Medical Tourism

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

Once upon a time, rock stars and celebrities went to India seeking enlightenment. It was the hip thing to do.

Jacquie Brock went for a different kind of hip.

The Cranberry Lake resident is a poster child for what it means to be active and healthy in one's senior years. Except for her hip. She started having mobility problems several years ago. The situation wasn't life-threatening, but the pain of even simple movement and walking was making life miserable for her.

Unfortunately, getting medical procedures that don't involve life and death, like hip replacement, can be a painfully slow process.

(There's more...)

"It was going downhill fast," said Brock. "In July I was in the doctor's office and he phoned a clinic on Vancouver Island. They said, 'she's on the list to get on the list to see a specialist, and we'll phone her in September or October.' Not for an appointment, just for an update on the list."

This is how she found herself in Chanai, India. Medical travel has become big business--a multi-billion dollar business by some estimates, with patients from the United States (US), Canada and Europe taking advantage of lower costs in India, Singapore and Thailand to get cut-rate dental care and surgery.

Healthbase, a US company, arranged all the details of Brock's procedure, from anaesthetic to X-rays. The company even arranged all necessary visas.

Brock left Powell River on November 10 and was back on the 29th. This was a very quick turnaround. The trip to India left Brock with expenses of about $8,000 in medical fees, and substantially more in travel costs, in addition to the 32 hours of flying each way.

It's the cost side of the equation that makes medical travel prohibitive for the average person. To date, only a handful of Canadians have taken advantage of this opportunity. The BC ministry of health doesn't track statistics, but Healthbase said they have dozens of Canadian clients, not thousands.

Rather than research a specific country or company, Brock started out researching a technique. Sitting lakeside in the Cranberry home she shares with husband Bob, Brock described the procedure, known as Birmingham resurfacing.

"Instead of cutting the top off your femur and driving a titanium ball down the center of the leg bone," she said, "they resurface the socket with titanium and then top the ball at the top of your femur with titanium. It's much less traumatic, you can imagine."

"Look," she said, standing up and then raising her leg, first out to the left, then straight forward in front of her. "It's so smooth. I haven't been able to do that in years and it doesn't hurt. It's amazing."

Brock said physiotherapy should allow her to stop using canes by the end of the year. Her mobility has improved immeasurably and so has her mood.

Of course, there are caveats.

BC Health Minister George Abbott advised caution before procuring out-of-country services. "It is very much buyer beware," he said. "Patients who do receive surgery or medical treatment in another country must accept they do so at their own risk, and realize that complications may arise, for which the provider of the service will not accept responsibility."

But working with an international company like Healthbase is hardly the same as getting a back-alley facelift, said Brock. The doctor in the Indian hospital (part of the international Apollo Group), Vijay Bose, had trained with the Birmingham team that developed the technique, and has performed more than 1,000 surgeries.

Brock's physician, Dr. Nicholas White, said there's no real reason to oppose the move if the surgical team is good. "This isn't really a totally new phenomenon," he said. "We've had people going to Mexico for decades to get dental work or cosmetic surgery."

The ministry also noted improvements over the past five years: wait time for knee replacements is down from 25 weeks to 19.9 weeks, hip replacement, down from 18.7 weeks to 13.3 weeks, and cardiac surgery, down from 15.1 to 11.3 weeks.

"That's great," said Brock. "But I couldn't even get in to see the specialist to get evaluated to go on the wait list."

Sometimes the overseas trips are called medical tourism, because people combine their medical experience with travel. But with Brock's limited mobility, that wasn't an option. She did enjoy what she saw of India, however.

"The hospital was a bit dated, like a 1940s hotel," she said. "The doctors and the nurses and staff were just marvelous, caring and loving."

Brock found the experience humbling.

"I've been taking care of myself for years," she said. "But when I was in high school, I abused my body with student sports, and then there were all the years I was helping my husband deliver deep freezes and hide-a-beds that were beyond my strength. But I said I could do it.

"My generation, that was the thinking. You were independent and you never asked for help, you just bloody well did it."

Some of that streak comes out when she talks about her trip to India. She saw what she had to do and she did it. BC is not one of the provinces, such as Ontario, that are looking at plans to help pay for out-of-province surgeries that can't be done locally. Not only did Brock pay for it all, but now she has to pay for her physiotherapy out-of-pocket as well.

"Fortunately my pocket can do it," she said. "I know not everybody's can."

Into Africa

(Crossposted at EcoFabulous)
One of the best ways to help indigenous people help themselves and the environment is to go there. For example, when you visit Campi ya Kanzi, at the foot of magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro, you'll get the trip of a lifetime as well as help the Maasai people of Kenya and their local wildlife.

Located on 400 square miles between Tsavo and Chyulu National Parks in the heart of Maasai country, the camp offers gourmet-quality meals, wildlife tracking with Maasai guides, and scenic flights around Kilimanjaro.

Love Kenyan coffee? Imagine having it brought to you fresh-brewed first thing in the morning... or sipping it by the campfire as the sun sets. This is the cradle of the first humans, and as you dine under the stars, you can't help but feel the draw of our deep ancestral roots.

(More...)

And by going there you help create a better life for the next generations of Maasai people. Not only does the camp provide employment, it also supports the Maasai Foundation, which provides a range of health and educational services. For instance, after years of hunting, lions are staging a comeback - good for the ecology, but bad for semi-nomadic herders like the Maasai; foundation supporter Ed Norton has teamed with jeweler Cartier to raise funds to compensate the community for livestock killed by lions, so the tribesmen won't retaliate against the big cats.

The camp combines charcoal-fired cookery with solar power and hot water heaters - a wonderful marriage of traditional life and modern sensibilities. Not as luxurious as Branson's African oasis, but a pretty awesome and honest way to experience Africa. While you are checking on your flights, don't forget to offset your travel!

Season of Decadence

(Originally appeared in the Albany, NY Times Union)

Once upon a time, there was a magic, strawberries-and-cream place.

Gentlemen and ladies sipped champagne in the afternoon sun as they watched magnificent horses gallop by. They stayed in colonnaded hotels or large houses bedecked with fanciful architectural gingerbread. At night they danced and gambled and ate.

And ate.

This was the Victorian heyday of Saratoga Springs, in which everyone lived by Oscar Wilde’s dictum, “Nothing exceeds like excess.”

The Saratoga Springs of today is hearkening back to that era. In the land of the health-conscious, the fat-reduced and the cholesterol-free, Saratoga remains a haven of nostalgic decadence.

(More...)

Consider the creme brulee at Sperry’s, the narrow ‘30s-style restaurant on Caroline Street. A tiny, 4-inch ramekin sits on your plate, wafting to your nostrils the delicate aroma of caramelized sugar. Pick up your spoon. As you would with a soft-
boiled egg, break the sugar shell; dip the spoon deep into the soft yellow custard within. Shell and filling enter your mouth, the first crunchy and sweet, the latter smooth, creamy, rich with the flavor of vanilla fresh from the bean.

What you’re eating here is heavenly. Don’t even think of the ingredients: the egg yolks, the heavy cream, the sugar.

“When people come to Saratoga Springs, they want to do it up properly,” says Gustav Ericson, who for the past nine years has created the creme brulees, lemon meringue tortes, and blueberry bread puddings that have tempted the palates of Sperry’s patrons.

“Maybe Saratoga is a little indulgent,” he adds. “Myself, I’ll eat cheesecake once every six months. Here, we sell so much white chocolate cheesecake I can’t keep up.”
Beverly Cone, proprietor and chef of Beverly’s on Phila Street, agrees that sweets seem largely exempt from the emphasis on healthy eating.

“For lunch,” she notes, “I see them eating a lot more salads this year, more turkey breast, more salmon. Much less beef than they used to. But when it’s time for dessert they’ll order a slice of chocolate Chambord torte. They still go with the
chocolate. When they come here, they want to treat themselves.”

And it’s not just the summer visitors who come to Saratoga to indulge. Cone says that business (after a blustery, blizzard-filled winter) has been booming since April.

There are two types of dessert popular this season in Saratoga. On the one hand, you have what you might call healthy decadence: the fruit tarts, the raspberry confections. Beverly’s specialized in this kind of dessert, which combines the
healthful freshness of fruit with the caloric blast of French cuisine - like apple bourbon cake with bourbon butter sauce.

And then there’s chocolate. Chocolate exists for its own sake. A chocolate Chambord torte makes no compromises. It is decadence of the purest sort.

“The people who come out for chocolate always look for the best chocolate,” notes Peggy Boyl, the pastry chef at the Adelphi Hotel. Boyl, who now lives in Ireland, has returned to the Adelphi - the last of Saratoga’s grand old Victorian hotels - this summer, after a nine-year absence. She whips up several options for the lover of deep chocolate, including a chocolate whiskey cake that is an international treat, combining 14 ounces of Belgian chocolate with one-half cup of Irish whiskey.

This is chocolate as it’s meant to be eaten: a long, three-inch-deep wedge of midnight, closer to a fudge in consistency than any mere devil’s food cake. Garnished with ruffles of chocolate that Boyle makes by hand, this chocolate could be savored over an entire evening. It’s a pity most people can’t hold themselves back, instead devouring it in under 5 minutes.

At the 43 Phila Bistro, pastry chef Lena Favalloro has managed to combine the two genres of dessert, in a white chocolate raspberry tart with almond pastry crust.

White chocolate does not possess the strongest of flavors – the stuff is abjured by rabid chocoholics as little short of heretical. In this case, the chocolate is completely overwhelmed by the raspberries, but that’s just fine. The result is something akin to an extremely creamy, rich, fruit custard, with a blend of delicate flavorings, including the trace of chocolate and hints of almond from the crust.

Purists can split off either way at 43 Phila, as Favalloro also makes a sinful chocolate hazelnut coconut tart and a light, creamy lemon-champagne zabaglione. The zabaglione (pronounces zah-bah-yone) is another masterful marriage: tart lemon, fresh blueberries and champagne for that extra zip.

For the quintessentially Victorian experience, though, go for the marjolaine at the Adelphi, straight out of Gaston Lenotre’s classic text of French cooking, “Desserts and Pastries.” Thin layers of hazelnut torte are layered with three different buttercreams: chocolate, hazelnut praline and almond. Smothered in chocolate and garnished with caramelized hazelnut ornaments, this is not just a dessert, it’s an adventure. As the layers blend on your tongue the tastes shift and shimmer as hazelnut blends into almond blends into chocolate.

Try it on the back patio, sitting on a wrought iron bench. Look up at the open, star-studded sky above, and know: this is a true taste of heaven.

Going to Scotland for the Waters

(Published in Luxury Life & Style Magazine)

“Go ahead, try it.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Sure.”

The speaker is our tour guide at the Lagavulin distillery on the isle of Islay, off Scotland’s craggy west coast. He holds a long, snake-like hose that drops down from a pipe in the ceiling of this plain concrete room. Tapping the valve, he spurts a shot of clear liquid into a large copper ewer.

He ladles a little into my cupped hands. I bring it to my mouth. It is harsh, vibrant, crystalline, and redolent of the smoky-oily aroma of peat.

This is whisky, the raw stuff fresh from the still. The water of life, pure and unadulterated.

There are bars that have amazing selections on their top shelf; there are restaurants with cellars full of the most exquisite vintages. But you’re not going to get this anywhere else.



Nobody is sure if it was the alchemists or the monks who first started calling the amazing liquid they distilled from wine “aqua vitae,” or “water of life.” It was clear to them that it has some sort of animating spirit, though. When touched with a candle it burned with an angelic light, and when imbibed – oh, my! – it made men feel like little less than angels.

The Scotts who set up shop as distillers became particularly skilled. And the spirit they created – they translated “water of life” into gaelic and called it “uisge beatha”, shortened to ‘uisge’ and thence ‘whisky’ – has been particularly prized all over the world.

Paying a visit to Scotland is a perfect way to both refine that appreciation for those already delighted by whisky, or to instill it in those just learning. And a visit to Islay (pronounced “eye-luh”) is ground zero. There are three main Whisky-producing regions, each with its own character: Speyside, the main region along the river Spey with dozens of distilleries; Highland, scattered across the Scottish hill country; and Islay. On this tiny, heather-covered granite rock in the ocean, there are 4,000 inhabitants and eight distinctly world-class distilleries.


I start my pilgrimage on the south side of the island, with three distilleries that put out some of the most intensely flavorful whiskies in the world: Lagavulin, Ardbeg and Laphroaig.

There are five elements that determine a whisky’s flavor, and must be carefully controlled by the master distiller. The first step is selecting the finest locally-grown barley, and malting it. This involves sprouting the grain to convert the starches to sugars, making it sweet and intensely flavorful. Next, the malted grains are dried over a slow fire of peat, which adds the first level of smoky peatiness to the blend.

Peat is ubiquitous in Scotland, and particularly on Islay – this moss cousin grows thick on the ground in the damp atmosphere, building up over the years into a deep cushion, springy in some places and squelchy in others. In a land with few trees, peat has been harvested as fuel for centuries – cut with a spade into brick-sized blocks, dried, and then burned.

Peat also adds its distinctive smoky-rich flavor to the second element: the water. Here on the southern part the island the distilleries get their water from the lochs and streams (or “burns”, in the local parlance) that pick up the warm, rich aroma of the peat as they flow through it. The water is added to the malted barley to dissolve off the sugars, then transferred to great oaken or steel vessels called tuns, where it ferments over several days.

The fermenting rooms reek like... a brewery, the kind of smell you get at a frat house after a long weekend when too much beer has been spilled into the carpet. It will take a few steps to arrive at something more pleasant, since the fermenting only takes you to about 8 percent alcohol.

Next it’s time for distillation, a process that was probably first developed by the Greeks of classical times, perfected by Moslem experimenters in the middle ages, and then spread through Europe by alchemists and monks. On the European continent the monks kept the secrets to themselves, but in Scotland and Ireland the monasteries were busted up by Henry VIII, and the monks who were skilled distillers set up shop on their own.

The stills at each establishment are completely unique, the result of two or three centuries of experimentation, trial and error, and careful attention to the tiniest detail. The masters tell us that even such prosaic details as dents and dings in the smooth copper sheathing of the still have an effect on the flavor, and are carefully reproduced when individual copper plates have to be replaced. It’s hard to believe, but then, it’s also hard to argue with the results they get.

The fermented liquid, called “The Wash”, is fed into the base of the pot still and heated. The vapors of the alcohol rise up into the neck, where most of them are pulled off to condense via water cooling. Then the distilled spirit is run through a second still in a complex process – the first stage spirit (“the Foreshot”) is too harsh, and is fed back into the still, while the late-stage spirit is too weak. It’s only the stuff from the middle phase of the process that is suitable, and part of the job of the master distiller is to monitor that closely and know exactly which should be re-distilled and which is ready to be fed into that pipe that leads out into the filling room.

The fourth element is the casks. By law, all whisky must be aged a minimum of three years in oak casks - generally used barrels from Kentucky bourbon, although some use sherry or port casks for additional flavor. It is the slow process of aging that imparts to the whiskey its distinctive golden color, as well as mellow flavors from the barrels.

The final element is location - Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg are all right on the sea (for ease of transport back in the early days), and it does seem that some of the salty, iodine character of the sea air is absorbed by the whisky.

Laphroaig also has a special program, called Friends of Laphroaig. If you’re a true fan, they will endow you with lifetime ownership of a square foot of Islay; when you arrive for a visit you’re treated not just as a customer or guest, but as part-owner. And your rent will be paid promptly, with a dram of their finest spirit. (Not to worry, the other establishments will let you sample their wares as well, although not with quite the same flare.)


The distilleries on the north end of the island – Bruichladdich, Bowmore, Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain – use spring water rather than the highly-peated waters of the south, to produce a gentler spirit. But even so, the flavor is distinctive, and to many palates more intense than the whiskies produced on the mainland. And Bruichladdich, which was recently resurrected by a small group of private investors, is doing some experimentation, including offering a highly-peated variety that out-smokes any other brand on the market, and a fully-organic whisky made from some of the finest barley grown anywhere.

All that sea air and traipsing over the moors is bound to bring on an appetite, and the good news is: the Scotts have much more to offer on the culinary side than haggis. The Port Charlotte Hotel is the finest spot on the island for both room and board; nearly all accommodations look out over the ocean, and the dining room offers a delightful assortment of beef and lamb from local farms and locally-caught seafood. Try the venison, the big Loch Gruinart oysters with lemon and lime or the Loch Etive mussels. (and make sure to reserve your table, as it fills early). And after dinner, you can sample more whisky – the bar carries more than 100 varieties – and enjoy some local music by the log fire.

There’s more to Islay than food and drink, of course. The ubiquitous sheep yield a fine wool that the locals weave into beautiful blankets and, of course, kilts; there’s a fine golf course, if that’s your speed. And there are several ruined castles, from the day when the head of Clan MacDonald was known as the Lord of Isles and ruled all of western Scotland from his seat at Finlaggen.


Islay boasts the most intense whiskies, but there are hundreds of other distilleries, many worthy of a visit. Dalwhinnie is both the finest and highest of the Highland group, perched in a mountain pass on the confluence of old cattle trails. The two most popular whiskies in the world, Glenfiddich and Glenlivet, each offer tours and tastings. And Highland Park is a unique, wild, isolated outpost on the far-north Orkney Islands.

One advantage to a Scotland visit: the country is tiny! So you can, if you want, stay in the heart of Edinburgh at the luxurious Balmoral Hotel, do the distilleries as a series of day trips, and be back in time for afternoon tea at the Palm Court or a session at the Balmoral Spa. The Speyside distilleries are easily reached by car (just a couple of hours north), and Islay or the Orkneys are an even shorter “puddle-jumper” flight; you can also arrange for tours through the hotel.

Or you can take your time in the grand old peripatetic style. The Minmore Hotel is conveniently located right on the Glenlivet Estate, and was named “The Most Spirited Restaurant” in Saveur magazine’s top 100 list this year. They’re renowned for such intensely Scottish dishes as red venison topped with duck liver foie gras and red wine sauce with chocolate.

And the countryside is dotted with castles, many of which have been transformed into first-class hostelries. Inverlochy Castle was voted Best Hotel in Europe by Travel + Leisure magazine last year; the Loch Torridon Hotel was once a grand shooting lodge for the first Earl of Lovelace. If you choose to stay at the Kinnaird Estate – set within 7,000 acres acres on the banks of the Tay in Pershire, offering salmon fishing, partridge shoots, and a full restaurant and spa, you may not want to leave and go anywhere else!

That is, in fact, the hardest part of a Scottish vacation – leaving! But at least you can take a couple of bottles of the country’s signature spirit home with you, to sip by your own fire and relive the memories.

Take Me To The River

Another classic clip...

By Jeremy Bloom
(Originally appeared in Capital magazine)

"Go, go, go!"

We hoist up our 15-foot rubber raft and march out into the frigid river. As my booted, wet- suited foot enters the water, I feel... nothing. No cold, no damp, just a slight pressure as the water closes around my calf. "Hey," I think, "these things really work."

We clamber aboard our craft and swiftly, albeit clumsily at first, paddle out into the current. Behind us, the next of several hundred rafts is already being man-handled down the bank.

We have entered the Indian River, a major tributary of the Hudson, a few hundred yards down from the dam that regulates its flow out of Lake Abanakee. During the summer, the Indian is a tranquil stream.

But that was months ago.

Now, the melting snows of Bullhead, Horseshoe, Little Panther and Bad Luck mountains have swollen Lake Abanakee with cold, clear water. We can see it cascading over the dam, exploding down a narrow channel before spreading and running swiftly but calmly past our embarkation point. We join the flow.

After bumping over a few small waves, we get a chance to look around. Clusters of fiddleheads - the tightly curled shoots of ferns that resemble the scrolls of violins - are poking up through the newly-thawed earth. Here, the river flows along the narrow defile it has carved among the peaks, overseen by the evergreens clinging to the slopes which angle up from the banks.

Interspersed among the deep green boughs are bare, silver-gray aspens, their slim branches only just beginning to break out in golden buds, an impossible dazzle of color in the bright morning sunlight.

Rounding a bend, we hear thunder. No more time for surveying the shore. The bed here is full o f glacial detritus, from gravel to boulders the size of buses, which whip the water into peaks and valleys, fountains of spray and standing waves that slam our raft - wash! wash! wash! - one after the other, tossing and twisting us and splashing over the gunwales into our faces as we whoop in part laughter, part terror.

We emerge spluttering from our first rapids with a foot of water in our raft, spray dripping from hair and eyebrows and noses, adrenaline coursing through arteries. The water isn't swimming temperature by a long shot, but in our insulated wet suites, we don't notice the chill.

"Did anyone get wet?" inquires our grinning guide....

Skip Grant is stocky and blue-eyed, with chiseled Hollywood features and a 24-hour smile. During the week, he is Hoyt S. Grant, is a salesman of some kind of incomprehensible high-tech computer equipment. But on weekends, he comes up here as a licensed river guide. And lets loose.

Shooting the rapids, our paddling had been raggedy; now we work on getting in sync. We're still banging into each other as Skip calls out, "Back paddle on the left! Front on the right! Let's spin this sucker around!"

We take a break at Blue Ledges, a prodigious scarp of several hundred feet that stands directly in the path of the rushing Hudson. As a huge raven flies overhead, catching thermal updrafts along the cliff, we bask on the riverbank rocks in the warm sun and watch armies of fellow rafters come splashing by.

Each outfitting company has a different colored wetsuit, so it's like watching Kurosawa's film "Ran", with its color-coded armies. First comes a group in orange suits with orange vests, then a division of blue suits and orange vests, then a contingent all in blue plus red helmets. We drink coffee (but not too much - no bathroom stop for an hour!) and psych ourselves up for the next stretch.

By Carter's Landing Rapids (sometimes called Mile Long Rapids) we're paddling in sync, which is a good thing, because this is the most treacherous stretch of the river. It is market by several "holes" - gaps between boulders which catch the turbulent waters and trap them in pounding, roiling eddies.

You can roller-coster over them, but if you hit them at just the wrong angle, a raft can go over in seconds, dumping everyone. We pass "Jim's Hole", where one guide spilled his entire crew a few years back, and earned himself a place in local nomenclature.

(I learned later that, after our trip, an inexperienced group of rafters wiped out in Jim's Hole - and one died. It's rare, but it's real. And danger is both the carrot and the stick of every adventurer.)

We pass the rest of the five-hour odyssey in a blur of exhilarating rapids and lazy flat stretches. It's like the best carnival ride you've ever been on, but it lasts a lot longer than 30 seconds, and there's no waiting in line.

By the time we pull out of the river near the town of North Creek, the sun is disappearing behind the mountains. Back at our hotel – the American in "downtown" North Creek - we realize that our bodies are far too keyed up to even consider sleep. Tranquilizers are definitely required, and the American has the best post-rafting oasis in town: the Thirsty Moose. It's got a solid garnet bar (actually garnet ore, a bluish-black rock shot through with nodes and veins of the burgundy gemstone), and when we arrive the bar's stuffed-head namesake is presiding over a hubbub of voices exchanging rafting tales over ales.

"...And then we hit the rock and he went right over the side!"

"That's nothing - we bumped a shallow rock on a calm stretch and no one got dumped but our guide! He came up spluttering and real embarrassed...."

"I wish I could go again tomorrow. I checked and they're all booked up."

"I am going again tomorrow!"

Three hundred miles downstream, the Hudson flows quietly, a constrained river, between New Jersey and the skyscrapers of Manhattan. But here in the north she's still a wild river. And she makes for one wild ride.

(Photo used under creative commons license from Flickr.com)

A Visit to the Hermitage Inn

The Hermitage Inn
Wilmington, Vermont

Bertha Eastman Barry would be pleased.

As editor of the Social Register she once ruled the world of high society from this modest clapboard summer home on the lower slopes of Vermont's Haystack Mountain. Today, the comfortable elegance draws guests from all over the U.S., Europe and Asia. The 90-minute drive along the spectacularly scenic NY Route 7/VT Route 9 whetted our appetites, but nothing prepared us for the opulence of Jim McGovern's table.

"McGovern" (as his staff calls him) does not do anything by half measures, and he has several wonderful obsessions. When you enter the dining room, you are immediately hit by one of them: the decoys. There are thousands of carved and painted wooden mallards, canvasbacks, red-breasted mergansers, green-winged teals, Canada geese, swans - even a pair of (in this case aptly named) wood ducks.

The next obsession is apparent in the menu. He raises his own game - ducks, geese, partridges, wild turkeys, even deer - for the table. On this occasion we had duck, and a partridge in a delectable hunter's sauce of Madeira wine, mushrooms and a touch of tomato and tarragon.

This was real food, the flavor infinitely superior to the bland, mass-produced, chemical- and hormone-laden meat available in supermarket America. The delicacy of flavor in the Hermitage's paté, for instance, is simply indescribable; "That ain't chopped liver," as my grandfather used to say. It is made from the livers of McGovern's own geese, and that makes a delicious difference.

And then there is the wine. McGovern's cellar contains 35,000 bottles. Each year since 1985, the Hermitage has been cited by wine Spectator magazine as having "One of the greatest wine lists in the world." So read up a bit before you come, for there are gems here you cannot find at your average five-star restaurant. We had a 1985 Chassagne-Montrachet Deleger that alone was worth the drive. If you are uncertain, ask McGovern for help; he's glad to advise, and he'll talk your ear off.

Dessert, and another obsession: the maples. McGovern taps his own trees each spring and turns the sap into 300 gallons of syrup. He sells it in the shop, and he uses it on the table - in the morning over pancakes, at night on the carrots, and on the duck.

And in the inn's specialty: Maple Walnut Pie. Imagine the texture of pecan pie on your tongue, then replace the pecans with the bittersweet taste of walnuts and add the delicate sparkle of maple. Magnificent.

[The Hermitage Inn, Coldbrook Road, Wilmington, Vt. 05363. (802) 464-3511.]

Skiing Aspen

Another classic clip.... Originally appeared in Capital magazine.

By Jeremy Bloom

The parking lot dropped away behind us as we pulled up through the chill winter air. Thirty feet below our ski tips, hotdoggers whipped down the Lowerstein, an experts-only run that is one of the hardest at Aspen Highlands mountain.

The valley spread out behind us, in majestic green and white - green of pine, white of snow. The top of the lift was approaching swiftly.

“Which way should we turn when we get off?” I asked my companion, a native Coloradan who was escorting this Easterner on his first trip to the big mountains of the West.

“Straight, of course,” he replied. “This is just the first lift. We’ve got three more before we reach the top.”

Oh. Aspen Highlands is big. With its 3,800-foot vertical drop, it is the biggest of the four mountains here that form an 11-mile strip of ski heaven. Two more - Snowmass, at 3,555, and Aspen Mountain itself, at 3,370 - exceed the mightiest that the East has to offer - Vermont’s Killington, at 3,175. Together with their baby sister, Buttermilk, they have made the tiny village of Aspen synonymous with skiing, and a winter haven for ski bums, movie stars, European royalty and American students on a ski-blast vacation.

And also for writers who happen to love skiing. By the time we got off at Loge Peak, we were 11,800 feet above sea level and had traveled up more than three miles of lift.

We headed down Broadway, a wide but challenging track down the center of the mountain. There were five experts-only trails leading off at intervals on our right; we went over to investigate, but they looked more like vertical cliffs than slopes to me. Good thing I’m not an expert.

Adjusting our goggles against the glare of the sun and the snow, we continued down through the powder. The wind was cold on my cheeks, but that was the only part of me exposed - temperatures go down well below zero up here, and wind chill cools it off even further. We were well bundled. Under the layers of wool and Gore-Tex, we were warm with action and adrenalin.

On a mountain this size, you don’t spend anywhere near as high a percentage of your time standing and shivering on lift lines. There’s so much room to ski! And a hint: even if you are skiing in pairs, go for the singles line - an extra line that maximizes the efficiency of triple- and quad-chair lifts by letting singles fill in the empty seats. Not only will it cut your time in line, it’s also a great way to meet people and hear some wild stories.

Like the kid who told me, in an incredulous tone, about the gorgeous, blond, 30-ish corporate lawyer who comes out from California and spends one month per annum picking up blond beach-bum-type students and showering them with Champaign-and-caviar high life. This year she had found him, he told me in a tone that implied he still thought he was dreaming the whole thing.

Or the group of young ladies from London, dressed to the nines, who informed me in very posh Mayfair accents that Aspen was much better than those drab European ski resorts. “The facilities are ever so much better here, you know,” they said. “And the Alps are all above the tree line, you know, so it’s all just snow. There aren’t proper trails there a-tall.”

Skiing tends to be a sport of younger people; here that is particularly apparent. At two miles above sea level, there simply isn’t that much oxygen in the air. Even folks in the prime of life and in peak physical condition get tired after a few hours of hard, fast exertion; not being either, we exhausted quickly, and caught the free shuttle-bus back downtown.

Seasoned Aspen hands have a routine: ski ‘till three, then apres-ski and a bit of shopping ‘till eight, then party until three in the morning. Aspen is renowned for its high times as much as for its high peaks. And the paragon of Aspen night life is - the Paragon.

This restaurant/bar/disco may not be the hoity-toitiest place in town, but it truly epitomizes Aspen. The decor is rich with gorgeous woodwork and lots of stained glass, typical of the Victorian elegance of many of the buildings constructed during Aspen’s first heyday.

And as befits a restaurant serving the contemporary wild West (in a town where the cops drive Saabs), the menu is Thai. We had intensely spicy shrimp and a delectable satay beef with a tangy peanut dipping-sauce. We also tried the house drink, which was an unnatural bluish green and tasted like... well, tasted like bluish green. They wouldn’t tell us what was in it. Just as well.

All the travel guides advise against imbibing during the first three or four days of one’s stay in Aspen, because of the rarified mountain air. Judging by the crowd at the bar, most folks were either unconcerned, or didn’t mind the prospect of getting drunk quicker (and after all, many would only be staying three or four days). And the dance floor was jammed from 10:00 until 3:00 in the morning, although how they could dance on legs that had been up and down the slopes all afternoon was a mystery.

Aspen Mountain, the main ski area, is not for beginners. There are no green-marked beginner trails. Although most locals seem to prefer Highlands, Aspen Mountain sports the famous World Cup Downhill Race Course, and miles of powder. As far as we were concerned, both mountains are equally tough, hard, fast and a lot of fun.

After our night out, though, we found ourselves stopping to rest more frequently. Fortunately, there are restaurants placed strategically up and down the mountain. (I asked one waitress how she got down at the end of the day; she smiled and replied, “I ski down, of course.” Everyone in Aspen skis.)

At 2:30, we had to pack it in. We walked the two blocks from the base to our strategically-located hotel, the Independence Square, knowing exactly what we needed. After a quick change, we grabbed some cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine from the apres-ski buffet, and headed up to the roof - and the hot tub.

Just what the doctor ordered. There is nothing like hot, churning water to sooth overburdened, aching muscles. The air was brisk - the steam rising off the water turned to ice in our hair and beards. But from the neck down, we were in heaven.

We sipped our wine and shared skiing stories with the other indulgent guests - a doctor from Chicago, a student from Los Angeles, and a ski bum from Sidney, Australia.

As the setting sun turned the valley behind us to umber, the last of the stragglers made their way down the slopes - just a few hundred meters in front of us - and the grooming machines rumbled out onto the mountain like some sort of gigantic, bizarre beetle. The subject turned to politics, and the doctor and the student got into a heated discussion on the relative merits of the Presidential prospects.

We didn’t care. Poaching in decadence, we had no more important long-range decisions to make than where to party that night, and upon which of the best mountains in the world we should ski on the next day.