Travel

A couple of weekends ago, Martin and I headed out to Joshua Tree for a quick camp-out. Fall in the National park is spectacular. We enjoyed bouldering, dominoes, wine and beans by the campfire, a starry slumber, early morning coffee in our enamel-ware mugs and a wonderful hike to an Oasis.

The hike and camp-teardown got us hankering for a date shake, knowing that we would be driving through Thermal, CA., a.k.a. date country, on our way home.

Thermal is dotted with date gardens – they are not called farms or orchards. Date palms grow in the Coachella Valley and require something like 360 days of bright sun and 90-100ºF a year to grow, and man, do they thrive. You can visit date gardens to take tours and to buy dates. The November issue of Sunset has a great article about date gardens. This one, Brown Date Garden, looks pretty cool.

“We’re sliding smack dab into the inevitably expensive tourist trap,” you say as the taxi driver curses and swerves through the gridlocked traffic of Ipanema Beach’s main drag Avenida Vieira Souto (with its famously geometric-patterned sidewalks) and onto the narrow traffic-choked streets of the city.

Your destination was suggested by our hotel’s concierge whom you had asked for a suggestion for authentic Brazilian food. You were hoping for a cozy hole-in-the-wall filled with smoke, grumpy locals and slow waiters.

The restaurant, Porcão – which you immediately translated to Poor Cow – was just the opposite of that. Poor Cow was all you feared, expensive and a tourist trap (adding to the blah decor was a wall-size TV playing a silent futbol match), exactly like those places that have popped up all over major U.S. cities where frantic waiters bring huge stumps of grilled meat to your table, where they slice off chunks in perpetuity until you feel as if you’ve ingested a small cow. But you were hungry and jet lagged and needed to get out of the hotel or you would have gone right to sleep only to wake up in the middle of the night, hungry and jet lagged. You felt like a bad tourist, but the outing served its purpose and besides, you have something special to look forward the next day – Cook In Rio – a one-day cooking class at some lady’s house in Copacabana that you had found online. An authentic Brazilian experience was promised and this time you are not disappointed.

Is it an accident that LouLou's opened near the residence of Bertie Wooster? I don't think so!

I am certain I saw ol’ Bertie and his ‘brilliant’ Mayfair pals yukking it up downstairs at one of Loulou’s fab bars - London’s hot (no not just hot, SCALDING) new club, 5 Hertford Street, which opened this spring In London.  

Fictional or not, Bertie Wooster, Jeeves and their creator, P.J. Wodehouse would all agree that Robin Birley’s new club is the new ‘trump card’ among all the new private clubs that are creating London’s energy, sex appeal and god only knows what else among its beautiful young things.  

How did we get in you ask?  Our friend British Historian, Andrew Roberts, who collects private clubs as any BYT might, made the arrangements. Thank you Andrew.  Thank you Robin!

For one thing, as I said, it has Robin Birley, son of Sir Mark Birley and Lady Annabel Goldsmith (as in ANNABEL’S) who clearly knows how to create a place in which simply everyone wants to be seen (more on this later). 

While things change so fast in this world, there are still places where time stands still. The face of Paris changes faster every year that I visit and not always for the better. There are more and more fast food chains, pasta restaurants, pizza sellers and Asian takeaway because everyone wants to eat quickly and run somewhere...

At L'Ami Jean time has stopped, it is old fashioned, handcrafted French/Basque cuisine. The restaurant has an aged yellowed patina with acorn fed Spanish hams hanging from the rafter with an inviting glow that welcomes you. The menu changes daily and the ingredients could not be better sourced or fresher! Whatever they make is always breathtaking!

Stephane Jego the chef/owner holds court from his extremely busy kitchen filled with six assistants that move around at blurring speed. One of the starters the night we were there, last week, included the freshest poached mackerel topped with a dollop of brandade served in the center of a curry rosemary vegetable laden broth. Curry and rosemary an unlikely combination that really worked!