photo exhibition (mid November).  It required some waiting in line in the cold – but was worth the wait.  It is a show for galleries and collectors that is also open to the public so it is a little overwhelming but a great way to get an overview of world photography in a couple of hours and discover some new talent and be inspired.

Next door there was a fascinating exhibit called Bohemes at the Grand Palais.  The concept of Bohemia, gypsies and their role in art and European history.  Romantic, tragic, dramatic…

Normally the airport is not part of the story.  But the French have a flair for the dramatic… and a crazy love for bureaucracy.  And my Scottish genes make me cheap…

There is a wonderful VAT (value added tax) recovery scheme all over Europe called “tax-free”.  It’s not really true but you do get a decent amount of tax back so it’s hard to pass up.  When I got to Charles de Gaulle, I thought I was really clever popping into the first VAT-recovery station I found with my stack of forms, all completed and signed, my passport ready for a quick stamping procedure and on to my gate.

But NO…  every gate has its own VAT-recovery station apparently.  Seriously, France, do you think this might be why your economy is in the toilet?

At that moment I didn’t realize I had been condemned to hell by some random French customs officials.  I found the station that matched to my gate… but I also found a gigantic snaking line of beautiful young Asian girls clutching tax-free forms and giggling.  There was no choice but to succumb.

I was in line for a long time so was determined to figure out what the hell was going down.  I have never been in such a ridiculous line so my curiosity was peaked.  With enough time and careful peeking at passports, I discovered they were Japanese.  Apparently the Japanese still travel in packs.  I don’t know the connection between all the girls – other than a devotion to expensive shopping 🙂 – but they obviously had a handler and were all going through customs as the equivalent of a gigantic tax-free-form-stamping boa constrictor… better to stay on the sidelines than get eaten by it 🙂

And there was a small reward… when I finally got to the end of the line the customs officials were very happy to see me – mostly because I represented the end of the line – so they just grinned and stamped all my forms as quickly as they could 🙂

Travel is always full of new experiences and adventures.  An open mind, a sense of curiosity – and lots of patience – will make any travel experience an entertaining memory 🙂

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has everyone been watching jamie oliver?

Or Nigella?  My personal girl crush 🙂

This is definitely a way to prolong your vacation 😉  But I had some fun experiences in London so will attempt to share them… maybe a little late, but most things not of the moment…

I am hoping this post does not just represent some strange adventure in a parallel universe but an experience that could be repeated…

As noted earlier, I first arrived in the UK in 1989.  My memories of the food mostly involved trying to avoid the grease.  There was a lot of deep-frying – and not all that fat was fresh.  Accompanied by mushy peas and vegetables cooked to the point of torture (I think after that long in a pot you can be accused of crushing a carrot’s soul), it looked like a dream destination for a Weight Watchers commercial.

If, of course, you had a palate… and just said “no”.  On the very first trip, I did that a lot.  Of course, I got enough calories from shortbread and clotted cream I couldn’t exactly become a Weight Watchers spokesperson.  But I did develop an allergy to the stuff the English liked to trot out and suggest was food.

I wasn’t the only one!  And somewhere over the decades, gastropubs emerged, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay became so famous that even someone who doesn’t know how to turn on a stove has likely heard of at least one of them.

I wouldn’t necessarily thank any of them personally because they are just famous and I am sure it was lots of people we have never heard of that actually changed British cuisine.  What came first – the chefs stepping away from the fryer – or the palates of the customers expanding and asking for more – or less in the case of recycled fatty acids.

I was just an observer.  I have been going to London regularly for over 20 years and I have started to enjoy eating there once in a while.  It has always seemed obscenely expensive though.  I live in this rarefied universe that combines a climate favorable to produce, a bevy of talented chefs at every price point and an adventurous gang of local customers anxious to eat out and spoiled for choice.

To impress me, you have to be great!  And I will care about the value.  So great will not be enough.

Because my city allows me to be such a spoiled brat I am tough on the rest of the world.  So, if I am impressed, it is something to be reckoned with.

And, this trip blew me away.  I’m not sure whether it’s London, me, or the global economy.  My guess would be a little of all three.  London cuisine has definitely improved over the years.  And the multicultural stew that London has become has provided the ingredients for better stew 😉 I am getting more adventurous in my wanderings and less prone to wander into a tourist trap.  And London is feeling the world’s pain given that so much of it involves financing the world’s ventures.  So a menu promising good value, rather than good champagne, is likely a much bigger sell than in the go-go days of the City’s early century heyday.

Poor investment bankers work for me 😉 I was astonished in that every meal that I had in London was above average.  That has never happened before.  And – even more impressive – none was wildly expensive.  I hung out mostly in the East.  Next trip that will be my stomping ground.  But I stayed at the Rockwell Hotel en route to and from Stockholm because it’s right on the Piccadilly Line so it was fantastically easy to get to and from Heathrow.  And the restaurant?  It was astonishing.  A fresh salad full of yummy veggies and fruits.  A salad in the UK?  How the world has changed.  I love it.  And the best fish and chips I have ever had!

http://www.therockwell.com/

Gordon Ramsay would be jealous 🙂  Of course, Gordon’s food isn’t all his reputation suggests.  I think he spends too much time these days mugging for the camera… but that’s a story for another time…

Just in case anyone is headed for London, here are the recent adventures in dining I would recommend checking out…

Pizarro/José

http://www.josepizarro.com/

Zucca

http://www.zuccalondon.com/

The Botanist

http://www.thebotanistonsloanesquare.com/

Anchor and Hope

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waiting for godot…

We’ll finish the adventures in the land of ice and snow and then we will come back to London… my actual travel route…

The first time I saw Waiting for Godot I was bored and wondering what all the fuss was about.  The second time I saw it I was older and the cast was much better so I enjoyed it more.  But the concept is more or less alien to my nature.

I am a girl who lives in the moment, does a lot of research and, while that may sound contradictory, generally aligning the two means that I am rarely bored.   And frequently enchanted by serendipity or surprises… I do the homework to make sure the moments happen as I live them 😉

But right now I am bored 🙂  It’s rare.  It’s cold outside.  Tonight it’s also raining.  And I made the dumb mistake of thinking I could get by in Stockholm in late September without a coat.  And the Berns Hotel is supposed to be hip and happening.  And it’s not completely empty.  Just more an overpriced pan-Asian restaurant than a hip nightclub at the moment.

Stockholm is gorgeous – the landscape, the light, the architecture, the people.  As a day tourist I have no complaints.  But I was expecting more of the nightlife.  And I haven’t given up hope yet 😉

This is one of the most expensive places I have ever been.  It really encourages you to nurse a drink.  In my reading it suggests people stay at home and only show up in public venues really late.

You have to learn the local culture.  I’ve got to know the bartender in Amsterdam because I was the only fool willing to show up at the dance club at midnight.  I told him I didn’t care 🙂  And drinking Heineken – extra cold or not – is cheap and by 12:30am the place was almost full.

I don’t know the norms yet in Stockholm.  So I came fairly early to try the well-regarded Pan-Asian restaurant.  I’ve had better food in Vancouver.  Especially for the price.  But it was pretty good.  The salmon was cooked really well (almost rare) and eating salmon and watching people with umbrellas scurry around in the rain made me feel at home.

The bar is getting a tiny bit more lively as I write this.  Maybe Godot will show up in the end?  If not, I’ll have to brave the chill and find a new venue for tomorrow night 😉

Apparently 10pm is the magic hour.  It’s SO expensive to drink in Sweden you can’t blame the Swedes for staying home til they can get their kronors worth of fun.  In the end, it was an entertaining – if somewhat strange – night.

I managed to snap some photos of the Berns Salonger before I left so I will get them into this post so you can see it for yourself.  It’s a heritage building so they couldn’t change a lot of stuff, which means you feel more like you are in the early 20th century instead of a modern nightclub.  The place is huge.  There are several bars, a sushi station and a couple of different eating areas.

As noted above, the night starts kind of slow.  It’s really just a packed restaurant.  So there is a buzz.  But solo it’s pretty dull.  But as the night wears on, the music starts to rise in volume and people start to fill the bar areas.  Eventually you can barely move and it’s become a very sophisticated looking nightclub.

Once it got a bit more crowded, I went upstairs (a crazy winding staircase that you should be descending from in a ball gown, not trying to navigate both ways with an increasing drunken mob.  But no one fell!)  I just figured I could watch the crowd from above and it would supply some entertainment while I waited for Godot…

But Erik wanted to find out more about me.  So I got into a conversation with him and his friend about ice hockey, European football and what it meant to be a Viking… and if there is a “Swedish look”.  The consensus seemed to be “more or less, but not just the blond, blue-eyed stereotype.  Those Vikings got around 😉

For those of you who have not spent time in Sweden, Swedish men are almost uniformly gorgeous!  And well-groomed.  I expect they are mostly metrosexual but when a couple of the men I met seemed more concerned about their male friends than me, I wondered if they were too cute to be straight 🙂

Andreas did get me down to the basement club, which completed my Berns cultural experience.  I wasn’t really sure about the music though and – like Erik, he seemed more interested in the male friend he came with than me so I eventually just wandered off…

Part of the problem was that the friends spoke Swedish and I did not.  Swedes are wildly impressive on many fronts and almost everyone speaks some English but not everyone is super fluent so in a noisy bar setting communication can seem like a lot of work.  So I was happy the third guy to talk to me was a Kiwi!

I did enjoy talking to the locals and learning more about Sweden but by then I was getting a bit exhausted and being able to just speak normal English was a treat.  Dennis did live in Sweden and had had a Swedish wife so he knew something about the place – but we mostly talked about the similarities between New Zealand and Canada.

So… no Godot… but lots of miscellaneous others.  Some of whom had been drinking at home I think… it’s the first time I have had enough drinks spilled on me that I ended up with alcohol stinging in both eyes before the night was through.

But it was fun.  I was back again the next night.  Later this time.  And had more conversations about Swedes and Swedish history with a young Swede whose father had arrived in Sweden from the Sudan to study.  He was very articulate and it was one of my most memorable conversations in Sweden.

I think the highlight of the night though was the colorful half Swedish-half Norwegian lady who caused a stir in the bathroom knocking on doors and trying to get girls to hurry up.  I am not sure what was going on but 2 woman came out of each stall… Travel is always interesting…

The Swedish men had confirmed Swedish women were very self-confident.  It’s likely the place with the most equal rights between the sexes I’ve ever encountered.  Lots of beautiful women… but no pushovers apparently… just as it should be 😉

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