The best chocolate in New York City: Fine & Raw

I’ve never been one of those crazy chocolate-lovers — the kind of person who breaks through walls to gain access to a square of Dairy Milk or  sniffs out a Green & Black’s from 90 paces, like a cacao-sensitised truffle pig. Chocolate is yummy…sometimes, was my measured opinion. That was, until our recent trip to New York City during which our guide from Levys’ Unique New York led...

Our plan for visiting NYC with kids

One of the perils of visiting someplace you used to live is a certain cockiness. You think, “Yeah, I know this town. I used to own this town. I don’t need no stinking guidebook.” Of course, that attitude doesn’t take into account — at least in this case — that I last lived in New York as a young, single and ready-to-mingle gal back at the turn of the century. This time, I’m...

Wish You Were Here Wednesday: Times Square

Every place I go, I love to buy postcards (like most people) and inevitably I end up not sending them because I can’t get organised enough to buy foreign stamps. So I carry the cards home in my backpack and then wonder what I should do with them. After moving a stack of postcards around my desk for the 10th time, I decided to buy a proper organiser box (I got a stack of them from Paperchase) and at least keep...

Returning to New York City…as a mother

I spent 10 of my most formative years in New York City — those in my 20s and early 30s, drinking, dining, dating, working and generally becoming what passes for an adult. Then I left for London and a British life with my husband. I love London, but New York is still my spiritual home. That just makes it all the stranger that my kids have never been there. My daughter did make a brief appearance at 4 months...

Eating at the food trucks in Austin, Texas

Austin has been circling the food wagons for some time – food trucks have become such an institution in the capital of Texas that they’ve prompted innumerable blogs and even a next-generation fashion truck called Bootleg, which is a shoe shop in an Airstream trailer featuring hard-to-find labels.     We go to Austin every summer and every summer I love to visit the food-truck enclave on South...

A typical day in New York

It’s been almost 10 years since I lived in New York, but coming back here ignites a yearning for the city. I still find it compelling, from the old-style radiators, the sheer metal canyons around Radio City Music Hall, the no-nonsense New York attitude you find in everyone from middle-class parents walking their children and dogs to car-service drivers who argue that it does cost $50 to get to Brooklyn Heights...