Web serves up a batch of cooking school trips
Anyone planning a culinary or cooking school vacation will get a great start by going to the Shaw Guides section on cooking vacations, cookforfun.shawguides.com/, and browsing the Guide to Recreational Cooking and Wine Schools. The options include a Wine Country Cooking School in Canada, a Week in Provence with Sarah and Michael Brown, A Taste of Vienna tour and a Tuscan Cooking School, among dozens of others. There is even a Seasons of My Heart cooking school in Oaxaca, focusing on modern interpretations of Mexican flavors. Others are offered in Peru, Sicily, New Orleans and Sydney.
Trip Advisor, www.tripadvisor.com, has a new look and organization so that it is easier to find real travelers' reviews of destinations, hotels, things to do, flights and specialty travel. After you enter a location, you have the option of seeing photos or videos, reading real traveler reviews, searching the Know Before You Go section (which has articles written by travelers) or browsing lists of top-rated hotels or attractions. There are also sections on best deals, a button for locating a hotel on a map, and lists and reviews of restaurants. There is also a feature where you can link up with friends' reviews and find out who has been where and what they thought of it. While the "average rating" noted for a hotel can be useful, it's best to read a number of the reviews first, especially the most recent ones. In all, the changes in this site do make it easier to find real-traveler opinions, which is the best thing about Trip Advisor.
Yoga Movement.com is a great all-inclusive site with links for everything about yoga. For ideas on yoga vacations, go to the Vacations and Retreats section, www.yogamovement.com/links/vacations.html, which lists dozens of residential yoga retreat sites, classes, training series, and other opportunities in the U.S., India, Mexico and other locations.
In print
For armchair adventure of the gastronomic kind, try "The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes." Written by Tom Parker Bowles (his mom is Camilla), it is published by St. Martin's Press at $24.95. Whether the author is in New Mexico sleuthing out the best and most painful chili dishes, eating dog stew in Korea or trying the sometimes-deadly puffer fish in Tokyo, the reader is alternately fascinated and horrified by what the author will put in his mouth. The book is more than a prank, however, since Parker Bowles is sincerely interested in why a food appears in a culture and what role it plays in the identity of those who live there. He tries cobra, bees, spleen and even enthuses over a dish in Laos made with live shrimp. His adventure took 12 months, 20,000 air miles and resulted in a 2-inch increase in his waist. Sometimes thoughtful, sometimes wickedly funny, he sacrifices his palate and his stomach so we won't have to.