Signature restaurant dish samples, cooking demonstrations, wine tastings and more join the bluebird skies, bright sunshine and great snow at Vail Resort April 2-5 when the 18th annual Taste of Vail hits town. Considered by Wine Spectator magazine to be one of the country’s top Spring food and wine festivals, the Taste of Vail brings…
Having some time to kill often leads me to great new discoveries, and the hours between a recent afternoon doctor’s appointment and meeting friends for dinner was no exception. My doctor’s office had moved to Denver’s far southern suburbs where a food, shopping and nightlife boom has been underway for a couple years. With not…
The Transportation Security Administration is applying ski resort-style signage at Denver International Airport in an effort to speed up the dreaded security checks. The agency had a two-week test using the ski slope color-coding of green, blue and black. On ski slopes, green means novices; blue is for intermediate skills and black designates experts only….
This is one of those ideas that seem to make so much sense I wonder why I hadn’t seen it before. The Vino 100 shop in Cathedral City, California – one of my regular stops on visits to the Palm Springs area – is now offering Manicure Mondays. On one Monday night each month the…
If your passion is Pinot Noir, head to Shell Beach (just south of San Luis Obispo) on March 7 and 8 for the 8th annual World of Pinot Noir, two days devoted to tasting, talking about and learning more about that fine wine. The festival was created by a small group of vintners from California’s…
What better way to get ready for the Oscars than treating yourself to some old-fashioned Hollywood glamour? A day at the Estrella Spa in the Palm Springs Viceroy Hotel is a day of star-worthy pampering. Even just stopping by for a single treatment leaves you feeling like a movie glamorpuss from the 30s or 40s…
Flying small jets to small towns generally makes me feel like an afterthought for the airline industry. Going to Grand Rapids or Cedar Rapids, Fresno or Pasco, Colorado Springs or Palm Springs more often than not means dark, dank regional terminals seemingly miles from the main airport concourse with snack machines as the only food…
Love – and chocolate – have powers well beyond Valentine’s Day. And a great new trend, if for nothing but the aroma, is using chocolate in spa treatments. The French, Indonesians and the choco-fans visiting Hershey, Pennsylvania, all swear by its skin-softening and anti-aging properties. I know that putting chocolate in my mouth makes me…
My mother had a knee replaced recently, followed by a slow, painful recovery in the middle of a dreary East Coast winter. So I thought I’d take her on a pick-me-up weekend get-away to relax at a comfortable, cozy, cute inn along the Chesapeake Bay. She’s certainly mobile, but a F room would be needed…
My friend Karen has one of the same bad habits I do: buying wine simply because the label is pretty, interesting or unusual. It’s the same way I bought record albums decades ago. It meant listening to some pretty bad music and today it means tasting some not-so-great wine. But last month Karen found a…
One of my favorite urban spas is the Ummelina International Day Spa on Fourth Avenue in Seattle. Its Asian-influenced décor, soothing complimentary foot baths, tea offerings, incredible shower rooms and attentive aestheticians make any visit a treat. Now Ummelina has moved to the country — wine country. I can’t wait to check out the new…
I’m a bracelet junkie. I buy and wear lots of them, some occasionally and others until they break or rot. Right now my right arm is home to a Massai-woven bead band I got in Tanzania two years ago; a beaded, twisted, three-strand bracelet a jeweler friend made; a woven friendship-style strap from Ecuador and…