Travel

What do I look for in a travel experience? The answer is simple: culture, nature, world-class shopping + food and the best nightlife, parties + events I can find. Sometimes in one day! Like many world-class cities London offers diversity, and my trip there this past fall provides a great example of how I was able to combine my favorite vacation pastimes.

In a stroke of good fortune, breakfast at the Soho Hotel resulted in me to sitting next to Howard Marks, best-selling author, intellectual and international drug trafficker. Howard had just wrapped up his press junket for his latest film Mr. Nice. Howard responded to my invitation to my hotel, the Shangri-La in Santa Monica, with a rather charming explanation that he was unable to enter the US due to his previous 'career activities'.

I caught a Black Cab (one of London's great style icons) to Regents Park for a midday stroll around one of the great parks of London. A stroll around the Midsummer Nights Dream style Rose Garden in the parks Inner Circle and the Japanese themed Duck Pond and waterfall which never fails to centers me. Regents Park Inner Circle is perfect for smelling the roses, literally and figuratively.

Norcia is a secluded, walled city in the mountainous region of the Valnerina in southeastern Umbria. Its history dates back to the fifth century before Christ. St. Benedict and his twin sister were born there in the year 480. Other than that, Norcia is famous for its pork products and its black truffles. It’s the pork capital of Italy – so much so that the shop of a pork butcher anywhere in Italy is called a norcineria.

There are two very different pasta dishes that go by the name alla norcina. Version one — often made with fresh pasta like fettucine or the local Umbrian pasta, strangozzi – is simply pasta with fresh truffle grated over the top. Of course, it’s not that simple. Actually you chop a clove of garlic together with a couple of anchovies, put them into olive oil in your pan. Heat and stir into a paste. Toss the cooked pasta into the pan, stir and then grate the truffle over the top. That’s one version. Alla Norcina version two is a whole other kettle of macaroni. It’s generally served over dried pasta – usually penne or rigatoni. It features pork sausage and it’s one of the most satisfying recipes in the repertorio – especially in the winter when you want to warm yourself from the inside. So simply, it’s pasta with crumbled sausage, cream and truffles. But once again, it’s not that simple.

I’m an Anglophile. The names of my sons say it all. Oliver and Barnaby. It wasn’t on purpose, but I accidentally copied Tom Stoppard, who happens to have two kids with the same names.

I was, however, copying my friend Robin and her husband Gene, who, last year, had gone to London, then chunneled it to Paris. Sounded great. Had to try it too. Anyway, I needed a London fix. It had been too long since I’d seen my old friends. From Robin, I wanted the names of restaurants as well as her hotel in London. She raved about the hotel, but I nixed it because of the location. I like to be in the thick of things -- to be able to walk straight out into the action.

Robin warned me to book Ledbury restaurant immediately. I’m tech-challenged, and although the website listed an open reservation, I couldn’t make it work. Then, in the weeks before our trip, Ledbury was awarded a Michelin star and it was suddenly booked many months in advance. I’d been hearing a lot about the great new dining explosion in London. Figuring Ledbury wasn’t meant to be this time, I moved on to book a few other highly recommended restaurants.

I admit it. I eavesdrop. I love it, but sometimes I end up a buttinsky. I start chatting with random people in a restaurant, and it’s so transparent that I have been leaning way far over in order to hear it all. One time, in New York, I overheard a first date. They met on Match.com. Two middle-aged people (pushing 70, so maybe not middle age) were having a conversation and the cuckoo bird woman was telling her date she was a princess in some obscure country no one has heard of. I’m not kidding. I wanted her to go to the bathroom so I could tell the guy to make a run for it. And it was SO none of my fucking business. And yet, I continue this pursuit even though the hearing is now diminished in my right ear and I have to be seated just so in order to overhear everything.

I’ve been in Quebec the past week and can’t often eavesdrop because everyone is speaking French, damn them -- and me for not learning the language. But, the other night I did spend a great deal of time totally engaged in other diners’ conversation. We were in a small room, three tables of families. The middle table asked the couple by the window how long they’d been coming to Gibby’s. I perked up because hey, it was in English. Apparently, the couple drove many miles, from Laval, to come to this small village, Saint Sauveur, as did the family in the middle who came from Saint Agathe. They agreed it was a wonderful experience and worth the drive. Then the conversation went into a whole boring part with questions from the middle table about the window table’s drilling business. Don’t you hate when other tables’ conversations get boring?