America is often referred to as a cultural melting pot but I give the Malaysians credit; they’ve got the go-along/get-along thing down to an art. Just like Singapore, their next door neighbor, Malaysians are a mix of Indian, Chinese and Malay. Skin color ranges from dark to light and the three big religions, Christian, Muslim and Hindu are represented with sizable and well-visited houses of worship.   The downtown Holy Light Presbyterian Church in Johor Bahru at the southern most end of the country, takes up an entire city bloc with sanctuary, school, sports fields and meeting space. The nearby Hindu temple is ringed by stalls selling strings… Read More…

The beach was warm and the sea inviting. So I was less than enthusiastic when Jeanroger Dorsainvil and Sala Landemaine, guides with the tour company Touris Lakay, arrived after lunch to take me for a previously scheduled walk to the market. I was staying at Moulin Sur Mer, an 18th Century former sugar plantation turned into a family-friendly resort on Haiti’s Cote des Arcadin about 90 minutes north of north of Port au Prince. “Listen, gents,” I told them, “Earlier, I thought I would be interested in seeing the market, but really the idea of going pales next to the possibility of staying right here.” But Sala was… Read More…

Don’t ask me how, but the more wine I had, the more furious I pedaled until by the end of our 20 mile tour of the vineyards of Healdsburg, California, I think I burned off all the calories consumed at the three wineries I visited, including the salted peanut butter cup  and the double chocolate cake – about which, more later. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The Dry Creek Valley about 90 minutes drive north from San Francisco features gentle hills, nothing too strenuous, and there wasn’t much traffic after we made the short trip through town. I was riding with… Read More…

If I had I my way, I never would have met Romeo Farrington and that would have certainly been my loss. His daughter Espree was the one who picked me up from the airport in Nassau, drove me to dinner and then back to my hotel for the night. She explained that her dad was tied up with a wedding but he’d be by to pick me up for my one-day tour of Nassau the following morning. I had other plans. “Just you tell him you’ll be my guide tomorrow, okay?” I asked. The truth is I was enchanted by Espree from the moment we… Read More…

At 56, I am one of the younger Americans with a clear recollection of the day fifty years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The students in Ms. Sherman’s second grade class at Oak Grove Elementary School in Florida were in line waiting to be dismissed for the day when the announcement that the president had been shot came over the public address system. Times were different then. Seven year olds didn’t understand what being shot meant. At least I didn’t. It was immediately apparent, however, that this was devastating news. Ms. Sherman and the other teachers clustered in the hall, shaking their… Read More…

Last week a tow truck pulled up to my house, loaded a 1974 Jensen-Healey sports car on the bed and left. Pulling out of my driveway the autumn leaves swirled a bit before settling back on the street. Seasons come and seasons go and so do cars. The departure of that one was a news-making event in some quarters. My husband Jim wrote about it for The New York Times Wheels blog, which you can read here.  As with most stories, there is more than one side. Here’s mine. The Jensen-Healey was my husband’s first love and an occasional irritant in our 30 year marriage. … Read More…

When my sister Andrea, called me with her great idea for a newspaper column that would show people how to replicate fashionable designer outfits with less expensive alternatives, I was immediately enthusiastic. It was a brilliant idea. So she recruited Candy Barrie, who was at the time a Washington, D.C. fashion consultant, to put together the ensembles we would photograph and we carefully recorded the high end  versus low end prices along with shopping information. The syndicated fashion column, Dress for Less was born. Within a few years Andrea’s idea with Candy’s follow through had become a weekly feature that appeared in newspapers large and… Read More…

I know summer is over. I know talking about vacation is out of season. But the arrival of fall prompts me to go over some of the things I’ve done this past year that made me feel far away without leaving home. Took a class At the tail end of a cold Connecticut winter, my friend Chuck Allen invited all the people who have raved about his home-baked focaccia bread, to stop talking about it and actually learn to make it. The group, many of whom did not know each other, gathered in the expansive Stamford kitchen of Peggy Flood, one of Chuck’s running partners. From… Read More…

One does not decide to spend four days on a trip that can be accomplished in 5 hours by air without some weighing of the pros and cons. On the upside, taking the VIA Rail train from Vancouver to Toronto would give me the chance to actually see a part of the country with which I am not familiar. It would give me expanses of uninterrupted time to finish working on a writing project and also a plus, I’ve always, always enjoyed sleeping in a moving vehicle, train, boat, car it makes no difference.  The VIA Rail trip promised 4 nights of glorious slumber. On… Read More…

  Mexico has its playas, the Caribbean its beat, but Americans are prone to overlook the charms of the neighbor to the north. I’ve already had a healthy dose of the remedy to that affliction with visits to two of Canada’s largest cities; Calgary and Vancouver. Soon, I’m off on a four day journey back across this great big land on VIA Rail, Canada’s version of the Orient Express. A full report on the train trip will follow my arrival in Toronto, but I already know it will be a far different experience from the ones I’ve had so far. While a tour by train… Read More…