Living Rich: The Best Food in the Best Museums

By Suzanne Richardson

"Nothing will enrich your life as much as the appreciation of art," says Michael Masterson. "If you want to Live Rich, you have to - absolutely have to - include art in your life."

And, by making a few smart choices, you can kill two birds with one stone.

A recent Forbes Traveler list of "Best Museum Restaurants" recommends nine high-quality museums that also offer the creme de la creme of cuisine. Which means you can improve your mind, expand your cultural reach, and fill up on top-notch food... all in the same place.

And you don't have to fly to Paris or Vienna to get the combined benefit of fine art and fine dining. Next time you visit New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, or Minneapolis, stop by one of these spots:

• The Modern at New York's Museum of Modern Art. You can dine in either the elegant Dining Room or the up-tempo, less expensive Bar Room. (I've eaten at the Bar Room, and the garlic gnocchi with crispy sweetbreads was unbelievable.)

• Palettes at the Denver Art Museum. After checking out the museum's permanent collection of African art, dine on Colorado lamb or mustard-roasted pork loin.

• Taste at the Seattle Art Museum. Chef Christopher Conville serves up fresh-market fare made from sustainably harvested ingredients, dishes including black olive polenta and duck leg cassoulet.

• 20.21 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Wander through the nearby Minneapolis Sculpture Garden - one of the largest in the country. Then pop into Wolfgang Puck's 20.21, named for the Walker's extensive collection of 20th and 21st century art.

• The Restaurant at LA's Getty Center. General admission to the museum is free, so you can wander through its European art and American and European photography exhibits to your heart's content. Then enjoy The Restaurant's "California-Mediterranean" food and beautiful views of the Santa Monica Mountains and Pacific Ocean.

It's Fun to Know: Ice Skating on Water?

It may surprise you to learn that ice skaters are technically skating on water, not ice. At it's freezing point (32 degrees Fahrenheit), ice has a liquid surface 40 billionths of a meter thick. If that layer was much thinner, a skater's blades would stick instead of glide gracefully.

(Source: That's a Fact Jack!)

Word to the Wise: Friable

Something that's "friable" (FRY-uh-bul) is brittle, easily crumbled or broken. The word is from the Latin for "to rub away."

Example (as used by Kathryn Harrison in a New York Times Review of Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee): "Diary of a Bad Year is not the first among J.M. Coetzee's works of fiction to force readers to consider the friable boundary between fiction and nonfiction."

__________________________________________________
These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2272, 02-07-08], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

__________________________________________________

For all your Real Estate interests look at The New Real Estate Source here.