Cuba
I’ve been back from Cuba for about a week, but my brain is still in over-stimulation mode, dazed and dazzled. It’s like waking up from a dream that one can’t shake the intensity of, nor make sense of completely. When I arrive in Cuba,…
Portland, Maine suffers no shortage of creative enterprises. The city has a high density of superb restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and independently owned shops. Among the many great finds, one of my favorites is the Portland Flea-for-All. Located in the resurgent Bayside neighborhood, Portland Flea-for-All features…
A friend of mine from Washington, DC was driving to Maine for her best friend’s wedding. En route, she called the bride-to-be to remind her to gather “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue,” as the saying goes. “Yikes!” the bride exclaimed. She…
The staccato tock-tock-tock of the high school marching band’s practice and the buzzing of cicadas are two of the surest sounds heralding the end of summer. They pinch me with a feeling of sadness. Summer is a lush and generous season with long hours of daylight and an abundance…
Friday is a sweet spot of a weekday to browse and shop the Paris markets. Vendors’ stalls are well stocked in anticipation of shoppers who want to lay in provisions before the weekend begins, and the aisles are easier to navigate than they will be on Saturday and Sunday when markets are more crowded….
As a market day in Paris, Sunday might be hard to beat. Many markets are open on Sunday morning, plus there’s tremendous variety in the different types. Whether your interests run toward antiques, flea items, food (including organic), crafts, books, or birds, you can find entire markets devoted to them on any given…
Quick, name one thing that goes exceptionally well with chocolate. My reflexive answer is peanut butter (yes, I’m one of those sweet and salty types), but Brian Pfeiffer makes a case for the answer being Paris. I’m delighted to publish his description of the annual Salon du Chocolat…
On one trip to Paris–in fact, to celebrate the publication of Markets of Paris–the plane had no sooner landed and my husband and I dropped off our baggage that we headed to rue Cler. We hadn’t walked far when jet lag caught up with us, so we ducked into Le Petit Cler for…
(Text and photo by David Burns) The answer, for many, is the upcoming Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants. The 2017 dates are November 3-December 4 at the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Hall. This marché du vin is impressive for its physical size as well as its…
I recently returned from a month in the south of France. Peter Mayle spun a year’s worth of adventures into A Year in Provence, which spawned several sequels. I found that with “only” four weeks in Provence, one can easily amass as many fascinating experiences and…