Hello, friends…Here’s this week’s Sunday Seven in wine, food, lifestyle, design and travel!
Ambitious Plan for Floating Cities
If current trends continue, 90% of the world’s largest cities face flooding and extreme weather, and recent natural disasters have made the need for practical, cost-effective solutions all the more urgent. Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has put forth a radical new proposal to the U.N. He and a team of engineers, artists, and more recently unveiled Oceanix City, an interconnected network of buoyant, hexagonal “islands.” These modules can be linked together and scaled up in fractal-like configurations to form city blocks and neighborhoods. More at the link.
Why You Should Drink Wine, Basically
We have all heard rumors of the health benefits of wine for years. But, can drinking wine really make a difference? Here, the news—very good news, indeed—from the latest studies. Mentioned at the link are more details around wine drinking promoting longevity, lowering the risk of heart disease and stroke, reducing the risk of diabetes, cutting the risk of cataracts and colon cancer, and slowing brain decline. I AM GOING TO LIVE FOREVER!
Walk Among the Denmark Treetops
How amazing is this? In a preserved forest south of Copenhagen, they just built a treetop walkway connected to a 148-foot-tall observation tower to give explorers a bird’s eye view. The Treetop Experience is a spiraling walkway that passes through the forest. It’s split into a high and a low route, with the high route passing through the oldest section of the forest and the low route in the younger areas. Throughout the tree walk, travelers can take in the hilly landscape as they pass by lakes, creeks, and wetlands.
City Camping in Chicago
Does your idea of enjoying the great outdoors involves chef-prepared meals instead of campfires and views of skyscrapers over stars? (Mine does!) The Gwen Hotel in Chicago has launched a glamping experience that turns every hardship of camping into a luxury. It’s available only to guests of the hotel’s 16th-floor Gwen Luxe Suite, a two-bedroom penthouse with a 1,000-square-foot terrace. On that terrace—one of the largest in the city, with views of the Chicago River, Wrigley Building, and Magnificent Mile—where you can “rough it” with service at your beck and call.
40 Minimalist Bathrooms
I love a modern, minimal bathroom. You can create such a haven with a neutral palette, and a well-designed minimalist style lets luxury shine through in small, elegant details. In the gallery of 40 baths at the link, designers avoided theatrics and focused on clean lines, quality materials, and artful accents,
Basics Mistakes on Cooking Pasta
Pasta is undeniably delicious and an easy go-to dinner for us. Not only is a big bowl of pasta one of the most satisfying dishes to make, it’s also super-easy to prepare, as long as you adhere to a few simple rules that make a huge difference in the texture and taste of your finished bowl. Avoid these common pasta pitfalls to ensure a flawless bowl of noodles every time — not using a large enough pot, starting with hot water, not salting the water, adding the pasta before the water boils, not reserving pasta water for the sauce — and much more at the link!
This $20k TV Is a Foldable Work of Art
TVs have long since been an eyesore for most design lovers. But with Bang & Olufsen’s latest design, the television is product a statement piece as well. When the television is being unused, the 77-inch screen is near the ground, almost hidden from a viewer’s line of sight behind two oak and aluminum covers. But when the television is turned on, a sort of metamorphosis occurs in which the front covers fan outward—like a butterfly opening its wings—and the screen rises to the perfect viewing height. I love this, but at $20k, as close as I’ll get to it is writing about it!
I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing rest of your weekend! We spent ours in Charleston — I’ll share pictures this week!
xx—BB
great stuff this week!
Thanks Vince!