How to spend the ultimate weekend in Annecy, France

Lake Como, in northern Italy, conjures images of glistening blue water, opulent villas and villages where celebrities like Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and Amal and George Clooney try to dodge the paparazzi.

From a distance, the sandstone pillars resembled a gathering of giants turned to stone by a displeased god. Our group of eight travelers had set out when the sun was at its zenith, and now, as it made its descent, we arrived at this place with air so pure it seemed to hold no scent. The only sound was the wind, as faint as breath. The rocks are called tassili, and some stand more than 300 feet high. They have been carved by this same disarmingly gentle wind over many thousands of years. This is what deep time feels like.

The tonka bean, a wizened-looking South American seed, is beloved for its complex almond-vanilla scent, often appearing as an ingredient in perfumes. Outside the United States, it has also long been utilized by chefs, but studies have indicated that coumarin, a chemical compound in the plant, can cause liver damage in animals, and the Food and Drug Administration banned the bean in commercial foods in 1954. Now, with reports that the minuscule amounts used to impart big flavor are harmless (and the F.D.A. seemingly not particularly interested in enforcing the ban in recent years), tonka is showing up on dessert menus here. Thea Gould, 30, the pastry chef at the daytime luncheonette La Cantine and evening wine bar Sunsets in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was introduced to tonka after the restaurant’s owner received a jar from France, where it’s a widely used ingredient. Gould says the bean is an ideal stand-in for nuts — a common allergen — and infuses it into panna cotta, whipped cream and Pavlova. Ana Castro, 35, the chef and owner of the New Orleans seafood restaurant Acamaya, discovered tonka as a young line cook at Betony, the now-closed Midtown Manhattan restaurant. Entranced by the ingredient’s grassy, stone fruit-like notes, she’s used it to flavor a custardy corn nicuatole, steeped it into roasted candy squash purée and grated it fresh over a lush tres leches cake. And at the Musket Room in New York’s NoLIta, the pastry chef Camari Mick, 30, balances tonka’s richness with acidic citrus like satsuma and bergamot. Over the past year, she’s incorporated it into a silky lemon bavarois and a candy cap mushroom pot de crème and whipped it into ganache for a poached pear belle Hélène. “Some people ask our staff, ‘Isn’t tonka illegal?’” she says. Their answer: Our pastry chef’s got a guy. —

A flamboyance of flamingos was feeding on plankton in a reed-lined marsh. The water reflected their lithe bodies beneath clouds the color of their plumage, blushed by the setting sun. Suddenly, my guide told me to grab my binoculars: Black silhouettes of cows waded through the marsh like hippos in the Serengeti. I had never seen cattle so graceful in the water. This aquatic ballet perfectly summed up the Camargue.

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Presented by Capital One

My oldest son has a lot of big dreams.

Earlier this year, Air France-KLM spoke out about the challenges the airline faced in reinstating flights between Europe and China to what they were pre-pandemic. 

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