Category — Travel To Go

Mother’s Day is Sunday…Moi has a few shopping ideas for the special Mom or Grandmom or Fairy GodMom in your life.

Breakfast in bed or on the terrace will be extra sweet with Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves…just like Grandma used to make.

This heart-shaped Quimper dish will remind her every day of how much you care.  Hand-painted and signed, at $42 it’s a collector’s item she’ll treasure.

Your favorite Yummy Mummy will love these books that poke a bit of humor at the world of motherhood…and have conveniently short chapters for the busy mommy. Moi fave to gift is Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonay. $10.07 at Amazon, and they guarantee delivery by Sunday!

Louis Vuitton European City Guide 2010 is the chic Mom’s insider guide to 31 European cities. Whether she’s crossing the Atlantic soon, or indulging in some arm-chair travels, she’ll love to discover the over 2000 insiders’ tips to traveling in style. $130 for this boxed set of 9 soft-back books. Available in LV stores or on-line. Moi tip: this set will look tres chic just sitting on her bookshelf!

Trendy Mom will love one of the funky iPhone 3G covers by Kate Spade. She’s fun, she’s practical, and she’ll love how slim this iPhone case is, and how easy to find in the bottom of her bag! At $35 with free shipping, you can’t go wrong!

And for the Mom who’s hard to shop for, gift her a special treat from Treasures Online Brocante by The Antiques Diva. A Chanel bracelet, an 18th Century blue and white Delft tile, a vintage Moët et Chandon champagne bucket: whatever you choose, shopping with The Antiques Diva is sure to please!

This is one of Moi favorite shows: the 13th annual Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair, featuring over 100 dealers of everything from jewelry to art to furniture to books to maps…and more.

This year the fair is part of the ARTOPOLIS triumvirate: Chicago’s celebration of art, antiques and culture, featuring  the Art Chicago fair of contemporary and modern art;  and NEXT showcasing avant-garde art and culture.

Moi tip: Make a day out of it; or two! Tickets are valid for Art Chicago, NEXT and the Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair.

Since my India adventure a couple months ago I’ve already begun to deplete my supply of spices and chai that I hauled back. I have a very good Indian restaurant in my neighborhood, but I decided to go investigate NYC’s Little India in more detail. I’d been in the neighborhood before, but now I was an informed consumer: I know what’s authentic, what’s touristy, and what things cost in India. So on a gorgeous sunny day I spent a few hours investigating the neighborhood around Lexington and 28th Street, aka Curry Hill. [Read more →]

No, I’m not lunching in Paris today (I will be soon!) but that’s the fab title of a new memoir by an American woman who has fallen in love with Paris…and a Frenchman…and French cooking.

Mark your calendar if you are in NYC on April 7 – Elizabeth Bard will be  at Barnes and Nobles to discuss her new book, Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes.

[Read more →]

The past couple months I’ve shared some of my favorite shopping destinations in Delray Beach; here’s where we like to eat in Delray, and why:

• Lemongrass Asian Bistro: 561.278.5050, 420 E Atlantic Avenue
  • Lobster Monster
  • Holy Snapper

  

• Kilwin’s: 561. 278.0808, 402 E Atlantic Avenue
  • churned ice creams
  • fudge
  • pecan turtle apples

  

• Vic and Angelo’s Enoteca: 561. 278.9570, 290 E Atlantic Avenue
  • pizza
  • grouper sandwiches

  

[Read more →]

…it was time to move in…

TBG, Mignette and I flew to Florida on a cold November morning to close on our new condo, and a couple days later, accept delivery of our scarily huge shipment of household soup-to-nuts that had been in storage up North for over 6 years. We brought a couple suitcases of summer clothes, and purchased a blow-up mattress to use until our shipment arrived. We had 10 days vacation to get organized and settled, before we had to return to Europe. As we landed at the Palm Beach airport, we waited at the baggage carousel for our new life to begin.

And waited, and waited. Moi bag did not arrive. As we prepared to head over to the claims department and try and track down my missing suitcase, TBG suddently realized he knew where the bag was: in the trunk of our car, parked at LaGuardia airport in New York City. Most of the bags had fit into our back seat, but my extra-large suitcase was stuffed into the trunk. Mignette was my carry-on. I had not one item of clothing, nor cosmetics, no books: nothing. (But TBG had both his carry-on and his suitcase, and his briefcase; even Mignette had everything she needed for the next 48 hours). Dilmena.

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You keep asking: why Delray Beach? And so I’ll tell you…

Without question one of Moi favorite getaway spots is Delray Beach, Florida. A charming little coastal village on the Atlantic shore, halfway between Palm Beach and Boca Raton, Delray attracts a wide range of visitors from the decidedly seniors-trying-to-be-forever-young to families with young children to singles looking for a hotspot north of South Beach.

This is my SoFlo for the past 6 years. While living in Europe TBG and I decided we needed a US home-base, and we Northerners decided it should be Florida, with easy international access through Miami (though my personal experiences with MIA ranks it one of the world’s worst airports), and easy connections to the rest of the US. For nearly a decade one of us had a business trip to Florida in February, most frequently Naples or Palm Beach. We had been to Disney too many times and wanted nothing to do with Orlando. My brother and his family lived near Daytona. Puppy friendly, golf, sunshine, water and year-round warm weather were the requirements. [Read more →]

I just got a tip from Moi fave pilates studio, Pilates Shop/Yoga Garage, that they’re being featured on Groupon. This is the 2nd time in 24 hours I’ve heard of Groupon: my daughter just told me I have to sign-up in NYC, she’s a member in Chicago. So, I decided to check it out. And am I glad I did!

Groupon describes itself as: collective buying power:

1. Each day we feature something cool to do at an unbeatable price.
2. You only get it if enough people join that day… so invite your friends!
3. Check back the next day for another awesome Groupon!

[Read more →]

Forget the t-shirt: I’ve discovered the perfect souvenir gift: small, inexpensive, and comes in all sizes and colors: Socks!

A recent weekend in Vermont yielded these adorable moose themed sockies for my favorite 2 year old niece and nephew. I even bought a pair in xlarge for one of our fave guy friends celebrating his 56th!

My trip to Holland found me wearing these hot pink delft socks

Guests visiting me in NYC love to take home these subway map patterned socks

One of my favorite gift shops is Little Miss Matched, where I can find colorful, mismatched 3-to-a-pair socks for kids of every age: and even little coin purses made out of socks

A perfect baby shower gift is this adorable boxed set of Trumpettes

And of course, what would a Notre Dame fan do without a pair of Go Irish socks

Who Knew? Sock it to me!

I grew up in the suburbs. Chicken comes cut up and wrapped in plastic; and eggs are white, and packed by the dozen in cartons.

Brown eggs? Gross! Clearly diseased.

Or so I thought. When we moved to Paris, one of my big adjustments was that all the eggs were brown. With big orange yolks. And not refrigerated.  All of them. At the marchés and the grocery stores. Hmmm….who knew? And often times they were fresh from the chicken: meaning unwashed. Gross. But, over the years, this became normal. I even spent one frantic day with bff J searching all over Paris to find a few white eggs that we could color for her childrens’ Easter baskets: yes, we finally found 6.  They were expensive.

Moi tip: I was attending a cooking class in Paris with a group of other American expats. We were separating eggs for the recipe, and bien sur, someone broke the yolk. Naturally, l’Américaine dipped her eggshell into the bowl to scoop out the yolk. Le Chef was horrified! These were typical unwashed fresh eggshells: covered with nasty chicken poop (sorry!) We Americans are used to the sanitized eggs we buy at the supermarket, the shells are white and sparkly clean. We were immediately instructed to discard the now ruined bowl of eggs. And in the future, remove yellow bits with a spoon. Good to know.

Now that I’m back in the US, do I buy white eggs at the grocery? Mais non! TBG and I buy our eggs from Knoll Crest Farm at the bi-weekly Greenmarket on Broadway outside Columbia University. And of course, they’re brown eggs (but lightly washed, we’re assured). And they have the bright orange yolks, just like we had in Paris.

The incredible, edible egg!