strawberries

Launching a Stockholm stay at the farmers market

Launching a Stockholm stay at the farmers market

Posted on by Pat and David
When we travel for extended periods, we like to rent an Airbnb that gives us a taste of what it's like to live someplace, rather than just visiting. For a couple of weeks in Stockholm, we found a one-bedroom flat in the Kungsholmen neighborhood close to public transit. It's in a circa-1900 building with some Art Nouveau (Jugenstil) touches. Our apartment occupies the attic level — 5th floor by European reckoning, 6th by American. (A vintage open-cage elevator takes us most of the way up.) Whoever renovated did a great job coping with the angles and niches beneath the roof, giving the whole flat a bright, contemporary Scandinavian look. Even more fortunately, we have an outdoor patio with an electric grill and a thoroughly modern...Read More
‘Legendary Dinners’ comes just in time to entertain

‘Legendary Dinners’ comes just in time to entertain

Posted on by Pat and David
We live in one of the most well-vaccinated corners of the world (New England), and that has utterly transformed this summer over the isolation of last year. Not only can we get out and travel, we can have friends over and get reacquainted with the full-length versions rather than the Zoom-screen head and shoulders. So we were very happy to page through Legendary Dinners: From Grace Kelly to Jackson Pollock edited by Anne Peterson (Prestel 2021, $40). It's a literary chimera—half coffee table book about the rich and famous and half surprisingly practical cookbook. Think of it as a mashup of Town & Country and Bon Appétit. The volume is full of tales of the rich and famous. We rubbed shoulders with Coco Chanel, imagined...Read More
Long Island’s North Fork is gourmand heaven

Long Island’s North Fork is gourmand heaven

Posted on by Pat and David
We recently sailed the Cross Sound Ferry (longislandferry.com) from New London, Connecticut, to Orient Point on the North Fork of New York's Long Island to sip and nibble our way through an agricultural region we don't visit often enough. If you look at a map, you'll see that the landmass logically belongs with southern New England instead of New York. It's all part of the glacial moraine—the deposit of sand and gravel that marks the southern extent of the last glaciers about 15,000 years ago. A lot of silt has settled over that gritty base, and the warm currents of Long Island Sound help make the North Fork into prime farm country just 80 miles east of Manhattan. In 1988, the area was designated as...Read More