Like a mother hen sweetly teaching their young how to find the water and food bowl is the way our Mother taught us how to appreciate the world of wonderful food that awaited us at a very young age. We were on our first trip to Europe, I was 6 and my sister was 11 when my mother became very ill in Paris. We were staying in the 5th Arrondissement at the Lutetia Hotel and as my mother faded in and out of consciousness she was worried that we needed to eat. She gave us money and told us that we weren’t allowed to – #1 not cross any streets and #2 we had to hold each other’s hands. We could eat what ever we wanted and we were armed with plenty of francs.
On our first sojourn, we happily discovered a precious little Bistro with a delightful French female owner that surely must have wondered what the story was with the two small hungry American children popping into her restaurant hand in hand. But all curiousness aside, her mission was to feed us and introduce us to French food and maybe our story would unfold. For three days we visited morning, noon and night always hand and hand. As we waited for our meal she placed a tiny kitten in each of our hands to help pass the time until we ate and to make us feel at home.
Anchorage, Alaska has some of the best restaurants in the world.
Especially if you like salmon. Years ago, I spent a summer in
Anchorage-it was the Exxon Valdez trial, and it went on for months. I
remember some things about the trial. I remember everything about the
dinners, which isn't particularly remarkable, as I had the exact same
thing-in different restaurants-every night (except for this one place
where I always ordered venison).
A couple of nights before we left for Paris my sister came to my house for dinner and told me she heard a story on NPR about this man in Paris that invites guests for dinner every Sunday evening at his house. “Do you want to go, sounds interesting, don’t you think?” This did sound interesting, it could be very interesting or not, but either way it surely would be an experience. Jim requested that anyone that wants to come to his house send him an e-mail and tell something about yourself, pressure was on to say something short and creative to get his attention. Waking up in the morning I opened up my e-mail and there was a response from Jim. He said that there was a waiting list for the Sunday night dinner which he added us to and we should call him at noon on Sunday to see if anyone had cancel making room for us. He also invited us for a glass of wine sometime during the week if we had time. I guess the e-mail sparked his interest.
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.
One of the things I love most about traveling is finding out-of-the-way places to visit. Especially ones that have a cool history to go along with their surroundings. Which is how we found ourselves in the old mining town of Jerome, Arizona. Well, to be honest the initial draw was the three wine tasting rooms located in this tiny town – it has under 500 permanent residents – perched on the side of a mountain with one hell of a view down.
