Just past Johnny Depp’s private island in the Caribbean sits Lee Stocking Island, a little piece of paradise that’s going to hell.
The coral reefs that surround it are some of the healthiest in the Atlantic. And they’re dying. They’re dying in so many different ways, from so many different causes, it’s hard to imagine how they could survive, and without them, what the oceans might look like. (more…)
Elephants cross Amboseli National Park. David Frey photo.
Uhuru lay in a clearing surrounded by acacias, far from any roads, legs bent as if ready to run. He was headless, and whatever glory he had when he was alive had bled from the open wound.
Tal Petty is a contrarian. While his friends head to Eastern Shore beach houses on weekends, Petty spirals 60 miles south in his Volvo SUV from his home in Bethesda to the family farm near Hollywood, Md.
On the 300-acre spread his mother named Tranquility Farm, he raises grass-fed Angus beef, a few sheep, a couple chickens—and about a million oysters. (more…)
I went looking for a slice of ancient Italy and somehow landed in Iowa.
Past the town of Treviso, in the hills far above the canals of Venice, we had left that morning, is a little dairy farm where the Gallina family is in its fourth generation of making cheese. I don’t know what I expected a fourth-generation Italian artisanal cheese maker to look like, but when Luca Gallina welcomed us sporting a plaid shirt, baseball cap and faded jeans, he looked more Cedar Rapids farmer than keeper of ancient Italian culinary rites. (more…)
A modern glass sculpture is aglow at night in Murano. Tradition has dominated the craft for a millennium, but some fear it will die if craftsmen don’t innovate. David Frey photo. David Frey photo.
Gino Mazzuccato’s shop was a tsotchke menagerie, the sort of shop that would have been jammed with cruise tourists earlier in the day. It was evening when I arrived, and I had its shelves of glass animals all to myself, for a few minutes at least. (more…)
A conceptual design for the new Aspen Art Museum. Courtesy AAM and Shigeru Ban Architects.
The West End has long been Aspen’s most sought-out neighborhood. For many buyers, the stately Victorians and stunning modern homes along the West End’s leafy streets are the epitome of Aspen living. More and more buyers, though, are looking east as this often-overlooked part of town experiences a renaissance. (more…)
I’m a freelance journalist based near Washington, D.C., where I specialize in writing about food, the environment and travel writing from a shrinking globe. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to contact me at david@davidmfrey.com.
