Imagine strolling through Paris with a friend, one who knows the greatest little patisseries, cafes, outdoor markets and shops tucked along winding cobbled streets. Together the two of us try on amazingly chic designer dresses at La boutique Didier Ludot and amble through the courtyard gardens and gaze at the Swedish art work at Institut Suedois located in the Hôtel de Marle, a 16th century mansion in the heart of the central Marais district.
We order small plates of fantastic food amidst 19th century murals of clowns at the appropriately named Clown Bar, considered one of the city’s finest restaurants. After stopping to admire the Eiffel Tower, we trek even more before stopping to reward ourselves with ice cream at Berthillon Glacier. We are, definitely, Parisian insiders. 
Wait—don’t have a friend in Paris? Don’t even have tickets or plans to go sometime soon? Well, Rick of Casablanca told Else they’d always have Paris and for the rest of us, before we get there, we’ll have the recently released Paris in Stride: An Insider’s Walking Guide (Rizzoli 2018; $27.50), co-authored by Jessie Kanelos Weiner, a Chicago gal who grew up on the Northside and Sarah Moroz both of whom have lived in Paris for the last decade. Charmingly illustrated with over 150 of Weiner’s delicate watercolors, the book curates walking itineraries the authors put together to go beyond the typical guidebooks.
“We wanted to put together walking tours of a timeless Paris, the type of Paris that will always be the same,” says Weiner. “We wanted something that wasn’t too text heavy, a book that was a jumping off point to see what you want to see, one that wasn’t prescriptive but takes you down the side streets.”
Paris is Weiner’s passion and wandering its streets is what she loves to do.
“It’s a city based on pleasure,” she says, “and one with many beguiling things along the way.”
Dancing bunnies, singing rabbits, a cotton-tail waving from the engine room and a Bunny Patch with over 4000 Easter eggs—it’s going to be that kind of Easter celebration for those taking a ride on the many Easter trains near and around Northwest Indiana. So go ahead and hop aboard.
Cotton Tail Express: The Old Road Dinner Train Experience, Blissfield, MI; 888-GO-RAIL-1 (888-467-2451); murdermysterydinnertrain.com
The family was well-known in Miller Beach not only because of the restaurant, which is now closed because of the deaths, but also since Leila Edwards was a noted artist and jewelry maker who sold her creations in a store downtown. Besides that, she was a very active volunteer at Discovery Charter School in Chesterton, which Ben attends.
When I arrive in the new bourbon tasting room at the historic 
But the Beaumont Inn is about more than Kentucky Owl. It was built in 1845 as a girl’s school and was bought by Dixon’s great great grandmother in 1917. Two years later she turned it into an inn. Many of the recipes on the menu and in their cookbook have been favorites since they first opened including, fried green tomatoes, 
To me, fairies have always been about the holiday season—think the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker Suite ballet and Tinkerbell, the blonde-haired imp who wore a green outfit with matching translucent green wings in the 1904 play Peter Pan and knew how to handle a wand and pixie dust—both a job requirement. Imagine then my delight when my friend Lily Lopate sent me a copy ofThe Faerie Handbook: An Enchanting Compendium of Literature Lore, Art, Recipes and Projects by Carol Turgeon with Grace Nuth and the Editors of Faerie Magazine (Harper Design 2017; $35). And yes, there is a Faerie Magazine.
Candied Violets
For the inner comedian in all of us, no matter our age, Toronto’s Bad Dog Theatre Company is known for both their wide variety of family friendly comedy and improvisational performances and improv classes designed for every skill level.
Not long ago I traveled with friends to Williams, Arizona, a tiny rodeo-type town on Route 66 which bills itself as the Gateway to the Grand Canyon. On our arrival we parked at the historic Williams Depot, got our tickets for the Grand Canyon Railway, in existence since 1901, and then headed down the tracks to where an old Wild West show had started. It’s all rather hokey with bad jokes and the sheriff in the end shooting the bad guys but still, taken for what it was, fun. The western theme sure set the mood for a trip to the canyon which I had never seen before and, on our way home, the sight of gunmen riding horses across the sage and coming aboard as part of an old fashioned train robber (spoiler alert—it was the same sheriff and two dead desperados who had shot up the corral earlier in the day).
Boarding the vintage train (our car dated back to 1926, ‘27 or ’28 depending on which guide was speaking) powered by a steam engine, our journey started in a landscape of Ponderosa pines, descended slightly from 7000-feet as we passed through Northern Arizona’s Colorado Plateau which at 5000-feet is a mix of high desert and scrubby forests, rose to 12,600 feet at the highest point in state– San Francisco Peaks and then back down to 7000-feet when nearing the canyon. A musician made his way through the train cars playing—not the western songs I expected—but modern melodies (oh come on, no Red River Valley?) as we spotted herds of caribou and elk in the distance
Some of menu items at the lodge’s Historic Harvey House Café where we ate had been around for a long time. The Cobb salad I ordered dated back to 1940, Chili con Carne first appeared in 1937 and the Ponderosa Chicken Club was even older–1938.
And, if you’re seriously into this, as I am starting to be, it turns out there are tons of people interested in the history of Fred Harvey and they even have a name—Fredheads. There’s an annual get together, the Fred Harvey Weekend, held this year in New Mexico, October 20-22. For more information facebook.com/events/1917935448430054
The stops, he told us, would include 
