Travel

We arrived this morning in Italy, which makes us very lucky people.

Everything is different here. It’s like Brigadoon. You would think that air is air, sky is sky, light is light – it’s the same wherever you go, the same world, right? Nah. Italy is enchanted. They even speak a different language over here. Crazy, no?

Today – to tide over my jet-lagged body until dinner – I had half a salami sandwich. That’s all we had in the house at that point. I sliced a thin piece of whole grain bread off the loaf, slapped three or four slices of salami on it, folded it in half and took a bite. It’s not the same, baby.

Nowhere else in the world does a salami sandwich taste like this.

I took my sandwich outside to look at our vegetable garden and I noticed that our cherry tree had ripe cherries on it. Crazy, no? The problem is that it’s a big tree, which means that most of the good fruit is ten, fifteen feet off the ground.

Almost every night for the last month I keep having the same dream: I am biting into a smoked grape, enrobed in a soft Arizona goat’s cheese and covered with chopped pecans and pistachios, served on a long skewer. Typically, I panic at some point in my dream because the platter is getting empty and that’s enough to wake me. Usually it is 4am, I sit up and try to comfort myself by saying “well, you ate the other 6, though saying that doesn’t help me get back to sleep. I was served these sleep altering morsels at a Heitz Cellar wine dinner at the Arizona Biltmore hotel. I never would have tried them with what I know now. “Just one more” I heard myself saying to several waiters! Have these amuse-bouche changed my sleeping pattern forever? I am no longer amused...

The two very young chefs created this amuse-bouche by smoking red and green grapes, lightly. Then, they are chilled and covered with a creamy goat cheese and rolled into a 50/50 blend of finely chopped pistachios and pecans. It wasn’t the only thing I ate that night but it’s the only thing that haunted me. There was a 5-course dinner to accompany the smoked grapes along with a line up of all of the Heitz wines for each course.

When the main course of Veal Osso Bucco arrived I heard guests at all the tables that surrounded ours say “they didn’t bring the Martha’s Vineyard this year!” This revelation circulated around the dining room like pouring water on a grease fire. Talk about ‘wining’! I was fine with it, I still had the smoked grape taste in my mouth and nothing mattered.

There was a time when I CRAVED greens. I mean it.  CRAVED ‘em. Lambs tongue (mache) arugula, romaine, and kale (which I would stem, blanche, squeeze dry and then sauté in olive oil and garlic). Evan Kleiman has a terrific soup recipe that uses escarole and you can find it in the archives right here at One for the Table.

I used to eat salads all the time and for the life of me I wish those days would come back. But, you know the old saying; “A pickle can never become a cucumber again.”

I’m convinced it’s the secret to staying slim, even if you use decadent dressings.  Recently, I ate at Wabi Sabi on Abbot Kinney in Venice. They served an amazing salad there, which was actually a side to a scallop dish. It was a simple arugula with walnuts and goat cheese, but the dressing was completely unique. They were kind enough to give me the recipe. 

What do you look for when booking a hotel in one of the most tourist attractions of the world, namely London. Perhaps it is good service, perhaps the ambiance, perhaps the restaurant and bars, perhaps the location, and for lovers of comfort, the bedrooms and their amenities. Whatever it is would it not be quite wonderful to find all of these things in one place!

And you can...at The Hyatt Regency London, better known as The Churchill.

A little pricey perhaps but as the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.”

Just stepping into the foyer transports you to a world of glamour, a world of fascinating artwork and enviable service. I say enviable because many other hotels vie for staff as well trained and service oriented as the Churchill staff are. They truly do make a difference to your stay.

Michael Grey, the General Manager, has made his mark in many hotels including the Hyatt Regency Singapore, the Carlton Towers in Knightsbridge and now after a recently completed multi-million pound renovation program, squires his way around this quite stunning property.