I’m no expert. I don’t have bitters at home or dried fruits, nor proper stemware. Those who know me know that typically I drink straight from the can. But every once in a while I do like to treat myself to a cocktail. Something fancy. And a few weeks ago I was in Colombia for […]
I’ve freshly returned from Havana where I spent time as an ordinary traveler. A trip on my own time, on my own dime, of my own curiosity. I boarded the plane wide-eyed, and with dance shoes and dusty Spanish in tow. I’ve been fascinated by the dance/music of Rumba, Son, Salsa, Casino Rueda for some […]
Namibia delivers wide open spaces in a way that few other places on earth can. Dominated by a massive and ancient desert, the dominant image in people’s mind seems to be landscapes of unchanging and endless sand. While it’s true that there is a lot of sand (and I do mean a lot – I […]
Olive oil, wine, and cork. Lots of cork. I know of few places whose story can be so thoroughly woven together by and distilled down to such spare components. Portugal’s Alentejo region is these things and more. But trying to describe this region beyond these finite products is for me a futile exercise. As with […]
If you got here by searching Google for “what the hell to do with a quince?”, you’re in luck. As the winter solstice approaches and we settle in for several months of short, cold days and even colder, longer nights, thoughts turn to fires cackling away in chimneys, and slowly bubbling pots of stews and […]
As the world has been forced to slow down and the future still holds so much uncertainty, I find myself pouring over old photographs, dissecting memories of trips most dear to me, remembering places which I’m glad I’m took the time to visit. Prominent among them is Barichara in Colombia – a place I barely […]
You are called papa not ‘patata’, you were not born Castillian: you are dark like our skin, we are Americans, potato, we are Indians. – Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Potato Similar to other fuels on a grand scale, the quest to harness sources of consumable energy has been the cause of migrations, the root of […]
When Conde Nast wanted to call Michael to congratulate him for making their global list of Travel Specialists (again), they found his telephone curiously out of range (again). And that’s because Michael’s a man who jumps at an opportunity, as his travels during this Covid year have shown us. While the rest of us responded […]
Remember dinner parties? The ever-gracious host. The ebullient storyteller who commandeers the conversation. The witty chap in a blazer – a date on his arm and a quip on his lips. The elegant lady in a well-tailored dress which flatters but doesn’t reveal. Her kid sister with a contagious laugh and plummeting neckline. Sigh. It’s […]
La Tournée des Grands Ducs (literally, The Tour of the Grand Dukes) is a common saying in France to refer to painting the town red, Dionysian style, or rather … Russian. The term has it roots in the habits of two Grand Dukes of Russia – Vladimir and Alexei – the mischievous sons of Emperor […]
I’m at heart a wine nerd, but you don’t need to twist my arm to sample other brews and libations, particularly if partaking will gain me deeper insights to a place or a people. When I travel, my first quest is always to find out what the locals drink and, at times, how they’re supposed […]
I laughed a little too hard recently when reading Anne Lamott’s words, “By the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards”. I cannot be the only human whose covid days, home-cooked meals and masked conversations have become excruciatingly banal. We’re all yearning for discovery, spice and a rollicking time anywhere but […]
Twenty something, rebellious, and by all accounts, “randy”. A young English poet named George Gordon Byron (“Lord” to all but those who knew him well) swept through the small enclave of Sintra in 1809, penned a few lines of what would become Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and sent letters home to friends declaring Sintra the most […]
Sidewalks and the paved parts of the urban landscape have a funny definition in some Asian cities. On the Silk Road after midnight, the roads and sidewalks become the communal domicile, as beds are dragged out into the streets to enjoy the cool breeze of the desert nights. Hanoi and Bangkok are two cities so […]
The story I have to tell begins in Portugal in 1881. A team of scientists from the Lisbon Geographic Society gather to undertake an expedition to the Serra da Estrela mountains some 300km away. The Serra, the highest point in continental Portugal (the peak at Torre clocks in just shy of 2,000 meters) acquired its main […]
I have a list of three things which, perhaps due to a repressive part of my psyche or some masochistic Protestant lean, I have denied myself until I felt I could no longer continue without them; reading the entire Faulkner cannon, going on a surf/bike road trip through California, and learning how to make my […]