Food & Wine Podcasts Shopping: Food & Wine Podcasts Shopping
by maribeth
Comments Off on Elevating the Everyday with Ross Sveback
Elevating the Everyday with Ross Sveback
Ross and His Dinnerware Collection
I have two words for the holidays: puffed pastry. Or maybe three: frozen puffed pastry. Lifestyle expert Ross Sveback reveals it as his secret weapon. I also just featured it as a holiday tip in my recent interview with Angela from Seasonal and Savory. In the below Travel Fun program, I share with Ross how I use it every year to make my Galette des Rois, a traditional French, almond paste-filled pastry that commemorates the Feast of Kings Day. Now I think I’ll whip it up into some other petits merveils throughout the season. And if I follow more of Ross’s advice, I’ll buy canned chicken stock and do more planning ahead so that I won’t be so stressed when preparing holiday meals.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Colorado Food & Wine Shopping: Colorado Food & Wine Shopping
by maribeth
Comments Off on Favorite Reasonably-Priced Wines for the Holidays
Favorite Reasonably-Priced Wines for the Holidays
Cupcake Vineyards Prosecco: Love this Label, Love this Wine
‘Tis the season to be festive. And whether you’re buying for yourself or for someone else (a finely-crafted bottle of wine almost always makes a great gift), there’s no need to go overboard. Even bubbly is more delicious and moderately priced than ever these days.
Take Cupcake Vineyard’s Prosecco. This delightfully refreshing, effervescent nectar rings in at less than $15. I love any kind of bubbles for the aperitif, but you can just as easily pair this delicious Italian wine with gorgonzola or lemon pie.
Not surprisingly, I have a soft spot for Cupcake in general. (I’m such a girly-girl.) But to me, wine is like perfume, the name and packaging are almost as important as what’s inside. So how about the newly-released 2010 Cupcake Vineyards Red Velvet Wine? Yum. It’s the first blended red wine for Cupcake and as you can imagine, it envelopes your taste buds in aromas of chocolate, mocha and deep, rich, red fruits. How can you not pick up a bottle for your best girl friend, especially with a SRP of less than $15.?
Other Cupcake faves include their Dry Riesling from Colombia Valley and their Riesling from Mosel Valley. Both possess the luscious, full-bodied flavors of the renowned terroirs of Washington state and Germany, respectively. Reach for Cupcake’s Mosel Valley Riesling to kick off your special holiday meals or to accompany grilled fish; their Dry Riesling begs to be served with something more exotic such as a stir fry or a spicy chicken tagine.
Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfandel: Zinfully Good
Outdoor Adventures Podcasts Shopping The Southwest Travel Writing & Books: Outdoor Adventures Podcasts Shopping The Southwest Travel Writing & Books
by maribeth
1 comment
James Kaiser on Acadia, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks
Yosemite Valley
How many of America’s national parks have you been to? I’ve only visited a handful even though I love the great outdoors, wide open spaces and awe-inspiring scenery. It’s so beautiful here in Telluride that I often feel like I’m living in a national park. But still. There are so many out there to discover; the question is where to begin.
Here’s a great start: let James Kaiser, award-winning travel writer, photographer and expert guide you. Listen to my Travel Fun interview below and hear what James has to say about some of America’s greatest treasures. Like me, he agrees that most Americans are missing out on what’s in their own backyard. “Fifty percent of the people you see in America’s national parks are foreigners,” James says. “They travel halfway around the world to visit our national parks,” he continues. And while you’re listening to our interview, I suggest you check out his site, JamesKaiser.com, where you can see and shop for some of his spectacular national park photos.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride
by maribeth
Comments Off on Filling in Nicely in Telluride: Snowstorm After Snowstorm
Filling in Nicely in Telluride: Snowstorm After Snowstorm
Telluride, Colorado
Top of Lift One Taken Yesterday on My Walk: Snow Guns Blazing in Between Storms
Yippee! What a month of November it has been so far—and it’s only the seventh! We’ve had seventeen inches of beautiful white fluff in the past four days and more snow is in the forecast for today and tonight. And then very cold temperatures—as low as single digits Tuesday night. We couldn’t ask for a better set up for a great ski season.
End of October was pretty sweet, too. As I reported in Fall in Colorado: October Snow Arrives with My Woolens and Ski Gear, our weather switched from glorious full-on Indian Summer to Winter and it looks like winter’s here to stay. That’s just the way it’s supposed to be in ski country.
Boy, do I love this place. When people ask me if I miss Paris, I sometimes reply “Have you ever been to Telluride?”
It’s going to be a great season. I’m off to my storage area to pick up my boots and boards.
Fashion & Style Girl Talk Paris Shopping: Fashion & Style Girl Talk Paris Shopping
by maribeth
Comments Off on Reaching Out to Victoria, Paris and Wolff & Descourtis
Reaching Out to Victoria, Paris and Wolff & Descourtis
Toucan Rouge Scarf
I’ve been thinking tons about my friend, Victoria Wolff, lately. Perhaps it’s because with the change of seasons I brought out my marvelous collection of scarves and shawls. Silk, cashmere, wool and challis wonders that exude all the charm and sophistication of Paris. My collection of them grew throughout my eleven years in Paris and I know they will be an essential part of my wardrobe until I’m old and grey. Most of these jewel-toned creations come from Wolff & Descourtis, Victoria’s shop in the Galerie Vivienne, a highly-regarded, family-owned textile business dating back to 1875.
Art & Culture Colorado Hotels & Lodging Shopping Telluride The Rockies The Southwest Travel: Art & Culture Colorado Hotels & Lodging Shopping Telluride The Rockies The Southwest Travel
by maribeth
2 comments
Touring the Southwest with My Parents
A Great Facebook Profile Picture: Dad at the Grand Canyon
Are you familiar with those digital photo frames that display a continuous stream of select images? Well, I was back east in October visiting my parents and brought one of those frames to them as a gift. We had to enlist outside help (thanks Brian) to transfer my images onto the frame (I’m so eighteenth century), but once it started to flash our faces across the screen, we all beamed. My father especially glowed since he was finally able to see himself backdropped by a parade of images from the Grand Canyon and other notable sites in the Southwest. It was like bringing him back to the South Rim of the Canyon to gaze over the vastness and grandeur of what is most certainly our country’s greatest treasure.
We embarked on our two-week Western Jamboree just about a year ago. Fall and even winter are two fantastic seasons for visiting many of our National Parks, especially the Grand Canyon. During these times the wondrous play of light combined with a lack of crowds make these sites even more enchanting. The focal point of our trip was to be the Grand Canyon, a place my father always dreamed of seeing. At the age of eighty-four, we were ready to grant him his wish.
Art & Culture Girl Talk Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Shopping Travel: Art & Culture Girl Talk Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Shopping Travel
by maribeth
3 comments
A Heartwarming Day Trip to Western Massachusetts and the Norman Rockwell Museum
Autumnal Scene in Stockbridge, Massachusetts
I was back east recently visiting my parents in upstate New York. Mom and I had on our agenda a “day out” to ourselves, one just like the old days. To us that meant planning a jaunt to a nearby destination such as the Hudson Valley region, southern Vermont or the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, all scenic and fairly rural destinations within about an hour’s drive of my parents’ house in Troy, New York. These were the places we would travel to throughout the years, especially when I was growing up. Together we would marvel at the pastoral landscapes while chitchatting the day away. Lunch, a bit of shopping and often a museum visit were all key components of a successful day trip, the perfect female bonding experience for two gals living in a house full of men. (I grew up with five brothers, a father and no sisters.)
It was during these joyous excursions that my love for unique places full of personality and charm emerged. I could hardly tolerate department stores or malls when I was a girl and still have a hard time with them today. Yes, these trips to soulful sites full of history and tradition planted the seeds for the shopping service I founded in Paris some years later and the four books I came to write on shopping and touring in Paris and the French provinces. My philosophy is and always will be about the whole shopping and touring experience—it’s not so much about what you buy, it’s about how and where you buy it and what you learn along the way. Truth is, I’m not even a big advocate of buying, but we all do, so why not have it be something special that you’ve procured in a memorable manner?
This special day to ourselves was more challenging to organize since we don’t leave my eighty-five-year-old Dad alone much any more. With a hearty, microwavable meal prepared in advance at the ready, cell phones listed in plain site and the reassurance that his Life-Alert was in working order, we said “Hasta la Vista,” knowing full well that we’d all appreciate the much-needed time away from each other.
Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Restaurants Shopping The Rockies: Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Restaurants Shopping The Rockies
by maribeth
6 comments
Peachy Keen on Palisade
The Real Deal: Peaches from Palisade, Colorado
Oh, those Colorado peaches. There’s nothing like them. I heard so much on national news this summer about South Carolina surpassing Georgia (in triple) as the peach capital of the United States, but nary a whisper about Colorado’s peaches. I waited until my recent trip back east—to North Carolina—to fully weigh in on America’s peaches. Well, just as I suspected, the south doesn’t have anything on what we have here in the Rockies. I’m talking about fat, flavorful peaches that explode with juice as soon as you slice into them. True peach enthusiasts bite into them and delight in their sweet nectar, a heavenly liquid that gushes out of your mouth and rolls down your chin until you wipe it off with the back of your hand, leaving only a wide grin behind. Those are our Colorado peaches, mostly from Palisade, a charming little town tucked between the Colorado River and red rocks, just outside of Grand Junction on the western slope.
I’ve been feasting on these peaches ever since I arrived in Colorado nearly ten years ago. I’d zoomed by Palisade many times on the Interstate without ever stopping. This summer though I made it my mission to check out the source of this delectable fruit, the provenance of so much of Colorado’s bounty including grapes, lots of other fine produce and more recently, lavender. Indeed, I discovered an air of Provence in this incredibly hot and arid climate, made lush by a vast array of irrigation systems, some dating back to when the first pioneers settled here about a hundred years ago.
My friend, Fran, and I scouted out the little town of Palisade first off since the day was waning and we wanted to suss out a good place for dinner. The shops were already closed by then, a welcome relief of sorts since we both felt that we could have dropped a bundle at A Peachful Place, a quaint and colorful little shop filled with vintage bric-a-brac and other random treasures. We stood in front of it, peered into its windows and drooled. Then we popped in next door at the Palisade Cafe and Grill to inquire about dinner. When we learned that they only had one piece of peach pie left and that they stopped serving at 8 p.m., we decided to inspect another dining establishment in town, the Red Rose Cafe. A peek in here assured us that we didn’t have to rush and that we’d be able to dine here after eight.
