Heuriger: New excuse for a lawn party

First off, you will know it by the pine bow above the door. There may never be any additional indicator. Remember that, it is critical. It is an old world signal, maybe a touch 007, a carefully guarded centuries-old remnant in part of this world. Neon signs be damned.

When you go to Vienna, and by all means, you should, you will have a great deal to do and little time to do it. You will have to pull yourself away from great music and architecture - not to mention Sacher tortes - to get loose of the city and make your way into the suburbs.

And (not that I wish to write your adventure for you), if you are sharp, you will turn up there on or after November 11th of each year and either stay for 300 days or some part thereof, and commit to getting yourself off the beaten path. Tip: If you are on a tour bus, you are already not living the dream... You will and should get lost. You need to come to terms with right this instant.

Now then. On those lightly beaten path's, truly known well only to locals, you will find heurigers; The vineyard houses belonging to wine producers where new wines are served in the year of their birth. Vienna, until recently when Madrid horned in, was the only metropolitan city that was also a wine growing region. Consequently, when oggling in downtown Vienna, you are never that far from the vine.

There is a great deal of imperial-law stickiness involved with heurigers but let's leave it at this: Vienna (Wein) producers may sell wines of the current vintage (For example: Grapes harvested in the fall of 2010 may first be served on November 11, 2010 or anytime for 300 days thereafter and still meet the criteria for "new" in Wein) directly from the vineyard houses, unbottled. An authentic heuriger will likely not use stemware but very average table water glasses or the like. Nothing about a heuriger is precious, so conquer your inner glassware princess before you pull up a picnic bench.

These establishments are not licensed as restaurants and in many ways were grandfathered into the Austrian equivalent of the food service governing bureau - gratefully.



They serve from a "communal table" or buffet, by law.


Initially, one had to provide their own food, heuringers in the modern age provide great buffets of local cuisine.

In my research I discovered the menu that follows. It's not health food, but look, if you do stay for 300 days, go easy on the meat drippings but remember, you only get one shot at life; balance. Chances are, this menu is incredibly appealing in its home and cooked by experienced hands: I'm in.

Geselchtes
Smoked bacon and other pork parts cut thickly and served with crusty bread.

Heurigenplatte
Sausage; cold, sliced pickled meat, cheese, chopped onions, sour pickles and a Laberl (bread roll).

Liptauer
Soft cheese generously spiced with paprika.

Quargel
Small cheese with chopped onions.

Saumeise
Ground meat smoked and boiled in a pig's net.

Saure Blunzen
Slice of blood sausage marinated in vinegar.

Schmalzbrot
Crusty bread spread with meat drippings.

Schweinebraten
Cold, sliced pork with bread.

Surbraten
Meat that has been pickled three weeks and then cooked and eaten warm.

Verhackerts
A spread made of minced sausage and meat.

- Global Gourmet

Locals will say the new wines always taste better under an open sky but their DNA has been refining its sensitivity to heuriger since the Middle Ages. I will take it indoors or out although the romanticism of drinking a new wine next to its vines is not lost on me either.

Austrian wines, in any environment, are glorious creatures, though I suspect they sparkle just a little more on the palate in a heuriger tasting. Roughly one-third of the regions' wines are blended, both red and white. Nearly all of it is consumed within Wein so you will likely need to go in person if you mean to taste them. The vast majority are whites which you may recognize: Gruner Veltliner, Muller-Thurgau, Reisling, Silvaner, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay (though these varietals are labelled with their local names). Reds are just as familiar: Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

There is a 300 day "new" period for wines of each vintage as some wines are aged for a period and take months for release versus some of their un-aged counterparts. Conceivably, throughout the newness time frame, you may find yourself back at a heuriger on several occasions to taste new releases of different blends and varietals. Obviously then, like an vineyard or winery, the time not to visit is during harvest and press: September through early November.

Although there is a heuriger in the United States - just one by name, it is far closer to a restaurant than the heuriger's I've described here you should really just go or...

Create a heuriger on the lawn when spring arrives and serve a pile of gorgeous new local vintages and have a heaping, gorgeous buffet? Once again, not being to precious about anything, which is patently against both the concept and everything Blushing is, anyhow.

Put a pine bow on the invitation and one over the door, don't forget.

You lost me

Lately I have been running headlong into the curious melodrama that is my generation making its values (or more often this week, lack of) known. For the record, I am proud of us on the whole. But a few are still discovering there is no entitlement in the real world. We make our own luck and determine our fortunes. You can blame karma all you want but it is a lot less other-worldly than that: One reaps what one sews.

Decency and honest work: It seems to me there is not much more to it than that. Ultimately, this life-thing is not all that mystifying. If you're looking for happiness, you're not working hard enough. Either you work like a dog every moment to do it all correctly, including just being a human being, or you try to skate and we all know where that ends. Stop looking; start workin'. At everything.



In a week full of news reports about the misuse of Twitter and Youtube and young, unsteady lives lost over them, and the drama I have unwillingly watched unfold in my own life among adored souls in my my world, I did what I always know to do: I worked. Just kept my head down and concentrated. Quietly forming my own opinions and occasionally ferociously making them known, but on the whole, staying safely inside my work-is-the-only-course-of-action in all scenarios bubble.



I assure you this has not endeared me to some. A lot of people want you to take sides, help them make someone love them, write a check big enough to solve all their problems... Actually, all that would only be the beginning of the end for people not laying the truth bare and owning up to who they are, and worse, what they need to work diligently to correct.



What I am saying, perhaps in a clumsy maneuvering of veiled references, is that all that can be done to change one's fate is too work to change it. Break your tail making fixes. Fall down: hard as you can. Get back up like a prize fighter. Accept your next scrape. Repeat doggedly. Never give up.

You are on a horse in this life, ride it until broke and when the last day comes, slide into home and knock St. Peter over then grab a glass of wine and regale the heavens with tales of the battle wounds of a fearlessly lived life that worked until the second in made that final turn for home.

Don't amble into the gates full of woes and might-have-beens. I won't have that for you or me.



While all this bright luminous living is your life's work, the best I figure you can do by others then is to be cognizant of their feelings because they need to get back on the horse too, do the best you can to be fair, always give it to 'em straight, and above all else exercise human decency.



It is this last point that has me stumped as I write to you: We all get to times when the world we live in creates a momentous amount of exhaustion and you would just like to find a place to nap and listen to the roar of a big ocean. The sheer indecency of the world in this last week has me thinking that at times you have to work to rest too. A little escapism does not necessarily mean you are not working at overcoming something. So, that is my plan.

In these pictures, you have been visiting my sanctuary: Half Moon Bay. With any luck, all of you gorgeous readers and I will converge there for a Blushing nap one day.

Get to work on some rest on this holiday of ours, Gorgeous Creatures.

Move over Martha

I have to admit that I am regularly held rapt by the New York Times new slide show feature for the Style and Home & Garden sections; must have watched the slide show for this magnificent home of P. Allen Smith's in Arkansas several times.

In considering bringing this to you, I discovered P. Allen's Smith's website. Moss Mountain will welcome you and your group into the house for a tour, book signing with P. Allen Smith, and lunch or dinner, which his firm will cater. This sounds a good bit more appealing to me than the average home tour. Especially given this beautiful setting for dinner.



If you are not going to be near Moss Mountain, like me, we will always have the slide show... enjoy.

Big fat etiquette

Such a great scene. The appalling nature of the meat abstinence would have been the same in many homes I knew growing up, including my Grandmother's. That has little to do with being Greek, but big fat family meals and the sentiment of cooking for you, that is woven into Greek DNA.

As it happens, I'm a little obsessed with Greece, Greek food, Greek wine, and now, Windex. Not the Greek diners we New Yorkers knew as kids: Formica counters, old warped travel posters of Greece, and some gyros tossed in to lend authenticity to a menu from which I shamelessly ordered vanilla coke and egg salad. If only I had known.

Like every place and culture, dining with a Greek family has some big fat etiquette and I tell you this only because I hope you know one, and I hope they invite you for a meal, and I hope it is around Easter. Fates willing then, you have some time then to brush up your Greek; study even. There is a lot to learn: The Greeks are a vertible crossroads of cultural food touches; marked by wars, invasions, occupations, and great growing land. Their tables are a literal feast of flavor, color, laughter, and joy.

"In the villages, the traditional way of dining is still observed, and very pleasant and relaxed it is. A table is set up in a courtyard and on it is spread a variety of mezethes for guests and family to nibble on for and hour or two while they chat and wind down.



Every meal is preceded by mezethe's, 'To prepare the stomach for the onslaugh to come,' as one ancient Greek writer exxplained.

When the mezethes are finished, bread, salad, and a main course are set int he center of the table. Vegetables are usually served later, separate from the main course.

Family and guests alike are expected to serve themselves to the food provided and to pass their wine glasses to the host to be filled...



Taking large helpings of everything at the start of the meal, to show appriciated for the food, would actually be an insult to the host, implying there might not be enough food to go around! Instead the diners helps themselves to the same dish several times, proving to the host they are enjoying themselves with the food he offers.

When we serve Greek food at home, these customs can pose problems. Our guests, used to spending less time relaxing before dinner, can easily mis-judge the pace of the meal and become full on mezethes! Thus, it is better to serve just a few mezethakia suck as olives, feta cheese, salted almonds, and peppered figs with drinks. Then, at the table, serve two or three more substantial mezethes as a first course.

In traditional Greek homes no separate first or soup courses are served (a soup is sually served as a compelte meal), so the main course is served immediately after the mezethes.

Fresh fruit, or perhaps pudding or ice cream usually completes the meal.

After the meal, and away from the dining table, Greeks often enjoy honey-rich pastries, candies, or syruped fruit (glyka) with coffee. For us these treats make delectable desserts."

- The Flavors of Greece, Rosemary Barron (William Morrow & Co, 1991)

Or, maybe, it would be best to go to Greece in person.

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Beat the streets

I could walk around New York City for the rest of my days and never take it all in. I will spare you the complaints about how there is never enough time in life to wander - wandering being considered the plain dalliance of fools, naives, and village idiots. And in turn, not seriously thought of when it appears on most Outlook schedules. Except mine that is, where you can be assured it is the deadly serious to-die for business of this Hostess. If I sit in Westchester for any period of time, my skin starts to itch and I feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety that culture and curiosities are passing me by in town.

I get a lot of support in the wandering endeavor, thankfully. Either my friends think we might unearth something fascinating, or there is the outside chance they may finally find their way into witness protection, but on the whole - good days had by most. Ah-hem. Now then.

After a long recent day spent wandering in Manhattan, I came across this piece on Grub Street: Chef Yang Haung of Buddakan in New York takes his service staff to his purveyors and favorite haunts to familiarize them with his ingredients. It is only coincidental that his restaurant, Buddakan, is a favorite of mine, not only for food but for its soaring shameless display of decor and related cash outlay verging on the absurd. Even if only once, it is a place not to be missed for over-wrought design, delicious legitimate Asian food a la banquet hall, and impeccable service.

Better service through directed wandering: One hostess is not surprised.

A short but perfect season

In the far west of France, the region of Alsace has long been a source of geopolitical strife between France and Germany. While I would love recap a millennium of agony regarding what belongs to whom, which religion, whose language, and how it was ruled, it is far beyond the scope of this page.

Aside from the storybook beauty of Alsace, a culture vibrant with centuries of gifts bestowed from east, west, and south of itself, it makes remarkable wines both dry and sweet (Gerurztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Blanc, Pinto Gris, Reisling, Cremant d'Alsace, and Pinot Noir) and has a commitment to asparagus worth a trip in spring.



Restaurants spring up between April and June and the only item on the menu is asparagus, generally served with three sauces: Hollandaise, mayonnaise, and vinaigrette.



Alsatian's will drink only one wine along side their prized asparagus; well-chilled dry muscat. Whether or not you go in person, or recreate this beautiful meal at home, I suggest you follow suit; locals know their pairings.

Asparagus is imported for fine purveyors and restaurants only during the legitimate season from the west of France. Check the tags at the grocery store: Although Mexico and other locales produce white asparagus (achieved by growing in darkened boxes, rather than in the mounded nutrient-rich soil of western France), they are generally an inferior product and it is worth, even if it is a splurge to experience this meal, to get the truly tasty asparagus of France. The season is only from late April until June 22 each year, so be quick.

For more on the history of Alsace and the French and German populations therein, read here.

Great time had by all

I must receive the "fun meals with small children" question once a week. Were it not for a legion of physicians warning against giving little ones seafood, for reasons of preventing a horrendous allergic reaction, I could recommend a rowdy, messy, crab cracking festival to you.



I am one of those lucky (?) mother's who found Grandma and baby engaged in an allergen summit one afternoon; Nuts, strawberries, and shrimp spread out on her high chair table just daring her to have three types of anaphylaxsis at once. It was the baby allergen trifecta, I thought I would swoon on the spot. But I recovered and thought, well, at least I have those answers now.

Consequently, there is little I cannot feed my year-old, including Maryland steamed crabs.



This meal is an uncultivated barbaric mess. An unpredictable event of creepy undersea things encrusted in curious red gunk ("Old Bay and stuff," in technical parlance), fiercely addressed with mallets, and picked apart to succulent crabby shreds (which will leave you no questions as to why buying crab in the market is so costly). This process takes hours and limitless patience but even in restaurants which serve steamed crabs requires only fearlessness and no cleanliness or real table manners since smashing, sucking, and pitching are all par on this course.





I have two toddlers, I go where the mess takes me. Baltimore steamed crabs. Great time had by all.

Do not mix warning: Louboutin and water taxi's

I have these recurring nightmares about my beautiful best friends wedding, which is why this bit causes me to write to you in the cold sweat of a girl who remembers being precariously shod and teetering up to a dangerous precipice: In the magnificent venue that is Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, I stood above a narrow rock staircase down which we were to descend in floor length sky-blue shantung gowns while clutching a large bouquet of blushing peonies, and wearing thong kitten heels.




The deep breath I choked on at the top of that canyon, wondering why I ever agreed to a cliff descent in an evening gown and heels while attempting to make a lovely display of a fistful of peonies, has stayed with me. I turned to my girlfriend behind me on the ledge, "I am going to end up in a pile of blue shantung and pink petals at the bottom of this canyon."



"I'm just trying not to hit the peacocks in free fall." She said through her teeth.



Once in a while I come across a story that returns me to that day with alarming clarity. The 2007 Venetian Heritage Gala (held in Venice, by Americans and largely for Americans) was one of those well-intentioned events that held venue over Louboutin's. Against all sanity, there in the city of canals and cobblestone, with the most literally well-heeled guests American philanthropy could hope to assemble in Europe on any June evening, the cocktail hour was held in a separate venue from the dinner at Palazzo Pisani Moretta. After cocktails, the guests proceeded to water taxis and were transported to the palazzo in a boat procession.

I quake at the thought of standing on the hotel dock in black-tie worthy shoes. It is a Blushing policy that heels, evening gowns, and natural beauty do not mix. Were a glass of wine added to the equation for a reveler of that combination, it is the It-girl perfect storm; I am here to tell you, I have seen this girl go head first into the drink in Newport harbor which may sound novel at least as a conversation starter, but was more like a train wreck clad in Givenchy.

When I go to Venice, I take flats and very, very high rubber boots. In an instance of boats and black-tie, or mountains and black tie (someday I will tell you of a mad hatter's dinner high in a mountain peak) consider beautiful low shoes under evening gowns: Have the dress fit to your flats and thank me in the morning.

Photos: Lasocialdiary.com

Letters of recommendation

I can't think of a better way to see Italy than a villa stay. I've not been that lucky to date; strictly a hotel thing, you see. But my friend Sarah and I have these ideas. I imagine it always begins the same way: After one too many glasses of Bordeaux in a corner restaurant in the city, someone mentions Italy and then in your mind, you're off.

We will stay in a small villa outside Florence. We must only drive convertibles, wear very big, very dark sunglasses, dresses with waists and kitten heels, and we will absolutely take up smoking once again (though only temporarily), and learn both very lovely things to say in Italian, but also the kinds of things a girl says in a mad flare of temper while hotly stamping her kitten-heeled shod foot into a cobble stoned street and venomously dressing down Marco or Paolo as she brandishes a Pucci scarf (for a little added color). Consumption of wild boar and sardines is optional, americano's, grappa, limoncello is - obviously - not.

But that is our dream, long honed in a place called Pierre's in Boston. You should have your own, and never fail to work toward it. I can think of no better recommendation for Italian villa stays than these.

Keep me posted on your dreams, I'd like nothing more than to hope for them with you.

Profile: Chef Scotty Schwartz

Please join me today at Blushing Hostess Cooks for a profile of Chef Scotty Schwartz, Jacksonville's Best for three years running and the Executive Chef and Owner of 29 South, Fernandina Beach, Florida. If you eat out or cook, his insight is invaluable.

Around this town

I may have mentioned that a few years ago I decamped New York for Charleston, South Carolina. This was an unpopular decision, but by that time, I was getting accustomed to that position in the universe: I chose not to be a lawyer. I chose to quit a job where I worked for a manic with no other job in site on Good Friday. I chose to leave Donna Karan. I chose to leave New York. I ate a lot of unkind words and stabbing looks at each of those turns from people who spent their entire lives in fear of making a move; in fear of living. In the end, my successes were measured in the usual ways for those so concerned I was on an uncommon path which would also be a fabulous flop (aka run home to Dad, who told me so...). My Dad was not someone who threw caution to the wind or ever let a safe thing go to pick up the tail of a kite.
He preferred I not be one of those, either.

I turned out okay, though. I tell him that at night before I go to sleep. I think he knows it, I cannot be sure. He was still alive when, as a pup executive, it was my job to get up each morning and go head to head with Phil Knight's 800 pound gorilla. There was no time to point out that we made headway each day. That we were in the fight. I am not sure he understood or was pleased that I got my ass kicked by Nike everyday. But in the clothing game, there is no thing I would have accepted being kicked in the teeth by every day, and no thing I was ever more tee'd up to go head to head with. Few people can say their partner in the dance that is the war in the business field is Nike. Few people's names but their own are known on the merch floor at Nike. But they knew mine.

He did not know that. He knew I did not practice law and that I had a great office with a view of half the city on the day I quit and went to Charleston. But that was before, before Nike. Before my time in Europe and Asia. Before I made a similar decision from an even loftier spot. He might say I was good at the, "just screw it" choice. I thought I was good at deciding what brought me joy and turning it into an economic boon.

He spent a lot of time reinforcing what I dreamer I am, how he did not trust this kind of thing or me, and how my thinking was not the kind of thinking that ever pays off. For my part I have always thought it is in the way you define, "pay off." Wealth does not do it for me. Beauty, staggering unabashed aesthetic goodness of every kind: Now. There is a co-pilot. There is a driving force to help me unearth myself and guide my attention. It has been an overwhelming and unleashable determination,something far beyond a pursuit. For the longest time, I could not understand what drove me, then I met me. Way on down South.

These days, I tell stories for a living. Dad would not see the usefulness in this. But his was a different age. Anyway, like I said, I went to Charleston. I met my future husband in a hotel lobby there. A little while later, I moved altogether. I came to know the place intimately but there is so much to still discover. For a person driven by beauty, Charleston is a place where the desire is ever-nourished. My happiest days were there.

So, I thought we would take a ride, you and I. Not to the places you see in vacation blogs on Charleston. You would hardly need me, then.

You should wear pants, if you are a man. A dress or skirt if you are a girl. Shorts in Charleston belong to the tourists exclusively. You don't have to believe me but I dare you to show up at Miss Jane's afternoon cocktails on Tradd in shorts. The first question you will hear is, "Are you enjoying your visit?"

Now, then. Before we leave town, we should eat something. I like the stuffed cinnamon and raisin French toast with fresh peach sauce at Toast on Meeting. Have some bacon, pork is part of this way of life.

Here are your boiled peanuts. They should be big, fat peanuts not those emaciated sickly things they serve at Hyman's Seafood. Put them on the dash and the paper bag on the floor by your feet for your shells. Be careful not to get the boiling water on your patch mad sundress when you bite into them. They are salty, have some tea. In some parts here, asking for water is still something of a sacrilege or a red flag.

Head out of town. I will take the old road, Highway 17, the Savannah Highway, because the old towns are out that way: Walterboro, Jacksonboro, Ravenel. But also more popular places like the sea islands: Edisto and Kiawah. If you follow 64, you will see signs like this one, at a corner of live oaks, covered in eerie cob webs, giving directions to hallowed grounds of farms, slavery, wars, economic rises and collapses, and once-great Southern towns no one wants to go to anymore.

I will take you out to John's Island because it speaks to a Charleston nearly lost to suburbia now: Croppers shacks, heritage tomato farms close to belly-up every year, you-pick berry fields, post-Civil War settlements, and the ebb and flow of the ocean and rivers that helped the low country rise once before in the days when John's Island was about farming tea, rice, and vegetables. They brought the new rise too: People like me who love beauty and brought their fortunes here in the last twenty years: A circumstance met with mixed feelings by the old families.

It is a long ride from town, nearly forty minutes out 700 or Maybank to the Grace Chapel settlement.

I can give you the inventory of the settlement. I imagine it has not changed very much in two hundred years: Twelve homes, four churches, countless live oaks. And the water around. No stores. One paved road, the rest dirt and shell.

If you come back to Grace Chapel, I expect you will be respectful. It is silence which defines this tip of the island. And grace. It was accurately named in 1840. They will not have city ugliness here; if that is brought upon them, they will remind you where the paved road lies and that it will return you to the highway; go on and use it.

This is Grace Chapel. She is antebellum of 1840. Spared of the seiges and fires that fell her sisters on John's Island. If you think this looks like a fine place for a wedding, be cautioned that this chapel is precious and serves the families of the parish only. No destination weddings here.

These old live oaks share their piece of paradise with some cars for Sunday service but mostly people walk from the few homes out there.

The settlement ground is sandy, shells are as abundant on the road and in driveways as on the beach.

Let's head back to town. I want to show you the Charleston which will always make my heart warm from local eccentricities and dichotomies.

This is an old family home in the Battery. Note the laundry hanging on the top balcony. They did that long before it was environmentally sensitive and even when society dictated indicated one should get a dryer.

Charleston welcomes libertarians, individualists, and odd balls. They know all about these types. But they do not care for invaders or thieves. It would not be at all unexpected to see a pineapple welcome sign above the door bell even though you have just passed through this wrought iron defense on your way to a dinner party at this residence.

One of the things that happens in places where heritage is everything is that it sometimes takes a long time to let go of the family places. I cannot blame anyone. But sometimes, the inhabitants survive a lot longer than the inclination to preserve or the money. That is when some sad and dangerous things happen. Often now, the historic folks or the College steps in, and that is for the best.

More tomorrow.

And do not forget to enter the reader giveaway here for Garden & Gun magazine, voice of the new South.

Make no assumptions

You may be assuming we are at the place in this next photo? The Breakers, in Palm Beach? But we are not.



No, indeed. We are at Hotel de Nacional, Havana, Cuba. Once it was said to have rivaled places like The Breakers at roughly the same time when Havana was so worldly and cultured a city that it was frequently compared to Paris and New York. Oh yes, it had those days. And the Nacional: It was an alternately art-deco moorish marvel built in pre-revolution Cuba of 1930 and temporary quarters to all manner of luminary. Since then, luxury as we know it left Cuba on a raft.

The Breakers went on to be a lovely hostess. Hotel Nacional went on to become a poorly renovated and cared for conference center, at best. I find it surreal that they can be confused for one another as it seems they could not be more different. The Breakers is big league luxe, a veritable shrine to the trappings of unbridled and unregulated capitalism. The Nacionale, a sad historic hand-me-down from a grand and more flush era of freedom. The pictures are staggeringly disconcerting, but give me a second on that...

The Nacional is not the only thing in Cuba which needs saving; it is probably the least of it. But over the years it has been something of a landmark in my soul: A place the heart knows only from a distance but longs to meet and in that way is not unlike other impossibilities like Jackie O and Ernest Hemingway. They are gone. They cannot shake hands with my wonderment, but that does not stop me from wishing I could know the sound of their voice or to see them in person.

On a more tangible plane, our dollars could do a lot of good there. Since some will spend their money off shore rather than on even in times like this, for a multitude of reasons, many of them humane, it would be wonderful that some reach the people (that part is key) of this island nation. I can only hope it is finally freed and reopened as, in the years I went easily around the world, unlike my colleagues, I declined to enter Cuba through Canada. Though I desperately wanted to, curiosity is no reason to break the law. I remain hopeful that I will see it wholly legally and with its freedoms returned in my lifetime. But I will wait a bit if the gates open, I am hoping some part of its glory days return.

Because you see, this is not Cuba's historic hotel the way I want to see her:

The New York Times Magazine explained modern Havana thoroughly, and photos of this now- defunct historic landmark are as much of a comparison as I can stand to note here but I hope you will read their piece as it is relevent to our times as we consider what doors to open with Castro's Cuba. The agony and pronounced differences between the western world and Cuba (not unlike much of the real Caribbean) are stark and quite frankly, wholly unimaginable on the north side of Key West. Unmistakeable and a little heart-breaking.

I hope you will take the photo tour of both the Nacional and the Breakers above and wonder, as I do, what might have been for Havana, for Cuba, and for the humanity there if only everything had been different.

“If it is true that every Cuban knows how to read and write, it is likewise true that every Cuban has nothing to read and must be very cautious about what he writes”
-Jacobo Timmerman