Daily Pampering: Master Chef classic in Beaver Creek

by Melanie Nayer on

Beaver Creek is more than just fancy slopes and skiing. This January, celebrity chefs will convene in Beaver Creek for the 13th Annual Beaver Creek Master Chef Challenge, and you can have up-close-and-personal seats with some of your favorite chefs (for a fee, of course).

Bon Appétit is sponsoring the a yummy three-day epicurean affair, which takes plans Jan. 27-29. The event includes an awe-inspiring Master Chef Challenge, intimate cooking classes, an après-ski cocktail seminar and a Grand Tasting at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch.

In the kitchen:
John Besh – Chef: August, Besh Steak, Luke, La Provence, American Sector, and Domenica (New Orleans)
Joey Campanaro – Chef/Owner, The Little Owl (New York); Chef, Kenmare (New York), Owner, Market Table (New York), Village Bele (Philadelphia)
Stephanie Izard – Executive Chef/ Partner, Girl & The Goat (Chicago)
François Payard – Pastry Chef, FPB (New York, Las Vegas, Japan and Korea), Payard, François Chocolate Bar
Jacques Van Staden – Chef, London Club (Las Vegas); Vice President of Food & Beverage Operations, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises
Jose Garces – Executive Chef, Mercat a la Planxa (Chicago); Owner/ Executive Partner, Garces Restaurant Group (collection of restaurants in Philadelphia)
Marco Canora – Co-Owner/Chef, Hearth and Terroir (New York); Finalist on”Next Iron Chef”
The price? Master Chef Classic lodging event packages are available starting at $522 per person, which includes two nights of lodging, two days of lift tickets and one ticket each for the Master Chef Challenge and the Grand Tasting. This package is available Jan. 27-31, 2011.

Event-only ticket packages are also available including a Master Chef Package for $475, which provides one ticket to the Master Chef Dinner, Master Chef Challenge, Grand Tasting, one Seminar (choice of Chophouse/Wine Seminar or Osprey/Cocktail Seminar) and one Cooking Class (Marco/Splendido or Joey/Park Hyatt).

The VIP package is $575 and includes the Master Chef Package offerings plus early admittance to the Grand Tasting for exclusive access to the Chefs. The Just a Taste Package for $165 includes tickets for the Master Chef Challenge and the Grand Tasting.

Cruise industry sails into social waters

by Chris Owen on

Not all that long ago major cruise lines, like many other industries, did not have much time for social media. They gave Facebook, Twitter, bloggers and other social platforms half a look then settled back into their comfy traditional marketing chairs, content with business as usual.

They didn’t get it.

Lately though, the tide has turned and cruise lines are getting on board for what looks to be a wild ride.

Today we see major campaigns aimed at engaging us in a conversation. This is the stuff that brought terror into the hearts of cruise line executives not all that long ago. They did not understand what to do with social media.

Today we see lines like Carnival Cruise Lines diving in head first on several fronts. That’s important because Carnival Corp, parent of Carnival Cruise Lines (@CarnivalCruise) and many others including Princess Cruises (@PrincessCruises) and Holland America Line (@HalCruises) often sets the pace other lines will follow in all sorts of stuff.

Most recently, Gadling told you about Carnival sailing to Times Square for New Years Eve where the line will drop a ton of confetti on the crowd at midnight. Carnival will cross the line into social engagement in a big way that night. Much of that confetti will come from visitors to New York’s Times Square who stopped by the line’s “wishing wall”. There, they will hand-write their hopes and dreams for 2011 on red, white and blue slips of paper to be included in the drop on to party-goers at Midnight. It doesn’t get a whole lot more engaging than that.

But that event is just the most recent social effort by Carnival. The line’s senior cruise director John Heald has a popular long-running blog, the company’s twitter handle (@CCLSupport) answers questions issues swiftly and the line’s website promotes more interactivity than ever before.

Carnival gets it.

They are not the only ones either. Princess Cruises has thoughtfully entered the social arena with their Twitter #FollowMeAtSea trips where travel bloggers and writers were invited along for an actual cruise to write and blog about. They shared their experiences with loyal followers on Twitter and Facebook, bringing them along for the ride. I was on the last one, a 12-day cruise tour through Alaska in June.

On that Twitter press trip, Princess defined just how globally penetrating active social engagement can be for cruise lines.

Along for the ride were a wide, diverse variety of bloggers and photographers from around the planet including Emmy award-winning JD Andrews (@earthXplorer), funny-man Rick Griffin (@MidLifeRoadTrip), Canadian adventure-couple Debra Corbeil and Dave Bouskill (@theplanetd) and Gadling’s Catherine Bodry. Homespun mid-westerner Beth Blair (@BethBlair) was there alongside Germany’s Emlyn Boecher from international travel icon @Traveldudes and Liz Wright (@Travelogged) along with luxury travel expert Carrie Finley-Bajak (@Cruisebuzz) to round out the group.

Communicating with followers from all corners of the world, Princess began a conversation that continues today and has expanded to include more than simply promoting the line’s products, raising awareness on global topics like environmental concerns down to micro-interests like dog sled racing.

Princess gets it. Industry-wide, it’s an evolving effort as cruise lines work on opening and maintaining an ongoing conversation with us.

Royal Caribbean tried and failed on Twitter by posting last-minute discount pricing without the engagement factor. The whole idea of using social media outlets as just another place to paste advertising has not been well-received by a public looking for transparency and engagement. Still, Royal Caribbean is evolving too with old-school efforts like giving away a free cruise to the audience on Oprah’s My Favorite Things while working a very active Facebook page and a popular Presidents Blog where President and CEO Adam Goldstein posts regularly.

In the lead for executive participation though is Norwegian Cruise lines with Executive Vice-President Andy Stuart (@NCLAndy) the first and only cruise line executive on Twitter. The line successfully integrated the launch of new mega-ship Norwegian Epic in a very social way by inviting along an A-list of cruise and travel bloggers like Vegas red-carpet brother team Bill Cody (@VegasBill) and Chris Rauschnot (@24K) along with TV’s Stewart Chiron (@CruiseGuy) and Radio’s Doug Parker and Matt Bassford (@CruiseRadio). Like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian has not turned its back on traditional media either though as President and CEO Kevin Sheehan takes to the airwaves this week on an episode of CBS’s reality show Undercover Boss.

Look for more social efforts by cruise lines in the near future too as more lines “get it”, realize the benefits of engaging existing and would-be passengers and move forward into social arenas. It should be a wild ride.

Flickr photo by Port of San Diego

Breaking: Cruise Line crew accused of smuggling drugs

by Chris Owen on

It looks like more than good times and frosty umbrella drinks were on board Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas earlier this month as crew members were caught red-handed by US officials trying to smuggle heroin and cocaine into Baltimore.

The Baltimore Sun reports a criminal complaint filed by U.S. officials on Tuesday alleges three employees of the cruise line had bought the drugs in the Dominican Republic for resale in the U.S.

Apparently the three crew members had planned on selling those drugs at a local Wal-Mart near the cruise terminal but Customs officials were tipped off by a ship security officer for Royal Caribbean.

According to documents obtained by the Baltimore Sun, agents said they found 700 grams of heroin and 300 grams of cocaine hidden in the waistband and shoes of the crew member, The drugs had been picked up from a Jamaican man in the Dominican Republic, brought on to the ship, to be sold once they reached the United States.

It’s not the most unusual method of smuggling we’ve heard of with Gadling reporting back in November when a man caught with drugs tied to his genitals faces five years in jail, but it makes me wonder why bringing a bottle of wine in my luggage is such a big deal.

Flickr photo by mastersellerphotos

South of the Clouds: Shaxi, Yunnan, China

by Catherine Bodry on

Once an important market town on China’s ancient tea-horse road, Shaxi is one of seemingly very few Chinese villages that have retained their original feel. Quiet, with cobblestone lanes and courtyard homes, Shaxi is currently undergoing a “remodel” to restore and preserve its historical market square, inner village, and, eventually, ready the entire Shaxi Valley for tourism. Though only a few hotels and shops currently smatter the tiny village, there’s no way a town like this will stay this quiet for long. You’ll be rewarded by visiting soon, as the vibe is sure to change after the completion of a new highway nearby.

Gadling was lucky enough to visit Shaxi in November on a trip with WildChina, during which we traced parts of China’s tea-horse caravan route.

%Gallery-112119%Shaxi sits roughly between Lijiang and Dali, and was a halfway point for tea and horse traders traveling between southern Yunnan and Tibet. The town experienced its prime from 1368-1911, when it flourished as a way station along the tea-horse trading route. When the last of the caravans passed through in 1949, Shaxi settled into relative isolation. In 2001, the World Monument Fund added Shaxi’s market square to its Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites, as the square had its original theater, temple, and guesthouses. All, however, were in danger from neglect and the potential of shoddy restoration. In partnership between the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and the People’s Government of Jianchuan County, the first phase of the Shaxi Restoration Project began in 2006, and the village is readying itself for more visitors.

A tour of Shaxi

The first thing to do is visit the village’s market square. Largely unchanged for centuries, the square is a quiet remnant of the bustling tea-horse days. It livens at night, when locals gather to dance and play music, and on Fridays, when Yi villagers dress up and descend from the hills to join Bai locals for trading and fun.

One one side of the square sits Xingjiao Temple, parts of which dates back to the early 1400s. Part of Shaxi’s restoration project, the temple was once a headquarters during the Cultural Revolution and was also used for grain storage. Today it is a quiet courtyard off of a quiet square, interrupted only by the occaisonal Chinese official with a cigarette, screaming into his mobile phone.

Also in the square sits the Sideng Theater, the most prominent building in the area. A small museum has been established in the refurbished building, and plans are underway to re-open shops along the ground floor.

Courtyard homes and guesthouses make up much of the rest of Shaxi. We were invited into the home of Ouyang Shengxian, a 70-year-old Bai man whose father and grandfather were muleteers on the tea-horse road. Ouyang’s ancient courtyard home once housed traders traveling the route. His kitchen has changed very little in the past couple of centuries (see photo gallery), and Ouyang himself seems from another time. Wearing a thin, cracked leather jacket held closed by two pieces of bright red yarn, Ouyeng recalled for us not only his stories, but those of his grandfather and father (who was killed at 33 by bandits). Though he never worked the tea-horse road, Ouyang traded salt from the nearby Misha salt mines, as well as worked in coal mines.

The Laomadian Lodge, off of Market Square, is another venue that was used as accommodation for tea-horse road travelers. Comprised of several coutyards, the 151-year-old venue still has the original cabinets that horsemen slept on top of to guard their personal belongings. White reflecting walls in the courtyards display restored Bai paintings, and, as with all of Shaxi, stepping across the threshold of the inn feels as though you have stepped back through centuries in time.

Stay tuned for more on things to do around Shaxi.

For more about Gadling’s tour of Yunnan, click here.

Though my trip through Yunnan was partially funded by WildChina, the opinions expressed here are 100% my own.

Inflight masturbation arrest blamed on “spilled hot sauce”

by Scott Carmichael on

A 50 year old Floridian has been arrested after he exposed himself on a flight from Salt Lake City to Lewiston, ID. The man reportedly started masturbating next to a 17 year old girl on the plane, who then moved seats to get away from the pervert.

Upon arrival at the airport, the girl told her father, who contacted the Transportation Security Administration. When TSA officials contacted the local police department, the man was placed under arrest on suspicion of “misdemeanor indecent exposure”.

According to police, the man claims he spilled Tabasco sauce on his crotch, causing him to expose himself and rub violently to reduce the burning and itching.

Of course, anyone that has actually seen a bottle of Tabasco knows that the hot stuff comes out one drip at a time, so spilling enough to set your genitals on fire is a really lousy excuse. He’ll get to use his Tabasco excuse in front of a judge soon, who’ll have to decide whether this really is a case of inflight masturbation or something innocent.

[Photo from Flickr/nromagna]