la palme d’or

one of the many great things about being a food and travel writer is the fantastic restaurants you get to eat in while on assignment. trust me, i’d have to marry a rich guy to afford such luxury otherwise. such was the case at the hotel martinez in cannes. richard schilling, the personable general manager of the hotel, couldn’t believe that i wouldn’t be able to relax and dine at cannes’ only michelin-starred restaurant because i had to catch my flight. so, he brought the chef and the restaurant to me.

the martinez has three good restaurants on premises but it’s la palme d’or that gets the top grade. chef christian sinicropi has garnered two stars from the michelin guide for his innovative spin on traditional mediterranean cuisine. utilizing fresh local produce and non-traditional spices, sinicropi creates eye-catching, delectable fish and meat dishes that are sure to make gourmands happy. and he’s a nice guy to boot. kudos to you christian and merci monsieur schilling…

look podger, bacon! and no, i didn’t try it…

“you have to try this!”

as a lifestyle journalist, i have been invited to my fair share of culinary events and as a result, have eaten my fair share of strange foods, mostly by accident. at an australian dinner, i thought i was eating chicken but it was actually kangaroo. rattlesnake is tough and chewy. and don’t get me started on whale, which i still can’t believe i ever tried but i was at a market in bergen, norway, and it was shoved in my face. end result: gamey, fatty and gross.

frederique tamet, the press attachée for cannes, escorted me around cannes on my second day in the city. we ate bites of chocolate and rose-flavored macaroons at jean luc pelé and i gazed fondly upon the different cheeses at the fromagerie ceneri. the culinary highlight was visiting the forville market in central cannes. forville is full to bursting during the hot summer months with fruit stalls, flower vendors and fishmongers. according to tamet, only eight fisherman still fish the waters off cannes. the catch was so fresh, some were actually still breathing.

she asked me if i had ever tried sea urchin or oursins as they are called in french. i hadn’t. the critters were still moving around the counter when we spoke to the seller. he suggested we dine on a light repast of the creatures at the restaurant across the street.

“you have to try this!” frederique said. her new assistant sophie wanted no part but i said i’d give it a go…

les murs peints de cannes

with only three days in cannes, i had to pack a lot into a short trip. on my first day in the city, i walked along the entire croisette, spoke at length with a couple of locals, met with the communications director at the hotel intercontinental carlton and dined solo on a wonderful repast at the carlton restaurant. on my second day, frederique tamet, the gregarious press attaché for the city of cannes, kindly escorted me on a culinary tour of the city, complete with visits to jean luc pelé’s amazing chocolate shop and the fromagerie ceneri as well as a meal of fresh sea urchin (more on that later).

while i wanted to visit nearby grasse, home to many historic parfumeries and site of one of my favorite films of the last decade (based on a well-loved novel of the same name), french railway workers went on strike the day i arrived and getting to grasse would have been a headache without a car.

alone on my last day—well, it was really a half day—i intended to hop on a ferry to nearby ile ste. maguerite, home to a maritime museum and the legendary man in the iron mask. i gave myself 45 minutes to walk from the martinez to the dock on the pier. unfortunately, what i thought was the easiest route was the wrong way to go as i kept getting cut off by construction or security guards. by the time i figured out my way, the last boat i could have successfuly taken without missing my appointment with the general manager at the hotel martinez had left the dock.

being a movie buff, one of the other activities that had interested me was a walking tour of cannes’ movie murals. since 2002, a number of local artists have been creating murals on the sides of old buildings in an effort to promote the city’s ongoing love affair with celluloid. there’s director francois truffaut and the most unlikely of stars, gerard depardieu. marilyn monroe and charlie chaplin are both lovingly displayed. blink and you’d miss batman and r2d2 on the cinema cannes mural, celebrating 100 years of film. yet, these weren’t my picks for must-see murals. my two favorites would probably get low marks from american tourists because the subjects are less well known.

the lumiere brothers are credited with inventing the moving picture, and this mural, situated outside of the main train station in cannes, harkens back to their first film, la ciotat, which is about the arrival of a train.

i have loved alain delon for many years. i don’t think there has been an actor, outside of probably montgomery clift, who has been as luminous and as heartbreakingly beautiful on screen as alain delon (and this comes from a huge james dean aficionado). i think that’s why i walked more than four miles outside of the city center to find this elusive mural. i can’t tell you why they have relegated delon’s beauty to the outskirts of cannes but i think it’s a grave injustice, especially since he is a frequent visitor to cannes and is beloved by the locals. living in new york, i am used to walking everywhere but most of it isn’t uphill as i was pained to find out in cannes when i walked from the train station to la bocca, which is on the road to the estoril mountains. i am paranoid enough to think that the motorcyclists were out to get me as i narrowly missed being hit a couple of times. i hope mr. delon appreciates my efforts…

beauty amidst tragedy

i grew up in detroit and i passionately love the big d. some of the best years of my life were spent in detroit, from concerts at cobo hall to swimming at metro beach to driving down gratiot avenue, and i wouldn’t have lived anywhere else for all the money in the world.

these photos are gorgeous but tragic. i visited detroit in october and i have never seen the city in such dire straits, not in all the years of factory closings during my youth. people don’t realize that the auto industry is tied to almost every other major industry in this country. if it suffers, we all suffer from banks to steel manufacturers to magazine publishers (automotive advertising accounts for more than 30% of magazine ad pages). something has to be done to save jobs and to save a city from becoming a modern ghost town…

what can i expect?

this is scary, especially since i am going to this very city in a few weeks before traveling on to kashmir. but the silver lining in all of this is that the populace is fed up and chaudhry, who is really for the people and not for the elite (of which i can include some members of my mother’s family), is back in power. let’s hope this brings some measure of stability and peace to a region that’s increasingly bringing me to the brink of despair…

ridiculous or delicious?

this is utterly ridiculous, IMHO. i guess i don’t understand the fascination with bacon since i don’t dig on swine but really, who’s going to buy this stuff? and what can you pair it with, tomato juice?

“no, not schinken, chicken!”

the summer after i graduated from syracuse, my friend carrie and i backpacked across western europe for two months. we toured all of the usual cities (london, paris, vienna, rome, barcelona, etc.), staying at youth hostels and budgeting our spending money by eating fruit, bread and cheese most days. we never had a problem finding fresh fruit stands in france, spain and italy. but that all changed when we went to germany.

we walked around but couldn’t find a farmer’s market anywhere. our only option was eating out, which was frustrating since neither of us ate pork for religious reasons and everything on the menus was schnitzel this or weiner that. on our first afternoon in berlin, we entered a small cafe and ordered schinken, thinking it was the german word for chicken—stupid, i know, but since both english and german have the same linguistic root how far off could we be? when we received our dish, we were surprised to see ham. we sheepishly told the proprietor that we couldn’t eat what he had placed in front of us and he didn’t castigate us since he was bosnian and didn’t eat pork himself. unfortunately, he was closing the kitchen so we couldn’t order anything else.

despairing of ever curbing our hunger, we entered a traditional german restaurant that had a large menu and was inexpensive. we sat down and noticed we were the only non-germans in the room. our waitress approached in traditional bavarian garb. she looked as if her name was probably brunhilda or gretyl, so stereotypical was her appearance—think big blond sausage ringlets atop her head and bountiful breasts conveniently displayed in a tight corset. carrie and i examined the menu but saw a lot of the dreaded schnitzel. the buxom brunhilda didn’t understand a word of english so we resorted to charades to get our message across. i started clucking like a chicken—and looking like an ass. the diners near us probably thought we were circus freaks. i guess brunhilda was a true blonde or wasn’t impressed by my chicken impersonation because she waved her hand around as if it was a fish swimming in the sea. “no, no! chicken!” we cried. “schinken,” she asked? “no, not schinken, chicken!” by that time, more diners were enjoying the “stupid americans in europe” comedy show. the light bulb must have finally gone off in brunhilda’s head because she paused, smiled, grabbed one her 44 FF breasts and blushed to the roots of her hair. the diners applauded.

we ate chicken that night but i still don’t know the german word for it…

“my brother has the title”

eva lucien, anthony haden-guest and the leader of the mongol hoard

i went out last night with my good friend susan anton. no, not the beautiful blonde who dated dudley moore—my friend has received hundreds of messages from people gushing about their love for the amazonian actress—but the even more famous former club kid and current vegan who seems to know everyone in new york city. she should run for mayor. this city would be much cooler.

we attended the scope art fair at lincoln center. if you have the chance to go this weekend, do it. lots of great art and photography and beautiful people acting as if they understand said art. some of it was disturbing but most of it was pretty straightforward. look for hubert kretzschmar’s fascinating photographs of a young mick jagger, and the dead boys, who were america’s answer to the sex pistols. and try to get to the food before the vultures strike. if you hesitate even a fraction of a second, nothing will be left to wrestle over.

we met up with susan’s friend, the honorable anthony haden-guest, who, when i erroneously called him lord guest, said, “no, my brother has the title.” who is his brother?

yes, that nigel tufnel. spinal tap is one of the funniest movies of all time, one i never get tired of watching. christopher guest’s tufnel is as iconic as humphrey bogart’s rick blaine and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more quotable character in cinema history.

while anthony is the elder son, his parents weren’t married when he was born and, peerage laws being what they are in england, the barony passed to christopher. i don’t think anthony cares since he’s having a grand time squiring around young women, all of whom love him. i do wonder what he was like when he was young. probably would have given george clooney a run for his money…

thank you podger.net

this is completely unrelated to travel or food (well, the blogger is a foodie but won’t admit it so i guess it does relate in some way) but i wanted to thank p. dgy for “recommending” my blog on his hilarious and erudite site, podger.net. i’ve been getting a lot of hits this week and my stats tell me podger is why and i wanted to show my appreciation.

those of you interested in politics, the media and absurd things concerning politics and the media should definitely check out his site and bookmark it.