Nothing says summer better than a perfectly ripe strawberry, a plump briny oyster plucked from the sea or a tall glass of ale–enjoyed on a shaded patio on a lazy afternoon. Towns around the world this summer are celebrating their bounty with colorful street festivals. Tip Sheet offers a tasty tour of the season’s best :
Some of the most prominent food festivals aim to spark wider awareness of the produce we eat. The Norwegian Food Festival in Aalesund, a port town with striking art nouveau architecture, runs seminars that focus on agriculture and the environment; it also holds cooking competitions and tastings of local foods (matfestivalen.no, Aug. 25-29). In Britain, the pretty Welsh city of Abergavenny hosts classes by top chefs like Michelin-starred Hywel Jones and explores broader aspects of farming and culinary culture. Biologist Colin Tudge will talk about how we can best feed ourselves over the next 10,000 years (Sept. 18-19, abergavennyfoodfestival.com).
An idyllic setting always makes things taste better. Corsica celebrates its almond harvest with cooking workshops and tastings in the hilltop town of Aregno (Aug. 2-3). The tiny village of Conceze in France’s picturesque Limousin region celebrates its greatest export–the raspberry–on July 11 (conceze.com). Booths will feature a variety of regional delicacies made with the fruit: granitas, wines, coulis and terrines, as well as duck and snails cooked in raspberry vinegar. Through June 24, Germany’s Gross-Gerau county spotlights local asparagus with cooking courses and “Jazz and Asparagus Days,” where bands play at farms and restaurants offering tasting menus with local wines (spargeltage.de).
Food festivals can also offer a tantalizing window into local history. Performers and musicians entertain visitors to Noyon, in Picardie, France, where the town’s trade in berries dates from the 10th century and is feted July 4 with prizes for the most elaborate fruit sculptures (noyon.com/tourisme). Vessalico in Liguria, Italy, celebrates its unique mountain garlic on July 2 in a day of feasting that culminates with an evening ball.
And summer is the season for seafood lovers. Juicy oysters are best savored in the salt air and sun of France’s Atlantic coast; Gujan-Mestras showcases oyster tastings alongside music and folk dancing (Aug. 7-8, ville-gujanmestras.fr). You’ll learn hundreds of ways to cook eel in Aahus, Sweden, as fishermen celebrate their most prolific product Aug. 7. “The food of thy soul is light and space; feed it then on light and space,” wrote Herman Melville. “But the food of thy body is Champagne and oysters; feed it then on Champagne and oysters.” Wise advice that summer’s lengthy days and languid nights make easy to heed.
TRAVEL
A RARE GLIMPSE
North Korea is a tough country to get to know. But curious travelers can get a pretty good view from the Chinese city of Dandong, right on the border:
STAY at the four-star Zhong Lian Hotel, overlooking the Yalu River facing North Korea. In the lounge–often populated by North Korean trade officials wearing Kim Il Sung pins–a pianist plays romantic tunes while patrons watch the flow of trucks and buses traversing the bridge between the two countries.
EAT at one of the 10 North Korean restaurants, including Chongryu and Okryu, for authentic cold noodles and fermented fish. But a bottle of North Korean wine with fresh-river sashimi and fried vegetables will run you about $43–considerably more than a meal at a local Chinese establishment.
SHOP at the antiques mall in the city center, where you can buy traditional Korean ceramics. Vendors also sell North Korean stamps, merit badges and pins.
SEE the Yalu River by boat for a rare glimpse of the North Korean riverfront. Just 35 minutes north is where the Great Wall ends and the North Korean and Chinese borders meet. There the river becomes so narrow that you can cross it in one step.
EXHIBITS
MEMORIES OF ANNE
This month marks what would have been Anne Frank’s 75th birthday. In addition to the permanent museum at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, exhibits around the world are commemorating the young diarist who died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945:
A collection of Otto Frank’s black-and-white family photographs make their world premiere at New York’s Kraushaar Gallery (through July 29). Also at the Foam photography museum in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin (through Sept. 12).
“Anne Frank: A History for Today” is a traveling international exhibition that can be rented by schools, organizations, religious groups, even shopping malls; annefrank.com.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., honors “Anne Frank the Writer” with an online exhibition culled from her notebooks; ushmm.org.
Devorah Sperber’s Anne Frank-inspired sculptures grace the Garden of Remembrance in White Plains, New York, and “Anne Frank in the World: 1929-1945” at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta.
TECHNOLOGY
A Grove Of Palms
Sales of hand-helds are down across the board, Microsoft is nipping at its heels–and still PalmOne, the makers of Palm PDAs, keeps furiously introducing new models. The company recently added two new models to its lower-priced Zire series (palmone.com). The original Zire 21 had a monochrome screen; now for just $150, the new Zire 31 adds both color and MP3 support, along with an SD memory-card expansion slot. The color screen on the Zire 31 is a bit more low-res than we’d have liked, but it’s still serviceable. We were drawn to the $299 Zire 72 instead. With its spiffy high-resolution color screen, a built-in 1.2-megapixel camera with digital zoom and Bluetooth wireless support–all in a stylish rubberized package–the Zire 72 is truly worth some pocket space.
