This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charissa Enget, a content creator and cybersecurity architect who gained her graduate degree in Thailand. It has been edited for length and clarity.
18.07.2024 - 14:21 / cntraveler.com
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Each year, Erin French receives 60,000 postcards from people asking if they can dine at her Maine restaurant The Lost Kitchen. “It really becomes a luck of the draw lottery. We have big post office bins that arrive and we literally reach in, we grab a postcard, we call that person immediately and say, ‘Okay, when do you want to come?’” This episode, Erin shares with Lale what it’s like to experience her beloved restaurant, now in its 11th season, and spills on her new cooking and travel show Getting Lost With Erin French on Max, which sees the chef road trip across the United States in search of new ingredients and inspiration, and sharing meals with Texas farmers, New Orleans chefs, and more.
Lale Arikoglu: Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu and this is Women Who Travel.
When I got Erin French, chef and owner of restaurant The Lost Kitchen on the line last week, I'd just gotten back from my own glorious Sunday afternoon in her home state of Maine.
Erin French: It's why we suffer through winters here, days like yesterday.
LA: I mean, it was just magical.
EF: It's incredible. I feel so fortunate to live here and call this place home. But don't ask me that in November or March. I may not say the same answer.
LA: I want to get into your travels and talk about food. But before we go out into the world, obviously I wanted to start where it all began, which is as we're talking about, Maine. Which is where your restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, lives and operates and is where other people travel to for it. Tell me the story.
EF: The story of The Lost Kitchen?
It was really accidental in a way. I was born in Freedom, Maine, tried for the longest time to escape from anywhere Maine, and kept finding myself being pulled back here whether I liked it or not. As the years went on and I got older and hopefully a bit more wiser, I realized that this was an incredible place to call home. I started to lean into it and really celebrate this place of where I was born.
We opened The Lost Kitchen here in Freedom 2014, on, actually, July 4th. We're just celebrating our anniversary.
LA: Happy birthday, Lost Kitchen.
EF: Thank you, so 11 seasons in now and still loving what we're doing. Hard to believe some days. I mean, opening a restaurant in the middle of nowhere in a town of 719 people seemed impossible then. Didn't know if it would survive its first year, and then to make it five years was pretty incredible.
Now to be 11 seasons later, still thriving better than ever and still loving the work we do here. It's an honor and a pleasure to show up at work every day.
LA: The experience of dining at The Lost Kitchen
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charissa Enget, a content creator and cybersecurity architect who gained her graduate degree in Thailand. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Aug 1, 2024 • 5 min read
Amid the cafes and boutiques of Athens’s Kolonaki neighborhood is a housewares shop that’s also a showcase for Greek craftsmanship. It’s the first brick-and-mortar location for Crini & Sophia, the brand that the former interior and set designer Maya Zafeiropoulou-Martinou founded in 2022. Its wood-and-rattan shelves, two-tone marble floors and furniture are all made by Greek artists, while one window is decorated with a vinelike steel and spray-paint piece by the Cypriot sculptor Socrates Socratous. The shop’s goods are designed by Zafeiropoulou-Martinou, whose inspirations include the colors in Francis Bacon paintings and the Amazon rainforest. Linens are produced in Portugal before being embroidered in Greece with patterns that often take cues from antiques on view at Athens’s Benaki Museum. Hand-painted ceramics and glassware are made in partnership with artisans in New York, Greece, Italy and France. When it comes to designing your own table, Zafeiropoulou-Martinou encourages layering. “The pattern isn’t just the plate or the tablecloth,” she says of her pieces, “but a puzzle of the two on top of each other.”
Next June, a Boeing 757 will take off from New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), donning the unmistakable logo of Pan American World Airways — "blue meatball" and all.
Get ready to go long with Holland America in the Mediterranean.
At a checkpoint in a remote part of Guinea, an official scanned his eyes repeatedly over Pelumi Nubi’s car in disbelief. “I asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ And he replied, ‘The other person.’ Then he looked me dead in the eye and asked, ‘Where’s the driver?’ I was holding the steering wheel. My right-hand driving confused him, but people couldn’t fathom that I was doing this by myself. It’s interesting what societies expect from women, and the box they keep us in.”
Cruising around the islands of the South Pacific is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for many travelers. While some of the island nations, like Fiji, are well known to Americans, others, like Niue, are less familiar. A South Pacific cruise promises cultural experiences, beautiful landscapes and plenty of water-based activities.
The Solheim Cup is heading to the Capital Region USA, taking place between 10-15 September 2024 at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia. A premier event in women’s golf, in the same league as the Ryder Cup, it is also a beacon for tourism, attracting visitors from across the globe to the Capital Region USA. Yet for the British, it holds a special place in their hearts, resonating with the 5.6 million golfers in Great Britain and Ireland, the largest community in Europe.
Whether carving their names on the Coliseum in Rome or haphazardly approaching bears at Yellowstone National Park, tourists frequently make the news for behavior that's, frankly, very stupid.
Planning a fall trip just got easier with up to 25 percent off hotel stays with IHG Hotels & Resorts’ latest sale.
When I went to Belfast, Maine, for the Fourth of July, I expected nothing more than a wholesome, long weekend with my friends to take a break from the hustle and bustle of my life in NYC.
When settling on a place to live, cost of living is certainly a factor. But so is the recreation opportunities.