Hotel cooking classes let you savor travel memories at home

by Laurel Miller on

You know what they say…”take only pictures, leave only memories.” But what if you want to take it home with you? That searing pad ka prow that leaves a film of sweat on your brow, a fragrant bouillabaisse, schnitzel so thin and crisp it practically floats?

What you need is a cooking class, from one of the many resorts, hotels, or cruises offering full or half-day demonstration and hands-on programs that let you recreate regional specialties. Depending upon the class, you might find yourself shopping at the local market for ingredients, visiting wineries, or truffle hunting.

In the Southwest, Inn on the Alameda joins up with the Santa Fe School of Cooking for “Muy Sabrosa,” a package demo class/lunch, and two nights stay, including breakfast, daily wine and cheese reception, and $40 gift certificate to Mucho Gusto cafe. Rates start $376 for two and dates are available throughout the year.

In Jamaica, Jake’s Island Outpost offers private lunch classes utilizing local ingredients, and featuring traditional dishes like “run down,” for just $20 a pop. Farmers often visit Jake’s to sell their produce, while fisherman pull up onto the beach each day, so guests can cook with with freshly-caught seafood. Crystal Cruises has hands-on classes on all Wine & Food sailings, which feature guest celebrity and award-winning chefs, winemakers, and mixologists. Each trip has a theme, such as sushi or Latin American food.

In Europe, Park Hyatt Hamburg has classes focused on seasonal ingredients such as spring asparagus, or cooking a Christmas goose. An October 16 class features quinces, apples, and pears from the “Old Land,” Europe’s largest fruit orchard, just outside of the city. Students will use the fruit to make braised venison with porcini. At Hotel Crillon le Brave, a charming boutique property in the Provence countryside, class participants this fall can immerse themselves in five, half-day intensives, including excursions to local markets, and the aforementioned truffle hunting. In Switzerland, La Réserve Genève’s chef lets guests in on his professional secrets during his Chef Workshops, each based on a different dish or theme, such as fresh pasta, or chocolate.

Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, in Northern Thailand, are famed for their cooking schools and classes. Anantara Golden Triangle Resort & Spa lets students choose from one of four set menus in their half-day program, which includes a guided tour/shopping expedition of the Chiang Saen food market. Over in Abu Dhabi, Desert Islands Resort & Spa, on verdant Sir Bani Yas Island, offers the unusual experience of Arabic cooking classes, where students learn to prepare dishes like moutabel, and prawns haram.

Rare, really smelly Sumatran “Corpse Flower” to bloom at Houston museum

by Laurel Miller on

The botanical world is a fascinating thing, but fans of “Little Shop of Horrors” will be especially excited about the eminent blooming of the endangered Amorphophallus titanum, at the Cockrell Butterfly Center at Houston’s Museum of Natural Science. Nicknamed the “Corpse Flower” for the unholy stench it emits in bloom, the phallic-looking plant is one of the largest, rarest flowers in the world. Native to parts of Indonesia (I’ve seen Raffelsia, a similar flower from a different family, on a trek in Thailand’s stunning Khao Sok National Park) these suckers can reach up to 10 feet in height, with a diameter of up to six feet. Early explorers in Sumatra actually believed the flower was a man-eating plant.

“Lois,” Cockrell’s resident Corpse Flower, is about to bloom for the first time, and visitors can check it out for themselves in person, or via webcam. Lois even has her own blog, and Twitter account (not affiliated with the museum). Says Dr. Nancy Greig, director of the Center, “The Corpse Flower is unique because it’s totally unpredictable. No one really knows what triggers a given plant to flower, and [it may] flower once in its lifetime. We’ve had ours for six years and this is the first time it has bloomed-we’re very lucky. It may be the largest, smelliest flower in the world, but its beauty is unparalleled.” Lois is one of perhaps only 30 cultivated Corpse Flowers to ever bloom in the U.S..

If you want to see (and smell) Lois for yourself, she’s due to flower at any second; the museum is open 24 hours until she does. Check her blog for updates.

[Photo credit: Flickr user lornagrl]

Travel + Leisure picks the best tour operators and safari outfitters

by Kraig Becker on

A few days back we told you about Travel + Leisure magazine’s picks for the world’s best hotels, which are part of their annual World’s Best Awards in which T+L readers select the very best in travel from around the globe. Other categories in the survey include selections for best cities, islands, airlines, and more.

Of particular interest to adventurous travelers are the magazine’s selections for the Top 20 Tour Operators and Safari Outfitters which shines the spotlight on some of the best adventure travel companies in the world. The selections are a result of readers ranking the various companies in six unique criteria including staff/guides, itineraries/destinations, activities, accommodations, food, and value. Respondents to the survey were asked to rate the the characteristics from 1 to 5, with 5 representing an “excellent” rating and a 1 delivering a “poor” score. The averages of the component ratings were then used to assign each of the tour operators a ranking on the Travel + Leisure list.

The best tour operators and safari outfitters in the world, according to the readers of Travel + Leisure are:

  1. Micato Safaris
  2. Austin-Lehman Adventures
  3. Butterfield & Robinson
  4. VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations
  5. Wilderness Travel
  6. Ker & Downey
  7. Tauck World Discovery
  8. Backroads
  9. Wilderness Safaris
  10. International Expeditions
  11. Country Walkers
  12. Classic Journeys
  13. Linblad Expeditions TOUR
  14. Abercrombie & Kent TOUR
  15. Overseas Adventure Travel
  16. Insight Vacations
  17. Viking Tours
  18. Grand Circle Travel
  19. Globus
  20. Collette Vacations

Each of those are excellent adventure travel companies with a wide variety of options, allowing travelers to visit remote and spectacular places around the world.

Ghost Forest brings attention to rainforest threat

by Sean McLachlan on


A Ghost Forest is stalking Europe.

Giant trees from Ghana have appeared in Copenhagen, Trafalgar Square in London, and now Oxford. It’s called the Ghost Forest Art Project, and it’s an innovative way to bring the plight of the world’s rainforests to public attention.

Artist Angela Palmer wanted to share her concern with the public about tropical rainforests, which are disappearing fast. An area the size of a football pitch vanishes every four seconds, and most are never replaced. Not only does this reduce biodiversity and nature’s way of absorbing atmospheric carbon, but it leads to soil erosion and long-term economic problems. Since Europe is a major consumer of rainforest wood, and there are no rainforests in Europe, Palmer decided to bring the rainforest to Europe.

She hauled a collection of stumps from the commercially logged Suhuma forest in western Ghana all the way to Europe. Ghana lost 90 percent of its forest due to overlogging before the government got serious about conservation. Now the remaining forest is being logged in a sustainable manner under strict supervision. The stumps mostly fell due to storms, but three were actually logged. To offset the carbon footprint of shipping these behemoths hundreds of miles, Palmer contributed to a project that distributes efficient stoves to Ghanaian villages. These stoves use less wood than traditional stoves and reduce the need for cutting.

First stop was Copenhagen, just in time for last year’s UN Climate Change conference. This was followed by a visit to Trafalgar Square before the trees were installed in front of Oxford University’s famous Museum of Natural History. A fitting display for 2010, which is the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity. Next year will be the Year of Forests.

I’ve seen this exhibit in person and I have to say the stumps are truly awe inspiring. Their sheer size, and the realization that they were once alive, made me think about our place in this world. My four-year-old was impressed too, and I hope that some of these giant trees will still be standing when he’s my age.


Image Courtesy Ghost Forest.

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Top ten art museums you haven’t been to

by Andrew Evans on

If you wanna see inside someone’s brain, stick ’em in an art museum and then leave them there for an hour. Some will feign interest for at least 10 minutes and then start looking for the bathroom. Others will politely wander or become transfixed by a certain wall and never leave, others will head straight to the gift shop to try on silly hats. Big or small, art museums offer the truest personality test on the planet.

Because art is famous and expensive (and sometimes meaningful), the world’s most famous art museums have become iconic travel destinations unto themselves. Cultured people the world over have exhausted the Louvre in Paris, burned hours in the corridors of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, and nodded through Madrid’s Museo del Prado (Tick, tick, tick). There are few things Americans will wait hours in line for, but the Musée d’Orsay‘s French impressionism is right up there with Super Bowl tickets and some mattress outlet’s Midnight Madness sale.

It’s nice to know that art still matters, even when the world’s most well-known museums have become their own top ten of cheesy travel status symbols. But true art lovers need not despair–humans have managed to collect art the world over and many a hidden gem are lying in wait for your art-loving eyes to arrive on the spot.

The following list highlights a selection of some of the world’s best art destinations with the least amount of fanfare. (Disclaimer: Just like any person’s taste in art, this list is entirely subjective). What the following museums share in common are their high-quality collections and their pleasant lack of lines going out the door:

  1. Sarjeant Gallery, (Wanganui, NEW ZEALAND) You don’t expect it in small town New Zealand, but Wanganui is the quintessential art haven, with nearly a dozen galleries, live artists’ studios and stately museums. The Sarjeant collection is the largest and most impressive, well worth a day spent in this expressive riverside hamlet.
  2. Philips Collection, (Washington DC, USA) America’s “First Museum of Modern Art” opened in 1921 and houses a bold collection spanning Van Gogh to O’Keeffe. The intimate Rothko Room represents the first collective public showing of Mark Rothko’s famous multi-form paintings. In museum-heavy Washington, DC, the Phillips often gets overlooked by out-of-town tourists. It’s their loss.
  3. Musée Fabre, (Montpellier, FRANCE) You would expect a far more traditional art gallery in southern France, but the Fabre keeps visitors on their toes with a wonderful 500-year spectrum of art, including one of the world’s greatest collections of 20th Century Fauvist art. Like so much architecture in France, the museum itself is a well-preserved work of art.
  4. National Gallery of Art, (Reykjavik, ICELAND) For a country of just 300,000 people, Iceland has a lot of art museums. The largest of these collections is shown in an elegant old ice factory with several floors of soul-stirring Nordic art. It would take you a week to visit all of Reykjavik’s art galleries, but if you only have a day, this is the one to patronize.
  5. Museum of Latin American Art, (Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA) Oh wow, where to begin in Buenos Aires? There’s so much going on in this city, it’s hard to decide, but MALBA is like the ultimate megaplex of Latin American art, helping you realize how little you actually know about world culture. The museum’s gigantic size and vertigo-inducing design adds a punch of awestruck to your gut, whereas the art on the walls will leave you either with dreamy hallucinations or Borges-type nightmares.
  6. Toledo Museum of Art, (Toledo, Ohio, USA) Born from a private collection of local glass industrialist Edward Drummond Libbey, the Toledo Museum is home to an astounding number of high-profile works by 19th-Century European and American greats. The impressive glass collection adds a unique twist to the visit. (Pssstt: I grew up going to this museum at least once a year, and I still consider it one of the best in the world–right up there with any in Paris.)
  7. Heide Museum of Modern Art, (Bulleen, Victoria, AUSTRALIA) Australians are crazy about art, especially in Melbourne. The “Heide” is just a 15-minute ride outside downtown Melbourne, but that’s apparently too far for most tourists. What they’re missing is a creative collection of old Australian houses set up as galleries, bizarre outdoor installations and some downright funky art. Check it out.
  8. Kharkov Art Museum, (Kharkov, UKRAINE) An appreciation for Soviet art is regaining strength both in Ukraine and abroad. While most visitors hit the capital sights in Kyiv, it’s the industrial city of Kharkov that managed to preserve the country’s rich art heritage, from old Orthodox icons to propagandist block prints, epic oil paintings and tender Ukrainian folk art. Honestly, it’s probably the best art museum in the country.
  9. Winnipeg Art Gallery, (Winnipeg, CANADA) Canadians reign supreme in feelgood art experience and the “WAG” (an unfortunate acronym) is no exception. Manitoban art abounds and aren’t you curious to find out what that is? Housed in a sharp and angled stone triangle, the WAG also boasts the largest collection of Inuit art in the world, something the world-famous Louvre generally lacks.
  10. Guangdong Museum of Art, (Guangzhou, CHINA) Despite all the art that got stolen by foreigners and/or ruined by the Cultural Revolution, there is still some Chinese art left in China. In fact, even as you read this, new Chinese artists are producing new Chinese art . Shanghai and Beijing and Hong Kong are more famous and perhaps more impressive, but the Guangdong in Guangzhou is gaining worldwide notoriety for its fresh repertoire and independent spirit. (Why do the industrial cities get the good stuff?)

OK, I realize there are a lot more wonderful and obscure art museums out there (feel free to add your suggestions in the comments). The point is, when adding art museums to your bucket list, think outside the box. Some of the world’s greatest paintings are not in London or Paris. They’re in Winnipeg or Toledo.

(Photo: Flickr Henry Bloomfield; 2 Dogs)