Discover Guana island.. one of the few remaining privately-owned island in its part of the world

It’s just you, 29 or so other guests, the attentive staff, and a cast of thousands—thousands of flamingos and masked boobies, sea turtles and piping frogs, geckos and ghost crabs. On +Guana Island, humans are more of a rarity than the elusive mango hummingbird, since the entire island is a nature reserve with just one resort. The only traffic jams here occur when you pause on a nature walk to let an iguana lumber out of your path.

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Iberostar Celebrates Its Star Chefs With Gourmet Cookbook

(Above photo of the La Cocina Iberostar cookbook by Carrie Coolidge.)

Iberostar Hotel & Resorts, the family-owned and operated hospitality company with more than 100 hotels in 15 countries around the world, is celebrating the exceptional gastronomical offerings at its properties around the world with the launch of a cookbook entitled La Cocina Iberostar.

The 127-page long cookbook features recipes created by its international stable of highly trained chefs.

“Through this publication we aim to pay a small tribute to our chefs, whose hard work and dedication contribute to maintaining the excellent standards of our restaurants on a daily basis,” says Miguel Fluxa, executive chairman of Iberostar Group.

Indeed, Iberostar prides itself on the diversity and culinary expertise of its chefs and the international gourmet cuisine they create. “We have a lot of chefs and sous chefs who trained at some of the top schools and restaurants around the world, including those with one, two and three stars awarded by Michelin,” says Jordi Sole, Iberostar’s Director of Operations for Mexico. Cuisines featured at its properties range from French, Japanese and Italian to Mediterranean as well as the local cuisine where a property is located.

This diversity is also seen in the cookbook that features 42 recipes, including appetizers, main courses and desserts. Each recipe details the required ingredients, its level of difficulty, step-by-step instructions and serves four portions. There’s also a color photograph of the finished product that accompanies the recipe as well as a short bio and photo of the Iberostar chef who created the dish. The book was written in three languages including Spanish, English and German.

The book’s recipes are the creations of 14 chefs from Iberostar properties in a variety of locations, including those in Spain, Cuba, Andalusia, Hungary, Greece, Tunisia, Morocco, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico and Brazil. At a recent culinary event at Iberostar’s beautiful Grand Hotel Paraiso in Maya Riviera, Daniel Rodriguez Paredes, a native of Spain who is the Executive Chef at the Iberostar Cancun, ably demonstrated several of his recipes. The recipe for his shrimp raviolis filled with pen shells and corn smut is featured in the cookbook.

Recipes featured throughout the book represent the fusion between traditional dishes based on local products and innovative styles and new flavors. For example, the recipe for his Warm Lobster Saoco with Cuban Guacamole and Eddoe Crisps, which is the creation of Israel Gata, Executive Chef at the Iberostar Parque Central in Havana, Cuba. Born in Seville, Spain, Gata’s culinary creations are inspired by his respect for natural ingredients combined with a creative twist. As a result, the Iberostar Parque Central is considered to be one of the country’s top dining destinations.

Another chef featured in the book is Moez Maalaoui, the award-winning Executive Chef at the Iberostar Chich Khan in Tunisia, his native country. In the book, Maalaoui shares the recipe for his Fondok El Ghalla Salad, which is made with fresh tuna, Gruyere cheese and a variety of vegetables.

“Iberostar’s mission is for its customer to have unique vacation and culinary experiences, from the time they arrive until they go home,” says Sole, adding that one of the company’s most important objectives is gastronomy. “We believe that the key to a client’s heart is through their stomach, which is why variety and quality are extremely important to Iberostar.”

According to Sole, the average stay for its guests around the world is five nights, however some guests stay for as long as 20 nights. “They don’t want to eat the same thing every night,” he adds.

The main purpose behind the launch of the book is to enable its clients to bring a piece of Iberostar home with them. “We want our clients to enjoy the gastronomy at the hotel and then take a piece of this art home with them,” says Sole. “With this book, they can remember all the experiences they were able to enjoy with us.”

La Cocina Iberostar will be updated with new recipes every three years. The book, which retails for $33 (25 Euros), is available only at Iberostar hotel stores, including Starmarket and Starshop.

Photo courtesy of Iberostar.

Photo courtesy of Iberostar.

Photo courtesy of Carrie Coolidge.

Photo courtesy of Carrie Coolidge.

Photo courtesy of Carrie Coolidge.

Yves Saint Laurent Presents Opium L’Objet Rare limited edition

After unveiling a gold-colored bottle for a recent collector’s edition of its fragrance, +Yves Saint Laurent is taking luxury to a new level with “Opium L’Objet Rare,” a limited edition of just 50 bottles of the perfume, each entirely covered in pure gold.

The original bottle has been covered in gold leaf in a design created by the gilding artist Manuela Paul-Cavallier. Between the thin gold layers, one can see the black rope that has long symbolized +Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium.

“Opium represents the embodiment of a dream of irresistible beauty; femininity in all of its enchanting and elegant beauty (…) I created this world like a journey where charm and sensuality are combined with gold, transparency, and fluidity, just as in the perfume,” Manuela Paul-Cavallier explained.

The fragrance itself, which remains unchanged in this luxury edition, combines mandarin and bergamot notes with jasmine and carnation extracts, over base notes of vanilla, vetiver and amber.

This prestigious limited edition will go on sale December 2. Only 50 bottles will be available, each priced at around $2,700.

Eleven White Truffles Fetch Three Times The Price Of Gold At Auction

Eleven white truffles have gone under the hammer in Italy for $367,620, including a pair bought by an anonymous buyer in China who paid out 90,000 euros, auctioneers said Monday.

A “famous Chinese writer” bidding by satellite telephone from Hong Kong fiercely outbid competitors for a 950-gram pair of truffles, organisers said, paying three times the price of gold for the white delicacy.

The auction, which took place Sunday in the Grinzane Cavour castle in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, also saw an unnamed buyer snap up a 305-gram specimen to be given as a gift to New York’s new mayor, Italo-American Bill De Blasio.

“It is an exceptional result, another edition which has given us great satisfaction,” Tomaso Zanoletti, head of the Piedmont region’s wine body, Cavour Enoteca, said in a statement.

The sums raised at the 14th edition of the White Truffle of Alba auction will be given to the Piedmont Foundation for Cancer Research and go toward the purchase of a CAT scanner for the +San Lazzaro hospital in Alba.

The funds raised by the Hong Kong sale will go to the Mother’s Choice institute which cares for orphans and mothers in difficulty, the organisers said.