For golfers on the mainland, the PGA Tour's season opener at Kapalua is one of the most powerful fantasies that HD television has to offer. The course seems like a dream world, with its emerald fairways, towering Cook pines and — set against the glittering waters of the Pacific — views of the neighboring island of Molokai. And yet, TV doesn't do it justice. Visitors' first impressions of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw's design often involve shock, because of the absolute beauty of the place, and awe, over its size. On this course, carved from the mountainous slopes of a former pineapple plantation, we feel dwarfed by our surroundings, and sometimes humbled by the elements.
Hawaiian golf is often stereotyped as a manicured lark, lush and easy, but Kapalua is ruled by the long-haul trade winds trucking down from Alaska. (The secret to posting a good score here is to play in the morning, before the big breezes kick up.) I learned this on my very first tee shot on the Plantation, while honeymooning at the resort in 2006. …
Click here to read more in the Fall 2012 issue of The Ritz-Carlton Magazine
It's a sunny morning just north of San Francisco as the Marin Farmers Market hums to life. The growers, who've been up since well before dawn, have finished pitching tents and hanging scales, and their fresh-picked wares are laid out on long tables like some riotous picnic.
Striding toward a stall at full tilt is a sandy-haired man in a running jacket and blue jeans. He looks a lot like Sean Penn, right down to the amused expression playing around the eyes. Greeting the vendors with a smile, he makes a beeline past their orchestrated display to a jumble of crates around back. A moment later, he's reaching into one to take a bite of an haricot vert.
A customer takes the man for a farmer and starts to ask a question, but he pivots away, oblivious, to inspect a box full of sungold tomatoes. Then he stops and scans left and right, giving the impression that he might be about to take off. The farmers know better: he and they are about to engage in a gastronomical pas de deux, a quick-witted and detailed appraisal of every fruit and vegetable, every edible flower and bouquet of herbs, on offer today. …
Organic beauty products, of course, are nothing new. They've been with us since antiquity, had a resurgence in the 1960s, and had, by the turn of this century, gone mainstream. By 1990, Estée Lauder had unveiled its first green line, Origins. Seven years later, the company acquired Aveda for a then-staggering $300 million. L'Oréal bought the Body Shop for an estimated $1 billion in 2006 — the same year corporate behemoth Clorox nabbed Vermont-based Burt's Bees.
But even while these brands bloomed, natural beauty regimens remained mostly a fringe phenomenon. Products formulated with cutting-edge chemistry retained their popularity. Plus, synthetic products had silkier textures and more enticing scents.
That's changed, and happily for today's green-leaning consumers, skin care is one piece of the ecopuzzle that's markedly improving. Pure, organic ingredients and effective formulations are no longer mutually exclusive. "Most of the ingredients in high-end organic skin care today were found in the crunchier products of the past, but they're being combined in more sophisticated ways, and in higher concentrations," says Siobhan O'Connor, co-author of "No More Dirty Looks" and a beauty blog of the same name. Call these products ecoluxe: they feel indulgent, the packaging is beautiful, and they work wonders. …
To paraphrase chef Eric Ripert, the fish is the star of the plate.
Getting the stars of the kitchen and the stars of the plate in the same place — well, that's another skill entirely; but, it's one that Ripert seems to have honed. After just four years his Cayman Cookout counts among world-class culinary events.
Every January, about 10 top chefs from the U.S., Canada and Europe touch down at Owen Roberts International Airport, families in tow. For the next four days, Grand Cayman Island becomes the epicenter of epicurean sizzle in the Caribbean.
Anyone who knows their onions knows that Ripert is the French-born head chef and proprietor at Le Bernardin, Manhattan's three-star Michelin restaurant, celebrated for its extraordinary seafood menu. In 2008, Ripert opened Blue, his AAA Five Diamond restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman. Ripert's dedication to serving exquisite seafood unites Le Bernardin and Blue, although on Cayman, the focus is on fish caught locally and served with Caribbean flavors. In fact, the idea for the Cayman Cookout owes to Ripert's desire to promote Caribbean food culture among likeminded chefs as well as guests. …