My friend Hughie says Scotland is ‘God’s own country’ - and here I am, right at its northern-most tip, next stop the Arctic Circle - and it is hard to disagree. What Anders and Anne Povlsen are doing at @wildland.scot is ambitious, challenging and extraordinary. This is Europe’s largest conservation project, a 200-year plan focused on careful restoration and protection of nature for the long-term. On the shores of Loch Hope their newest lodge is exceptional by any international standard. It has an explorers spirit and style in spades. We dunked in the river every day, we hiked to waterfalls, we had picnics in the spongy ground and snoozed in the sunshine while someone somewhere talked about peat. It is very moving to see what can be achieved with a generous commitment to the environment. And the people here - from host, to guide to chef - are at the top of their game for sure. On the last morning I walked to where the river meets the sea, I listened to the burn trickle and dollop besides me while in the distance the North Sea thundered and roiled. And I watched the weather. And in my head I’m watching the weather still. ☁️☀️💧 Thank you @julesperowne@nomimilleroo@perowneinternational@christophkenned it was all remarkable! (Plus, I’m coming backlkkkkk, you can’t stop me)
For sure @macakizihotel - this restaurant with rooms, this non-hotel hotel, this beach club wrapped up in a jungle embrace - ain’t no shrinking violet. Here are girls with washboard stomachs smoking cigars of significant heft. Here are Margaritas carried out on vast trays spooled above heads by waiters with eyelashes as long as night and eyes the colour of split olives. They spin between spools of flesh laid out like glorious slithers of sun-baked oil-sheened anchovies, saucy and all involved 💛 I loved writing this book for owner @sahir275 and @assouline and photographed by the amazing @oliverpilcherphotography . I’ve loved it from my first visit to my most recent when I became convinced the bougainvillea was sentient. Sometimes the colour is tissue paper rose, sometimes red and rude like ravished cherries 🍒 For sure, a living creature communicating with me as if it was in fact @macakizihote made floral host, a million shards of party pieces that together make a merged master of ceremonies.🌸
To buy the book click the link in my bio!
I am a terrible cook, but I am a clever terrible cook, which means a large percentage of my best friends are great cooks. During the pandemic I did my usual: incinerate chicken to a dry husk so that I wouldn’t poison my children. But also, suddenly - it was all over the news - I became aware that because kids weren’t able to go to school, a ton of them were missing out on what turned out to be their only meal of the day. I have always supported my friend @joannaweinberg and her charity @chefsinschools_uk since it was founded in 2018 because she is brilliant and kind and wants to change things that aren’t right in the world. 2.2 million children in the UK live in food insecure homes. And we all know we need to eat at least five portions of fruit and veg a day and yet only 19% of children reach this target. Chefs in Schools now feeds 180.000 children across 140 schools. And we need to do more. When we knew we were going to do a fundraiser I asked Jo who would be her number one dream chef to cook for it. ‘Tomos Parry’, she said. @tomos_pp said yes before we’d even finished asking him. And then @thomasinamiers - because she is the kind of person she is - asked her old flatmates @stevieparle of @town.restaurant and @josephtrivelli@therivercafe if they would also muck in. It was an amazing night in a school dining room eating with kids forks and drinking out of plastic cups. We raised more than triple our target, and counting. Follow @chefsinschools_uk an amazing operator putting good food in young tummies and changing policies around nutrition at governmental level.
And here she is in all her glory. An amazing reimagining of the Observer Magazine. I remember @evawiseman saying ‘I hope it doesn’t become too elegant’ as if she’d just eaten something horrid. But it can’t be when she herself does such a good job of poking humanity’s ridiculousness in the eye so joyously I laugh out loud at least 4 times per column. (I average them, but it’s sometimes more). The Observer just attracts lovely people to its shores whether it’s the very lovely @tomos_pp and his brilliant food column or @charlotte_mendelson_ who’s whole spirit feels like sap rising. It boils down to the quality of the writing really. And the writers who merrily flock here. It gives me huge pleasure simply to communicate with my literary heroes for the back page column What’s On My Mind, in this launch issue, with the amazing William Boyd. It kicked off with another idol of mine Rose Tremain. The copy came in. I never thought I’d be copy editing Rose Tremain. I had to take a deep breath. ‘Is there any way Rose, you would consider a little less death?’ She complied graciously, changing one single last line that made my heart both sore and soar. It couldn’t get any better. Well done @moshakis it’s a job well done indeed 💛 Click the link in my bio to subscribe there’s so much more to come!
Never not in motion on this trip. Russian jeeps, rickshaws, motorbikes, kayaks, bicycles,skiffs, and finally the boat. The Apocalypse Now slow steady skulk up from the mouth of the Mekong in Vietnam to Cambodia. And suddenly all the cranes and the cargo boats and the diggers sloughed away and the calm banks of the rivers grew quiet and the grasses wavered in the breeze. It’s impossible to get your head round what has happened here in the last 150 years. The Chinese, the Japanese, the French, the civil war, the Khmer Rouge, the famine, the Land reform, the American War, as they call it. How very absurdly close it all feels, and yet absolutely unfathomably far away. Now I’m back in London I’m furiously reading everything I can like #themountainssing and #FirstTheyKilledMyFather under the covers when I can’t sleep at night. And I think of the barman Vican @aqua_expeditions who alongside 6 other crew came from a charity school, and who is now saving enough money to return back to that school to become a teacher. Because a whole generation of teachers were wiped out during this period. And when you wipe out the teachers you also wipe out the teachers who teach the new teachers. It’s an astonishing part of the world. Resilient beyond measure.
Is this the ultimate wildlife experience?
When I spoke to @melindalp , former editor of Condé Nast Traveller, she told me the Galápagos Islands were not even on her bucket list at first. And yet, when the opportunity came and she finally went, she found it utterly otherworldly. A place that feels suspended somewhere between the past and the future.
I adore the way she describes it. It sounds unlike anywhere else.
Have you ever been? What did you think? I can safely say the Galápagos are now firmly on my list of places to experience at least once.
🎧 You can watch or listen to the full episode with Melinda on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
📍 Recorded at the beautiful @ThePeninsulaLondonHotel .
#TravelSecrets #TravelPodcast #MelindaStevens #Galapagos
They say that you are a either a mountain person or a coastal person. All I know is that I am cheese person. And a cheese and wine person. And a forest person. And a snow person. A truly besotted snow person. A few weeks ago in Gstaad, which was for the first time in a long time covered with the stuff. Which makes it hard to think of anywhere prettier…
A red painting. Five acorns. A copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein full of pressed flowers. Some beautifully written notes. Bunches of narcissi, and tulips. A trip to the Royal Academy to see the bold wild confidence of Rose Wylie, a final reluctant but ready dive into the tender wrench that is Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet. Women women everywhere. This photo was taken earlier in the week at the christening of the newest most joyful and loving little girl to join our very female-strong tribe. I love being amongst this coven, knee deep in their brilliance and flair. Being a mama to these three has been like opening a window on the day of a hoar frost. Otherworldly and thrilling. Thank you for letting me in and being so kind to me. It bowls me over daily.
I’m so happy to join The Observer Magazine as Editor At Large. I get to sit fearsomely close to the sports desk who talk about rugby and biscuits all day, I get to read the words of @evawiseman and @charlotte_mendelson_ who make me eat my hand they are so funny and so clever and I get to haggle over pull quotes with the subs desk, who are always the very best of folk. This weekend’s issue features a fashion cover story with my very favourite Michael and Teresa Barnett @makemeaoffer wearing a mixture of Burberry and John Lewis and with an interview by @hayleymyers . It might be the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper but The Observer’s freshly launched website and app are brilliantly designed and razor sharp. Mostly importantly covering stories with a clear eye and a full heart. Subscribe at the link in my bio with the discount code OBSERVERFRIEND and help me knock Martin Love off the top spot for galvanising the masses! It is such a treat to be plotting with the magazine editor @moshakis and there is so much more to come. For my agency Salt Lick Creative to have scooped The Observer Magazine into its fold makes me a very proud creature. Happy Christmas James Harding!
One day after a long summer I met up with Stephen Fitzpatrick, the owner of @theroofgardens for lunch at The River Cafe. It was a beautiful day and we were sitting on one of the gorgeous tables outside on the cobbled terrace. We talked for ages about all sorts of wonderful things and some heartbreaks in between when suddenly I remembered something. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I have a present for you!’. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘It’s a word!’ I replied. ‘That’s so funny, I also have a present for you and it is also a word!’. We decided to show each other our words at the same time. And the word we gave each other was the same word. It was komorebi, a Japanese term for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. And now that is the name of the new 7th floor restaurant of The Roof Gardens that opens this week. We ate there yesterday. There was no dappled light to talk of, but the food was pretty magical. Well done @stephen_fitzpatrick_@amandashepp@indialangton@suewalter13 and to many feasts going forward overlooking the extraordinary views of the city that stretch all the way beyond the river and back out west where, right on the horizon, the rooftops give way to the trees
I love writers writing, but hearing writers speak is just so special. The Chanel relationship with the Cliveden Literary Festival has always been wildly bookishly brilliant amid a lot of tea and coronation chicken sandwiches. This year we beelined to tune into the amazing British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak who has written at least two of my favourite books of all time There Are Rivers in the Sky and The Island of Missing Trees. At the end, when you are allowed to ask questions, I get as hot as a burst water bottle and pluck up the courage. Partly because I have so much I want to know about these extraordinary heroes of mine who change and also somehow underline how you see the world, and partly because conversing with someone who’s work you adore face to face is so incredibly moving. I asked her about her process bearing in mind her books are so extraordinarily researched on a multitude of subjects. She says she reads around all those topics, unlearns what she thought she knew, then closes all those books and begins to write with no plan other than where her characters will lead her. Which makes her increasingly dazzling. A more empathetic writer of humankind across a blast of different histories and eras would be hard to find. (Last year, when two of my favourite writers were speaking, Salman Rushdie being interviewed by Ian McEwan, I went so hot during question time I kind of blacked out and asked at least 17 questions rather than the prescribed one.) Oh this book festival is a special thing. Thank you so much @joallison1 for always looking after @marthaward and I, and congratulations to @natlivingstone who packs the coolest sardines into the best looking sardine tin in the world. Writers writers everywhere, it’s heady - as well as hearty - stuff….
