HTSI editor Jo Ellison
HTSI editor Jo Ellison © Marili Andre

Most of us have now had some attempt at travelling in this post-pandemic landscape. From the work-related stopover to the more ambitious foreign holiday, we’re slowly becoming accustomed to the rush of paperwork, testing and administration that must accompany each trip. Does it make the travel even sweeter? You bet it does. To stand in that first glorious bolt of sunshine when one steps off the plane in any Mediterranean country, or to drink in the view of a cherished city, can make one quite emotional. Hang the inconvenience, the queueing and the bungled logic of trying to get anywhere in 2021: the promise of something exotic is so tantalising that many of us would deal with far more paperwork to get our fix.

One of the townhouses at Punta Pájaros, Mexico
One of the townhouses at Punta Pájaros, Mexico © Maureen M Evans

This issue travels widely, from the streets of Vienna on which we have shot our fashion, to the mountains of Jackson Hole with our Aesthete, the professional climber, photographer and Academy Award-winning film director Jimmy Chin (whose suggestions are quite perfect, for the record). It takes us also from the gloriously rugged surf breaks of Puerto Escondido, an area of unspoilt coastline in Mexico that has thus far eschewed the high-volume tourist developments that can overwhelm an area, to France, where Mory Sacko is dazzling Parisians at MoSuke, the restaurant which this year was awarded a first Michelin star.

The herb garden at Ballymaloe © Cliodhna Prendergast

If there is a common thread, however, it is in the efforts of those people featured to promote and preserve the local cultures they have either helped establish, or have been lucky enough to find – whether that be in their architectural planning, the promotion of artists who have connections to the area or in the recipes and food culture they share. Shamefully, in the four years I lived in Cork, I never visited Ballymaloe, the Irish guesthouse and cookery school in Shanagarry that is as famous among locals for its dessert trolley as it is for nurturing some of Ireland’s most successful chefs. The Allen clan became the chief architects of Irish cuisine and modern hospitality soon after its matriarch Myrtle first put down roots there in 1947. Today the guesthouse, vegetable farm and cookery school, run by Darina Allen and her youngest brother Rory, are so deeply ingrained in the nation’s food consciousness that one would be forgiven for thinking that prior to the Allens (who have fronted numerous television programmes), no one in Ireland had a clue what to eat. David Prior looks at the house’s extraordinary influence as it emerges from a wretched period in which the key pillars of the business – hospitality, education and catering – have been near irrevocably shaken. But he finds Darina ever confident and starting to look forward once again. He also talks to the many chefs who have worked alongside her to find the magic ingredients that make her still so prominent to this day.  

Lebanon’s golden age
Lebanon’s golden age

I’m also very moved by Gilles Khoury’s piece, “Another Lebanon: a journey back in time”, in which he revisits the country of his childhood. Khoury is not naive to the challenges that currently face Lebanon regarding its failing infrastructure, but his piece looks at the power of memory and of storytelling in helping a culture to preserve its identity and purpose – and to grow. He also meets the people dedicated, though it may at times seem futile, to protect this cradle of cultures – the self-appointed guardians of the place. 

@jellison22

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