Holiday

I’ve always heard Americans describe the food in Rome as “authentic,” though maybe that’s only relative to our three square meals of Little Debbies, reconstituted meat and freeze-dried astronaut food. The things we eat are not authentic food. But abroad, authenticity means anything sourced locally and served by a very small old woman with limited English. If a nonna told me she’d fished anchovies out of the Trevi Fountain and plucked chicory from cracks in the sidewalk, I’d swoon and think: they really know how to do it right in Europe. Authenticity, to me, also means a little discomfort. Bones in your rabbit stew. Lugging a suitcase up a dirt road. Getting pickpocketed.

Christmas dinner for American pioneers was modeled on an English Christmas, for those who could afford it. Families with enough money served turkey, plum pudding, preserved fruits, mince pies, meringues and perhaps even a fresh ham. Children in the Midwest might wake on Christmas morning to find strings of candy and raisins draped on the tree, and wafers, gingerbread or oranges hidden in their stockings. Parents would give gifts of wooden toys, dolls made from corn husks, little glass baubles and colored ribbons for the tree. But in remote places on the western frontier, Christmas often meant providing food and accommodation for travelers and strangers.

The next time you arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport, you might be forgiven for wanting a welcome fit for a king. Yet under the now nearly three-month-old reign of King Charles III, there is a persistent rumor that Buckingham Palace, that symbol of the British monarchy since its acquisition by America’s favorite monarch George III in 1763, is going to pass out of private hands and into public ones. There has been talk of its being turned into a giant permanent art gallery and museum, showing off treasures from the Royal Collection Trust. There's even chatter of — and I can hear the gasps from here — its being transformed into a five-star hotel. You, too, can pay an exorbitant amount of money to sleep where kings and queens have trod.

We may as well get used to the idea that we’re going to be spending an awful lot of time on home turf this year. From 12 April we’re allowed staycations, or self-catering holidays, which can of course be lovely. But they do need a bit of forward planning. I spent a weekend in a lovely house in Norfolk where the only food in the place was bread, butter, teabags and instant coffee. (Memo to providers – a nice cake and some jam or honey is a good way to start.) And there was no shop in walking distance; only an honesty box outside a neighbour’s for eggs. If you’re staying somewhere with local shops and markets, support them. It’s sinking low not to spend your money locally; you should aim to bolster the micro-GDP.

Last summer, when Covid forced the cancellation of our holiday, my husband and I had a staycation. We read books, played games, drank Pimm’s on our patio and invented ever more imaginative ways to avoid our DIY to-do list. Each morning brought the usual bills and junk mail to our door rather than a hotel breakfast tray, and there was no one else to do the washing up or freshen up the bathroom towels. As of this week, apparently, millions of other people are doing the same thing. The Sunday Times heralded ‘the return of the staycation’ as ‘the great unlocking begins in earnest and we are allowed to stay away from home overnight’, while the Daily Mail declared ‘It’s staycation mania!

Hurrah! At last the UK government has lifted quarantine restrictions for the Canary Islands, meaning British visitors no longer have to spend a fortnight in isolation when they get back to Blighty. Spanish authorities simply require you to take a rapid-result Covid test upon arrival. For sun-starved Britons, this is great news. Warm and sunny all year round, barely four hours away by plane, with all the mod cons of mainland Spain, the Islas Canarias are the ideal winter sunshine destination. I’ve been half a dozen times and each trip has been a blast. So which island should you head for? Well, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are both dramatic, but the place I like best, and keep returning to, is Tenerife.