Truer words were never spoken than those of Dr. Samuel Johnson, in referring to his capital city (seen below on this vase). I’ve just come from a fast but full week in London, and no matter how often I visit, the city is always teeming with new things to do to and see – along with the pleasures of revisiting beloved, familiar spots. Besides a visit to the British Museum, where the Enlightenment Gallery continues to awe and inspire, we […]
There are cold weather people and there are hot weather people. I fall firmly into the former category. Give me a frigid day crackling with icy energy any time, over the dripping humidity that is more often my fate in Washington. I got a bracing dose of perfect cold weather on a recent family vacation to Ireland. As the Irish would say, we had a grand time, from exploring Dublin pubs to lazy breakfasts of honey porridge and Irish soda […]
There are things to do in LA besides eat, and I don’t mean to neglect another very special part of California life. With Mother Nature lavishly producing twelve months of warm weather a year, glorious blooming plants and flowers are bursting out of every possible green space. There are lots of shops that are intriguing hybrids of nurseries, florists, and home décor items, such as Rolling Greens, and we never leave without an armload of plants, candles, potted bamboo and […]
Last week and three pounds ago I spent a week in Los Angeles. If you care about food, it’s about the best place there is to see what’s coming to America’s tables. The cutting edge of food is like a blunt instrument, compared to what’s cooking in LA – and I barely scratched the surface in a week’s time. Vegan Mexican, Asian fusion, Korean BBQ, the farmer’s markets – it’s total sensory overload. I want to focus on the clever, […]
Moving on from food to flowers, we took a day trip from London to Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home, and to Sissinghurst, one of the most renowned gardens in England. Sissinghurst is known for its White Garden, and it was lucky coincidence that we happened to be there just as it was beginning to bloom. A green thumb must be part of the collective English consciousness, because everywhere we went there were gorgeous flowers – like these at the flower stand […]
