The thing about a long cruise is that it is a lot of restaurant eating, in this case three meals a day for 24 days since we aren't making the kind of stops that allow you to lunch with the local residents (And I've seen what penguins eat. Yuck.) Seabourn food is great -- on this cruise the food is much, much better than our last Seabourn cruise, but the choices are odder and more limited -- what would have been an Indian market buffet for dinner in the Colonnade two years ago is instead an a la carte menu, and the vegetarian option isn't Indian, it's Asian noodle stir fry and not very good. "Why," I asked, "when some of the best vegetarian food in the world is Indian?" "That's what they decided in Seattle," shrugged the waiter. Whether it was really a corporate decision or not (the vegetarian... Continue reading

Lying in bed. Can't sleep at 12:45 am. I think I over-napped this afternoon. But the ship is very gently rocking and the glass doors are open, letting in the sounds of the sea and the fresh, clean air. Sometimes insomnia is a call to relax and enjoy. Food today was just meh. Pastry for breakfast, cookies for lunch and a peculiar Indian menu for dinner where two courses hit it out of the park and the third and the bread were abysmal. So more cookies for dessert. They are strategically located around the ship -- gingerbread houses with piles of cookies stacked around them. If I wanted to prowl in my jammies I'd go get some more right now. Also spent sometime today photographing some lovely things on board. A huge coral and turquoise urn, for want of a better word, whose colors thrill me and whose texture draws... Continue reading

I'll tell you, I am ready for three weeks of being spoiled. This fall has been a heavy lift, and I have two Bloom pieces to write and four KTR chapters to revise on board, but I am going to be indulged while I do it, and see sights the like of which I have never seen before. Plus, penguins! Happy me. The ship is lovely. Same exact one we were on in the Mediterranean summer of 2013, two doors down from our previous suite. So far we haven't busted in on the neighbors by accident. It's Christmassy on board, but subtle. I could use a few more gaudy trees but I guess not everyone shares my tastes. First night on board we did what I like best -- room service. Too cold for the balcony but cozy inside. Jer had shrimp ceviche and fish with asparagus and I had... Continue reading

Santiago was splendid. Warm. Vibrant. Full of color and youth. Walked around a lot. Travel plays mind games on me. Wonder at the never-before-seen wars with the desire for order and familiarity. It makes my brain crazy, synapses desperately firing to make sense of the new by locating it in the old. "This is like..." "This reminds me of" Remember when...? Hiking up a series of worn stone steps to the top of an ancient castle in a park in Santiago I alternately flashed to the Roche de Doms in Avignon, Les Baux de Provence nearby, Israel's Masada, and, less warlike, a long climb to a Buddhist shrine in Seoul. I am frustrated and a little amused by my inability to just enjoy the moment for the new experience it is instead of trying to convince myself that it's all one big deja vu. I guess it's human nature to... Continue reading

Some excellent food moments on this all-too-brief trip to our house on the bay. As always, the best fried shrimp on the planet was at the Owl Tap Room. Gary's Oyster Bar added some new stuff to their menu (Jer had shrimp, grits, sausage and greens) but I stuck with my standby shrimp and mahi mahi tacos with jalapeno slaw and hush puppies. And then there was Thanksgiving, of course. And Joe Mama's pizza tonight to top it off. Pecan pesto with smoked mozzarella and provolone. Spectacular. And now we hit the road early to get back for the final crunch before THE CRUISE. Booked Antarctic kayak trips today. Can. Not. Wait. Continue reading

The house is full of my mom today. The cinnamonny smell of her candied sweet potatoes, the herby aroma of her stuffing. I miss her a lot, but her presence is real at our table. I've always told my food and politics students to sit down with their parents and grandparents and write down the family recipes that make them who they are, because parents and grandparents (and indeed college students) come with sell-by dates and when it is too late it is too late: Grandma's ginger cookies will only be a sweet and spicy memory. A few of them know what I am talking about. Chances are they learned to cook in the family kitchen or lost someone who is no longer here to teach them. Most of them look at me blankly, sure of their immortality and that of their moms and dads. Why would they want to... Continue reading

First night -- score! It is one loooonnngg flight from Chicago to Shanghai -- more than 14 hours. And since we essentially fly with the sun, it never gets dark. We step into a time machine at noon on July 28 and step off an hour and 40 minutes later, on July 29. A day gone, with an eternity sitting in a darkened cabin in between. So we are here and the Hotel PuLi is a tranquil oasis is a bustling city. But I have to say, the portions of the city we have seen so far are lovely. New York and Paris combined, on steroids, and much of it brand spanking new. The energy is impressive. And we have only seen the upscale blocks around the hotel. Hope we get a peak at the industrial heart. Got in late enough that we had time to shower, bathe, and catch... Continue reading

Love, love, loved my birthday dinner at Yves Camdeborde's Le Comptoir. Absolutely fabulous. A bottle of champagne from the chef (which Jerry got to drink). Tuna tartare with raspberry. Skate with peas and herb puree. Cod with arugula pesto, favs beans, and sweet cherries. AMAZING cheese plate. Dessert was the only discordant note. The chocolate ice cream with piment d'esplette (spicy!) was good but not the clementine soup it was floating in. Boo. And mango caramels to finish. Spectacular evening! (More pix in next post. Typepad being contrary again.) Continue reading

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Last night's blogging experience was so grueling (thank you, Typepad) that I hesitate to try again. At any rate, I'll keep it short. Great day, perfect weather, fab breakfast, a little shopping ( and a gorgeous new dress to wear to dinner tomorrow), a long trek to a Parisian rock shop and some fun finds, and good Italian for dinner. There, does that make up for last night's babbling? Continue reading

There are places I remember and ache to go back to when I am not there. Paris is one of them. With a 60th birthday approaching in a couple of days, there is no where I'd rather be. I've tried to write before about what it is that makes Paris capture this New York girl's soul completely, in a way my own city never has. I am not particularly literary or intellectual. I am not a shopper in any way that would do justice to what Paris has to offer. I am an eater, to be sure, and I visit Paris with a mouth wide open, but that's not all of it. Really, I think it's that Paris taps into a romanticism that I come by honestly, having had two parents who both believed in sappy (oops, I mean, happy) endings, final redemptions, and soulful connections (although not, alas, with... Continue reading

Like so many good ideas, this one was started around a kitchen table. At least, I was sitting at my kitchen table, I don't know where Judy Schad and Susan Welsand (The ChileWoman) were, but they were pinging back and forth on the message board on my phone. The subject... Continue reading

Cross posted from dcbrocks.com. Have you ever taken a walk on the beach and not gone home with your pocket jingling with stones and shells? Gone hiking in the hills and not found an interesting piece of rock that ended up in your backpack? Visited a faraway country and not been tempted to bring a tiny piece of it home? I call those memory rocks -- stones (or shells, or fossils or beach glass, or the odd piece of something-or-other) that I pick up on my travels. I often come back from a trip with a sack full of rocks -- a habit I got from my mom. (I'll never forget seeing her through airport security once after a trip to Scotland. My beautiful, delicate-looking, elderly mom -- hardly terrorist material -- was pulled over and her heavy carry-on bag searched because the scanner couldn't determine what was in it.... Continue reading

Cruising out of Vienna at midnight -- lights fading in the distance, dancing on the water, air cold and clean, (yes, we have the balcony open so we can stretch out and see the city go by.) Vienna was lovely -- graceful and gracious. And cold to the bone with a damp chill that hurts your toes and frosts your ears. We toured around in the morning (the Amawaterways European tour guides to date are nowhere near the class of the Vietnamese and Cambodians we met this summer, by the way.) Then we visited some Christmas markets but it was cold (did I mention that?) so we went for a coffee and a strudel. The real thing, and boy was it good. I've seen pictures of how they make that flaky pastry but this was light and crisp and filled with apple and spice and swimming in custard. They say... Continue reading

Been in Budapest two whole days and starting to adjust to the time difference. We board the riverboat today and spend a week winding our way to Nuremberg, and then to Prague. If it's anything like the last couple of cruises it will be great. Plus -- Christmas markets!! I can't wait. So far my view of Budapest looks mostly like outdoor markets and crowded bead shops, with a touch of leftover soviet style architecture. It gets dark around 4 pm and then it smells like grilling meats and mulled wine in cold crisp air. There are worse things, I suppose. And although we haven't ventured into the lavish and enticing world of street food yet, there have definitely been some culinary high points. My lunch Thursday featured lecso, which is billed as a Hungarian ratatouille. It's really an injustice to both lecso and ratatouille to call it that. Ratatouille... Continue reading

Everyone in Saigon still calls it "Saigon." So much more melodic and fitting than the clunky "Ho Chi Minh City." You can really tell the French had a hand in this place. Wide boulevards, lots of green space -- an open and pretty city filled incongruously with billions and billions of crazed and overloaded motorbikes. (Really, it feels like billions.) Quite an experience. We are tired at the point of the trip so we spent our time in the city shopping more than learning. By now we are almost numb to the details of the war, if that is possible. We saw Reunification Hall, heard the story from a South Vietnamese perspective of the American effort to disentangle itself from the conflict it had long supported, and learned about the double whammy of becoming a suddenly socialist economy while suffering the withdrawal of the huge numbers of dollars the American... Continue reading

Another delayed post -- this from July 20. Yesterday was a "sea day" in Vietnam and a tummy ache day in my cabin, so not much new to report. Today was a treat, however. Up early and on the tender at 8:15, to catch a rickshaw (bicycle driven this time) for a tour around xxx. It's a small town, a little prosperous. The central market was starting to bustle. Vendors shoved carts piled high with exotic fruits and vegetables into place -- spiky red rambutan, purple passion fruit, and the strange and wonderful dragon fruit. The funky odor of the heavily armored durian, stacked on its own separate cart, chased us down the streets. People went about their business but the small children had already learned that tourists mean money. They lined the streets to wave madly as we went by, calling out sing-song "hel-los, hel-los" as we passed. We... Continue reading

[Another delayed post. Spotty internet. Going to try this without pix.] From our perch in the bow of the boat we can hear the shriek of the anchor and feel the deep shudder of the vessel as they crank up for our departure from Phnom Penh. We make no further stops on land today; we will clear customs in Vietnam by mid-afternoon. I promised our editor to put in a full day on the textbook but I am carving out some blogging time this morning first. This visit to Cambodia has gone by in a flash, much more a cultural exchange than relaxing vacation -- at once intellectually stimulating and emotionally challenging. We have gone from heart warming and uplifting to soul destroying in the course of a single day. I have barely had time to process anything. Here are some impressions, culinary and otherwise, that I'll be chewing over... Continue reading

This trip is such a kaleidoscope of texture and color and emotion that I can't get my thoughts to settle down long enough to write about it. There have been awe-inspiring moments. Two days ago we rose early for a predawn departure to see the sun come up behind Angkor Wat. It was breathtakingly lovely, and we managed our trek to the top of the temple before the heat and the crowds got crazy. Many, many more of the moments have been heart-wrenching in a different way. The violent history of this area has kept parts of it almost in the dark ages. As we drove through the countryside from Siem Reap to our riverboat in Kampong Cham we were jolted and bounced over muddy, unpaved roads. Outside the window of our air-conditioned coach people worked desperately hard in the steamy heat with the agricultural technology of centuries past to... Continue reading

[Delayed post, sorry. Written July 11] No Internet on the refurbished junk we are on so I can't look up the origin of this kind of wooden boat that we spent the night on in Ha Long Bay, but I am pretty sure the average passenger experience wasn't air conditioned cabins with marble baths and jetted tubs. So I wouldn't chalk this up to authentic experiences, but it has been a pretty interesting side trip in unexpected ways. The first half of yesterday was spent in a bus, transferring our small crowd of 47 from Hanoi to this increasingly upscale Vietnamese holiday spot. The bay itself is lovely -- something like 2000 rocky islands spike out of the water like so many craggy dragons teeth in desperate need of braces. I imagine it is terribly perilous in a fog. It is a beautiful place, but there are many, many "luxury... Continue reading

Today we head out to Ha Long Bay. A little late in reporting yesterday's food adventures because truth to tell, there weren't any. Got up way early (hello World Cup, on at 3 am Hanoi time) and had breakfast with the slow-rising tour group. Breakfast was fine. Jer had another fantastic pho and I had miso soup and a bunch of pastry and fruit. Not my finest moment. Jet lag jumbles my hunger signals. When the group of 47 finally got its act together we left en masse, walking, to a water puppet show. On the way I remembered that I have hated group activities since kindergarten and once we were there I discovered that I also hate water puppet shows. The musicians singing and playing instruments in the shadows with reflections of light on their faces were truly beautiful. Wooden toys bobbing around in a kind of dank pool,... Continue reading

Should be asleep but the World Cup fan in the room thought getting up at 3 am to watch the game was a good idea. Plus, jet lag. Arrived Hanoi last night. Easy peasy flight from Bangkok. Since it was late and I knew we'd be in unfamiliar territory I booked a hotel limo. They met us in style. Black 7 series BMW with a bar and some of the best macarons ever. Normally I soak up luxury like a sponge, but this felt very, very odd. Being driven to the lovely Sofitel Metropole Hotel, which is where Amawaterways, our river cruise line, puts us up, was a study in contrasts and cognitive dissonance. Western comfort, luxe treatment and an unmistakeable French air warred with signs of acute poverty out my window, an entire generation escaping imminent death on motor scooters, and my high school memories of refusing to say... Continue reading

Should be asleep but the World Cup fan in the room thought getting up at 3 am to watch the game was a good idea. Plus, jet lag. Arrived Hanoi last night. Easy peasy flight from Bangkok. Since it was late and I knew we'd be in unfamiliar territory I booked a hotel limo. They met us in style. Black 7 series BMW with a bar and some of the best macarons ever. Normally I soak up luxury like a sponge, but this felt very, very odd. Being driven to the lovely Sofitel Metropole Hotel, which is where Amawaterways, our river cruise line, puts us up, was a study in contrasts and cognitive dissonance. Western comfort, luxe treatment and an unmistakeable French air warred with signs of acute poverty out my window, an entire generation escaping imminent death on motor scooters, and my high school memories of refusing to say... Continue reading

Sitting in the Bangkok airport, WAY too early for our flight to Hanoi. They won't even let us check in for another hour and a half and the business lounge is located on the far side of security. So, to entertain myself I can count all the bug bites on my legs that are starting to itch, or blog last night's dinner. Blogging it is! We ate at the hotel's gorgeous Thai restaurant, Thara Thong -- all dark polished wood and soft colorful cushions on the floor. Had we sat inside, perhaps I'd have fewer bug bites to count today. But, the outside was beyond lovely, and worth a scratch or two (or 24.) The patio is alongside the Chao Phraya river and the air was like the softest whisper on our skin. The lights played across the water, and it was gorgeous and peaceful, barring the occasional discordant note... Continue reading