By Roni Caryn Rabin I never was a Girl Scout, so I came late to s’mores. I was already a teenager when I squished my first blackened marshmallow between graham crackers and chocolate after awkwardly thrusting a skewer amid the glowing embers. Since no one had schooled me in the finer points of smelting a s’more, like rotating the marshmallow to an even shade of toasty brown or letting the molten blob rest on the chocolate for a moment, my first s’more was incinerated and glop

By Elisabeth Egan If you’ve ever tried to wrangle a hissing, scratching, flailing, selectively incontinent beast into a cat carrier, you’ll appreciate the way Amy Attas practices veterinary medicine: She makes house calls. Attas has seen it all, from opulent penthouses to homes she describes in her new memoir, “Pets and the City,” as “so squalid I feared for my life just breathing in the air.” She X-rayed a sapphire ring-swallowing terrier. She treated a pornographer’s potbel

By Lindsey Tramuta Anyone who’s visited Paris in late July and August knows the word “fermé.” It adorns the darkened windows of chic indie boutiques and cozy bistros whose owners, along with other locals, have fled the city on their annual vacations. This summer, with Paris expected to draw nearly 15 million visitors between July 26 and Sept. 8 for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, that ritual is anything but certain. Many shopkeepers, bakers, restaurateurs and tour guides —

Madisyn Crandell with her English bulldogs, Lucy, left, and Tuna, at Al’s Barbershop in Boulder, Colo., Mar. 24, 2024. Stylists and customers at the business discussed a matter of social protocol: the etiquette of remembering your friends’ pets’ names. (Theo Stroomer/The New York Times) By Matt Richtel Kiyomi Lowe regularly hears people mispronounce her name or sometimes forget it altogether. “I get Naomi, Kaiomi, sometimes Kimmy,” she said. It doesn’t bother her: “I’ll respo

By Eric Asimov Around the globe, much of the wine world is feeling besieged and stigmatized. Sales are down, way down for some. New studies suggest that any consumption of alcohol is unhealthful. New diseases are preying on grapevines, older maladies seem more prevalent and climate change — which has caused subtle and violent changes to weather patterns and more frequent catastrophic events like spring frost, hail, drought and fire — poses a threat to the existence of small g

By Elaine Glusac It’s the backpacker’s call to India, the sunseeker’s attraction to Mexico, and the digital nomad’s drive to get to Thailand: Go where the dollar buys more. The evergreen budget travel strategy is getting a boost this summer: The dollar has surged against a number of foreign currencies, including the Japanese yen, thanks to high interest rates offered by the Federal Reserve — attracting foreign investment, which bolsters the dollar. “A destination’s weaker cur