Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
DANGER: Jet Blast
Entertainment at Maho Beach Resort, St. Marteen The Maho Beach Resort was an unlikely end to a gorgeous Caribbean vacation on Anguilla, but that’s where it ended in a massive hotel with over five hundred rooms, a casino, a vast pool with a bar in it, people sipping cocktails, playing bingo, smoking cigarettes, relaxing. On [...]
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Tags: Anguilla, Josef Hoflehner, Maho Beach Resort, St. Marteen
IN GOOD COMPANY (from More Magazine — November 2007) On a corner in Fort Worth’s Southside, my friend Donatella Trotti (known as Dodi) has opened a tiny trattoria. It is called Nonna Tata, after her grandmother, and is in a 500-square-foot cinderblock building on a seemingly lonely street. The cozy interior is completely designed by [...]
Filed under: FRIENDS, On Cooking, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Donatella Trotti, Fort Worth, In Good Company, Italian recipes, Lasagna Verde. Torta al Limone, More Magazine, Nonna Tata
Dreaming With Christina
I met Christina Ball first day of freshman year at Bowdoin College. She was my roommate and she arrived in our room with an entourage: a sister, a brother, a mother and father, a grandmother. They crowded in, inspected, turned over pillows, looked out windows, absorbed us — my father and me. We’d arrived first, [...]
Filed under: FRIENDS, ON WRITING, Travel | 2 Comments
Tags: Bowdoin College, Christina Ball, Dreaming in Umbria, Italy, Roccafiore, Speak Language Center, Todi
Dreaming In Umbria
Dreaming in Umbria Creative Writing Workshop with Martha McPhee JUNE 9-16, 2012 Italianist, Christina Ball, is hosting a writing workshop at the luxury spa and wellness center, Roccafiori, in Todi, Italy in June 2012. She’s invited me to lead the workshops and I would love you all to come. Find out more …
Filed under: FOR STUDENTS, FRIENDS, ON WRITING, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Christina Ball, Roccafiori, Speak Language Center, Todi, Umbria, Writing Workshop
On the Svenvold farm After 19 years together, my husband took me to his father’s childhood home on a farm outside of Glendive, Montana and I met more Svenvolds than I knew existed—cousins and second cousins and cousins once and twice removed. I’m rich with in-laws I didn’t know I had. Their grandfather, Rasmus, came [...]
Filed under: FAMILY, Travel | 1 Comment
Tags: farm, Glendive, Montana, ranch, Svenvold
I have always found my portal into another culture to be through its food. In March I went to the jungle outside of Merida and stayed in a colonial hacienda that had been transformed into a private home, soaring ceilings and rioting vegetation just outside the screened doors, the constant song of doves. At this [...]
Filed under: On Cooking, Travel | 7 Comments
Tags: Flan, Hacienda Petac, Key Lime Pie, masa harina, Merida, Panuchos, tortilla press, Yucatecan Cuisine
Bullring: San Jose Tzal, Mexico
Before the bullfight. Hard wood poles tied together with sisal twine and erected on the town soccer field. According to a local guide it can hold up to 3000 spectators. I didn’t dare attend.
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Tags: Bullring, Mexico, San Jose Tzal, Yucatan
Waking Early To Birdsong
Waking early to birdsong, doves and mot mots, a pair of love birds playing in a branch. Coffee delivered to my bed. A sultry air stirred by a kind breeze. The jungle outside of Merida, Mexico. Hacienda Petac, former sisal plantation established in the 1700s, celebrated for its rope production, converted now to a private [...]
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Tags: bird sanctuary, Hacienda Petac, lovely private home for rent, Merida, Mexico
Rattlesnakes
At a ranch on the banks of the Snake River in southern Idaho a rattlesnake coiled, began to rattle. My son was a few inches away, frozen, fascinated, terrified. We’d been warned about the rattlesnakes, told to wear boots and chaps. But we’d just arrived and Jasper was in shorts and sneakers. My husband came [...]
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Tags: rattlesnakes, Rising From The Plains, Silk Parachute, Snake River
On Top Of The World
Railroad Ridge, Idaho Pryde, my mother Livia, my daughter Stefania, my sister’s sister-in-law 360 degree views of mountains, rolling into more mountains, like the sea Heading west, believing they were almost to the Pacific, these mountains are what Louis and Clark encountered.
Filed under: Travel | 2 Comments




