Spring break meant hitting pause on our Italy planning, and it’s been a challenge getting back to it. I’ve discovered a lot of stops makes for a lot more work—especially when things are filling up fast or very expensive. I realize this isn’t a serious problem, but it’s been very all-consuming this week. Also, I think we need to drop Sicily. I was trying to do too much.
Speaking of Italy, all the buzz for Call Me By Your Name has made me remember how much I loved Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty when I was graduating from high school. I think it and Room With A View informed all of my romantic visions of Northern Italy the way Call Me By Your Name may be doing for many today.
Perhaps I need to watch it again this weekend amid planning.
Warmer nights often take me back to favorite meals shared on the little back patios of restaurants in New York. Of course there’s a special pleasure to eating outside in California, too, but it’s not quite the anticipated occurrence as it is on the East Coast. One of our favorite haunts in Alphabet City was a little spot called Back Forty—which I’m sorry to say has since shuttered. Everything there was delicious, but it was especially nice to sip their namesake cocktail while biting into a grass-fed burger on that little, hidden patio.
Aron and I would occasionally stop in just to linger at the bar, on which occasion we’d try to glean the right proportions for many of their drinks. (Losaida sling, anyone?) Here’s our spin on that eponymous Back Forty, with a hint of rosemary for a little something extra…
White Sands National Monument was pretty much the inspiration for our entire trip to New Mexico. Those dunes of gypsum sand cover 275 square miles of desert and have been on my must-see wishlist for years. And they did not disappoint!
I’m a ways from finishing a travelogue about our week-long road trip in the “Land of Enchantment,” and when I do, I’m sure there won’t be room for many of my favorite photographs of White Sands (I have so many). I thought it best to share the details of our days in the sands of the Tularosa Basin in a separate post. We visited three separate times in 24 hours and saw the landscape in such dynamic conditions that it was hard to put my camera away. The dunes are incredible!
