Category Archives: New York Times

November 9, 2007

JEANRIC held my gaze in his, smiling softly. “Close your eyes,” he whispered in a gentle French accent, “and relax.”

He took me in his muscular arms, cradling my shoulders from behind as my feet left the bottom of the pool. My naked body swirled through the warm water of a hot spring until I had the distinctly expansive feeling of tumbling across the star-strewn Milky Way.

The promise of ecstatic moments — whether from body treatments or just the soothing nature of the waters — has drawn visitors to Northern California’s natural hot springs since people first discovered them thousands of years ago. The West Coast’s seismic activity provides plenty of opportunities for water to seep deep underground, where it is heated and mineralized before re-emerging, transformed and imbued with seemingly magical properties.

Read it on the NYT site…

November 4, 2007

ESTABLISHED in the wake of the Great Quake a century ago, San Francisco’s Japantown, or Nihonmachi, is the largest of three Japantowns in the United States. The neighborhood still bears the marks of its twin calamities: wartime internment and 1960s redevelopment. But now, with more interest in all things Japanese and still-unbridled investor enthusiasm for San Francisco real estate, Japantown is undergoing a renovation that promises to raise the area’s profile considerably.

Read it on the NYT site…

Nov 18, 2007

VEGETARIANISM is a simple idea — don’t eat animals — with an ancient pedigree. According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, 4.7 million American adults are vegetarians or vegans (people who avoid all animal products, including cheese and eggs).

Yet even in San Francisco, with its countercultural and fresh food traditions, only about one in a hundred restaurants in the Zagat Survey is vegetarian. And while new vegetarian restaurants have been opening in New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco’s scene has been expanding differently as beloved restaurants open new locations.

Read it on the NYT site…