The crazy idea: In January of this year, I took nine colleagues to Bhutan. I am still amazed that this diverse group of freelancers and small agency account directors so readily agreed to dedicate a week of their time to a team building adventure in a small Himalayan kingdom. On top of that, the journey… Read More Team building in Bhutan
There was no instagram or snapchat when Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work The Gates was realized. Not even twitter. In 1995, when they finally were allowed to wrap the Reichstag, you couldn’t even google (though admittedly there was yahoo). Yet somehow we still heard of these projects, and the visuals of the completed works remained firmly etched… Read More Travel for art’s sake: Brescia, Christo and The Floating Piers
“Is the crisis better or worse?” “Worse.” When the writer Paul Theroux retraced his mid 1970s adventures of The Great Railway Bazaar three decades later, he wrote in the sequel Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: “Baku doesn’t need tourists. It’s a wealthy place.” Today, Azerbaijan is deep in an economic crisis precipitated by falling global… Read More Four days in Baku
I first visited Japan in the summer of 1995. In those graduate student days, when you traveled to a faraway place – or at least when we impoverished wannabe academics did – it was not unusual to stay away for three months or so. Once you had the ticket and, if needed, the visa in… Read More This week at the local markets: Depato food sampling in Tokyo
All in all, in Germany – and yes, even in my somewhat “edgy” city of Berlin – it’s just not so easy to have a restaurant meal unlaced with pork or cream. Often enough, you’re (un)lucky to get both in one dish. German monochromatic cooking (white, beige, or brown) thrives on cream and pork in… Read More Where to eat in Berlin if you’re Muslim, Jewish, sorta veg, lactose intolerant or just don’t want cream and pork in your food!
This week’s posting is by guest blogger Stiv, my man on the street in Cape Town. Stay tuned for more of his wonderfully descriptive postings of the South African culinary scene. Enjoy! When I first started travelling the world, I learned that when you come from a place like South Africa, you are the exotic,… Read More This week at the local market: Porter’s Market, Cape Town, South Africa
My decade-old culinary memories from my first trip to Budapest et environs are twofold. First, the lukewarm “capuccino” two parts whipped cream to one part coffee sipped endlessly on chilly November days on the southern shore of Lake Balaton. We were bunking at Club Aliga – a then just-post-socialist elite retreat that is now, I… Read More Last week in Budapest – some culinary highlights
In Paris, one markets on Sundays. I spent one hour this Sunday at the Bastille market, which fills the median on boulevard Richard Lenoir between rue Amelot and rue St. Sabin. Entering the market from the Bastille roundabout, I was amused to find the very first stalls setting the tone of the market and in… Read More This week at the local market: Bastille market in Paris
The town of Offenbach has gained my respect. For the last week, I’ve been walking my 600 meters to work across the dreary chain-cheap store, chain-bakery, chain-mobile phone shop dotted pedestrian area of downtown Offenbach. The coffee is lousy, the ambiance is grey. The chain stores seem to have made a pact to suffocate and… Read More This week at the local market: Mainufer Fest in Offenbach
You don’t read much about sorrel. But now that America has an arugula-loving president at its helm, some of these underdog greens might make it to the table. I first had sorrel soup in Dolores’ 57th street apartment a few decades ago. Dolores’ kitchen was more of a walk-in closet with a window. Almost European… Read More Potato sorrel soup
Do you have a cow? 