Hello, friends…I hope you have all had a great week! Here’s this Sunday’s seven in wine, food, style, design and travel:
Starting out with a couple of flying articles…firstly, thought it was worth sharing this article on the beauty of the stopover. The basic gist of the stopover is that you can book a flight to your ultimate destination with a stop on the way in the big hub of a given overseas airline. Stopovers typically last a few hours but can easily go a day or two or several—so for no extra cost, you can spend time in a city you love before returning for your connecting flight. These are some airlines and specific cities in which they offer stopovers.
Second, have you seen the new private celebrity terminal in LAX? It’s $4k a year, and has ridiculously nice perks. So, there’s a place to spend all that money you just saved on your stopover.
I don’t know about you, but I always drink way more white wine in the spring and summer. This is a very basic but effective primer on a few major types of white wine, explained. It covers Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Moscato, Gewürztraminer, Riesling and—my favorite—Viognier. Remember there are thousands of wine grapes out there, so this is really just a few, but you might as well start knowing some of the basics!
You all know I’m more of a wine person than a cocktail lover, but as the world continues to step up their cocktail game, the choices around ingredients and presentation are becoming next-level impressive. Departures shares 9 drinks around the world that are on their must-try list. This one from the Pool Lounge at the Four Seasons in NYC was just TOO pretty not to share!
I know there are a lot of art fans reading the blog, and I got a lot of good feedback on the Artist Feature on Charlotte Foust I posted earlier this week. I did a little bit of digging and we are fortunate to have a lot of worthy art exhibits headed to the US this fall. With retrospectives on unsung creators and group shows exploring the justice system and conspiracy, museums are broadening visitor perspectives on historic and contemporary art. These are 10 exhibitions worth making a destination for fall travel.
Pictured is Slugs’ Saloon, by Jason Moran, coming to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Slugs’ Saloon was a jazz hub of New York’s Lower East Side from in the 1960s and 1970s, hosting progressive musicians like Charles Mingus and Sun Ra. Some of that history is resurrected in Jason Moran’s installation, complete with the saloon’s recreated sawdust floor.
We have been in Kiawah Island this week and had a great spa experience yesterday at The Sanctuary. In a nod to that I’m sharing Travel + Leisure’s list of top spas. These are ranked from the World’s Best Awards survey, where T+L asked readers to weigh in on domestic destination spas, rating properties on their accommodations and facilities, treatments, service, food, and overall value. You’d expect a few from Arizona to be on there, like Mii Amo, among the Red Rocks in Sedona, which took the top spot. And, finishing the list at #10 was The Westglow Resort and Spa in Blowing Rock, NC.
A firm in New Zealand trial tested out a four-day work week and has deemed it an unmitigated success. In order to make the four-day work week happen, employees designed a number of innovations and initiatives to work in a more productive and efficient manner, from automating manual processes to reducing or eliminating non-work-related internet usage. After the trial, 78% of employees felt they could successfully manage their work-life balance, a full 24% increase from before the trial started. Staff stress levels dropped by 7%, as commitment and a sense of empowerment at work increased, and overall life satisfaction jumped by 5%. Anyone else wish this would happen here?!
Lastly, because we all need a little time-savings in our life, readers submitted tips to Real Simple on how they save time while cooking. These range from doing prep work on Sundays, to what to keeping your pantry stocked with, to marrying someone who can cook 🙂
Hope you all have an awesome and relaxing rest of your weekend! We are soaking up the last bits of the beach and headed home!
xx—BB
Great roundup this week!