BBC.COM Brazil: The Last Frontier of Gastronomy?

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20191007-brazil-the-last-frontier-of-gastronomy

 Chefs and researchers are stunned: those ancient tales of little-known South American flora with magical-sounding properties turned out to be true.

The Next Culinary Wave is Surfacing in Brazil

https://hipsilver.com/blogs/articles/oh6sbuw64g4ualj8u4ghtsxdxloog1?_pos=1&_sid=7bea57d6c&_ss=r

Brazil’s celebrity chefs are foraging the Amazon and Bahia for endangered ingredients, transforming their discoveries into the new face of fine dining

How Dining On Ants, Dirt and Rocks Ruined My Epicurean Self-Image But Might Just Save The Amazon 

In the chefy world I’m just a hanger-on, but when my friend Georges Schnyder, head of Slow Food Brazil, offered to show me the surreal path high-end Brazilian restaurateurs are taking these days, I jumped at the chance. What I found triggered both awe and panic: There were ants on my plate.Globe and Mail

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/what-to-do-during-swedens-magical-summerinterlude/article38313407/

The Globe and Mail "Sweden's Sweet Summer Interlude"

2019 First Place, Best Newspaper Article, SATW Eastern Chapter Writing contest What to do During Sweden’s Magical Summer Interlude, Globe and Mail

The Swedes go a touch mad in summer. You really can’t blame them since their season flies by in six weeks, and that’s if nature is smiling. Yet this fleeting interlude can be intoxicating, with amber sunlight illuminating the emerald hills nearly 22 hours a day and the scent of wildflowers and herbs in the air. That’s why Stockholmers bent on soaking up every moment often flee to country houses in the Stockholm Archipelago, 25,000 islands splaying out into the Baltic Sea at their doorstep. 

Prestige Magazine "Counting Sheep and Talking Sleep"  

You know that splendid sensation on awakening from a solid eight-hour sleep: Brain firing on all pistons, body and spirit ready for action? I think I’ve experienced it approximately twice, since like most of us in this 24-hour work world, with deadlines to meet, time zones to cross, and electronics bleating for attention, I’ve always regarded sleeping eight hours a night an endeavor best pursued in retirement, like reading Proust. Then scientists started poking around the somewhat neglected field of ‘sleep science’ and turned up some disquieting data.

HipSilver "The Catskills"

https://hipsilver.com/blogs/articles/catskills?_pos=1&_sid=8e36693f3&_ss=r

Whether it finally comes to be called the New Hamptons for its swank second homes, or the Anti-Hamptons for its Brooklyn boho vibe, few of us who recall the Catskills’ Dirty Dancing era would think of it as a place where style trends are born. In those years, when the resort area two hours drive north of Manhattan was known as the Borscht Belt, a time when gribenes --- fried chicken skin --- was deemed a culinary delicacy, and comics dropped their pants in one of entertainment’s less evolved punch lines, this province seemed more like The Land Taste Forgot. I come by these rather ignominious insider details firsthand, as I spent early childhood summers at my grandparents’ Catskills hotel, Forman’s Manor, a playground for the wave of early 1900s Jewish immigrants who had finally secured a toehold in America’s middle class. 

The Globe and Mail "Oh, men and their spas" LOWELL THOMAS SILVER MEDAL 

'The metrosexual is dead," declares Bill Chrismer, owner of Gentleman's Quarters, a new breed of all-male spa once synonymous with that term. "Men hated it," he states from his clubby Denver emporium, where real guys can indulge in body scrubs, seaweed wraps and brow waxes in the company of their peers. With today's more nuanced view of masculinity, men are more comfortable indulging in pedicures, manicures and facials, Chrismer notes, as long as they're called "foot repair," "hand details" and "skin fitness treatments."

While men's spas may not have arrived at a mall near you, an appreciation for good grooming is reaching beyond the opera-going, latte-sipping, big-city set.

The Globe and Mail "This Old House"

Visiting distant relations often has its share of surprises. And while my husband, Tom Houghton, and I were somewhat stunned by the arrow-straight, kilometre-long driveway and the vast banquet hall lined with 4,000 panes of Flemish glass we found at his family seat, we certainly didn't expect apparitions. Yet Hoghton Tower, the manor my spouse's forebears left more than 350 years ago, is ranked the "Third Most Haunted Building in Britain."