Cruising Hong Kong’s street markets is a savvy shopper’s dream come
true. Fashion hounds can score bagsful of famous label clothing
copies, counterfeit leather accessories, faux pearl necklaces, and fake
jade gewgaws. Gadget buyers gravitate to stalls overflowing with
cameras, watches, and electronic gizmos. On a recent ramble through a
bustling night bazaar, none of the above were on my list. I was
seeking a somewhat more authentic trinket. Snakes.
Some cultures regard serpents with fear and loathing. Not the
Chinese. A person born in the Year of the Snake is considered wise and
cunning. Able to slip in and out of tight situations with ease. A
formidable foe and a staunch ally. Cool, calm and collected.
Strikingly beautiful. Exotic. Sensuous. If one is not fortunate
enough to be born in the lucky year, there’s an alternative way to pick
up a little snake essence. You can eat them.
Travel
Travel
La Creme de Paris
On my first day in Paris, on our first tour around the Jardins Luxembourg, a charming Persian woman with bouncy curls and smiling eyes stopped me and my entourage of children and a dog for a chat. "The French drive me crazy," she pronounced. "But living in Paris will mean two things for you. You will become both more refined, and more humble." And so the adventure begins...
It turns out that there is heaven on earth. And it lives in an inauspicious plastic saucer, covered in cling wrap.
This week’s cheese was a seemingly unassuming Saint Félicien. This little number is made in the Dauphiné region of France, and it is soft and extra creamy. We took our first bite over lunch with the girls, and at Twiggy Sanders’ suggestion, I was armed with a fresh baguette.
The cheese starts out relatively contained, but by the third bite, the fresh cream had runneth over into the container. We started to eagerly mop it up with pieces of bread, and within about ten minutes flat, the entire saucer had been wiped clean.
Ribs, Ribs and More Ribs
People who love barbecue really love barbecue, and will go to great lengths to find the perfect ribs. I’m one of those, so I was thrilled to be invited to judge The Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off in Sparks, Nevada.
For die-hard barbecue lovers and novices alike, this kind of cook-off is a slice of pork heaven.
Instead of driving around the country to sample regional styles of
barbecue, all I had to do was take a three-block stroll down Victorian
Avenue in front of the Nugget for some of the best ribs in the country.
Pit masters competed from all over the country, cooking up slab after
slab of pork ribs in pick up-sized smokers and finishing them off on
10-foot-long wood-fired grills. Some hailed from legendary barbecue
states like Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas. But many, many others
came from states that folks rarely associate with this style of
cooking—we’re talking all the way from California to Minnesota,
Pennsylvania and, yes, even New Jersey.
Tap dancing
I walked right past Christian Louboutin last weekend. He made an impression.
Louboutin is Paris’ most well-known ladies shoe designer, notable for his sky high heels and their trade-mark red patent sole. Louboutin’s shoes eclipsed Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik at the peak of the swinging hey-day of ‘Sex and the City’, and I can see why: every pair I own are well-cut, sexy, and outrageously comfortable (and, to be fair, outrageously expensive).
Louboutin was easy to recognize: I remember seeing pictures of him in an article about how he spends his free time drifting down the Nile in an over-sized Egyptian dhou, and I also knew that his Parisian flagship was just around the corner in one of the covered ‘galeries’ in the 1er. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was wearing a well-cut khaki suit, accented by an outrageous and sparky pair of silver studded black leather shoes that flashed in the light as he hopped up onto the pavement.
Some of the Things I Ate In France
Lucky for me, every few years I go to Antibes, France with my family. When that happens I feel compelled to photograph almost everything I eat, before I eat it. There are two reasons for this ritual: One, French food is so gorgeous it's just begging to be photographed. Two, photographing it is almost my way of saying grace for and being mindful of the bounty of food (and, trust me, it's bountiful) I'm about to consume. Food is fleeting. The photos are forever.
For the last two trips I've posted these collections on Facebook and have received a really positive response. It sometimes amazes me how much pleasure people take in looking at photographs of food they can't taste, but I suppose that goes hand-in-hand with people who love TV shows about food they also can't taste (see: The Food Network).
1. When I arrived in Antibes, my mother had picked up some peaches and strawberries at the daily open-air market in Antibes. Those strawberries were some of the sweetest I'd ever tasted, and after that the purchase and immediate consumption of them became a daily ritual.
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