Category: Issue 8: Summer 2017

Welcome to Issue Eight of the quarterly FWT Magazine

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” These are the words of Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta, who embodied true wanderlust centuries ago. In this issue, our writers cross that bridge into storytelling as they take us on their adventures around the world and recount the sights, sounds and tastes that left them speechless.

Mira Temkin takes us onboard a luxury river cruise along the Danube, stopping periodically to explore castles, churches and small European villages, with a final stop in Budapest. Trading luxury for a rustic “cabin”, Diana Russler shares her taste for adventure in the remote, isolated wilderness of the Arctic.
Husband and wife team, Maurie O’Connor and Christine Salins, take us to opposite sides of the earth for wine tasting. With Maurie, we savor food and wine pairings in South Africa’s premier wine region, Stellenbosch, while Christine introduces us to one of the world’s newest, but most rustic wine regions, Valle de Guadalupe in Mexico. For a change of pace, Francesca Mazurkiewicz gives us a quick tour of Manitoba’s first grain-to-bottle craft distillery.

So many of our travel experiences take us back through history. We’ll land upon a stunning 16th Century church, Église Saint-Florentin, as we travel with Tonya Jennings on a French barge down the Canal de Bourgogne. Jacqui Gibson shares an up-close and personal story of Norfolk Island, as told by the descendant of one of the island’s earliest settlers.

And no trip around the world would be complete without tasting some exotic foods. Kaily Yu lets us tag along on a culinary journey of Taipei’s Shilin Night Market. Bordeaux may be known for its unctuous wines, but Irene Levine exposes us to the gastronomical delights of the region. Truffles are one of the world’s most exotic foods, and Agnes Chung will show us the best way to find them in Italy. Kurt Jacobson takes us along on his food tour of historic Philadelphia.

I hope we inspire you to go in search of your own adventures and turn those speechless experiences into stories.

Cheers! --- Beth Graham, Executive Editor