tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12870797530670710012024-02-21T16:53:35.300-08:00Look what I ate in...Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-89766194275924335922012-12-27T04:39:00.001-08:002012-12-27T04:39:36.183-08:00...Europe (The Last Suppers)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A snowy Prague</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Another day, another sodding Christmas market. Finn swore it was the last one in - where was it? Bratislava? Vienna? Budapest? Who knows? We're moving so quickly through European capitals that they are becoming a blur of twinkly lights, crooning versions of Christmas songs and the aforementioned markets. Anyway, the last market in wherever it was was 'the last one'. But it's sooooo cold and our stomachs, immune to Christmas overload, are crying out for meat and gluhwein. Well at least we're in the right places then. Prague fed us smokey 'old-Prague ham', in Budapest we had potato dumplings with sausage and doughy pancakes with cheese and ham (and Finn got his hands warmed by the overly friendly waitress), and in Bratislava we munched down fried potato cakes smothered with sour sheep's cheese. The Christmas markets in these cities have given us the opportunity to try local specialities (I use that word loosely but there were lots of locals eating at them too), warmed us up and saved us money.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A sign in the Christmas market</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It was only in Vienna where we fought back. Mainly because it was this-has-gone-beyond-a-joke cold, we simply had to get indoors and warm up. We made our way to Hotel Sacher and joined the queue of other tourists (an elderly English gent in tweed seemed rather disappointed when he discovered that there wasn't a local to be seen there). Hotel Sacher prides itself on reproducing Sacher-torte to the original recipe which was created in 1832 by a 16 year old apprentice chef for Terribly Important People. The Sacher-torte is essentially a chocolate cake sandwiched together with apricot jam and covered in chocolate icing. We ordered a wedge of the stuff which arrived with cream. It is a lovely cake - baked perfectly. However, I found it to be a little too perfect and not very exciting. Which is how I could sum up my feelings about Vienna really. I would be happier with a Sara Lee chocolate gatuax (and richer for it). I guess by that reckoning I'd also be happier having a weekend in Blackpool than in Vienna.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Coming back into Eastern and Central Europe we have been shocked by the endless glowing signs advertising Tescos, McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, Subway... The usual suspects. I hadn't realised it before but Italy really has done a good job of fighting them off. Thankfully, the smaller capitals we've visited seem to be alive with independent coffee shops. Bratislava in particular had some lovely places to while away snowy afternoons. In the Next Apache we lounged on a regal looking sofa and flicked through old copies of the New Yorker and felt very bohemian. Until we put our anoraks back on.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Finn being all regal in the Next Apache cafe</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It was also rather wonderful to be in an environment that hadn't been 'Ikea-ised' (if it wasn't already a term, it is now). In one place we noticed a sign printed on the door telling customers that it was free from Ikea furniture. Unfortunately it was closed but it got our pulse rates up at the idea there might be such a movement. However, after some 'research' I have been unable to find out anything more and have instead boosted Ikea's search results. But it is reassuring to know that people are fighting this dull uniformity.<br style="text-indent: 0px !important;" /> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In Berlin we got all excited about going to the Museum of Currywurst where for €11 we could 'relax on a hot dog sofa' or experience what it's like to 'work in a hot dog van'. However, after reading such shocking reviews online we settled for a tray of currywurst and chips, all smothered in ketchup, curry powder and paprika. Job done.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Chips and Currywurst</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Our final stop in Paris generally involved drinking copious amounts of red wine with friends we met in Kashgar. Nicely hungover, we boarded the train that would speed us back to our beloved London.</span><br />
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Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-34150509670874111522012-12-06T07:58:00.000-08:002012-12-06T07:58:12.588-08:00...Slovenia (Horses and Hostesses)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ljubjana</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I did not imagine for one second that I would be doing another blog entry about eating horse. Then again I didn't imagine we'd still be travelling. But here we are and there are horses to be eaten. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Within 2 hours of arriving in Slovenia, we had filled up on lovely borek (with pizza filling! The ultimate fusion food!) and smoked a shisha. It is good to be back in Eastern Europe. Excitement reached fever pitch when we discovered there was a burger chain called 'Hot Horse' which served, yes! Horse burgers! However, the experience was rather disappointing so to make it more interesting Finn and I have come up with some horse-related puns to describe it. They are a little subtle so I have italicized them so you don't miss them.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The horse burger</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We arrived in Ljubjana hungry. In fact, so hungry we could eat a horse! Ha! We weren't <i>dettori-ed</i> by the long walk there, nor did we <i>bridle </i>at the price. <i>Neigh</i>, it seemed very reasonable. We had to <i>rein </i>ourselves in otherwise we would've bought more than we could eat. The cashier behind the <i>mane canter</i> was very helpful and greeted us with a cheery "<i>hay </i>there!". He offered us ketchup, mayonnaise and other <i>dressages</i> to have on our burgers along with <i>saddle </i>such us lettuce and tomato. Finn looked at his burger and announced "<i>cheval'll</i> do nicely". I <i>bit</i> into mine. "What the <i>fetlock </i>is this? This isn't a <i>fetlocking </i>burger! Give me a proper <i>fetlocking </i>burger" I thought to myself, rather rudely. Surprisingly there was a <i>shetland </i>of people queuing (it must be a <i>night-mare</i> in the evening). My motto is <i>neigh</i>-ver say <i>neigh</i>-ver. However, on this occasion I say <i>neigh</i>-ver again. And that's the gospel <i>hoof</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In a nutshell, it was a bit bland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Thankfully, our experience of Slovenian food improved dramatically thanks to the wonderful Petra. We spent a weekend with Petra, her husband Bostjan and their two girls Lara (4) and Tajda (2) in their huge house just outside the capital (but far enough away to be in the proper Slovenian countryside). Petra was apologetic about our first meal as she'd promised the girls homemade pizza. However, this meant we got to taste her delicious pickled mushrooms, picked locally and watched as the girls stacked up our pizzas to resemble something Jackson Pollock would be proud of. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 'artists' at work on our pizzas</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Though working as a lawyer, taking care of two young children and running a large house, Petra somehow found the time and energy to ensure we tasted traditional, home cooked, Slovenian food. A particular favourite was the pork preserved in mountains of its own fat. For a Sunday tea we spread the fat on brown bread and then layered thin slices of the pork (which had been soaked in water, salt and herbs and then cooked in a pan over an open fire) on top. The next morning, before venturing out into the snow, we ate eggs fried in the pork fat. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lovely Petra with the pork and pork fat</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">During our stay, we were invited to a neighbour's 80th birthday party. We were treated like royalty - if being treated like royalty is being taken out onto the patio for a shot of homemade blueberry brandy and being fed until we nearly burst. All the vegetables were homegrown and the desserts were all homemade. Our eyes lit up at the stack of baklava and we devoured potica, a bread with sweet walnut paste that's eaten on special occasions. We also tried Vatican Bread, a kind of fruit loaf that apparently you only make once in your life and divide the mixture to give to friends and family so that they can make their own. A kind of 'chain-bread' if you like. We spent an enjoyable but admittedly bizarre afternoon getting drunk on sour, Slovenian red wine that smelt of Stilton, watching people test their blood pressure (a machine was produced), avoiding being dragged onto a man's lap and being asked by the birthday girl if we could dance 'gangnam style'. We can't. And if she'd asked us a week ago we wouldn't have had a clue what she was talking about.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What a Slovenian 80th birthday party looks like!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hmmm. I'm feeling a bit peckish. In fact, I'm feeling a bit Hungary! Onwards!</span></div>
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Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-66546122083565310012012-11-29T03:23:00.000-08:002012-11-29T03:23:19.203-08:00...Italy (Never tell an Italian that their bread is rubbish)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eating with new friends in Turin (shortly after ´bread-gate`)<br />
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There are millions of books waxing lyrical on Italian food and pages upon pages analysing 'why Italians love food'. Quite frankly, I've spent over two months in this country and I can't really say that Italians love food more than any other nation I've had the pleasure of eating in. And I include Briton in that. What I have observed and feel I can confidently say is Italians seem to take food and drink more seriously than most cultures. And I would like to use this post to illustrate this point. And tell you some other random stuff I discovered.<br />
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Firstly, the title of this blog refers to an occasion where Finn announced to a table of Italians that he thought that Italian bread wasn't very good. The jaws dropping around the table suggested he had made a big mistake. You do not criticise their food it would seem. When we later pointed out that someone at the table had agreed, we were told ´Yes but he can be a real sh*t sometimes`! Excuses and then recommendations were made for where to find 'good' bread. (We never found it). <br />
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In a small town near where we were staying in Emilia Romagna, we were advised that we could take any wild mushrooms we found to a man at the council offices who would identify them for us. If he wasn't available then the mayor could do it instead.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wild mushrooms</td></tr>
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When residents of Modena, a large town in the north famous for its Balsamic vinegar, heard the church bells warning of American bombers during World War Two, they fled with their cherished possessions including small kegs of the prized vinegar.<br />
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You can buy lasagne hot from vending machines (Finn thinks this says the opposite to my point about Italians being serious about food but to me, it suggests they think 'well if you want a cheap and quick fix then have a lasagne rather than a Mars bar).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lasagne vending machines</td></tr>
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To cook Florentine T-bone steak, you are advised by cook books to follow the rules of the 'Association of the Florentine T-bone Steak Academy'.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sign in a Florentine butcher</td></tr>
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You can buy dried pasta in vending machines.<br />
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Women in Umbria are advised to eat a chicken everyday for forty days after giving birth. In another region it's chickpeas.<br />
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Many bars do 'aperitivo' where you buy a drink and get access to a buffet. However, whereas in Britain we'd just get scotch eggs and sausage rolls (though I'm not complaining), here we tucked into plates of lasagne and pasta.<br />
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Good balsamic vinegar makes everything taste glorious. Including ice cream. And bland lasagne which is made even more tasteless by racist waiters.<br />
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This post is the last for Italy. It has been difficult to decide what I should write about as we really have eaten some very tasty things. Earl grey and chocolate ice cream, small calzones bursting with mozzarella and Parma ham, 50 year old balsamic vinegar, homemade cheese, a meal where every course was based on mushrooms, rich and thick hot chocolate. We've had memorable experiences too. Discovering the farm where we were working had a room where they made balsamic vinegar, dipping Tuscan biscuits into Cuban rum, learning how to make pasta, eating homemade pizza with a family on a Saturday night in their living room which they'd turned into a cinema for the night, having to describe to a table of new friends exactly how our meal tasted, cooking over an open fire, watching Finn's face slowly turn black from the squid-ink pasta he was eating. Italians (and ex-pats!), I am eternally grateful for what you have taught me about food and hope you will eventually forgive us for thinking (and telling you) your bread is a bit rubbish. But really, everything else is pretty frickin wonderful. Good job.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making pasta</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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We've got three weeks until we catch our home-bound train from Paris. I guess we might as well go and see what they eat in Slovenia...<br />
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Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-80847621783717641772012-11-21T06:26:00.000-08:002012-11-21T06:26:00.729-08:00...Italy (The Sound of a Good Cheese)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is a sharp intake of breath all around as the Italian gentleman in the white coat moves towards the shelf labeled 'Carlotta'. He lifts the 40kg golden cheese and taps it with his little silver hammer. "Tap tap", he knocks around the side, "Tap tap", he raps it on the top and the bottom. The cheese is placed back on the shelf and the sound of breath being released followed by a spontaneous round of applause from us spectators echoes around the vast hall. For the cheese has passed the test. It's a good 'un which is a relief as it belongs to the owner of the farm on which we are staying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Parmigiano Reggiano factory we are visiting is award winning and has been awarded gold status. This means that last year every cheese passed 'the hammer test' (when you consider they produce 12 cheeses a day, that's no mean feat). The white-coated official is listening for hollows in the cheese. Hollows suggest bad quality and less superior taste (but this is good for us because it means we can buy the rejects in Lidl at a reasonable price. Oh the shame!).<br /><br />So how do you make an award-winning cheese? Firstly, the cows must be fed only hay otherwise the cheese won't bond. Milk taken in the evening sits in long troughs and is mixed with 'morning milk' the next day in a big copper vat where the 'cheese' drops to the bottom. After being 'blessed' (the sign of the cross is made in each vat) the rest of the milk is taken to be used for making ricotta (or to reduce swellings - you immerse the affected limb in a jug of the stuff!). The cheese is then wrapped in muslin and put into moulds. For the next 20 days the cheese sits in a salty bath (mmmmm salty bath). This causes a chemical reaction within the cheese that makes it easier to digest - you could give it to a baby and they could digest it, though you might want to grate it first (the cheese that is). After that the cheese sweats the last of the salt out in a Turkish bath (mmmmm salty, Turkish bath). It then sits in a large hall on a shelf to mature from anywhere between 12 and 52 months.<br /><br />And here we are, back in the factory gazing at rows upon rows of glorious cheeses. We are taken to taste cheeses of different maturities which contort our faces to degrees a professional gurner* could only dream of. The cheeses are surprisingly sweet and are tasty on their own. The idea of biting into a lump of Lidl's parmesan is unthinkable (for a start it would probably break my teeth). But the Parmeggiano Reggiano is often served as a cheese in itself. With a drizzle of balsamic vinegar over the top. Bellissimo! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />* if you are unfamiliar with this word it would be far more satisfying for you to google it rather than have me explain it. Trust me. </span></div>
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Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-60962764507000048282012-10-05T13:58:00.000-07:002012-10-05T13:58:52.374-07:00...Italy (Pig Cheeks)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;">(Apologies for the absence of photos, having a few technical problems. Just imagine my happy face with a big bowl of pasta and glass of red wine and you've pretty much got it).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;">On our last night in India, rather than be all reflective and stuff about our trip, I flicked through the Rome section of our guide book and did a little research on Roman delicacies. Sadly it would appear that things have moved on since Ceasar and co dined on dormouse stuffed with pork and rolled in poppy seeds. To my utter joy, I discovered a dish that combined tomato, pasta and that classic ingredient, pig cheeks. I immediately turned to Finn. 'WE CAN EAT PIIIIIG CHEEEEKS IN ROME!!! I LITERALLY CANNOT WAIT!!!'. I exclaimed in capital letters and lots of exclamation marks for, after all, I was exclaiming. He was somewhat surprised by my enthusiasm (we have a vague memory of me being vegetarian once) but I explained that for 20 whole frickin weeks of the year we have been denied pork due to the whims and fancies of various religions . Ten weeks of those were about to end and if there's one part of the pig I'd choose to eat after this porky drought, it'd be the fleshy cheek. In his sage-like way (no, no, not annoying at all), Finn calmly suggested I might be envisaging a rosy-cheeked cartoon pig (with a cartoon apple in its mouth). And, as usual, he was right. But I was still excited. Pig cheeks!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;">So we arrive in Rome and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be back in Europe mainly because a)the weather is like nowhere else, b) there are fewer things trying to bite me and c) no one stares at us which means I can wear clothes that suit the weather (but I'm still pretty modestly dressed compared to these European hussies! Ha ha!). Anyway. It is our second visit to Rome and we immediately know we've made the right decision to come back as we wander past shop windows stacked with fat sandwiches bursting with gloriousnessness. On our way to the hotel, I go into the train station to find an ATM and come out with a hot baguette oozing greasy slices of dark ham. We are however on a budget. And in that respect we are in the worst place in the world. Everywhere you turn there is something tempting you, dammit. At least, I think, I'm not on a diet. Thanks to ten weeks in India, I need to put some weight on.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;">So being on a budget, we have to limit ourselves to the odd restaurant visit. I find one with the pig cheeks dish (bucatini all'amatriciana) and we head there to find queues of locals. We get a table and experience the no-nonsense approach to dining that I've missed. What do you want to drink? What do you want to eat - pasta or soup? Within 2 minutes we have half a carafe of full-bodied red wine, within 10 minutes two bowls of pasta arrive. 'Ten minutes!' I hear you say. 'that's nothing! That's McDonald's speed!'. Well, what do you expect when you only have 5 options of pasta sauces, each comprising of a maximum 5 ingredients and the pasta is as al-dente as a tough old boot (though a classy one and one that you'd really like to just, you know, have a gnaw on because it looks soooo lovely)? And you can stop imagining a big flappy pig cheek. I counted no more than 4 slivers of fatty cheek and do you know what? That's all that was needed. Why oh why in the UK we insist on drowning food in meat is anyone's guess. Less is more! And the Italians know this and that's why the food in this country tastes so delicious and healthy. Shockingly, on our table there was no salt nor pepper and parmesan was not an option, it was a NECESSITY. The dish arrived simply smothered in the stuff. Of course it helps that the tomatoes and onions used in the sauce are local and have not travelled an obscene and totally unnecessary distance. And yes, the fact the pig clearly had an enjoyable life rolling around in meadows, taking long afternoon baths and rollerblading or whatever, makes a massive difference. But I can (and do) grow good tomatoes in my kitchen, I'm sure I can grow an onion and I have an amazing butcher round the corner which is admittedly so expensive, once a month we treat ourselves to 4 rashers of bacon. But the point is I don't need to use a lot of meat! It's so very obvious and wonderfully simple that I feel like an imbecile. LESS IS MORE! Hooray! (Though perhaps different rules apply here when it comes to fake tan. Just an observation).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-674799725745832732012-09-16T08:06:00.000-07:002012-09-16T08:06:16.791-07:00...India (Journeys)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTss7Mxu5KHdC9MM2Cxhi9PKHewKKWyCo_8XFjRV2IIs-_FpHuBkmvoBKD5uFGfx6ZFjQuXWNYjnTnSTSr_i_LMYFNiwpG4AkOn65BU-w9kT2Vjm9vqHKHHXLsL6lg6J0moKbDg_8xbVP-/s1600/DSCN2427.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTss7Mxu5KHdC9MM2Cxhi9PKHewKKWyCo_8XFjRV2IIs-_FpHuBkmvoBKD5uFGfx6ZFjQuXWNYjnTnSTSr_i_LMYFNiwpG4AkOn65BU-w9kT2Vjm9vqHKHHXLsL6lg6J0moKbDg_8xbVP-/s400/DSCN2427.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> On a train in the Rajasthani desert</td></tr>
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At midnight, two hours into our train journey we were informed that the train had been diverted and was now hurtling 8 hours away from our destination. We quickly consulted our map and realised we could go to Varanasi instead. This added another 12 hours onto our journey but we both knew what the other was thinking. Twelve whole extra hours to enjoy the Indian train food experience.<br />
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It started as soon as we peeled ourselves from our grimey bunks. "Chai, chai, chai". There is no better way to wake up than with a cup of sugary chai served in a terracotta cup to be smashed out the window once empty. But what to have for breakfast? I was holding out for the 'bread-omlette' wallah (seller) but the samosa wallah beat him to it and we were soon eating hot potato samosas smothered in florescent pink ketchup. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRpljeh971plMuG0BcAqgEgkxqpI3g89ePpEcN8vRbM8IfJJMRaH_q2eHrhYOYGwOJAvEAgsVTIL0cs5IDQYDTJEbrrhe0fDSdlctbGnoWnRhzD_nTjLuJnqyBtrQeWXn4fDynYVluNq-w/s1600/Copy+of+DSCN1933.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRpljeh971plMuG0BcAqgEgkxqpI3g89ePpEcN8vRbM8IfJJMRaH_q2eHrhYOYGwOJAvEAgsVTIL0cs5IDQYDTJEbrrhe0fDSdlctbGnoWnRhzD_nTjLuJnqyBtrQeWXn4fDynYVluNq-w/s400/Copy+of+DSCN1933.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finn tucking into another unhealthy breakfast</td></tr>
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Next along was the coffee wallah, followed by the monkey-nut walllah and then the cucumber-chilli wallah. The procession continued with bananas, biscuits, slices of coconut, barbecued corn-on-the-cob, tomato soup (with croutons!), ice cream... Until lunchtime when the biryani wallah came along and we filled ourselves up on the greasy rice and sachets of hot Indian pickle. On another train journey we were surprised to find a man distributing business cards for a restaurant. Some clever so-and-so has had the brilliant idea of offering a food delivery service where you call up, order some tasty morsels which are delivered to you on your train at a designated station. Wonderful!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1JISiNMHB2whhUp23yPWsrMC2nfmSOPswzUb36_ggjLx7mfKZ2w_mg5pqt_dnkDt63bhNlhqdpqwZ4v7cHrb2TZs7MPoqZbFyL2Aaxyj864leIjyAkPYNBJlevTV2ZKcYQ0vJ6rB4jzKY/s1600/DSCN1934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1JISiNMHB2whhUp23yPWsrMC2nfmSOPswzUb36_ggjLx7mfKZ2w_mg5pqt_dnkDt63bhNlhqdpqwZ4v7cHrb2TZs7MPoqZbFyL2Aaxyj864leIjyAkPYNBJlevTV2ZKcYQ0vJ6rB4jzKY/s400/DSCN1934.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A vegetable biryani</td></tr>
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Buses are not exempt from the procession of gourmet wallahs. Before a night bus into the Himalayas, we filled up on vegetable momo, plump Tibetan dumplings served with a hot chilli sauce (the best I've had were fried cheese and potato ones. Unbelievable). In a 4 hour traffic jam over a high mountain pass, chaat (snack) wallahs showed ingenuity by weaving between the vehicles offering fried corn and bhel puri (puffed rice with onion and a sweet sauce). Why doesn't this happen at home?!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqFDrlSWyjxGiuIjCSKvRZGML-ihtWyO6KTVA9Tupf0jepbPlA8kMV_4omc3_ElW3wkue1Xtm4DIlAZrC0Pos5NDnczMDCA2JahEPk1k9EdkDfo-AxMdHBCvkWuFAa2iuRHVyI86aV4ul/s1600/DSCN2093.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqFDrlSWyjxGiuIjCSKvRZGML-ihtWyO6KTVA9Tupf0jepbPlA8kMV_4omc3_ElW3wkue1Xtm4DIlAZrC0Pos5NDnczMDCA2JahEPk1k9EdkDfo-AxMdHBCvkWuFAa2iuRHVyI86aV4ul/s400/DSCN2093.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chaat wallahs on a Himalayan pass</td></tr>
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Buses always stop at dhabas too, a cheap restaurant serving rice, dhal, curry and, of course, chai. Just what you need when an 8 hour journey in the mountains turns into a two day test of endurance. After travelling on buses for 8 months, a well positioned dhaba restores the faith of a lost soul who is beginning to tire of the seemingly endless road ahead and who begins to dream of a decent pillow and proper cup of tea. Well, almost.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A welcoming dhaba at the top of the pass</td></tr>
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And yet it would appear this journey does have an end. This part anyway. After much soul searching we are heading back to Europe. An urge to do some work is driving us back west and quite frankly, we miss Europe. We plan to work on organic farms and hope to learn how to make among other things, honey, olive oil and the best goddam bolognese sauce you ever tasted. My next entry will be coming from the land of food and wine (ah wine! Sweet, sweet wine!). I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read my ramblings, let alone comment on them and email me! I will continue to tell anyone who will listen about what we ate but hopefully also a bit about what we made. I hope you will continue to join us as we start the last phase of our trip. That cup of tea will have to wait until Christmas. Itaaaaaly here we come!</div>
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Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-50092790528300319482012-09-04T06:19:00.000-07:002012-09-04T06:19:21.367-07:00...India (Five Cures for Homesickness)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sun setting on the ex-British hill station town Shimla</td></tr>
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Seven
and a half months on the road begins to take its toll. So thank god for
India which has the amazing ability to make one (well, me) homesick and
at the same time offer 'cures' for said homesickness. <span class="ecxApple-style-span">Surprisingly,
India is great for comfort food. When our tropical-ized bones rattled
in the very British climate (i.e cold and damp) of the mountains, our
bodies called for chicken curry and they were answered satisfactorily. Very satisfactorily. To the point where once again, I daydreamed about
the actual number of our feathered friends I've consumed on this trip. Though they may no longer consider me a 'friend' I suppose. Where was I?</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rainy Shimla</td></tr>
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In
the ex-British hill station of Shimla, we sat on a bench eating local
honey ice cream. If a food could capture an English summer's day (a rare
non-rainy one that is) then this was it. It tasted of meadows, sun
light breaking through trees and...hay fever. Really, it reminded me of
my hay fever treatment which is akin to snorting a meadow. Still, as we
sat in the damp cloud, like so many 'Britishers' before us we dreamt of
'home'. Which was all golden and happy with an acoustic guitar
soundtrack. Basically a mobile phone advert.</div>
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Another
taste of home has come in the form of the utterly divine <i>gulab jamun</i>, a
small ball of sponge cake drenched in butter and syrup. It is
like treacle pudding and is at its absolute loveliness when served
piping hot (sometimes I force myself to feel homesick so that I have an
excuse to eat one). </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffnH0c8jhN0FbUntsqYIAxCv47UqwO75mMV9vchkN5UkH8jKe-TM-1BUn94eW1Dhistid5ZqbS2hD0kYqs5qYPwr1eL8SxrdTpq5QBjR6GcDE1SpNHafjYWZRYS68XzZK967ovE3Z2zvN/s1600/DSCN2446.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffnH0c8jhN0FbUntsqYIAxCv47UqwO75mMV9vchkN5UkH8jKe-TM-1BUn94eW1Dhistid5ZqbS2hD0kYqs5qYPwr1eL8SxrdTpq5QBjR6GcDE1SpNHafjYWZRYS68XzZK967ovE3Z2zvN/s400/DSCN2446.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sweet maker</td></tr>
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While not quite a taste of
home, there is one snack that I am considering exporting to Britain as
it incorporates standard ingredients of British food - bread, potato and
batter. To make bread <i>pakora</i>, take one slice of crappy white bread, cut
into two triangles and fill with boiled potato. Dip into a spicy
batter. Deep fry. Serve with ketchup. I had to try it, though perhaps
having it for breakfast before a 13 hour bus journey wasn't one of my
finest ideas.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Xj9orf7a-JPZe1C8P6nEU3iti79BcFsz8KD-Z9KDkZ8WbSjLU34CUQ_oXLnrRWd031f2uJ28hwhQBbHsTE0r0on0AUXeiJLS0nfb10PwVCpne02wR9pfUJ-8ejWzEIx4YaH-uMS82BpG/s1600/DSCN2373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Xj9orf7a-JPZe1C8P6nEU3iti79BcFsz8KD-Z9KDkZ8WbSjLU34CUQ_oXLnrRWd031f2uJ28hwhQBbHsTE0r0on0AUXeiJLS0nfb10PwVCpne02wR9pfUJ-8ejWzEIx4YaH-uMS82BpG/s400/DSCN2373.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another unhealthy breakfast</td></tr>
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And finally, cheese! In
Rishikesh, we'd planned to do some meditation* (me with the aim of
staying awake for the whole session). On an 'off day' we managed to
score some cheddar cheese (one of the better legacies of the British
empire). While enjoying a sandwich in our room, I looked over to the
open door to see a figure. At first I assumed it was a stray dog but
then I realised it was a huge bruiser of a monkey. Dear reader, I
confess I shrieked! Finn assumed an ant had crawled onto my sandwich but
then he too saw the beast, stood up, shrieked and fell back on the bed.
I searched for something to throw and my gaze fell on the tin plate
with my sandwich on. My sandwich! Could I sacrifice my cheese sandwich?
No! Don't be ridiculous! By this time, undeterred by our shrieking, the
monkey was eying up the room. AND MY SANDWICH! Thankfully, Finn had
(unlike myself) pulled himself together and leapt up again, this time to
bravely shut the door. Saved! I spent the next 5 minutes laughing and
crying hysterically. I then finished my sandwich. The monkey returned
later to wee on our balcony. I don't know what that means.<br />
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* In my third mediation session, I was overwhelmed by a vision so strong, it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. A burger, to be precise, a Big Mac (I haven't eaten a Big Mac in about 20 years), came floating towards me out of the darkness. Aware that imagining a juicy beef burger in the middle of a meditation class in a Hindu ashram might not be appropriate, I tried to shake it off. But I couldn't! I could even taste the damn thing. And again, I am moved to write the sentence: I don't know what that means. Actually, what am I on about? It means I want a burger. </div>
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Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-44197795338071134042012-08-16T00:46:00.004-07:002012-08-16T00:46:31.694-07:00...India (The Importance of Food!)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIRUhV2Y70EkYun7PH1zLT0BjQlVPRatZju54GFi8Z07dfruc5bLnj38bgoX5eulATCaxqIg4qKz9bBm1OWjJ-P4O98zgATquUK0Ght4CA02hvTcnWKDQ3JTMV_ElJQCBGDtKPbeU9FrkT/s640/DSCN2008.JPG" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The monsoon finally arriving in Varanasi</td></tr>
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The woman on the plane next to Finn leans over "please have just one more <i>roti</i>", I decline once but she can see the hunger in my eyes and I greedily accept on the second offer. Finn's stomach lurches, a leftover from moving too fast these past few days but the woman won't take no for an answer. He must be fed!<br />
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In the last few months, Indian food has played an important role in the direction of our trip. Over <i>chai </i>and <i>aloo paratha</i> in an Indian cafe in Phnom Penh, we decided to cut our stay short in south east Asia and booked a flight to Calcutta. Ten days later we were eating <i>thalis </i>in a restaurant in Siem Reap when one of us raised the possibility of bringing our flights forward. Five days later and here we are on a plane to India. That shouldn't have happened for another two weeks.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84eWMjDqqKn1XWErpRonEXgQ15u3Gm5CSqbyj66etkVvuJ1Yd98ABU8vYACox68-xNfeDzl_OCTFLBAOy6fvloOK9UtBsPDNDX-3wbuaSGiG9duD_lsGdiqQxuohWnEV0XjOUyoKzLl2V/s1600/DSCN2067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84eWMjDqqKn1XWErpRonEXgQ15u3Gm5CSqbyj66etkVvuJ1Yd98ABU8vYACox68-xNfeDzl_OCTFLBAOy6fvloOK9UtBsPDNDX-3wbuaSGiG9duD_lsGdiqQxuohWnEV0XjOUyoKzLl2V/s400/DSCN2067.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aloo Paratha - a spicy potato flatbread - with lime pickle for breakfast</td></tr>
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So Indian food has a lot to answer for. And we know we've made the right decision before the plane has even touched down on Indian soil! On arrival in Calcutta we head for <i>chai</i>, the sweet and spicy tea India sustains itself on and the long dreamt of 'butter toast'. Munching away we get chatting to a local who invites us for dinner with his family. We meet in a park where two plates and several dishes are unpacked and soon we are devouring home made chicken curry, rice and pickles while the family watches on. Not for the first time on this trip we have to deal with the discomfort of being invited for dinner and being the only ones to eat.<br />
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The next evening we locate the restaurant where 6 years ago we ate the most amazing <i>tandoori chicken</i>. Thankfully our memories haven't deceived us. It arrives with a lime and coriander dipping sauce and the chicken is as succulent as I remember, it is marinated right down to the bone! <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbP2IrPOWNw8L18tidc8hdmOUOjQzHNz2EEX1WpNuejwEs2CGf0sw5Hk9CL_J7g4KRLA6iTYC1OwJId7kdD661CEaONntlVdvm40RQxLvC9yCus9Hn_V9TzoXubK8RiBt2mcQEvLAKzZLe/s400/DSCN1895.JPG" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tandoori Chicken</td></tr>
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In the holy city of Varanasi, we fight through crowds of Shiva worshipers clad in orange to a restaurant that does a mean <i>thali</i>. A <i>thali </i>is the best value meal money can buy. You receive a large, metal plate with several compartments in. Though the contents varies, you usually have one or two curries, a pickle, <i>dahl</i>, <i>chapatis </i>and rice. You mix the curries and <i>dahl </i>into your rice and then get stuck in with your hands. There is something very satisfying about eating with your hands but there is an art to it. The curries stick the rice together which allows it to be rolled into a ball. You take the ball onto your fingertips and then push the food into your mouth with your thumb. The really great thing about <i>thalis </i>though is that men come round the tables refilling your plate at no extra cost. The whole thing costs about 40 pence.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjznBtGVoIcoQwB4OJOxkkdC5RLU2knIU1kJ4DgCvG1b-eqAbRaK50gn_ZZ3EJSRfJG599Wh1dJK1eAcT48bDU7Kn_buMef1S0nIcMbXqoQVZDvlAPnMwHOXBRhiZHkc9KPyno7Kp-z9gwq/s400/DSCN1955.JPG" width="300" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Thali</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Later we meet a traveller who recounts an experience he had in Delhi. On a tour of the sights, he asks his rickshaw driver to recommend somewhere good to eat, somewhere 'alive'. The driver takes him to a bustling restaurant. The food is amazing. Thirty minutes later he is running for the toilet. Perhaps it was a little too 'alive'. Welcome to India...<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJRxzj3WIMY6pTLThaCbKdKbXdLNkDNkRRiE0wltRLoEusuJwxRSMVuUZ5QQCBbd6yC-LjuJz10557Y1krPTRi1Gnax1I3LW8Zcr5mvHjd3gEe4l_tbeFQw92ptJmKg-Vk4XYIsOAEd9y/s400/DSCN1973.JPG" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graffiti on Varanasi ghats</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
</div>
Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-75900597796079110042012-07-15T23:50:00.001-07:002012-08-14T23:35:33.905-07:00...Bangkok (Three Days to Eat)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHaF60abXg8vELYbZ9xAPd-Q1qdQ6-7Bc94y5CWrNDkImA9TTYdWmaPPiAqd_WXHKzr_jCM6rbJ2YzxCYB9HsK4Uh7myESeFCPOdjZwTqGjfZJ8wBQXaH2AyW7lihGNk__dgRbm_yA5qP/s1600/DSCN1798.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHaF60abXg8vELYbZ9xAPd-Q1qdQ6-7Bc94y5CWrNDkImA9TTYdWmaPPiAqd_WXHKzr_jCM6rbJ2YzxCYB9HsK4Uh7myESeFCPOdjZwTqGjfZJ8wBQXaH2AyW7lihGNk__dgRbm_yA5qP/s400/DSCN1798.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The reclining Buddha in Bangkok</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Day 1<br />
'Where's the best place for Thai food?' we eagerly ask the owner of our guesthouse. We're staying 10 minutes away from the infamous Koh San road, famed for its 18 year-old gap yearers in branded beer vests (you drink cheap foreign beer, well done you) and banana pancakes. In that respect it doesn't disappoint. There's also a surprising amount of kebab stalls. I think we've eaten enough of those in the last 6 months. The owner twists his mouth in concentration. 'Somewhere round here?' he replies unconvincingly. We press him further, 'Where do Thai people eat round here?'. His mother is summoned and after a shriek of laughter responds with 'No Thai people eat round here!'<br />
<br />
We've been in the country 4 hours and our one meal so far has been a disappointing Pad Thai, over-sweet and undercooked. And we're desperate. After initially allowing a week to eat the delicacies of Bangkok, we reduced it to two days as we realised we didn't actually want to spend any more time in this part of the world. After traipsing along Koh San Road we find an alleyway with a cart serving locals up bowls of noodle soup and dumplings. It's good but we've been spoilt by the fresh noodles and dense flavours of China's superior version. Two meals down. Oh dear.<br />
<br />
Day 2<br />
After some research and a breakfast of sweet sticky rice and mango we head for an area where a food tour goes (at $33 dollars a head we decide to do it ourselves). On the way we get distracted by the stunning 46 metre long gold, reclining Buddha. We edge our way through markets, the air perfumed with lemon grass, galangal, garlic and lime. We stop and buy sweetcorn fritters from an old lady. The tasty fritters are dense with straight-off-the-cob corn and are smothered in sweet chilli sauce. Things look promising.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFGh6VtvU9338i7U0Nr-zy7RQJ6IBf2vEsDQ8Ax35rjR5ZJw7akAmqKzEoGoKqzGOKJw1r7HkkZEuFOoguqV7cYZL_oYOy8Ryxz-4x0zHf3TTS55B86DW8C2-LTDY9NJeLp_OArXrqahiQ/s1600/DSCN1824.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFGh6VtvU9338i7U0Nr-zy7RQJ6IBf2vEsDQ8Ax35rjR5ZJw7akAmqKzEoGoKqzGOKJw1r7HkkZEuFOoguqV7cYZL_oYOy8Ryxz-4x0zHf3TTS55B86DW8C2-LTDY9NJeLp_OArXrqahiQ/s400/DSCN1824.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweetcorn fritters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We walk and walk but all we pass are noodle soup stalls. Eventually we stumble into China town and land in a smiley man's restaurant where we eat rice and pork, too tired to venture further. We catch a boat back and I eat a Magnum which is quite possibly the loveliest thing I've eaten in a long time. I feel no shame. I haven't eaten decent chocolate since a French girl produced bars of Lindt in Kashgar.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQUKC3zIBGAAXf2q8GWQ54lM2NkhXx3OVRwuDiggqUST-5rUACYAaecTcymiXXok8Vor1yETTylLjmz_odjx1-zMmi3MTc07TN5yL9kX0EnT_c0uhtzOJHnGFXdr0r4fz8ZDtmcr3pfPGi/s1600/DSCN1842.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQUKC3zIBGAAXf2q8GWQ54lM2NkhXx3OVRwuDiggqUST-5rUACYAaecTcymiXXok8Vor1yETTylLjmz_odjx1-zMmi3MTc07TN5yL9kX0EnT_c0uhtzOJHnGFXdr0r4fz8ZDtmcr3pfPGi/s400/DSCN1842.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A lunch stop in China Town</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In the evening we head out to a restaurant nearby that seems to offer a different menu to all the other places. I eat a rich tomatoey curry with noodles and chicken on the bone. It is delicious and I feel victorious. Finn however, has ordered a green curry which he's disappointed with. He kills the dish with our ultimate put down: 'I could've made this at home'. I'm relieved he doesn't add the final blow of 'but I wouldn't bother'. Yes, we really do care that much about food.<br />
<br />
Day 3<br />
I have been in touch with some ex-students of mine from Bangkok and we arrange to meet. I'm excited about seeing them because a) they are absolutely lovely and b) we've asked them to take us somewhere amazing and cheap for dinner. But first we hit the market.<br />
<br />
Chatuchak market is, by anyone's standards, utterly huge. After the excitement of buying a tiffin carrier that exactly matches my cream and green kitchen pans, I need to catch my breath before I cry in front of everyone at its shear beauty. Soon we are scooping creamy coconut ice cream and toasted peanuts from a coconut shell. Someone has even thoughtfully left some of the coconut meat in and once again, I have to hold back the tears.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZvGDGZp89mIgMsgrukjiLRiWO6a8DaxotL8p6CROvMFDFmodMyiz5Wht5ncwVh9S6P9C3hROK_HMq88vyvGocg_H5XMXI3XhNrQ8XrhnQMo3I2MVOYPvnlB_7-rQV2Hzjr0_yM1VKMhxs/s1600/DSCN1857.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZvGDGZp89mIgMsgrukjiLRiWO6a8DaxotL8p6CROvMFDFmodMyiz5Wht5ncwVh9S6P9C3hROK_HMq88vyvGocg_H5XMXI3XhNrQ8XrhnQMo3I2MVOYPvnlB_7-rQV2Hzjr0_yM1VKMhxs/s320/DSCN1857.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coconut ice cream </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Back to the shopping and I start to notice Finn dragging his feet. He wants lunch. We head to an area of stalls selling the usual suspects but also lots of nice looking seafood dishes. Finn has fishcakes which I have a nibble on and agree they taste quite lovely and very lemongrassy. I opt for a man with a contraption that turns boiled potatoes into spirals which are then deep-fried in oil and then dusted with paprika. Et voila, crisps on a skewer. I'm delighted with my find.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1RoTca2m8hA-VlBEsrxEDjZKGdLp3N7xvQ3YeL9mCGl6abULecBobdR_VD1J9cBw9uLYx6xMsa8d2XiOaJKzLYa-5_zTtnEANh-pvtyA1jjWIEaspCqHiO2AqAipIQ8ThSJKQZVc687Xh/s1600/DSCN1865.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1RoTca2m8hA-VlBEsrxEDjZKGdLp3N7xvQ3YeL9mCGl6abULecBobdR_VD1J9cBw9uLYx6xMsa8d2XiOaJKzLYa-5_zTtnEANh-pvtyA1jjWIEaspCqHiO2AqAipIQ8ThSJKQZVc687Xh/s320/DSCN1865.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A 'potato kebab'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In the evening Boss and Meow (so-called because he is the only boy in the family and she used to cry like a cat!) lead us back to Koh San Road. Finn and I share looks ranging between confusion, disappointment and fear. But we are wrong to judge. Meow confesses she doesn't like Thai food so Boss takes control and orders us a smorgasbord of loveliness. The restaurant is famous for Tom Yam Soup. A salty, seafood soup. I try a little without the offending articles and have to admit it is delicious.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-7D5K6uv5TdUPKhZQXl0WbfZGMf-UbSFwYkJE_h1LZbSEuQ7FogbPkXQ0toG5sUvV-F4M0A3uwuD7Q5WXsMCpdKltvo4Gn3QoKEGrKIR_HoXxXACdjNbdq7YOWCi6-6sxhNyBvbUi1XQ/s1600/DSCN1878.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-7D5K6uv5TdUPKhZQXl0WbfZGMf-UbSFwYkJE_h1LZbSEuQ7FogbPkXQ0toG5sUvV-F4M0A3uwuD7Q5WXsMCpdKltvo4Gn3QoKEGrKIR_HoXxXACdjNbdq7YOWCi6-6sxhNyBvbUi1XQ/s320/DSCN1878.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boss dishing up Tom Yam Soup</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We also eat chicken cooked in bamboo which is juicy and tender and complimented by a soy and sesame dip.
We wrestle over the bill, they win but after a quick teacherly re-cap on the difference between desert and dessert (we never stop working!), we head to a street stall for the latter. We sit on plastic stools on the pavement with mango and sticky rice, red beans in coconut milk, dyed rice flour with crushed ice and coconut milk and durian with sweet rice. Durian is a fruit so offensively pungent that one of the rules at our hotel is that you are not allowed to eat it in your room. The taste is a little less offensive but there is something a bit 'rotting' about it. I win the fight over the bill and promise to return the favour of paying for a meal when they come to London again.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzY1UE93bfYcLORFF2Mt4-b3i1i3__9hrpSit9JfiH3sTSno3virdAVY8tvvZGSmsOrwN07NFvbZkv9ICO9FPAowK6u16fZQrYnJt1dDECLBWH2hwafCzkOgdhuMwSDwrEVfok0PsyyLR7/s1600/DSCN1883.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzY1UE93bfYcLORFF2Mt4-b3i1i3__9hrpSit9JfiH3sTSno3virdAVY8tvvZGSmsOrwN07NFvbZkv9ICO9FPAowK6u16fZQrYnJt1dDECLBWH2hwafCzkOgdhuMwSDwrEVfok0PsyyLR7/s320/DSCN1883.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meow, Boss and dessert</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We end on our overland journey on a high thanks to Boss and Meow. From the first sandwich in Brussels to the last plate of sticky rice in Bangkok, eating has (generally) been a pleasure. But eating with old and new friends is really what it's been about. It's not over though. For tomorrow we fly to India, specifically Calcutta where 6 years ago I had one of the best meals of my life. Now I just need to remember where the restaurant was.<br />
<br /></div>
Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-81361883944177167002012-07-02T22:20:00.000-07:002012-07-02T22:25:33.965-07:00...Cambodia (The land of the Sweet-Toothed)<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgE8CyJTi6Lt1ep6gpXfXil-W4loafBJZSVZN876rcb71Wq4593eV_Y4s8qz7adXF19dZaMtvWVRXkQTq4vK1iJC-bMYngZQcq-nKnPC2FQRE_GJEJXt0jCYPnwS_46Yi_nCZMm33F1fKu/s1600/DSCN1475.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgE8CyJTi6Lt1ep6gpXfXil-W4loafBJZSVZN876rcb71Wq4593eV_Y4s8qz7adXF19dZaMtvWVRXkQTq4vK1iJC-bMYngZQcq-nKnPC2FQRE_GJEJXt0jCYPnwS_46Yi_nCZMm33F1fKu/s400/DSCN1475.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shadow puppets in Phnom Penh</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"></span></span> So
onto Cambodian food. Something we've really noticed is how sweet the
food is here. On a cookery course in the capital Phnom Penh, almost
every savoury dish we made involved copious amounts of palm sugar. When
mixed with water it takes on a treacly taste which in the chicken curry
we made, was incredibly overpowering. Perhaps too overpowering. </div>
<div>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZvgnDNd31RCwCbbazgv3MDn6BdqAU8bWMl3UJ9ECPVDm8YM_3QJ-XniUUEALFM6WA7AWJ9pxDwYtY-A1ePJ6E4A2htfy51g_83a-kXRT1sLYiAzind_EVLuC6ldwz_QVXflw7LzLmAtN/s1600/DSCN1547.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZvgnDNd31RCwCbbazgv3MDn6BdqAU8bWMl3UJ9ECPVDm8YM_3QJ-XniUUEALFM6WA7AWJ9pxDwYtY-A1ePJ6E4A2htfy51g_83a-kXRT1sLYiAzind_EVLuC6ldwz_QVXflw7LzLmAtN/s320/DSCN1547.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The curry paste for our Khmer chicken curry (fresh turmeric, ginger, lemon grass,garlic and shallots)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjdHuNLeZGljdAFkMpFsT6xMdgM652U9GhJCQMNgYz2ILix5MvqMTNx4sFw4dZt0M9uIhitdUxYKTzgReJNCZAWM7xkgGNxmvX-pkbYyzOHRNPG7PibC_c-WSTBbmI7HlTOiKExR3etK1/s1600/DSCN1549.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjdHuNLeZGljdAFkMpFsT6xMdgM652U9GhJCQMNgYz2ILix5MvqMTNx4sFw4dZt0M9uIhitdUxYKTzgReJNCZAWM7xkgGNxmvX-pkbYyzOHRNPG7PibC_c-WSTBbmI7HlTOiKExR3etK1/s320/DSCN1549.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The result</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"></span></span>The
other source of sweetness comes from a surprising ingredient. Condensed
milk. For the ignorant, this is sweetened cow's milk with the water
removed, resulting in a creamy consistency. Two brands dominate the
competitive market, <i>My Boy</i> and <i>Best Cows</i>. Just as funny if you swap the
words (though <i>My Cows</i> would get my money every time). My own direct
experience of the stuff up until now has been watching my dad pour it
over his bowl of cornflakes and muesli before adding hot water. So you
can understand why I steer clear of it. However, it is difficult to
avoid here. A breakfast in the market consisted of cups of tapioca,
under-ripe bananas, jelly sweets and a generous lash of the creamy
stuff. I'm glad I tried it but shan't be repeating it again (though the
fact I could eat jelly sweets for breakfast was very exciting and felt
like eating chocolate biscuits from the posh tin for breakfast on Christmas day). </div>
<div>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtkQdGB6kRrBz1dq4Dtp3odA7h7rYIjYo-UwSmNc6LU2onZ1iJ3vz8eYsPw-ZUwgiVXTY9nBymoMjJ_DdI8q1hl0HipwGH7pded4b6dOkhlKC_Xeq_MbAviu2tJWAlnQESNQ8ydxce01nN/s1600/DSCN1510.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtkQdGB6kRrBz1dq4Dtp3odA7h7rYIjYo-UwSmNc6LU2onZ1iJ3vz8eYsPw-ZUwgiVXTY9nBymoMjJ_DdI8q1hl0HipwGH7pded4b6dOkhlKC_Xeq_MbAviu2tJWAlnQESNQ8ydxce01nN/s320/DSCN1510.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A tapioca breakfast in a Phnom Penh market</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWTIZxdTCKXHcUi1-agpLulZJhJY5TCxT9wkow9yUzjKp1CvRzwBgqALk06WLZaCsZO4wamHALlQoezMrFnzoy9QVM403_-TOW-zaQPcgw-seZDzz910CxZjEjlzz2cXX_Z8-jBQ-AH04I/s1600/DSCN1537.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWTIZxdTCKXHcUi1-agpLulZJhJY5TCxT9wkow9yUzjKp1CvRzwBgqALk06WLZaCsZO4wamHALlQoezMrFnzoy9QVM403_-TOW-zaQPcgw-seZDzz910CxZjEjlzz2cXX_Z8-jBQ-AH04I/s320/DSCN1537.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The gelatinous 'sweets' </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"></span></span> Where it is welcome is in cold coffee. If you order
just a coffee here, it'll be cold (if you specifically ask for a hot
coffee, it'll be tepid). We have likened it to an upside down Guinness
as strong coffee and ice sit on a layer of condensed milk at the
bottom, allowing you to stir in as much as you like. Attempts at
making cold, milky coffee at home have never quite hit the spot. Now we
know the secret of a good one. I urge you to try it (make sure the
coffee is really strong). </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Aside from sweet
stuff, I have been taking every opportunity to eat <i>lok lak</i>. This
heavenly dish consists of thin slices of beef in a light tomato sauce
served with rice, salad and a fried egg. Yes, I agree it does sound
like something you might concoct yourself when you can't be bothered to
go to Sainsbury's. But the dish is really pulled together by the dip of
soy sauce, fresh lime juice and black pepper. In one place they served
it with crinkle-cut chips. I had it two nights in a row. You can take
the girl out of England...</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJaRCCNFBRQCGgZyXwVG9d8BXhzoqwGS7mqRzI_zeAjl7h4t-yHDJTfEZgbBqftQPP26rF8O0Jz4XRu7NZbwc4-Uy36qtu5F66ywQsd-BBy4zDhV9n0jsi3RPQHYHNv9-_13Ls2SpVunn/s1600/DSCN1519.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJaRCCNFBRQCGgZyXwVG9d8BXhzoqwGS7mqRzI_zeAjl7h4t-yHDJTfEZgbBqftQPP26rF8O0Jz4XRu7NZbwc4-Uy36qtu5F66ywQsd-BBy4zDhV9n0jsi3RPQHYHNv9-_13Ls2SpVunn/s320/DSCN1519.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lok Lak</td></tr>
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<div>
On a completely
different note, we wandered past a restaurant with a sign promising 'You'll
leave wanting more'. Our appetites insatiable, we kept walking. Amazing
how such a sentence can be misinterpreted.</div>
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</span></span></div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-23433863650406976022012-07-02T21:58:00.000-07:002012-07-02T21:58:00.048-07:00...Cambodia (Dining Out)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMrN0mk8XxstOc2RAgc6mwtMSWJ1ZtXqN4iXXoFoDtDvXSi6yHVqyAXpUNh7ratUIV1DfoKJ3GLtOi-4iqCCbS93H3G0x159kEzr8zwi-nXVlYyjzYhVpBYTch92yJiYKkYfc9R7hHL_D/s1600/DSCN1495.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMrN0mk8XxstOc2RAgc6mwtMSWJ1ZtXqN4iXXoFoDtDvXSi6yHVqyAXpUNh7ratUIV1DfoKJ3GLtOi-4iqCCbS93H3G0x159kEzr8zwi-nXVlYyjzYhVpBYTch92yJiYKkYfc9R7hHL_D/s400/DSCN1495.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An idol enjoying a 'full-English' in Phnom Penh. Half the people don't eat this well.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">After
an overlong bus journey, we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
We hadn't eaten for 9 hours. A record! We wandered down alleyways lined with
security guards protecting the shiny 4X4s whose owners were karaoke-ing
nearby. Eventually we came across a bustling Chinese restaurant (Cambodia has a
large population of Chinese). The food wasn't interesting and not worth
mentioning. The dining experience however, was.<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><br /><br /><div>
First
up is the 'beer lady'. This is something that popped up in Laos too.
You order a beer in a restaurant and you get a 'beer lady', your own
pretty lady dressed in an outfit that is of the same colours as the
beer logo. Her sole reason for living is to keep your glass topped up.
Now I have to say, I've never really had an issue with topping up my
own glass. I'm not bragging here, I wouldn't say I'm amazing or
anything but I've never found it to be a problem. A 'beer lady' brings
a whole new angle to the experience. She waits out of sight and as soon
as you've put your glass down she's there, topping you up. Before we
knew it she'd swiftly opened a second bottle and deftly emptied half of
it into our glasses. This put me on edge as I didn't want her to open
the third bottle she'd snuck on the table (oh she's good! She knows
what she's doing!) because quite frankly it
tasted of wee. It didn't help that she kept putting massive ice cubes
in our half pint glasses which watered down the offensive liquid even
more than the manufacturers had clearly already done.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Next
to us was a group of 8 middle-aged (i.e. old enough to know better) men
having a boys' night out. They were clearly in the mood to flash their
cash and sat drinking Beck's! The 'Becks ladies' were a classier breed
than our lady and also kept the gents topped up with whiskey (is that
classed as moonlighting?). The bottle said Johnnie Walker but it is
entirely possible to 'hire' a bottle of a well-known spirit to make
everyone think you can afford it while you drink the cheap and nasty
stuff. I guess it would be like having a bottle of blue WKD on the
table while you drink Fairy Liquid. Though you could argue the taste of
the latter is preferable. After a while, the 'Beck's ladies' joined the
gents, giggling at their jokes behind perfectly manicured fingernails.
It is also possible to 'hire' yourself some female company. Nothing
dodgy mind. There are plenty of massage parlours about for those kind
of shenanigans should you so desire.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
While
all this was going on, beggars circled the tables. Men, women and
children. A young man waited outside and when a table emptied, would
take his plastic bag and fill it with any leftovers. The amount of food
wasted in that restaurant was shocking and it was refreshing to see it
not being throw away (credit should go to the staff who didn't stop him). I was struck by how he did it with such dignity and without any shame. In just an hour,
Cambodia was laid bare in front of us. And it was pretty ugly.</div>
</span></span></div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-57010723627228790702012-06-29T22:41:00.000-07:002012-06-29T22:41:14.468-07:00...Laos (Shakes and Steaks)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7EqIV6Q9cMzHtDiyAkJRhkP5p5Jl-G8ZZ96MaCPgAISZTuG2SzXTC3ruBANybNSS34Mh6Vz2NIw2h3PCXJ0FIgF-y38cleqMzpe2yHbaEi3mXGmIPj-ZNAXhnSrSTvtNXNY9Sd3pSoSp/s1600/DSCN1356.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7EqIV6Q9cMzHtDiyAkJRhkP5p5Jl-G8ZZ96MaCPgAISZTuG2SzXTC3ruBANybNSS34Mh6Vz2NIw2h3PCXJ0FIgF-y38cleqMzpe2yHbaEi3mXGmIPj-ZNAXhnSrSTvtNXNY9Sd3pSoSp/s400/DSCN1356.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mekong gushing past our hut on Don Det, Four Thousand Islands</td></tr>
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My word, I can't remember eating so healthily on this trip. We have lost our borek and kebab-induced layers that kept us warm during the cold days and have emerged as toned, bronzed and glossy beauties. Kind of. </div>
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But Lao food is seriously doing us some good. Thanks mainly to the cheap and wonderful fruit shakes available everywhere (this is after all backpacker-central). The fruit is so abundant and amazing here and when whizzed up with ice it's better than chocolate. Having a long lunch on mattresses laid out on a bamboo platform over the river, we sipped fresh, fluffy coconut shakes.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A coconut shake by the river</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rambutan, looks a bit 'spacey', tastes like a lychee</td></tr>
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In hammocks outside our bamboo hut, we downed a combination of watermelon, papaya, mango and banana. Our German 'neighbours', who share our addiction, worked out they had so far spent 200 euros on the blessed things. And they're only halfway through their trip. </div>
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At least one meal a day involves a bowl of foe - rice noodles in a broth with a little meat. You receive a basket of herbs including Thai basil and fresh mint and pile it in. On the table you have a variety of bottles of different sauces . Pungent fish sauce, fluorescent chilli sauce, dark soy sauce all vie for your attention. We've learnt the best way to do it is to add a little of everything and then keep adding as you go along. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foe</td></tr>
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Dinner usually involves lightly fried meat and/or vegetables in a sauce with small cylindrical baskets of sticky rice. You mould the rice into a ball and then dip it into your sauce. It is seriously filling stuff. </div>
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Laos food does get a little monotonous and there are plenty of 'backpacker cafes' offering standard fare. We haven't succumbed as we know it will only end in disappointment. However, on a stop over in Vientiane (officially the most boring capital in the world), we came across the most French French-bistro you can imagine. We gorged on beautifully cooked, plump, rare steaks with roquefort sauce and mustard and quaffed a carafe of red wine. We may be backpacking but you'll be pleased to hear that in a tangle of drunk, white people in vests eating 'happy pizzas'*, we have not let our standards slip. </div>
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* a pizza topped with marijuana</div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-27972235003637367132012-06-19T03:23:00.001-07:002012-06-19T03:23:44.676-07:00...Laos (Cooking)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A temple in Luan Prabang, Laos</td></tr>
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Perched on the edge of the Mekong in the humid evening, a British contingency sat supping cold Beer Lao. A bucket of hot coals was brought to the table and plonked in a hole in the centre. The bucket was then capped with a slitted, metal dome with a deep ring around the centre. Baskets of vegetables, eggs and rice noodles were placed beside it along with plates of thinly sliced meat. Preparations for our Lao barbecue were ready, all we had to do was cook it.</div>
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Once the dome was hot, we rubbed squishy pieces of pork fat over the cap and then fried slices of meat. In the ring we poured the hot stock, adding chillies and garlic for flavour. The noodles went in to cook, then the eggs to thicken the broth and finally, the vegetables. The fat from the meat dripped down into the broth, giving it a delicious smokey flavour, contrasting nicely with the freshness of the vegetables and the squidges of lime we added. We cooked and ate, cooked and ate and left with full bellies and a sense of achievement. We hadn't 'cooked' for months.
So, all inspired, we booked ourselves onto a day's cooking course. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cooking dinner with Ben, Abbie and Melissa</td></tr>
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We would cook lunch and dinner and learn about the varied and unusual key ingredients in Laos cooking.
First we took a trip to the market where we were introduced to specialities including dried water buffalo skin (boiled and then left out in the sun to dry), bowls of fermenting fish that was so pungent it stung our noses and sweet chilli sauces in plastic bags.
Back in the kitchen, we were ready to prepare lunch. We made two dishes, the first a salad with an egg mayonnaise dressing. Pretty boring I hear you say. Ah but what was special about this mayonnaise was that it used boiled egg yolks instead of raw. This meant there was no panic over the mixture scrambling and it also means it will keep longer. Clever! The second dish was fried sticky rice noodles with chicken. Controversially, we didn't separate the noodles when we fried them, instead adding a beaten egg to bind them together into a pancake. This was then chopped up and we mixed in fried chicken, spring onions and tomato, adding oyster sauce, soy sauce, lime and chilli. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The result (the sweat pouring off us is not from hard work!)</td></tr>
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We sat down to enjoy our creations (secretly eyeing up our fellow students' attempts). But not for long, as there was dinner to prepare...</div>
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Our teachers prepared five dishes which we tasted and then chose three to cook. I won't bore you with all of them but the favourite had to be the fried aubergine with pork. Incredibly easy to make and really rather tasty. The basic ingredients were aubergine, pork, garlic, spring onions and oyster sauce with a little sugar to caramelise the aubergines and even less salt. For so few ingredients we had a dish rich in flavour. One that we will definitely recreate at home. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFf90Vi1npZO33CuiadLtyQhYG3iQUIOxCqf7G1FCmtShPDR1SvG6gB0Sw0ZoAQ9XKcfKTT8JKUvAjgsPRIQCzCy_laoj2-2UAszsWIBDJOUOihLK_N0zaiLS_pemSa23EJigCNKL4iohZ/s1600/DSCN1159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFf90Vi1npZO33CuiadLtyQhYG3iQUIOxCqf7G1FCmtShPDR1SvG6gB0Sw0ZoAQ9XKcfKTT8JKUvAjgsPRIQCzCy_laoj2-2UAszsWIBDJOUOihLK_N0zaiLS_pemSa23EJigCNKL4iohZ/s400/DSCN1159.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last three dishes</td></tr>
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Through the cooking course I discovered how meat is predominantly used to add flavour and protein rather than be the main focus of a dish. And in a country where a high percentage of the population only live on one dollar a day, meat is considered a luxury. I also learnt how much power flavouring has in a Laos dish. This may sound stupid but a lot of the ingredients we used for the dishes overlapped but through different splashes of this and that we had very different results. Finally I was also surprised to find how noticeable the absence of a glass of red wine was when I was cooking. Worrying.</div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-57434112768784214732012-06-19T03:07:00.000-07:002012-06-19T03:07:38.880-07:00...China (Dirty Noodles and Pheonix Claws)<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;">In a country so vast and full of such bizarre and wonderful eating potential, it must seem silly for me to dedicate a post to what, in western eyes, is just an immoral and dirty snack. Well the pot noodle here reigns supreme, especially on long train journeys where hot water is readily available and at any time on a journey the smell of spicy noodles stings the nostrils and the sound of contented slurping rings in the ears. <div>
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For those of you who have never had the pleasure of experiencing one or who have mentally blocked out the experience, here's how it works: <span class="ecxApple-style-span">Pot+noodle+hot water= pot noodle. The Chinese are masters of eating them with maximum noise at ridiculous speeds. I on the other hand take 10 minutes, break out into a chilli induced sweat and don't make a peep (I tried to eat one with my mouth open in order to fit in but it was physically impossible, thanks mum for instilling such good manners in me).</span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">We are yet to mess around with the standard pot but watched in horror as our fellow journeymen added vacuum-packed meats, liver sausage and pickled fengzhia to theirs. Fengzhia translates as 'phoenix claws'. Isn't that wonderful? You are eating the talons of a mythical bird! Actually, no you're not. You're eating pickled chickens' feet.</span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="ecxApple-style-spBian">The image of the feet being munched down stayed with us, though apparently for different reasons. Rather than seeing it as a very real and very live</span><span class="ecxApple-style-span"> horror show, Finn saw it as an opportunity to try some weird stuff for the blog. So here you are, Finn eating a chicken's foot. Just the one mind. Who knew they were so big?!</span><br />
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</span> <a href="http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=UtfVNN65GdM">http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=UtfVNN65GdM</a></div>
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<br /></div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-32490408146951103832012-06-04T05:45:00.001-07:002012-06-04T05:45:16.410-07:00...China (Comfort Food)<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFGjBw52LBujsUmQN5cQZf0A89AYh2HWZKKlJ8cWjZCqp8hhC-bsA-mTLYdtYjQqiVr-uMGVIaQmvG42B2llN-zYyVw0rpWcqJjKt7dW33VKTUoKLZvQkVJiFQWNi9EP28VTYa31ySO6nK/s1600/DSCN0551.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFGjBw52LBujsUmQN5cQZf0A89AYh2HWZKKlJ8cWjZCqp8hhC-bsA-mTLYdtYjQqiVr-uMGVIaQmvG42B2llN-zYyVw0rpWcqJjKt7dW33VKTUoKLZvQkVJiFQWNi9EP28VTYa31ySO6nK/s400/DSCN0551.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Choosing which fat-tailed sheep to have for dinner in Kashgar market</td></tr>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br />
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"> Being back in China after the food drought of Central Asia has been like crawling through a desert and suddenly finding an oasis. An oasis with a massive buffet where you can eat and eat and eat. Hooray!</span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;">
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I adore Chinese cuisine but before I go any further I must clear up a common misconception. <span class="ecxApple-style-span">Chinese cuisine bears little resemblance to the stuff the takeaways dole out in the UK. Our Chinese food is a poor imitation of Cantonese food, Chinese immigrants generally being from Hong Kong. Cantonese food for me is heavier and sweeter. But still when I talk about 'Chinese food' I'm pouring four main schools of cuisine and millions of 'sub schools' into one massive pot. To experience all the schools would require a lot longer than our 30 day visas allow. Instead, I thought I'd focus on the food that brings me comfort and joy.</span><br />
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span"> My absolute favourite 'school', which gets me drooling at the mere mention of it, is the Sichuan school which is famed for its use of chillies and the tongue-numbing wonder that is Sichuan pepper. So when I use the word drooling, that's in a literal sense too. I met an Australian who'd developed an ulcer on his bottom lip from eating too much spicy hotpot (a chilli infused broth). Living the dream. </span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">Dried Fried Beans</span><br />
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span"> </span><br />
<span class="ecxApple-style-span">A Sichuan classic. This is one of the first dishes we ate when we came to China 6 years ago and we've never forgotten it. Fresh green beans are fried until blistered with crispy pork fat, dried red chillies and Sichuan pepper are added nearer the end. The result is a dish that manages to be spicy, sweet, salty and mouth numbing. I haven't met another dish that can do that. I cannot put into words how delicious this dish is. We ordered it one night with new friends who instantly fell in love with it. </span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">Da Pan Ji</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLh7U5UdEoNubDorj23imOAUKYwocisaNDvGaCv5inu4qXpkyqHcEt2xCML81McvRuntSaOtPeSwPyQqheA84zgKVVDptrcvGt4n1JPU6bsP7g4PkRm79RZhyphenhyphenLGUBrwy0qM3RqdwZII60d/s1600/DSCN0649.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLh7U5UdEoNubDorj23imOAUKYwocisaNDvGaCv5inu4qXpkyqHcEt2xCML81McvRuntSaOtPeSwPyQqheA84zgKVVDptrcvGt4n1JPU6bsP7g4PkRm79RZhyphenhyphenLGUBrwy0qM3RqdwZII60d/s400/DSCN0649.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span"> </span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">On an uncommonly rainy evening in Kashgar, Finn and I decided to go in search of the ultimate comfort food, Da Pan Ji, again another favourite from our last trip here. The name basically translates as 'big pan chicken' which is exactly what it is. Due to its humongous size you need at least three people to eat it. Having twisted the arms of four other people with the words 'big' 'pan' and 'chicken' we headed to a restaurant and made our way to the back, past tables splattered with sauce and picked our way over gnawed bones.</span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">Soon enough, a huge bowl of tender chicken pieces on the bone, dried chillies, green peppers, fresh spring onions and potatoes arrived in the centre of the table. We dug in with our chopsticks, swigging green tea to try and regain feeling in our numbed tongues. Halfway through the dish, a mass of thick, fresh noodles were dumped on the top to help mop up the sauce. Heaven.</span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">Yunnan Goat's Cheese</span><br />
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">After too long without cheese, our taste buds were getting all excited about heading to Yunnan Province in the south west of China. The Chinese generally don't do cheese (a digression: six years ago we were in Shanghai for Christmas and managed to get our hands on some blue cheese. Leaving it out on our balcony while we went out, we returned to find the cleaner had found it and thrown it away. Needless to say Christmas was ruined. End of digression). Yunnan DOES cheese. Unfortunately it's goat's cheese but, at this stage, beggars</span><span class="ecxApple-style-span"> can't be choosers. Thin slices are fried in a little oil and arrive with ground sichuan pepper and salt to dip them in. It doesn't have the strong (old goat) taste goat's cheese normally has, instead resembling haloumi. Which isn't a bad thing. I ate enough of the glorious stuff to take my mind off the fact that a fish in a net on its way to our table had taken a leap for freedom and ended up inches from my chair. There were tears but the fish was duly deemed fit for cooking and although I didn't partake in the gobbling myself (having a crippling fear of the little devils dead and alive), Finn and others gallantly devoured that fish in revenge. </span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">Steamed Buns</span><span class="ecxApple-style-span"> </span><br />
<span class="ecxApple-style-span"> In China we embraced the fact we could eat dumplings and steamed buns for breakfast and dedicated ourselves wholeheartedly to this task. Steamed buns arrive in a bamboo steamer and the bready wrappers are generally either filled with pork or greens. </span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span">With your basket, y</span><span class="ecxApple-style-span"><span class="ecxApple-style-span">ou each have a small saucer into which you put vinegar and chilli flakes and then dunk the bun, hoping it won't all fall apart from saucer to mouth. Chinese vinegar is this rich, delicious dark liquid and, to be honest, for me the bun is often just a vehicle for absorbing all that beautiful, dark, tangy, gloopy... Sorry, had a bit of a N</span></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span"><span class="ecxApple-style-span">igella moment there. Your normal dumplings are readily available, with a thinner, more pasta-like wrapper. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3-nhll9ejrEtTrHEtLd7q3lz1LgT5ZEdCog0OVoNIciTHAG67pErJbIiwyYqQNSPf2f0hRrl9zZiAVK6PfsIpNqvdaIJhzT0uZbSCnACGf1SkG6E4yzkE-2w_2VOhqVY4GgD-qbiiNUfF/s1600/DSCN0726.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3-nhll9ejrEtTrHEtLd7q3lz1LgT5ZEdCog0OVoNIciTHAG67pErJbIiwyYqQNSPf2f0hRrl9zZiAVK6PfsIpNqvdaIJhzT0uZbSCnACGf1SkG6E4yzkE-2w_2VOhqVY4GgD-qbiiNUfF/s400/DSCN0726.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"><div>
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span"><span class="ecxApple-style-span"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span"><span class="ecxApple-style-span">Just as tasty as the buns but well, quite frankly not as absorbent.</span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span"><span class="ecxApple-style-span"> </span></span></span></div>
</span></div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-7227353771532171142012-05-31T00:51:00.000-07:002012-05-31T00:51:03.397-07:00...China (Decoding Chinese Menus. Or Not)<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh China! I could gorge myself on your endless gastronomic delights (as it happens I'm doing a pretty good job of it but you will have to wait until
I can upload photos to find out what exactly). But the fun starts before the dishes have even hit the lazy-susan*. The Chinese menus are a feast for the eyes in themselves.
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In one restaurant, we opened the menu to find delicacies such as 'Steams the Hairy Crab', 'The Peasant Family Slowly Fries the Meat' and 'Does the Pot Spicy Pig Face' (the lack of question mark is excruciating, I can't bear it). And how does one choose between 'The Sheet Iron Squid Must' and 'Pickled Cabbage Old Duck Chafing Dish'? Sheet iron squid vs old duck! What to do?!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The favourite so far however, has to be 'Explodes Fries the Donkey Board Intestines'. At a hefty £5 a plate and a reluctance (on my part) to eat such a sorrowful looking animal (if indeed that is what is in it), we'll have to rely on our imaginations to work out what-in-god's-name is in that dish. I personally can't get the image of a donkey eating chips on a surfboard out of my head. Suggestions on a postcard.
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And sometimes it starts before you even get the menu! How could you possibly walk past 'Wang Strotters Bubble Up' restaurant without going in? How?!**
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But I fear that further investigation into these wonderful yet 'misinformed' translations would just result in disappointment. For example, on ordering 'Spicy Grandma' if I receive anything less than a firey old Chinese lady, I <em>will</em> want my money back.
</span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">* A turntable in the centre of the table where dishes of food are placed so that they can easily be reached by everyone around the unnecessarily large tables.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">** Unfortunately it was shut, so again we shall have to use our imaginations.
</span>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-46665146730088962232012-04-29T03:14:00.001-07:002012-06-19T03:32:49.737-07:00...Kyrgyzstan (Horses for Courses)<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoG7DrdPjbm1Hk6rLrOW2UizoAMv2P4-PLbgZgNZUU5JCSvyx-EylMf-an7A9dJAYk6gTAJFoXTcvsYirLvyB6U_N_G810IV4WpuV64EIG2JiiJAeaXT7bYJjGHo8g0-mzmCk2Vaffwoj0/s1600/DSCN0332.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoG7DrdPjbm1Hk6rLrOW2UizoAMv2P4-PLbgZgNZUU5JCSvyx-EylMf-an7A9dJAYk6gTAJFoXTcvsYirLvyB6U_N_G810IV4WpuV64EIG2JiiJAeaXT7bYJjGHo8g0-mzmCk2Vaffwoj0/s400/DSCN0332.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our regal living room in our homestay</td></tr>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"></span> <br />
Due
to a short visa and the Chinese/Kyrgyz border about to shut for 10
days, we sadly had to race through Kyrgyzstan. A real shame because from
what we saw, it looked to be a really spectacular place with incredible
scenery. It also means we only sampled a little of Kyrgyz cuisine. But
fear not, I have two experiences to relate to you. </div>
<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-E3g788DzaZ-L5GfCV5gEJMx7Xv1A0-xk0royl1UnNvKOdPg8-QoLcIKU39OMRd06nya81SNo1dGvqQGfwd-ajopmF_8qLZCqMr3Shf80_llZRwrHpys8g2QJn0wb-ipJXH-6wFUKXlm/s1600/DSCN0298.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-E3g788DzaZ-L5GfCV5gEJMx7Xv1A0-xk0royl1UnNvKOdPg8-QoLcIKU39OMRd06nya81SNo1dGvqQGfwd-ajopmF_8qLZCqMr3Shf80_llZRwrHpys8g2QJn0wb-ipJXH-6wFUKXlm/s400/DSCN0298.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First ever sighting of Finn on a horse. This has not been photoshopped. The horse really was that small.</td></tr>
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<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
<div>
I
last sat on a horse when I was ten years old. I remember it distinctly
because I couldn't feel my feet and felt rather humiliated sat on this
beast. I swore there and then I would never get on a horse again.
Twenty-one years later, I find myself atop a horse and three hours into a
day's trek. And I've had enough. I'm mentally commending my ten year
old self on her wisdom and maturity and deriding my thirty-one year old
self for ignoring this wisdom. Finally we stop for lunch and our cook
threads chunks of marinated beef onto stripped twigs to cook over hot
coals. The shaslyk tastes amazing. The marinade is made from chilli
flakes, cumin and coriander seeds, salt and garlic.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvaqXJOb5qBABFv7WAxu5iIyeLjbrCDM7cr3HaueYK6S8dqi1A_AR_JJtBiRJQnkbteoISFIQ0I5cp4wze0cq1Fp2ZAeE23wUL27jGAWPrRNzC5kEEnJBeUvd-07BMKAM0s2djNqUtmKp/s1600/DSCN0309.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvaqXJOb5qBABFv7WAxu5iIyeLjbrCDM7cr3HaueYK6S8dqi1A_AR_JJtBiRJQnkbteoISFIQ0I5cp4wze0cq1Fp2ZAeE23wUL27jGAWPrRNzC5kEEnJBeUvd-07BMKAM0s2djNqUtmKp/s400/DSCN0309.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Big happy face</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Best enjoyed next to
a waterfall. On leaving a restaurant the next day, I noticed it had a
sign outside with photos of meat dishes and a big horse's face next to
them. I don't know what meat I had eaten there but let's just say
revenge is best served on a skewer. With onions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Racing
to catch the border before it closed, we broke up our journey in
Saray-Tash, a snowy village where goats outnumber people. It is an
important stop as there is a fork in the road where in one direction you
can go to Tajikistan and in the other, China. We searched for somewhere
to eat and eventually happened upon an old lady and a shop. She
beckoned us into her kitchen and removed a lid to reveal a bubbling pot
of mutton and potato stew. "Soupy soupy lovely soupy" she cackled while
churning lumps of gristle with a ladle. We noticed another pot. "What's
in there?" we asked, using the international language of pointing. She
reluctantly removed a lid to show huge pieces of chicken swimming in a
thick gravy.<br />
<br />
No need to tell you which we chose. We devoured the stew
with bread and endless cups of tea and left just us the Tajik lorry
drivers were breaking up their journeys. We declined their offers of
beer in case it might effect our ability to choose the correct fork to
hitch from the next day and, heaven forbid, end up in the wrong country.</div>
</span></div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-43564875199235096332012-04-29T02:34:00.000-07:002012-05-31T01:04:03.635-07:00...Uzbekistan (Post Script: Rancid Cheese Balls)<span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px;"><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
thought I'd covered all the delights of Uzbek food but I forgot sumza!
How could I forget these vile little spheres of rancidness? HOW?!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
keep popping up because Uzbek's seem to love them. We first tried them
when we were on our way into the mountains outside Tashkent to ride a
rickety chairlift. A row of gold toothed women sold them by the side of
the road. Maruf, my old student made us try them. The texture was like
dried poly filler and the taste like rancid yoghurt. Which is clever for
that is what sumza is. Balls of out-of-date, dried yoghurt. We heard of
people receiving them as change in shops. A cruel thing to do! </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today
however, there really was no escaping them. Not for me anyway. We
shared a taxi to the Kyrgyz border with some Uzbek women who dolled out
the dreaded snack with delight. Finn, enjoying his lashings of space in
the front, ate half of his and hid the rest in his bag (which I have now
fished out and disposed of, before it became forgotten). I however, was
very much wedged in the back seat with said ladies and therefore had to
eat the whole thing as they watched. I tried to imagine the rancid
taste was a strong vinegar. It was no good. It took me about five
minutes to eat the marble sized piece of nastiness. That's five minutes
of my life that I will never get back...</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></div>
</span><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong></strong></span></div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-34844386760406295092012-04-19T01:07:00.001-07:002012-04-19T01:12:59.125-07:00...Uzbekistan (Scraping the Barrel)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmUzPiYKHQoP0vLkNDTLfr5sTAVEC39Xg7ztSkVrEIlBzZt4RF7DsYRaZIOUy3sL0YrDf1azhFdwzv5Nx2vIyi8P54XH6Mcz3rHqtODNYAkO-BqK_VGcJhJgSuTnNaYN3vEIsEcpDnVLLL/s1600/DSCF2944%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmUzPiYKHQoP0vLkNDTLfr5sTAVEC39Xg7ztSkVrEIlBzZt4RF7DsYRaZIOUy3sL0YrDf1azhFdwzv5Nx2vIyi8P54XH6Mcz3rHqtODNYAkO-BqK_VGcJhJgSuTnNaYN3vEIsEcpDnVLLL/s400/DSCF2944%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Having fun the the 'City of the Dead' in Samarkand</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"You don't go to Central Asia for the food". Or so our guidebook tells us. If I tell you what our diet has consisted of in the last few weeks here, you can decide if you agree or not.<br />
<br />
<b> Plov</b><br />
</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This month we have mostly been eating plov. Ah plov. The 'national dish' of Uzbekistan. Finn suggested the name derives from the sound it makes when it hits the plate. A pile of greasy rice, vegetables and meat with the odd bit of fat thrown in if you are lucky. On receiving a plate of the stuff, a fellow Brit announced 'that's not a national dish, that's a mess'. Five heads nodded in agreement. Men eat it on a Thursday because it boosts their libido (don't know why a Thursday). If any man came near me smelling of mutton and grease, I'd be off like a shot (interestingly, it also plays an important role in Uzbek weddings). Though judging by the fact most children are conceived on a Thursday here, Uzbek ladies clearly feel otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkgypTfCq-s3o5Re0mzfHOzK55Ob1fasUfdsZfN80QoUyRClliMt3UuDGaVb0Ccy5do4-qni-eCD7F9SUbCDVzdqBmcLend2SQqVVOFRW5BUaus3_xyRxuTCpov6PcCH2j1_SIQEvuZyJ/s1600/DSCF2992%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkgypTfCq-s3o5Re0mzfHOzK55Ob1fasUfdsZfN80QoUyRClliMt3UuDGaVb0Ccy5do4-qni-eCD7F9SUbCDVzdqBmcLend2SQqVVOFRW5BUaus3_xyRxuTCpov6PcCH2j1_SIQEvuZyJ/s400/DSCF2992%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> But I am being harsh. In Tashkent we were taken on a tour of family and friends by my ex student Maruf and his wife. Dropping in on his in-law's, his mother-in-law decided to make plov for everyone (an example of the lengths of Uzbek hospitality). We have eaten plov in Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand with views of some of the most beautiful Islamic architecture in the world. But eating it in the sun with our new friends, it tasted better than any plov I've had before... And I feel it no longer necessary for me to make a pilgrimage to the Central Asian Plov Centre. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b> Breakfast</b><br />
Dear god, how can I begin to tell you about breakfasts in this country? The difficulty lies in the fact that no one breakfast is the same. Contenders for 'bizarrest breakfast item' include: chips (with egg and sausage), boiled sweets, rice pudding, swiss roll, a bowl of double cream. Not all together. But we're not out the country yet...<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> Mutton and flour based dishes</b></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Laghman (noodle soup) with mutton and vegetables, samsa (pasties) with mutton and onion in, manty (dumplings) also with mutton and onion in. Mutton, flour, flour, mutton. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPIuDyXunJWONPcz43ykpIKBDa_e6j_wmxL02BFMyDVp30qvV7ikY3HUDo3STQonyiTaM6ljtmdjELsSIEmAHfhFe72zb5ks2k_wJycOXPeDawezOuzc9JnmYys2AXqL13_LwG2lYmJ-5U/s1600/DSCF2759%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPIuDyXunJWONPcz43ykpIKBDa_e6j_wmxL02BFMyDVp30qvV7ikY3HUDo3STQonyiTaM6ljtmdjELsSIEmAHfhFe72zb5ks2k_wJycOXPeDawezOuzc9JnmYys2AXqL13_LwG2lYmJ-5U/s400/DSCF2759%5B1%5D.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A camera shy samsa seller. For the record, they were filled with caramalised onion.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMAuA-_3LNp5rp6ltl8NgLc2egwGU6HJmUGQEIUzOoFWwxDLROsSuyB_7aRKGC-HiKJeaQT0vGkZ-i3xBZdc7lfjXkNboBvOG3PQmzxssfAUHsZ2ihjV_rlpvkzXff5ecGuE9r8CkbtOz6/s1600/DSCF2735%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMAuA-_3LNp5rp6ltl8NgLc2egwGU6HJmUGQEIUzOoFWwxDLROsSuyB_7aRKGC-HiKJeaQT0vGkZ-i3xBZdc7lfjXkNboBvOG3PQmzxssfAUHsZ2ihjV_rlpvkzXff5ecGuE9r8CkbtOz6/s400/DSCF2735%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stopping for Samsa at a roadside cafe on a very bad road to Bukhara. Went out to find our driver hitting the car with a hammer. Didn't ask.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<br />
<b> Shickers</b><br />
Having a serious chocolate craving on our way back to the hotel one night we found a dimly lit stall selling Snickers bars. On asking the price, we were shocked to find it was no cheaper than Britain. Then we noticed they sold 'Shickers' bars. At half the price of a Snickers bar and the same packaging, how could we resist? If I'd known it would be the equivalent to eating a bar of butter then 'quite easily'. And quite frankly it was a waste of time eating it. But unlike that other waste-of-time-food celery, I wasn't burning off anything as I ate it.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIcExgWE_fXu256dZrwZOqyAj8eWuOtjtf55MU6sBQJr2fUcr7uJIZz-JYPUoXtibL0QuXmNed_S_fqrrknusffaO4LVRts3NVShYpuZYuWnPzczK5qGeFOAZJ-qwxw7PhV0cZQusl23Jz/s1600/DSCF2883%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIcExgWE_fXu256dZrwZOqyAj8eWuOtjtf55MU6sBQJr2fUcr7uJIZz-JYPUoXtibL0QuXmNed_S_fqrrknusffaO4LVRts3NVShYpuZYuWnPzczK5qGeFOAZJ-qwxw7PhV0cZQusl23Jz/s400/DSCF2883%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't have a picture of a 'shickers' so here's some nice bread instead.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> So onwards to our final 'stan. In a restaurant in Tashkent, our little faces lit up when we saw pots of chilli sauce and Chinese vinegar to put on our laghman. Flavour! It is a sign we are moving closer to China and its assualt-on-the-senses cuisine. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't want to influence your decision about Uzbek food but I'll sign off by saying that tonight we will be dining at that laghman restaurant for the third time in a week. And that I'm slowly working my way through all the different varieties of 'meat' flavoured crisps. Living the dream...</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-18772642025207487222012-04-08T04:03:00.000-07:002012-04-08T04:03:26.041-07:00...Turkmenistan<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8_znjRZ5GqssPDnW3GAqzDfiagHhc-wSEjF6rPQR_M902VFDgKr-GrDr0IbOYyo4B02C4a46IFSke_kdKT7mCJ8YmXkq9n_0w7H807_LcAT4ee6SD1XueIq0p3fK9ZIeWuVePyMWkjYA/s1600/DSCF2534%5B1%5D" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Turkmenistan was not on my list of potential, culinary highlights. Actually, it wasn't even on my radar. I didn't know anything about it and yet on just a 3 day transit visa (all we could get), we sampled some fine food and this strange, closed country worked its way into our hearts. The fact we could drink alcohol again also helped.<br />
<br />
So less than 3 days to get an idea of Turkmenistan's cuisine. Conveniently, our first stop was outside our hotel. A barbecue, a bar and some patio chairs on the pavement meant tasty shaslyk, steins of beer and the opportunity to people watch. And with my hair flowing free in the warm evening, it all felt very far from Iran. The shaslyk was lumps of mutton marinated in spices. The meat was tender and tasty (not words I would usually use to describe mutton) and was complimented by a salad of onion, parsley and dill.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8_znjRZ5GqssPDnW3GAqzDfiagHhc-wSEjF6rPQR_M902VFDgKr-GrDr0IbOYyo4B02C4a46IFSke_kdKT7mCJ8YmXkq9n_0w7H807_LcAT4ee6SD1XueIq0p3fK9ZIeWuVePyMWkjYA/s1600/DSCF2534%5B1%5D" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8_znjRZ5GqssPDnW3GAqzDfiagHhc-wSEjF6rPQR_M902VFDgKr-GrDr0IbOYyo4B02C4a46IFSke_kdKT7mCJ8YmXkq9n_0w7H807_LcAT4ee6SD1XueIq0p3fK9ZIeWuVePyMWkjYA/s400/DSCF2534%5B1%5D" width="400" /></a></div><br />
High on our freedom (well, compared to Iran!), Berk beer and tasty food, we headed into the centre of Ashgabat where we gazed at white marble palaces, multicoloured fountains and futuristic looking bus stops. Magnificently hideous or hideously magnificent? I couldn't decide. Either way, I went to sleep having fallen in love with Ashgabat and woke with two things on my mind. A) Did I dream it all? B) What do Turkmen eat for breakfast?<br />
<br />
I soon realised A) No I hadn't dreamt it all and B) Not what you'd normally eat for breakfast. We sat down on more rickety, plastic furniture in an overly-decorated restaurant hall and sullen soviet throwbacks served us fried pasta and mince with a fried egg. Breakfast.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ZFurr1xknalm1HlFLHZtCefqPLo7YfCC_1BttAmblFQ6XcpMnYzUSuUCKRSrfxU0P_cS8ml7n-bBZ78pNkO1uRW2oIi4W9XIyDWhC3dATMvjDNxQebKxEYvICffecwCeCeMldRGTYOrk/s1600/DSCF2544%5B1%5D" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ZFurr1xknalm1HlFLHZtCefqPLo7YfCC_1BttAmblFQ6XcpMnYzUSuUCKRSrfxU0P_cS8ml7n-bBZ78pNkO1uRW2oIi4W9XIyDWhC3dATMvjDNxQebKxEYvICffecwCeCeMldRGTYOrk/s320/DSCF2544%5B1%5D" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Turkmen breakfast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>We left Ashgabat soon after our 'greasy fry-up' and headed far north, through the desert to an old Silk Road town on the Uzbek border. We found a hotel and a room which looked more like a room in a karaoke bar than a bedroom. We were brought bowls of chorba, a greasy broth with a massive lump of beef (gristle and all), dill and half a potato in and a huge pot of lemon and green tea, drunk from bowls. Russia's influence on the food, with the use of dill in particular, was a surprise to me. Yet drinking tea from small, china bowls felt so 'eastern'.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS7r2zHMXMucWw-gdHiEYl0oX9EvkhDOs5bdl3XI2GK82sQkq08M5qn9ZPQh1g80Vjncal6pNh5bUqrDxc1rDGoeW89nO5WCDDf4PP4pMr0YEhMVsdlIp8fPRg-4w8fS8Ogpd6nXUrcgiw/s1600/DSCF2551%5B1%5D" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS7r2zHMXMucWw-gdHiEYl0oX9EvkhDOs5bdl3XI2GK82sQkq08M5qn9ZPQh1g80Vjncal6pNh5bUqrDxc1rDGoeW89nO5WCDDf4PP4pMr0YEhMVsdlIp8fPRg-4w8fS8Ogpd6nXUrcgiw/s320/DSCF2551%5B1%5D" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eating 'soup' in our karaoke bedroom </td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDBCXMfFjy_zmTiHQqBlsr0jLmxPa7ZRm5Lyc5nXETsNDn_7mcv1hN0VLNmGOVz1k6BMPEU-zC5O_6JvvGGxnOuJIiaZPpWSL8lnR1-yEd_DiSeReBLlCoGseWBqcqLpwIjyPmNZwlIG6/s1600/DSCF2587%255B1%255D" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
We spent the late afternoon wandering around spectacular mausoleums, mosques and minarets. On our way back to the hotel we walked past some women busy with their tandir (outdoor oven). We 'salamed' them, hoping we might get a peak in the oven and sure enough, were beckoned over. Inside the tandir were samsa, small pasties of herbs with spinach, potato or cheese. We were invited in for tea and soon enough the table was covered in the fresh samsa, biscuits, bread, jam and sweets. Green tea was poured and we were given camel's milk warmed with tea.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Afternoon tea - Turkmen style</td></tr>
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We probably outstayed our welcome but we were so happy to be in an environment where women dominated the conversation. Before leaving the table, the father performed the Amin. This is like giving thanks for the food and symbolises the end of a meal. Probably for the best as I was being force fed by the mother unlike Finn, who was enjoying taking a backseat after a month in patriarchal Iran!<br />
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Our last night in Turkmenistan involved being forced into slow dancing at a Turkmen wedding and drinking shots of port. Job done.Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-32291788911311843902012-04-01T00:06:00.000-07:002012-04-01T00:06:29.683-07:00...Iran (Part 4 - Escaping Tehran)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">“That's it. I refuse to try and do anything else in this city. I'm sick of setting off to find an internet cafe/embassy/restaurant only to find it closed and holding onto this hejab in the wind is driving me mad. And yes Finn, I have thrown the guidebook onto the pavement. But I've been driven to it! I'm not ashamed. I've had enough.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cafe Naderi </td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Take me to Cafe Naderi with its silver-haired waiters, grass green walls and bright red curtains and young, flirting Tehranis reading each others' futures in the coffee grounds. An oasis of calm and relative normality in a frustrating city. Ah yes waiter, it is us again. Please bring me your finest cold coffee - a tall glass of vanilla ice cream drenched in milky coffee. And all is well again and I think I might be starting to love this city again. But wait, why is that exceptionally chubby boy staring at us? How rude! Is he still staring? Yes! Let’s move tables. That’s better. No, he’s still staring. Why don’t the parents do anything?! It’s really creepy. Oh wait, here comes the dad…”Excuse me mister” (long pause, sigh) “My son really likes you”. Oh! He hasn’t been <i>staring</i> at us, he’s been gazing adoringly at Finn! This is brilliant! “Could he have a photo with you?” By now, exceptionally chubby boy has downed a cold coffee, inhaled a piece of swiss roll and donned a middle-aged lady’s floppy hat in readiness for the photo. Wonderful. </span></div><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvAk1X-Ri3LvuWaivPUT7JTDA9wbBQUkPtdLnRMVcAqSLl-YHrpsDpIwIWgyQDZJgN0H9yOBTQJc7N2-7glY2GmjVKfctlMeVQeXo_ZVPLw56r-bJpRN1PWiX7z32AS9BeeMiyn7XWhQQ/s1600/DSCF2486.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvAk1X-Ri3LvuWaivPUT7JTDA9wbBQUkPtdLnRMVcAqSLl-YHrpsDpIwIWgyQDZJgN0H9yOBTQJc7N2-7glY2GmjVKfctlMeVQeXo_ZVPLw56r-bJpRN1PWiX7z32AS9BeeMiyn7XWhQQ/s320/DSCF2486.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-4019867174121768402012-03-30T23:09:00.000-07:002012-03-30T23:09:59.653-07:00...Iran (Part 3 - Home Cooked Food to the Rescue)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx_Qy9bqnsngWr30uw3BN0CcjryZYNt-41_BAAtBiklDZWVOzxbJ61HU1rEnTILoG4xCtCP514pZ4oI35LWnCPDYBTUleh8oZeBZ-PaYWIlof789GpAAHTwycEzuTN2dwHTpxkMwsv8qW-/s1600/DSCF2273.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx_Qy9bqnsngWr30uw3BN0CcjryZYNt-41_BAAtBiklDZWVOzxbJ61HU1rEnTILoG4xCtCP514pZ4oI35LWnCPDYBTUleh8oZeBZ-PaYWIlof789GpAAHTwycEzuTN2dwHTpxkMwsv8qW-/s400/DSCF2273.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Iranian food has been disappointing. There. I've said it. I know what you're thinking, that we were spoilt in Turkey. Yes we were but there are other travelling souls who share in our disappointment and who have not had the pleasure of experiencing Turkish cuisine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The food issue here has been bothering us. REALLY bothering us (we have the time for such matters to niggle after all). Endless conversations have ensued between backpackers (never with Iranians - they would be mortified to know we felt like this, one guy was deeply offended when Finn mentioned it was difficult to find a restaurant so you can see what we're dealing with here) to try to get to the bottom of it. And here it is...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Everything in this country is so tightly controlled and amazingly this has an effect on what and where you eat! Iranians do not relax in public because quite frankly, they can't. There are always 'people' watching. This explains the absence of outdoor cafes, lack of street food and poor variety (and often quality) of food in restaurants (when you are lucky enough to find one that is). The good stuff, the 'real' eating experience we have come to realise is where Iranians can really relax and be themselves. At home. The few travellers we've met here have all had one goal: to be invited to an Iranian home for dinner. We had the opportunity to eat great home cooked food when we recently spent a week in the desert.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garmeh - an oasis village</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">In an oasis village, we stayed in a guesthouse with a baby camel outside (a digression: watching it eat is one of the funniest things I've seen - its mouth would start to move before it ate as if it were imagining eating, when not doing this it would form its lips into an 'o' shape making it look constantly excited as it hopped about, waiting for its dinner. End of digression. Thank you).</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A baby camel! I will never eat another camel burger</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Although it was a guesthouse, Payam, our shy chef cooked some lovely food that we would be hard pressed to find in a restaurant. Highlights were <i>tahdig</i> meaning 'bottom of the pan'. This is basically the crunchy bits of rice from the 'bottom of the pan', sometimes with vegetables added. We had potato<i> tahdig</i> which was damn good! The other unbelievably lovely foodstuff was pickled aubergines. Pickled. Aubergines. If ever there were two words made for each other it is these. Boiled, skinned, stuffed with mint and garlic and then left to soak up all that lovely vinegar for three months, these are one of the nicest things I've eaten. Three months before we return, I will remind you of this so you can get busy and make me happy on my return!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAwp4BFHbd43uMQzW7YZ1SZhBhbM2u7beVjWhPwmPdn_Vo_xmMxgEDulu5OHhbmaW47BVjeucDSplx7hGKDfc-669tH4alcHm8Zavd-iL92Fe1AhecebFH7hkUihBBwRXdNPJNsLrlHi0/s1600/DSCF2333.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAwp4BFHbd43uMQzW7YZ1SZhBhbM2u7beVjWhPwmPdn_Vo_xmMxgEDulu5OHhbmaW47BVjeucDSplx7hGKDfc-669tH4alcHm8Zavd-iL92Fe1AhecebFH7hkUihBBwRXdNPJNsLrlHi0/s400/DSCF2333.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A plate of <i>tahdi<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">g</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3MRphOv8oBdF8M_64UM7o8ZSMxRlJRkdyiWcEAmdPWzW-vMgcQbpvKnMA9oEDYUxVCSs1ADG5z0w0LomzdTtd6uWSwNZCnEaXsTJ4HncvIKk-y4yirurWz5BtIEik64rx6TyWYilvuW7I/s1600/DSCF2339.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3MRphOv8oBdF8M_64UM7o8ZSMxRlJRkdyiWcEAmdPWzW-vMgcQbpvKnMA9oEDYUxVCSs1ADG5z0w0LomzdTtd6uWSwNZCnEaXsTJ4HncvIKk-y4yirurWz5BtIEik64rx6TyWYilvuW7I/s640/DSCF2339.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After being fed, we watched our chef play beautiful tunes on ceramic pots</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">At another village called Toudeshk, we stayed at the home of Mohammad. One of the few home stays in Iran, Mohammad gives people the opportunity to experience Iranian home life, desert living and home cooked food. We overindulged on his sister-in-law's amazing cooking. On our last night we were treated to a 'traditional' dish of dates and egg. If ever there were two words that shouldn't go together it is surely these two. Or so I thought. The dates were boiled in a little water to soften them up and then cooked with whisked eggs resulting in a caramel mush. It was served as a main dish but all I could think about as I worked through seconds and thirds was how amazing it would be with a blob of vanilla ice cream.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTkkL6MOJF1McJR_EPIk7hWI9FpgqqYAe8WPMghyphenhyphenC1glKq_PcY9STduiQ6eA8_S8yyIphBQflor8nZzztEncn3XwKcsFP_tvtt64zu5Z-XWtVxG9EkRm2o_9EIAZZuxhYEXAIvoqm9ZBB/s1600/DSCF2435.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTkkL6MOJF1McJR_EPIk7hWI9FpgqqYAe8WPMghyphenhyphenC1glKq_PcY9STduiQ6eA8_S8yyIphBQflor8nZzztEncn3XwKcsFP_tvtt64zu5Z-XWtVxG9EkRm2o_9EIAZZuxhYEXAIvoqm9ZBB/s400/DSCF2435.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eating with the famil<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">y</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">That same evening, we 'let' the kids beat us at snap while Mohammad and his sister-in-law hacked away at what can only be described as a phallus (sorry) of sugar. Why? They were making sugar lumps so they could dip them in tea, Iranian style. Why didn't they just buy sugar lumps? I have no idea. But what else are you going to do on a Saturday night when alcohol is banned? Although, as we have had the pleasure to experience, home brewing is alive and well in this country. And there's a rumour you can buy bacon on the black market...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-67988743842515030732012-03-29T09:36:00.000-07:002012-03-29T09:36:10.271-07:00...Iran (Part 2 - Iranian Pizza and Hejabs)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVvY9R4r7ZNrz3CGCxFIn97ymFbGa81sOv0sfDr1FxBTHvmA11zgtL6R7xP_uBa7WZcQYcFVW78jsKu3J3mFbG68oPi8kQofGE3h-x3kYsWVHahyphenhyphenrvdLCNwfAPh7doM38aex8GKm5bYnK3/s1600/DSCF2072.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVvY9R4r7ZNrz3CGCxFIn97ymFbGa81sOv0sfDr1FxBTHvmA11zgtL6R7xP_uBa7WZcQYcFVW78jsKu3J3mFbG68oPi8kQofGE3h-x3kYsWVHahyphenhyphenrvdLCNwfAPh7doM38aex8GKm5bYnK3/s640/DSCF2072.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imam Mosque in Esfehan, the most beautiful mosque in the world</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">One thing that has surprised us here (other than people's readiness to slag off their government whenever they see a foreigner) is the Iranians' love of fast food.<br />
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Iranian fast food is a welcome change to the massive meals you receive in normal restaurants which consist largely of meat and rice. You can actually get a good burger here. Here is Finn devouring a surprisingly good camel burger:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Dy8s5SamwLmePwWsSlmw7GTFxbmbMAg-1rRmozmi3gUktA8zF3w34nbSajsvf8F4clARsNXgwfGrN-HPCbJtXtpHv-3CtXxE-z6QRnpWOXrr2ARGc1aAAFrLGICxbExwahDDkr7k4Pms/s1600/DSCF2265.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Dy8s5SamwLmePwWsSlmw7GTFxbmbMAg-1rRmozmi3gUktA8zF3w34nbSajsvf8F4clARsNXgwfGrN-HPCbJtXtpHv-3CtXxE-z6QRnpWOXrr2ARGc1aAAFrLGICxbExwahDDkr7k4Pms/s400/DSCF2265.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at the love in those eyes for that burger</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> However, Iranian 'pizza', and I use the word 'pizza' very loosely here, is something else. What, I can't say, but it's very far from my idea of pizza. If you are Italian, you might want to stop reading.<br />
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So after an amazing morning gaping at the ruins of Persepolis, we needed to un-culture ourselves and headed to a fast food joint. To be precise, 'The First World Pizza and Hamber' which (obviously) sold 'onli pizza and hamber 110'. We ordered 'pizza' and joined the confusing queuing system. After 5 minutes, we received this:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just look at i<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">t!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
A pizza in nothing but name and base and the weight of 5 bags of sugar. In total, we counted 10 different toppings. Brace yourselves: Tasteless cheese, mince, vegetables (mushroom, pepper and chopped tomato), 'sausage', mayonnaise, gherkin, crisps (yes) and last but by no means least, something yellow. I know what you are thinking (other than 'I wish I'd waited to eat until after reading this blog), what about the tomato sauce that makes a pizza a pizza?! Well fear not! We were given the option of ketchup which was squirted all over the medley of ingredients. In fact, surprisingly it was the only thing you could really taste. I suppose when you have that many flavours, one has to dominate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> I have no idea how they came up with this idea of pizza but I like Finn's suggestion that someone saw a picture of a pizza and just guessed. </span><br />
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On a completely different note, a word on wearing a hejab (headscarf) and eating. Wearing a hejab is obligatory here and something I'm getting used to. I find that often after meals I have a small mountain of rice hidden in the side of it. Finn has likened it to a horse's nose bag, while I prefer to look upon it as the hamster cheeks I have always longed for. However, I notice that Iranian ladies do not have the same issue and so should probably stop indulging myself. Incidentally, getting the hejab on in the first place is quite a chore. The rebellious nature of my hair refuses to be tamed by a piece of material. For visual learners among you, try to picture a fluffy cat being forced into a vet-bound pet carrier. It is a constant battle. On the plus side, its ability to defy gravity means I unintentionally copy the fashion here of having a bouffant fringe and a hejab several centimetres off my head. Swings and roundabouts.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrc9n8KYK9vDfBJjKo6xw7X7dZ_WHhvlnaddeuESY1XzrbM9P962XmAmcopBfZk29I_mTmCfHT0iDk3YPjcu9Vl0Gci_7haHLPqOlQ1yhNh1xmfLIr5c2CLp2W8WSUFYIyS7Q3MWsufE-/s1600/DSCF2298.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrc9n8KYK9vDfBJjKo6xw7X7dZ_WHhvlnaddeuESY1XzrbM9P962XmAmcopBfZk29I_mTmCfHT0iDk3YPjcu9Vl0Gci_7haHLPqOlQ1yhNh1xmfLIr5c2CLp2W8WSUFYIyS7Q3MWsufE-/s400/DSCF2298.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trying to eat Iranian dessert (noodles in rose water) without creating a small mountain inside my hejab</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-91715021409717419792012-03-29T00:55:00.000-07:002012-03-29T00:55:06.465-07:00...Iran (Part 1 - In a Spin)<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE2WhUdcyJtxW5YN03Jw9gTfP_6pK0f-Aaoc_W2O4lWoZtNZynIfNcJle1jQeyqzvx1iK_v0BXEAvU4wqjDsPgqTyFVjUs32-0xgGKr8y0rQJtFFU4cUcNMkaJdj9FjQur6AX6WaNAXJ55/s1600/DSCF1938.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE2WhUdcyJtxW5YN03Jw9gTfP_6pK0f-Aaoc_W2O4lWoZtNZynIfNcJle1jQeyqzvx1iK_v0BXEAvU4wqjDsPgqTyFVjUs32-0xgGKr8y0rQJtFFU4cUcNMkaJdj9FjQur6AX6WaNAXJ55/s400/DSCF1938.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Celebrating getting our Iranian visas in Turkey. We finally allowed ourselves to read the Iranian guidebook we'd been carrying for weeks in the vague hope we might get there</td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikuSQ7Q1AI0hCvENKUJqAHcu7s5zBxyJAZ10wyY-M2kuqfW9R22EldCvvPnqOTfwAVjUFAr79azL-ohW_hUPhQdNF88bG1w07OPWvkn24Wl4lvpxi68pclJDDfoP8Vxsf5hKwQ1km0cKgC/s1600/DSCF2161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Would you believe, we've made it to Iran (hence the silence for the last few weeks!). Int</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">ernational headlines didn't deter us, battling governments couldn't stop us and a hefty increase in visa costs for Brits wouldn't change our stubborn minds. Yes you may think us insane for coming here but really, all the above disappears in the face of Iranian hospitality. Now food.<br />
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I'm writing this blog after a big lunch so apologies if I have lapses in concentration. However, the timing of the big lunch and immediate bloggage is no coincidence as it is the finest Iranian meal so far and warrants the glory that comes with being first post (I have written two other draft posts, both boring).<br />
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After a morning wandering the bazaars, haggling badly, being mistaken for a Muslim (me) and being smuggled into a mosque by an old lady (me again) and then getting chucked out of the mosque when it becomes apparent the subject isn't Muslim (yep, me again), some (us) might've suggested we needed a good lunch. Hurray! And a good lunch came in the form of 'Dizi'.<br />
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Dizi is considered a poor person's meal here, probably because the ingredients are very simple and, in a country like Iran, readily available. Also it could be because really it's two meals in one. To get two meals out of it though requires certain procedures and thankfully we'd read up on it to be prepared (but probably still did it a bit wrong). So this is how it's done (kind of)...<br />
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On ordering Dizi, we received two earthenware pots with a stew inside. The stew contained chunks of mutton, plump tomatoes, chickpeas, beans, spices and lumps of fat. <br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">We poured the 'juice' from the stew into bowls over pieces of bread we'd ripped up. And munched and slurped it all down.</span><br />
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Once the juice had been drained and the soggy bread devoured, we turned our attention to the 'solid matter' left in the pot. Taking the provided 'masher', we proceeded to pummel said matter into mush and devoured with the vinegary pickles, taking bites of mint and adding lemon juice. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mashing the Dizi</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After mashing the Dizi</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: 10pt;">All in all a damn fine meal which should've set us up for an afternoon of more high frolics. Instead, it's made me want to sleep. Probably for the best, god knows what we would've got up to.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Happy!</td></tr>
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</div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287079753067071001.post-6305423680106761522012-02-27T06:28:00.001-08:002012-02-27T06:30:57.199-08:00...Turkey (Part 4 - In Praise of Sweet Things)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeVsRW3UZrtgUme9-HRbMgejHwxPgJ1qKO0nqiRJeT7WuUU6TIavzo6pg40ak9rVGqFnCU1BPflq1DfLkjbGj7-bwcFw1_7z0CdnZCEaJ3WqjsyzliETKph2qqehS_7GsNdARdSP8UmIDO/s1600/DSCF1652.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6DaDYk7fRyM1EVAICaw3Zs9V65Je8HztVPayaRyfcpG9bUN4rI-w7FncP4K3r-XJQO4HvSiGdIDTrdt5oNlJorfu9-j3mY9cZa5CYdi59q3S9jL9Xf_kkHZH1SBkjbQhEDdsfRb-g7PEw/s1600/DSCF1133.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" lda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6DaDYk7fRyM1EVAICaw3Zs9V65Je8HztVPayaRyfcpG9bUN4rI-w7FncP4K3r-XJQO4HvSiGdIDTrdt5oNlJorfu9-j3mY9cZa5CYdi59q3S9jL9Xf_kkHZH1SBkjbQhEDdsfRb-g7PEw/s320/DSCF1133.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baklava, a common sight all over Turkey</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Gaziantep may mean <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">little or nothing to anyone outside Turkey (and Hackney). However, to the Turks it means one thing. The best Baklava in the world. And so in the name of ‘research’ we dragged ourselves kicking and screaming to a city that is home to over 180 pastry shops. All for you dear reader. All for you.</span> <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So with that many pastry shops, how does one choose a good one? We headed straight to Gulluoglu, a huge chain that even has a shop in Hackney. But apparently there is one branch that is head and shoulders above the rest. A small, nondescript place in the heart of the bazaar which sells only baklava. You can't even get a cup of tea dammit! </span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA41jQ-hMawL-2V0SZGYwMUdAfN3exdzmCTd-CFJEmKYYDe7U69HhYK9sYF3QakMDYRXQ0_xwKaiJx7wcTG18V2IedfMC-ijkhiSbH8_1LufNfl6MIeY0vSCX7sSHzcxZEbdIqteFruKFe/s1600/DSCF1677.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" lda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA41jQ-hMawL-2V0SZGYwMUdAfN3exdzmCTd-CFJEmKYYDe7U69HhYK9sYF3QakMDYRXQ0_xwKaiJx7wcTG18V2IedfMC-ijkhiSbH8_1LufNfl6MIeY0vSCX7sSHzcxZEbdIqteFruKFe/s400/DSCF1677.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Try walking past without going in...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It seemed perfectly normal for people to order themselves five or six pieces (for the record, Finn and I <em>shared</em> five). Baklava comes in many forms but essentially consists of layers of buttery pastry and crushed pistachios, all drenched in honey or syrup. Trays upon trays of the little devils sit in the windows of pastry shops taunting you until you give in. I have eaten a lot of baklava in my time but this has to be the best. They say the <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Gaziantep</place></city> stuff is so good because they grow the best pistachios and have the best honey. Whatever it is, it works.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On the subject of sweet things, I mustn’t forget kunefe. We first ate kunefe in <place w:st="on">Antakya, a city who's cuisine is heavily influenced by Syrian cooking due its close proximity to the border. It is in this city that we were kidnapped by an English teacher and taken to 'teach' her students (read about it on Finn's blog!). Anyway, back to kunefe! It is a little slice of culinary genius. But <em>only</em> a little slice mind. Too much would definitely result in a heart attack. It basically consists of a piece of cheese, not that dissimilar to mozzarella. This is coated in a thin kind of vermicelli which is made on hot wheels in the bazaar. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZs7eIUPRIvgyQB_CNWepGIAkS0zJduNs0FN1UF2awuthVG9CGobzDajz79xfdCqAnzEGbsaHCq6Er1KQ-8Qf6YPajC7XagQUS-g_Cm4g1uKQFz-7Rw0k7hrbmV-QPo8R3p87nlTAsl5N/s1600/DSCF1598.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" lda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZs7eIUPRIvgyQB_CNWepGIAkS0zJduNs0FN1UF2awuthVG9CGobzDajz79xfdCqAnzEGbsaHCq6Er1KQ-8Qf6YPajC7XagQUS-g_Cm4g1uKQFz-7Rw0k7hrbmV-QPo8R3p87nlTAsl5N/s400/DSCF1598.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making Kunefe</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The whole thing is drenched in sugar syrup, topped with nuts and served warm. <em>Et voila. </em>A heart attack on a plate.</place></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nothing better than a piece of kunefe in the sun</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the holy city of Sanliurfa, we were kidnapped by a friendly man we bumped into somewhere in the depths of the sprawling bazaar. He offered us tea and took us along the dark twisting alleyways until suddenly we came out into bright sunlight. We had entered an old caravansari, a place where silk road travellers would stop for the night. We sat in the courtyard and drank tea, talked international politics and ate kunefe to the sound of old, head-scarfed Arabs throwing dominoes down on the small tea tables. And suddenly, we felt very far from home.</span></div><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></place></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finn, new friend and kunefe in the caravansari</td></tr>
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</div>Nichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661227547998208012noreply@blogger.com1