What is a ‘Zombie Mortgage’?

For most buyers, mortgages are the cornerstone of purchasing a home. Sometimes a second mortgage is necessary, too, to cover the down payment, for instance. But what happens if that second mortgage seems to have been forgiven but actually still exists? Introducing: the “zombie mortgage.” These aren’t creatures from the underworld, but mortgages that homeowners…

Read More

How to Throw a Greek Summer Party

When guests arrived at the Mouki Mou store in Athens at 6 p.m. on the last weekend in May, they grabbed cool glasses of Greek rosé before retreating into the concrete-clad boutique. Its founder, Maria Lemos, who grew up in Greece, opened the shop in the city’s historic center, Plaka, in 2023, ten years after…

Read More

Oxtail Is Gaining Fans. That’s Not Entirely Good.

When the chef Lerone Mullin opened the Jerk Grill, his fast-casual restaurant in Redlands, Calif., in 2021, customers told him they loved his Caribbean classics, like brown stew chicken, and his Caribbean-Mexican mash-ups, like a jerk chicken burrito. But they asked for one addition. “Everybody just wanted oxtail,” he said, adding, “I didn’t even know…

Read More

Traveling During a Heat Wave: Tips and Precautions

It’s set to be another scorching summer, with extreme and prolonged heat waves forecast across many parts of the United States and Europe. The stifling conditions could impact millions of travelers and wreak havoc on vacations at some of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Multiple heat-related deaths among tourists have been reported in Greece…

Read More

Looking for Friends? How About 23 Housemates?

A move across the Atlantic Ocean into the arms of nearly two dozen housemates was not what Ishan Abeysekera had envisioned for himself. But that’s his life now, and he’s embraced it. “I basically went from nearly living on my own for the first time in my adult life in London to basically living with…

Read More

Sweet Corn, Spicy Shishitos, Super Salad

This week brings the official start of summer, and with it comes the kickoff, in my house at least, of salad-for-dinner season. Our family eats salad with dinner year round. While I cook, our 15-year-old salad captain seasons a bowl of greens with a squeeze of lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil and a…

Read More

5 Beach-City Travel Suggestions – The New York Times

While secluded, remote coastal destinations have enduring appeal, a great beach city provides travelers with top-notch hotels, restaurants and cultural attractions, as well as the requisite sandy feet, endless waves and ocean sunsets of a great beach vacation. We’ve gone farther afield from the Miamis and Honolulus of the world to offer these five beach-city…

Read More