On Food, Pho, and Ends

I celebrate everything with food. Food is the natural follow-up, the obvious supplement to all of life’s joys, sorrows, and monotomy.

When I’m feeling particularly nostalgic for someplace different and far away, which is every single minute of every single day, I escape to DC’s various ethnic hole-in-the-walls. No english, no white people, hearty meals, gargantuan portions, and tiny out-of-pocket prices. Cash only.

 Indeed, such a craving made itself known just before I exited the District for a long time. I quit my job, my work there is done, and I won’t be back until January after I return from my Petersburgian winter epoch, presumably alive. So to celebrate such an occasion, the occasion of seeing something to its end (in this case, another term), my mom and I went to get some vietnamese.

Pho 75 is a solid establishment. $6 for a small bowl (which is actually more than enough), credit cards are forbidden, the staff barely knows a few english utterances. The pho is delicious. I also had the salty lemonade. It was intense. I recommend it.

Behold, a blurry ‘beginning’ photo. It comes with broth, noodles, scallions, onions, and cilantro. For my meats I chose the tendon, eye-of-round, brisket, and flank steak. Step 1: Smell the bowl, appreciate the bowl.

The condiment plate. Mint, jalapeños, lime, and bean sprouts. Be generous.

Step 2: Place aforementioned ingredients into bowl.

Step 3: Cover bowl with sriracha and hoisin sauces, if you want. I typically use so much sriracha, people ask me if I want some soup with my sauce.

Step 4: Begin to eat. Prop up meats and tendons with chopsticks to display for a photo. At this point, my broth turns a luscious, deep red and the flavors have married. I squeeze the life out of the limes and leave them in there whole to suck on them later.

Finish everything, always.

On this day, I let go of huge academic stresses and took on that weight in vietnamese delights. Life is good, always.

Photo Essay: Urban Nepal

Swayambhunath is one of Kathmandu’s many temples. Stunning shrines can be found there, as well as bricks, souvenirs, prayer flags, and immense views of the city. Within those views you can see the city bursting with life at the edges, like ants with the task of expanding their hill, as the tendrils of Kathmandu slowly but surely snake their way into the valley and beyond.

Thamel, Kathmandu: small shop owners spend their days selling tasty treats like hot samosas with sweet sauce.

Enveloped by the heat and humidity of monsoon season, students find a way to cool off without destroying their uniforms.

Or not.

After-swim chill sesh.

Negotiations are more of a social affair.

A mistake in focus turns out quite well.

Don’t you love it when everything just fits together?

Secret garden lined by brick.

Some like to escape the demands of city life with the solace of Buddha.

Others like to rest while foreigners take their picture.

Have what you need and nothing more.

Looking for something? You probably won’t find it. Kathmandu doesn’t really have addresses; signs are lies; word-of-mouth is a somewhat-reliable form of navigation, but beware of hindering self-interests.

Outside of Thamel and the vicinity of each temple, foreigners aren’t too common around the city.

There’s nothing quite like playing chess with your oldest friends.

After-school snacks at the corner store.

Brothers and sisters have to hold on to each other in the big city.

Knowing how and when to take a break is vital.

Nepal’s cities have designated tourist areas, like most cities. It’s good to leave these areas, not once in a while but often.

I like to think that the lassi apprentice will one day make it to Italia.

With places to go and money to make, there’s no slowing down for me.

Rural meets urban without leaving the Kathmandu postal code.

Out of school and out of the eyes and minds of preoccupied adults, this Nepali friendship gang meets to wreak havoc on the microcosm of their neighborhood.

A modern woman with handbag and a timepiece.

Overexposed but underrated, playing with leaky gutters is the best part about everyday rain showers.

 Nepal’s cities are a mix of the ancient, very old, old, and extremely new.

You’ve got to look sleek. Keep your comb and mirror handy while keeping your toothbrush in a nearby brick hole.

A typical, good Nepali restaurant will have a rusty door and momo steam escaping from its many crevasses. These hole-in-the-walls/street-food carts are the types of establishments I eat at while traveling, almost exclusively. We informed a Kathmandu local where we’d been eating and for how much, and apparently we were paying much less for food than any local would pay. He said that where we were eating, we’d almost certainly get severe stomach problems – everyone else does. Urban water sources in the Kathmandu valley can’t be trusted, and general maintenance of these places is less than clean. I didn’t care. I know good food when I see it.

Mischief from the aforementioned friendship gang comes in the form of string, some windows, and a secret message.

“What the fuck are you looking at?”

High-tech. No slow wifi here.

To summarize this photo essay: just go to Nepal. You’ll be better off. I promise.

Adventures of an Amateur Photographer with an Obsolete Camera

The trials of the enigmatic Nikon FM continue. It became apparent that the film inside the camera had ripped. My sister diagnosed this in a dark closet. She determined the chances that all the pictures would survive to be small. I called my mother – the photo queen – in desperation and she said she would salvage them; it’s her camera, after all, and she’s been dealing with roadblocks like these for thirty years. We returned to inside the closet, a wardrobe so dark I couldn’t see my hand inches away from my face. She declared the problem solved, I cheered, we exited, and opened the camera in the light. It turned out that the film had completely detached from its casing, and the top layers of the negatives were now destroyed. So we re-closeted ourselves and we wrapped up what was left of the film in a black garbage bag. The remains were taken to a professional photo store where they were developed, and I am happy to report that some of them survived! Hurrah! I then had the challenge of figuring out how to scan the prints on an old printer, a task that would have been insurmountable without my sister. Technology makes me dumb. The following shots are among the survivors and while they’re not perfect, I never expected this camera to be so exhilarating from click to result.

Beer-battered fish tacos with poblano slaw and chili aioli and a grilled lime.

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream courtesy of Magnolia Bakery. Savory beats sweet any day, but I consider these tiny cakes the exception to the rule.

INCEPTION

It’s Taco Day!; Part Tres

Taco Day is always a magnificent day!!

Playing with Lines

Sometimes I dream about this photo, taken in southern Spain. Sometimes I dream I can dive from the highest antennae platform right into the sapphire water, like no distance separates the two, like it is all one horizon, like the world is really a 2D Mario game circa 1993 and no one is bothered by the hassles of 3-dimensionality.

Montevideo, Uruguay. Wintertime. The air is thick with exhaust and parilla fumes. I steer clear of this vendor’s display even though I am interested in purchasing oranges, simply because that is always an interest of mine. But I have a tendency to knock things over, and indeed, this has the potential to be the mother of all fuck-ups.

Spetses, Greece. There is some local joke about God making Greece a giant rock. I forget the punch-line as well as the words leading up to the punch-line. On this particular island, water meets land in the form of jagged and unwelcoming cliffs of varying heights. It is nice to jump off these cliffs, but not so nice to come back to them. The rough waves have an inclination to push you face-first into Greece.

The youth of Kathmandu, Nepal, are curious and energetic beings. Then again, it is difficult not to be given all the invasive stimuli that South Asia presents to natives and visitors alike. Something catches their attention while they catch my attention.

Charlotteville, Tobago. I enjoyed watching the water’s edge drape and cloak the smooth sand, erasing all previous evidence that anyone had ever been there at all. This is why I’ve given up on sand castles. They are emblems of nihilism. That, and I forgot my pail and shovel.

Somewhere in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia. The coolest place on this earth! It is also considerably hot. I saw my first mirage there. I thought I was seeing a giant turtle in the distance, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a restaurant shaped like a giant turtle. It was strange.

A couple years ago, DC was hit with a gnarly snowstorm. It was so sudden and unexpected and relentless that this entire metropolis shut down for more than a week. DC just wasn’t equipped to handle a storm like this one. It was post-apocalyptic. Streets empty, lights flickering, car alarms going off in the distance, heavy branches bending backwards and falling on tourists; school was out for almost two weeks, as was the government. Nothing happened, nothing could happen, until the snow plows made their way around the city, slowly but surely. In this time, I took a lot of photos and made a lot of snowmen (I consider myself an individual of classic tastes in this sense, whereas some unknown compatriots decided to build a giant nine-foot tall snow penis, which was agreed by many to be nothing short of a marvel). In any case, the same thing happened to this snow-novelty that happens to everything else, always. It came to an end, the DC gears started to turn again, and life went back to normal. Whatever the fuck that is.

The Best Things

I wish I could build a library and call it “The Best of Everything that is Wonderful Home for Books”. I’d fill it with manuscripts, endless collections of thoughts about everything in the world that is the best: garden gnomes, when babies try lemon for the first time, snow forts, blanket forts, paintball forts, forts of any kind, talented street performers, the window seat on aeroplanes, aeroplanes, people who’ve good grammar, pizza with extra cheese and a slightly burnt crust, South African accents, and so, so, so much more. This list can go on forever, and in my mind, it does go on forever. I have many notebooks filled front-to-back with all the wondrous details in life that make living so unbelievably cool. The following is this list continued, but with photo counterparts.

Bars/establishments/anyone with a sense of humor.

When things just line up.

[Caption unnecessary]

Cats with a sunny disposition. (sarcasm)

Getting dirty.

Going shoeless.

The unknown.

People you meet on the road.

Street food…anywhere.

Poprocks. In bulk.

Curiosity.

Garlic.

Warm summer nights.

Adrenaline.

Storytellers. People who’ve been to hell and back and can still smile. People who are kind, people who are intelligent but not arrogantly so, people who can laugh at themselves, people who have a conscious, people who know it’s ok to spoil themselves, people who give, people who have their priorities in order, people who are low-maintenance, people who love food and travel, people who are happy with themselves. People in general, but only some people. The guy who flipped me off today is excluded from the list for good! So there.

Najpyszniejsze Pierogi

2012 Bucket List Update: learn how to make pierogi

I’ve taken pierogi for granted my whole life simply because they came so easily and abundantly. I would ask my grandma for some and a few days later, they would appear on the table in a greasy metal bowl, like out of thin air. Then I would indulge. But gone are the days of magic pierogi. My poor grandma’s hands have been stricken with arthritis, making it difficult, time-consuming, and painful to pinch the lips of each and every pierog. And I wouldn’t dare ask. You grow up and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around your pierogi needs.

So I added it to my bucket list of 2012, to learn how to make pierogi in the name of self-sufficiency.  But when describing how much of each ingredient is needed, my aunt seemed content to leave me with “some flour” and “just enough water”. There is no recipe. Just hunches, experience, and second nature. And I’ve no idea how to achieve any of the other aspects of quality pierogi: thin dough that melts in your mouth, the perfect savory-bitter potato and cheese filling, and so much more. Thus far, I’m left without a clue as to how to master these doughy enigmas. I am a master at eating them, however.

Afternoon Delight

Behold. The American Hamburger.

Making the perfect burger is a God-given concern. And by perfect, I mean it should be absolutely imperfect thereby confirming its perfection.

Condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayo, obviously) oozing and spurting from one side, a grease-laden bun that shines in the sunlight and blinds passers-by, and two malformed steaming beef patties that drip with juicy grease. The buns should act like soft sponges effectively soaking up the last drop of juice. Heavy on the pickles, light on the attitude, this burger – and every good burger – screams: “This is me. Take me as I am or leave me for my flavors to marry until some other deserving individual picks me up and appreciates every bite.”

While I’m not one to deny the pleasures of a Big Mac, fast food chains offer a certain deceptive treachery that threaten the quality and standards of hamburgers everywhere. Think of any fast food commercial. Not only do all their burgers look exactly alike, but not one sesame seed is out of place. I cannot believe that there are people who individually glue them onto the bun with tweezers. Impudent trickery, I call it! And they expect to be compensated generously for their toils. But any respectable person knows that this is nothing but a cheap ploy; any awesome person would wait for the real thing at the price of a little inconvenience. A real burger should be made with real ingredients, a good hamburger should look sloppy, unassuming, unique, and of genuine effort. And of course, if you must unhinge your jaw to clamp down on the whole thing, you know that that is a burger worth Skyping home about.

Just like how the people who accept and celebrate their flaws are the people worth getting to know, the perfect burger worth getting to know is sure to be an ugly-beautiful mess that spurts liquids all over my blouse, like a delectable Jackson Pollock. My burger theory: any decent person can spot and appreciate a decent burger. This hasn’t failed me yet! And a very cool person indulges at least once a week. Let’s call it basic life maintenance.

The Grapefruit

*Written on January 6th, 2012 in Charlotteville, Tobago*

These four old Americans have been discussing grapefruit for thirty straight minutes – I shit you not. Every time I think they’ve exhausted the subject, someone pipes up with a tidbit about citrus more disinteresting than the last: “At our local grocery you can get five ripe beauties for two dollars!”, the others become wide-eyed in disbelief. One bitter old man adds in the most matter-of-fact way I’ve ever heard someone discuss fruit: “Now, listen here, I used to have such a hankering for grapefruit, but the quality just isn’t the same anymore. It just isn’t the same”, as his wife and friends solemnly nod in agreement. When they finally move on from grapefruit, they turn to the next most dull topic imaginable: the mechanism in your refrigerator that turns off the indoor lights when the door is closed. Don’t ask about the segue; for all I know, they’ve had a ‘hankering’ to discuss this for quite a while.

I bring this up because the world is a strange place, but your small world, your own world is even stranger. As I’m sitting there in this fenced-in local restaurant, amusement quickly turning into boredom and disdain for these people who have nothing else to talk about except grapefruit, a tiny little girl runs along the street outside, trips on a crack in the weather-beaten tarmac, and falls on her frail body. She begins to wail fiercely, the kind of unsettling cry of a small child who is in incredible pain and there is nothing an outside party can do about it. I run out to see if she’s okay. Her legs are cut up and bleeding lightly, her palms have large abrasions on them and her delicate chin is cut up as well. Her big watering eyes look up at me in between cries that shake her whole body. I kneel down and ask her where she lives. Lips quivering and wiping her runny nose with her forearm, she feebly points up the hill. I pick her up and run up the hill giving her a bouncy piggy back ride, carefully trying to avoid aggravating her wounds. She stops crying and I think I hear a small laugh in there. Children are resilient like that. Either that, or people just hear what they want to hear.

So I drop her off at her grandmother’s house and quickly inform her what happened. Her grandma affectionately scolds her for being so clumsy. I think about how clumsiness – and awkwardness, its social counterpart – isn’t something you necessarily grow out of – I’m living proof of this. Before I go, her grandmother thanks me and hands me three ripe grapefruits.

I know when I’m being mocked.

A Day in Food

An exercise in speculative thought: what do our diets say about us? If one were to document everything they consumed in one day, how much would you know about that person once midnight rolls around? Could you tell how much money they make in year? If they lie on the extreme end of the spectrum, very possibly. A dish donning russian caviar would arouse immeasurably different assumptions compared to a tray supporting a Taco Bell burrito and a Cherry Coke. You might also be able to ascertain where a person lives, their ethnicity or nationality, whether they’re single or married, how old they are, whether they’re incredibly obese or wholly malnourished, healthy or unhealthy, their likes and dislikes, and even how open-minded they are.

The other side of it: snapshots in the grand scheme of things are just that – individual moments of the bigger picture that aren’t necessarily representative of the whole. From simply looking at everything I ate on February 9th, 2012, one might assume that I’m dehydrated, I have a severe vitamin deficiency, and that I’m trying to lose weight. None of these are the case; it just happened to be a busy day where I didn’t have time to indulge in healthy foods. Then again, I could have done a lot worse. The fact is, very few of us eat exactly what we should. I’ve never met or heard of anyone who lets the government-issued food pyramid dictate their lives right down to every meal. Life, money, and general tastes get in the way.

Food for thought. HA.