We cut through the sprawling, meticulously manicured park amidst the morning haze, humidity and blare of cicadas and car horns. By 11am we had reached the stark wrought iron and glass doors to Grandmother’s towering apartment complex, a node of Shanghai’s stupefying development. We took off our shoes in the narrow halogen lit hallway outside her 12th story apartment and stepped into plastic slippers waiting at the door. The warm smell of an active kitchen beckoned. The dining table was set with teacups and chopsticks. We were asked to take our seats.
Since we had arrived in Shanghai as the guests of our dear friend Lynn, Noam and I had been trying to navigate the customs and culture of the city by way of its incredible cuisine. Lynn’s grandmother pressed in universal grandmotherly persistence to discover the favorite food of us two foreign Jews. We responded with an immediate and unanimous call for dumplings, or gyoza. And so here we were, the privileged guests of a personalized dumpling brunch.
I’ve always been an icing on the cake kind’a’gal. You know us: we
devour frosting, flee crumbling cake remains. And desserts with
powdered sugar and oozing jellies that all fall down inevitably on
clothes never seem worth the lbs. or the dry cleaning $$. So, when I
recently found myself headed to Austria to cover the Salzburg Global
Seminar: Cultural Institutions Without Walls, the last thing on my mind
was leaky pastries: culinary institutions without walls….that is, until
I was asked by Amy Ephron to, if I was in fact going to Austria, write
about the infamous Sacher Torte.
The Oregon Coast is one of the most beautiful stretches of land I have been privileged enough to spend time exploring. If you are an Oregon native or you are visiting this summer, don't miss some of these great local stops along the way. Have fun!!
The desert palate is grey and yellow now. The grey of sagebrush, and the vibrant yellow of daisy-like brittlebush that bursts in great round humps among the rocks. In fact, it's gloriously golden absolutely everywhere in Palm Springs. These plants flower only once or twice a decade, so I feel enormously grateful to have been there at the right time, not that my Hipstamatic does them justice.
When I landed in Israel I had no idea what to expect. I was there on a Birthright-Taglit trip through Israel Outdoors, an organization that sends Jewish youth to Israel to study the history of the land and the Jewish people.