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.
A couple of summer months filled with many beachside lunches of paella so good and so long ago that I am still chasing the memories of a perfect paella. My sister and I were in the Catalonian village of Arenys de Mar for a good part of the summer. On the wide, white beach surrounded by rugged hills were a handful of rustic 'restaurants' that made only paella over wood fires. They were makeshift structures covered with bright pieces of miss-matched canvas tacked down to keep the strong Spanish sun and ocean breeze at bay. These little makeshift restaurants were always busy for lunch, the only meal that they served and I had my favorite one.
Brian and Maria Gabriella are Americans who live in Umbria part of the year. They’re opera singers and run a travel business on the side, which affords them some great travel perks as they check out possible adventures for their clients. They recently got back from a trip to Sicily and were regaling us with stories.
There are strict rules to live by in Palm Beach according to the Shiny Sheet (our local newspaper). Rule Six, for example, is - No socks. Ever. If your feet tend to become cold easily, consider purchasing a pair of Stubbs & Wootton slippers, but Rule Number One - the one broken that could destroy one's standing at Club Collette is the following:
In our effort to downsize but continue to have fun, we scrambled
together all our frequent flyer miles and managed to put together two
return flights to London and Italy. Then, by making a small investment
on a home exchange site, we found a young woman in Prato (twenty
minutes from Florence), willing to do a non-simultaneous exchange with
our desert house in Joshua Tree. 