Destination: United States
John Baxter Likes Him Some ‘Poor Food’
by David Farley | 01.28.09 | 11:07 AM ET
In the latest issue of Food & Wine magazine, prolific author John Baxter waxes in the travel column about his history with “poor food,” taking us first to a long stew-filled meal at a rural tavern on a Greek island, then to his childhood in Australia, and Paris. The most unlikely experience: Christmas dinner at the Georgetown house of a government official who had lost his job due to a change in administrations. Baxter doesn’t say it—though I suppose it’s implied—but we don’t need a downturn in the economy to see that “poor food” has managed to quietly work its way into eaters’ appetites of all incomes these days. Which—in all its irony—is a good thing. Pub grub, soul food, most of the Italian food we know and love, and the current hankering for all things street food (being served at upscale restaurants around the country) all sprang from the same place: necessity.
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Yahoo! BuzzMorning Links: Sex and Romance in Rio, Chaos in Bangkok and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.28.09 | 8:50 AM ET
- Love this graphic of anatomical terms that most sound like exotic vacation destinations. I’m booked for the Fissure of Rolando.
- Cole Hamels loves Sydney.
- Giant waves battered cruise ships in the Bay of Biscay. Photos at the Daily Mail.
- GOOD rightfully thinks trains need some more support—and more money—on Capitol Hill.
- Inside the quest for alternative jet fuels. Black vomit nut, anyone?
- Another great Time Zones piece: “The Beautiful Chaos of Bangkok”
- Sex and Romance in Rio: Seth Kugel looks at the relationships between male tourists and female locals. Some background on the story.
- A Fugu mishap in Japan injures seven.
- Have you read “the world’s best passenger complaint letter”?
- An Alaskan entrepreneur wants a license to sell booze on his Fairbanks shuttle bus. His goal: To make enough money so he can hire another shuttle bus driver and join the mobile party. (via Fark)
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Remembering John Updike and His Sense of Place
by Tom Swick | 01.27.09 | 4:57 PM ET
Contemplating and celebrating the world of travel
Nevada’s Brothels Only Want to Help
by Sophia Dembling | 01.27.09 | 4:21 PM ET
Tourism and other forms of revenue are dropping off in Nevada and so the state’s brothels are offering to help out by paying their fair share of taxes, the New York Times reports. The state is not jumping to accept. Over at “The New Republic,” Michelle Cottle read the story and was intrigued to note that while prostitution is legal in some Nevada counties, “no county allows brothels to have men who sell sexual services.” She calls this discrimination and a lost business opportunity.
Save the Joshua Tree (Again)
by Joanna Kakissis | 01.27.09 | 2:18 PM ET
We’ve noted, rather sadly, that we can’t imagine Joshua Tree National Park without its signature Joshua tree. (Who can?) Scientists have warned that the giant yucca may disappear in 50 years because global warming is changing the desert’s fragile ecosystem. U2 famously showcased a Joshua tree on the Anton Corbijn-photographed cover of its 1987 album, and I wonder if the band silently praised it during its awesome pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial (or at least after President Obama affirmed his faith in scientists and pledged to help them deal with a planet in peril.)
Ecopreneur John Ivanko is optimistic, if guardedly so. Ivanko, who recently visited the park with his family, offered this ode, with the hope that a new outlook will help save the imperiled, iconic tree and its park, and other “great places” in the natural world.
For nostalgia’s sake, here’s some Corbijn-shot footage of (then youthful) members of U2 wandering the desert.
Plastic Pineapple Passion
by Pam Mandel | 01.27.09 | 10:57 AM ET
There are all kinds of things wrong with it. First, there’s the magnetically attractive plastic container. It’s shaped like a pineapple, of course, with a coin slot in the lid as though you’re actually going to use it as a change bank. Be honest, that’s not going to happen, it’s just going to end up on the tchotchke shelf at some thrift store. Next, there’s the fact that the soft serve is shockingly free of dairy products. Finally, what’s in there that you could possibly need? It’s a cocktail of sugar, empty carbs and, well, OK, pineapple juice is sure to have some nutritional value that’s not totally negated by the soft serve.
I couldn’t help it. When I saw visitors walking about the grounds of the Dole Plantation carrying their very own pineapple floats in their very own pineapple-shaped containers, I devolved into a badly behaved child. “I WANT ONE OF THOSE NOW!” Luckily, my husband felt the same way—and those childhood lessons about sharing kicked in, too. We were able to limit ourselves to one and let me tell you, it was more than enough.
And it was delicious. If you find me totally checked out, not paying attention at all, it’s possible that pictured in the bubble over my head, is one of those pineapple floats from the plantation store. I could go for one about now.
Morning Links: Polish Milk Bars, Talking Travel With Thomas Friedman and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.27.09 | 8:21 AM ET
- Milk bars in Warsaw are frozen in time, and that’s just one reason people love the relics of the Soviet era.
- Keith Bellows talks to Thomas Friedman about “the future of green technology and travel.”
- Road-tripping Yukon’s Dempster Highway.
- In Australia, incinerated meat “occupies a singular place in the national psyche.”
- World Hum contributor Frank Bures on what’s “possibly Wisconsin’s most famous landmark and definitely one of the world’s strangest tourist attractions.”
- Airports in the U.S. will soon begin testing radar designed to track birds.
- London officials warn: Watch out for those takeaway kebabs!
- Inside the Iron Maiden hotel.
- In the Western U.S. train travel is making “a heady comeback during these volatile energy-conscious times.”
- Scott McCartney on “the quest for perfect airline food.” Wait. Airline food still exists?
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Reading America: The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine
by Jenna Schnuer | 01.26.09 | 3:14 PM ET
Martha Stewart’s Whipping Boy?
by David Farley | 01.26.09 | 11:14 AM ET
Food writer Sylvie Bigar sits down with chef Pierre Schaedelin to talk about how he went from top toque at Le Cirque to Martha Stewart’s whipping boy ... er ... chef to cooking at Alain Ducasse’s New York outpost of famed Paris eatery Benoit. What did Schaedelin learn from being Martha’s food slave ... uh, we mean personal chef? Discipline.
Morning Links: Road Tripping ‘Amexica,’ Titty Ho and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.26.09 | 8:12 AM ET
- Ed Vulliamy drives the length of the U.S.-Mexico border. Or, as he calls it, “Amexica.”
- Is Mexico City now the world’s greatest food city?
- Paramedics bought Big Macs for stranded AeroMexico passengers in Portland. That might be the only pleasant news from the incident.
- The “tourism gold rush” has subsided in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Blame Mugabe.
- Toronto wrestles with its identity.
- USA Today explores the question of whether the Obama presidency will influence travel to the U.S.
- Super Bowl travel packages are “not exactly a hot ticket.”
- Looks who’s taking on the bad travel economy: William Shatner.
- Motherwell. Glenrothes. New Cumnock. These three towns are in the running for the most dismal in Scotland.
- Crapstone. Titty Ho. Penistone, These and other snicker-worthy place names in Britain have had bloggers, Tweeters and New York Times readers snickering all weekend. Myself included.
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What We Loved This Week: Street Food, Obama’s Inauguration and More
by World Hum | 01.23.09 | 4:42 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Frank Bures
I loved my new cookbook, The World of Street Foods: Easy Quick Meals to Cook at Home, which has everything from Tanzanian mango fritters to Thai tom yam to Libyan almond cookies to Mexican hot chocolate. Based I what I know, these recipes look like the real deal.
Jim Benning
Malcolm Gladwell’s hour-long talk on Book TV—you can watch it online here—about the role culture and communication can play in plane crashes. It’s utterly fascinating and changed the way I think about such things. (It’s also, it turns out, quite controversial.) Still, it makes me want to pick up his new book, Outliers: The Story of Success.
Valerie Conners
The inauguration of President Barack Obama, of course! But really, as I’ve tried to absorb the enormity of Tuesday, I’ve been moved by images from around the globe, particularly in this slideshow from Boston.com, which have offered such great perspective on how this moment has affected people well beyond U.S. borders.
Michael Yessis
Going to the National Mall and watching the inauguration. So, so cold out, but an overwhelming, beautiful experience.
Julia Ross
Of the many high points this week, I loved that Obama hightailed it over to the State Department on day two in office, bucked up our diplomats, and broke out his Indonesian. A global president = priceless.
A Trip to Battery Park City
by Rob Verger | 01.23.09 | 2:38 PM ET
I live not far from the Hudson’s shore in upper Manhattan, and on Friday last week after US Airways Flight 1549 ditched successfully in the river, I took the subway down to Battery Park City, where the plane had been secured at a pier. It was a sunny but cold day, and I wandered the area. It was quite a scene: the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Katherine Walker and police boats in the Hudson, emergency services equipment and personnel, and parts of the plane’s tail and left wing (seen here, in this picture I took) sticking up out of the water.
Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune
by Alexander Basek | 01.23.09 | 2:31 PM ET
Over at the Hotel Hotsheet, Kitty Bean Yancey is up in arms about the cost of a Singapore Sling at the Raffles in, er, Singapore. Kitty is making a larger point about “hotel sticker shock,” but for our purposes, a pricey Singapore Sling is a fine example of something that’s a struggle for any frequent traveler: the paradox of drinking at the bar of a landmark hotel.
The Grateful Dead: Looking Back at ‘a New World’
by Eva Holland | 01.23.09 | 11:15 AM ET
In the wake of the news about a new Grateful Dead tour, the good folks at Rock’s Backpages have dug up a thoughtful look back at the band’s early impact on one suburban teenager. Originally written to coincide with the 2001 release of The Golden Road, the Dead’s box set, Michael Goldberg’s essay recalls his first encounters with the band as a 14-year-old in Marin County.
Italian vs. I-talian vs. New Yorkese
by David Farley | 01.23.09 | 9:47 AM ET
Missy Robbins, the new chef at the posh New York City eatery A Voce, was relatively unknown to the New York City fooderati. That is, until Barack Obama came along. Robbins was the chef at Chicago’s Spiaggia restaurant. Like A Voce, Spiaggia serves up lauded Italian cuisine in a chic setting. And Obama was a regular, thanks, apparently, to Chef Robbins’ wood-fired scallops, among other menu items. With the circus surrounding the Inauguration, I decided to dine at A Voce a few days ago, hoping I’d get a chance to taste what kept Obama coming back to Spiaggia again and again (he was just there last month, in fact).