Many know of Rancho Mirage’s plethora of spectacular golf courses, country clubs, glam hotels and restaurants set amid palm trees and the brown towering and sometimes snowcapped mountains of the Coachella Valley in Southern California but one should not overlook the Sunnylands Centre & Gardens located at 37977 Bob Hope Drive. Sunnylands is a 200-acreContinue reading “RKS Travel: The Botanical Beauty of the Desert: Sunnylands Center and Gardens in Rancho Mirage, California”
Tag Archives: Travel
RKS 2025 Wine: Stoney Ridge Estate Winery 2022 Small Lot Gamay Noir
Perhaps there is some comfort looking at this bottle of 2022 Small Lot Gamay Noir from Ontario’s Stoney Ridge. Those grapes saw some summer sun and warmth “cold comfort” to Torontonians facing minus twenty temperatures tonight. I prepared a salad tonight and given the deep freeze I had very little enjoyment of it preferring theContinue reading “RKS 2025 Wine: Stoney Ridge Estate Winery 2022 Small Lot Gamay Noir”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvelous (The Final Version): Chapter 47: Surrounded by Gypsies at Three A.M. and My Eye Spies an Old Flame and a Dacian Beauty
I had two days before my little show in Bucharest introducing Romanian restaurants and liquor distributors to India’s finest whisky (in my humble opinion) “Bombay Blues”. After an early dinner at the Westin’s “Vlad the Impaler’s” bistro style restaurant I decided to take an evening stroll to Herastrau Park a huge park encircling a lagoon.Continue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvelous (The Final Version): Chapter 47: Surrounded by Gypsies at Three A.M. and My Eye Spies an Old Flame and a Dacian Beauty”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned But Marvellous (The Final Version) :Chapter 46: Touchdown in Romania Clouded with Poop Gas: An Angry Gun Barrell Never Sleeps
I left India via New Delhi on TAROM Airlines on the Delhi Belly flight to Bucharest aptly named as so many passengers have the trots from Indian food the airplane cabin reeks of poopy runs! Part of the “plan” had me darkening my skin with a couple of weeks in the Bombay sun to bleachContinue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned But Marvellous (The Final Version) :Chapter 46: Touchdown in Romania Clouded with Poop Gas: An Angry Gun Barrell Never Sleeps”
RKS 2025 Wine: Beyond Good and Reliable to Excellent Chateau Ste Michelle Indian Wells Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon?
Chateau Ste. Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon rarely disappoints and pardon me beats the pants off California Cabernet Sauvignons at comparable price points. Can it elevate itself from consistently good to consistently excellent? Perhaps Chateau Ste Michelle Indian Wells Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon might pave the way from consistently good to consistently excellent? Aroma: Laser beams ofContinue reading “RKS 2025 Wine: Beyond Good and Reliable to Excellent Chateau Ste Michelle Indian Wells Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon?”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 44: Cooling My Heels in the Greek Eastern Aegean
I spent three days in Vravrona, a short distance from the Athens airport, enjoying the ocean and eating plenty of grilled octopus, fresh fish, stuffed vegetables and Greek Salads. I researched my island destination of Samos a relatively small island in the Eastern Aegean at points as close as six kilometres from the Turkish coast.Continue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 44: Cooling My Heels in the Greek Eastern Aegean”
RKS 2025 Wine: Foreign Affair Winery in Niagara Goes Italian
There are several wineries in the Niagara, Ontario wine producing area that have gone Italian the Appassimento and Ripasso way. In Italy the crushed grapes made to use Amarone are “reused” in the Ripasso method. The pomace (the pulpy mass of seeds and skins leftover after the Amarone has fermented) is left in contact withContinue reading “RKS 2025 Wine: Foreign Affair Winery in Niagara Goes Italian”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 42: How Do You Kill Another Man? The Romanian Revenge Plan: Romanian Lightning Heroin
After dinner Don Lupara’s men dropped me off at the fully renovated seaside home on the Bay of Naples a wedding gift for a wedding that never was to be due to Ginevra’s murder. It was payback time. Cyclops who had planted a roadside explosive device that killed my sweet Campanian plum Ginevra and ourContinue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 42: How Do You Kill Another Man? The Romanian Revenge Plan: Romanian Lightning Heroin”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvelllous (The Final Version):Chapter 40: I Have Been Committed to a Psychiatric Hospital: Thank God for LSD and Pasta a La Nero! Lupara’s Deadly Cure
After my Ritz-Carlton meltdown in Manhattan for months I had no idea where I was nor did I really care. Was it post traumatic stress disorder or depression? I was told that I had been transported on a chartered jet courtesy of Don Lupara from New York to Naples where I was transported along theContinue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvelllous (The Final Version):Chapter 40: I Have Been Committed to a Psychiatric Hospital: Thank God for LSD and Pasta a La Nero! Lupara’s Deadly Cure”
The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 39: The Worst Day of My Life: Naples An Assembly Line of Death: My Sweet Calabrian Plum Has Been Wrenched from Me by Assassination!
I wanted desperately to return to Naples to my Ginevra who I was beginning to miss terribly. Physicians at the Roosevelt Hospital in New York were concerned the bone chip near my heart might be a potential risk so travel was forbidden until a round of tests was completed. I was in gnawing pain andContinue reading “The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 39: The Worst Day of My Life: Naples An Assembly Line of Death: My Sweet Calabrian Plum Has Been Wrenched from Me by Assassination!”
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 