Author: zora

October 28, 2013

New Mexico: The Bootheel

This year was the third time I’ve updated my New Mexico guidebook. You’d think I would’ve gone pretty much everywhere by now, since New Mexico is not a heavily paved state and there are only so many roads to drive.

But in fact, there was a whole stubby little bit of the state I’d never set foot in–the so-called bootheel, which sticks down in the southwest corner. The closest town on the interstate is Lordsburg, which might explain why I’d never driven down there. Lordsburg is a pretty dismal ex-railroad town, with so much chain-link fencing that it kind of saps your strength to drive farther.

On my guidebook research trips, I try to put a couple of roadblocks in my schedule, to force myself to slow down and take a periodic break. So I booked two nights at the Casa Adobe, in Rodeo, New Mexico.

I wish I could’ve stayed a week. The house was lovely, and there’s no cell service in Rodeo, and no internet at the house.

And the light…ahhh.

Rodeo is just a mile or so from the Arizona border, and Cave Creek Canyon, which is famous as a great birding spot. I mean, famous in birding circles. There is something uncanny about the Arizona border–somehow the instant you cross it, the scenery gets better than what was on the New Mexico side. I’m not sure how they pulled that off. These mountains, just on the Arizona side, were freakishly lush and vibrant.

The trade-off, though, is you have to deal with Arizonans and their immigration panic:

(My New Mexico is such a hippie New Mexico that I didn’t even realize until the government shutdown that NM’s southern district had elected a Tea Party wackadoo to the House of Representatives. So the immigration panic isn’t limited to Arizona, I now understand. It’s just NM doesn’t have any warning signs on the highway…yet.)

On the second day, I drove back up to near Lordsburg and visited Shakespeare ghost town, which is open only once a month or so. On the way I stopped at the gas station, and saw this critter:

Imagine my thumb next to him for scale. BIG dude. Locusts! In little coral-colored bikini tops, they kinda look like.

Shakespeare is fascinating because it’s really nicely preserved, but it also has this layer of more modern history, of the family that has owned it for a few generations. One woman taught dance classes there for decades, and one cabin is lined with recital photos–worth the price of admission.

Quiet moment in the lynching room…anticipating the gun fights later.

Also at Shakespeare, I learned that the freakishly colored locusts are actually perfectly adapted to a landscape made of volcanic rock and mine tailings.

The really nice thing about being in Rodeo, in the middle of nowhere, for two whole days, is that I appreciated Lordsburg a bit more when I came back. There are a couple of good cafes, after all, and some choice neon. And the museum has a really good exhibit on German WWII POWs interned around here. And they were practicing roping at the fairgrounds.

If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I went to be a cowgirl in Rodeo…

October 21, 2013

New Mexico: The Green Season

Sorry–summer break lasted a pretty long time. Sugar Duck just told me in no uncertain terms that he was tired of being laughed at by the whole internet, so we’ll bump him down a post.

I spent a lot of the summer in New Mexico, working on my book about Arabic and updating my New Mexico guidebook. In the past, I’ve been a little mealy-mouthed in the guidebook about when the best time to visit is. Oh, all the seasons have their merits, blah blah blah (except spring; dry, hot, windy spring).

After this last trip, at the end of August, though, it’s just ridiculous to claim there’s any better time to visit. I drove around for about four weeks just gasping out loud, to myself, “It’s so GREEEEEEEEN!”

I haven’t been in New Mexico at the end of the summer in years, and I had forgotten how much a couple of months of decent rain can transform the landscape. I came back from my trip and raved to Peter too. “It was so GREEEEEEEN!” I told him.

This is the first photo I showed him.

Valley of Fires, near Carrizozo

Funny, he wasn’t all impressed. “But, but, that’s, like, a volcanic wasteland normally,” I spluttered. So I showed him some more photos.

The northeast, the edge of the great plains, was green.

That one didn’t do it either, really. “That looks terrible,” said the city slicker. All I could say was “Well, it is where the Dust Bowl was.”

View from Two Grey Hills Trading Post

“This is the Navajo rez,” I said. “Look how green!”

“Enh,” said Peter, noncommittal.

Red Rock State Park

Zuni Mountains

“C’mooooon, look: Gallup! Totally green.” He was starting to come around. “Look–by the Very Large Array. Where the deer and the antelope play!”

The Plains of San Agustin

Peter: “Ohhh-kaaaaay.” Finally, I just cheated and showed him pictures of up north, where it’s green almost all the time.

Rain in Tierra Amarilla

Clouds on Taos Mountain

My last few days were during the crazy rainstorms that flooded so much in Colorado–and tons in New Mexico too. The clouds were wreathed on the mountains like this everywhere–I felt very briefly like I was in Hawaii.

But Peter still wasn’t wowed. I agree, the photos aren’t totally capturing it. You really need before-and-after pics. But I was wondering if Peter might just be color-blind.

Then this pic came up.

In Fort Sumner

“Mmm, green chile!” Peter said. Well, not color-blind.

And this, my friends, is the other reason the end of the summer is the best possible time to visit New Mexico. It’s green chile season. Hot DAMN. Like I said, I haven’t been there this time of year in so long, I forgot how intensely wonderful it is. On this trip, I even stopped in to Hatch, the self-styled green chile capital of the world. It was hopping. Packed with farmers and people in pickups who’d driven up from Cruces to buy 40-pound sacks of chile.

A little chile strip-tease for you…

Ooooh yeah, that’s how I like it…

Here you go, honey. Feast your eyes.

The deal is, you buy your 40-pound sack, and then the guy at the store–or in the supermarket parking lot, or wherever you’re doing your chile deal–tosses them all in a roaster, and lets it spin till the skins are all blackened.

Action shot. This would’ve made a good Vine.

Then the roaster dude tosses your blackened chiles in the cooler you brought, and you drive home with your loot, and you sit around and peel all those little f–kers until your fingers sting (gloves, what?) and in the process you accidentally touch your eye, or your nose, and then you wrap each chile up carefully and freeze the whole haul, to get you through the winter.

Hatch smelled so damn good. The smell of roasting chile is like a little Proustian overload for me. I was standing all swoony by the roaster, and told the guy, “Wow, it smells so good.”

He just looked at me, kinda tired, and didn’t say anything. I guess if you work all damn day for the whole month of high chile season, it doesn’t smell so good anymore.

I exercised my privilege as a tourist and breathed in deep some more, bought some salsa, and then went and stuffed myself at El Bruno’s, in Cuba, where every year a team of ladies sits under the cottonwood tree out back and peels those little f–kers all day, every day, until they have enough to last the rest of the year at the restaurant.

Hazel’s green chile, El Bruno’s

Now, Peter and I can agree, that’s so GREEEEEEEN.

July 19, 2013

SUMMER BREAK! WHOOO!!!

I’m not on summer break–I’m hard at work. But everyone’s favorite kitchen accessory, Sugar Duck, is on vacation, and he’s having a blast! All these postcards were “delivered” to me by Peter.

I thoooo like my new amigo, Theñor Thombrero Head! He is from Mexico. Here we are in the land of thun and fun!

Why, thank you, Theñor Thombrero Head, I would like thome tequila. Whoooooo!

Aw, come on Theñor Thomero Bread, let me try on your bromthero! Por favooor!!!

Graciass. Don’t I looook jutht thmashing?!

Yo quiero otro, bitchethz!!!

Whoooo! Thith ith going to be my lasthtest! Whoo! Whooooo!

Then everything got a little hazy…

[The next morning…]

I’m really not thertain why I feel so bad.
I think maybe the lime wasn’t washed or thomething.

Gosh. That Mexican sun thure is bright. Maybe a Bloody Mary would help…

………..

In other news that makes me feel hung-over, Lonely Planet appears to have been gutted in the name of the new digital era. (Much like, oh, Frommer’s and Zagat–and that worked out so well.) More on that later. Sigh.

July 1, 2013

1 More Counterintuitive Travel Tip (in process): Be Uncomfortable

I know, last week I gave the master list of counterintuitive travel tips. But, whaddya know, I thought of another one.

And that is: Discomfort is good.

You could say this is a variation on the idea of taking impractical transport. But there’s a greater sense of this, in which it’s generally a good idea to avoid typical luxury, even if you can afford it.

But don’t get too carried away!

There’s a little treadmill of travel style as you age and get a little more money to play with: you’re meant to go from hosteling to midrange hotels with air-conditioning to, phew, finally you’ve made it, some rambling resort in Thailand.

It’s a trap! Jump off! (Or, more realistically: Don’t seethe with envy over all those rich folks eating in them fancy dining cars, drinking coffee and smoking big cigars.)

Money just creates a buffer between you and the people you’ve come to visit. Money, if spent without thinking, buys space and distance: bigger rooms, bigger cars, private compartments on trains. But for that travel magic to happen, sometimes you need to be forced into proximity: in the cheap seats, on the sidewalk, at the public market.

“Discomfort” can also connect us to the past. I just spent a few days at Los Poblanos, hands down the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at (proof: this was my second visit, for vacation). Part of the reason it’s better than any typical “luxury” hotel is the physical reality of the place: the windows crank open; the thick old light switches are a little hard to flip; the door latches are intricate and don’t shut immediately behind you; the farm animals make noise. Of course nothing is truly painful: The beds are sumptuous, and I could turn on the a/c if I wanted to. But the irregularities haven’t been sanded away, as money tends to do, and the place is still filled with little reminders of how life used to work.

Then again, I’m writing this from a suite in Las Vegas, and I’m perfectly happy to be safely swaddled in a/c comfort, away from the masses (Masters of Beer Pong tourney happening downstairs!).

Oh, those wacky masses. (Sign in Albuquerque.)

This trip, in which we’re going across the Southwest without a car, was an experiment in applying travel strategies I use in other countries to more familiar turf. But on this trip, I’ve found myself choosing the more “comfortable” option frequently: the parlor car on the train to the Grand Canyon, the flight to Vegas instead of the long bus ride. Which may say as much about the United States as it does about me.

So: travel wisdom is a work in progress–and at least I have gotten my share of discomfort walking in 115-degree heat!

Your thoughts? When is comfort worth it? When did you feel like it was unnecessary or just got in the way?

June 24, 2013

9 Tips for Counterintuitive Travel (the master list)

I thought long and hard about this list…

Last fall, I wrote a series of blog posts about the rather cranky, not-immediately-logical way I have come to travel.

Here’s the master list of tips, with links back to the posts. Employ on your summer vacation, and tell me how it goes!

1. Go to the bad part of town.

Like nice families, nice neighborhoods are all the same. Money creates global culture and same-everywhere cappucino.

2. Go to the ugly places.

Learning to love the not-immediately-lovely is a skill. And fewer tourists go to nondescript spots, leaving more room and space for you to meet normal people.

3. Go where the tourists are.

I know, I’m contradicting myself. But sometimes it’s great to hang out with tourists–especially if they’re from the country you’re visiting.

4. Be lazy.

Slow down. Do less. Skip the sights, especially if they might make you so cranky you’ll resent the whole country.

5. Travel by inefficient transport.

Like they say, man, the journey is the destination.

6. Drink the water.

Actually, it’s probably safe in many more places than you think. That ice cube won’t kill you (probably).

7. Don’t negotiate with taxi drivers.

Click through to understand why.

8. There’s no shame in sleeping.

Enjoy the siesta–it’s a cultural experience.

9. Bonus: Get older.

This wasn’t in the first series, but it came up after. Travel just gets more fun as you go along.

10. Second bonus: Be uncomfortable.

Edited to add this item, just thought up: “Luxury” can be synonymous with isolation. Money can be a barrier between you and what you’ve traveled so far to see.

Any other tips to add? What have you learned through travel? Share in the comments.

June 17, 2013

Mumbai New York Scranton

I stayed up till 3:30 am reading this book, Mumbai New York Scranton, by Tamara Shopsin. I started it on the walk back from the library*, weaving down the sidewalk. I made Peter read the first 20 pages, about India and old taxis, the pots of paste for sticking on stamps in the post office, the vintage hotels that feel like 1943 inside.

In late 2005, I got sick with a freak bacterial infection in my heart. In early 2006, I had to have emergency open-heart surgery in San Francisco. Which turned out to be for the best, in so many ways. (One: nurses in California are just plain nicer.)

It was jarring, to say the least, to be dumped in the deep end of the American medical system. There’s a certain preparing-for-the-apocalypse streak to my traveling. Going to countries where the sidewalks are broken and the buses wheeze and you can’t drink the water–and yet, everyone is still pretty happy–gives me a feeling that when the U.S. slides down the pole, I’ll be able to cope. (I was going to mention squat toilets here, but that reminded me I already wrote a tiny bit about this back at the time–here’s the post.)

I just took a whole paragraph to set up how endocarditis and surgery was a big check-your-privilege moment. Tamara Shopsin does it in one sentence, as she’s wheeled into surgery: “I am glad it doesn’t feel like 1943.”

I’m grateful to Shopsin for describing both the charms of India and the horrors of sudden surgery with such economy. Peter was so taken with the India section, I think he might actually want to go. I was so gripped by the surgery section, I was right back there, in that odd hospital-exhaustion zen space, where I was OK with whatever happened, but just felt sad for everyone around me.

It was good to read about an experience that mirrored mine, in a way that wasn’t maudlin or epiphanic. A near-death experience didn’t change me, even though everyone kept asking if it had. It was relief to read Shopsin’s book and have it not be about transformation. Maybe the best thing about being lucky enough to get into the American medical system, and then get out of it unscathed and in fact improved, is that you can be the same old person in the end. I’m blind in one eye now (byproduct of the infection), but otherwise, I can carry along with my life, and travel to strange places, use squat toilets and the whole bit, and just generally not worry.

A few months ago, I wrote thank-you notes to my doctors in San Francisco, on the seventh anniversary of my surgery. This is one for Shopsin too.

*Support your local library! Mine in Queens had this book as soon as it was released. I bought a copy later, because the photos (by Shopsin’s husband) are so great.

June 10, 2013

Morocco, Come Back!

I never properly blogged about my Morocco trip. That’s because I came back and plunged right into writing about it for my book.

Actually, I spent a lot of timing tuning up my chapters on Egypt, and Lebanon, and the Emirates. By the time I really focused on Morocco again, I was in less of a Morocco frame of mind.

Of course, I had my notes and photos and everything, and I remembered what happened. I just had lost a little of what it felt like to be there. I didn’t realize I was forgetting until I was in a movie theater, watching Lincoln, and in one scene, someone’s wearing some elaborate silk dressing gown, and in a close-up, you can see the little silk-thread buttons on it.

And I felt this sudden pang. Morocco, it’s slipping away!

Why did the buttons spark this sensation? Djellabas and caftans, the standard Moroccan clothing, are often done up in heavy brocade, and these very lovely buttons. They’re emblematic of a certain level of luxury and comfort and care that’s everywhere, every day, even in rough settings. Flashes of beauty, rich colors, ornate detail–and not covered in grime or left to ruin, but well kept, and in many cases, freshly built or even being made before my eyes.

I walk around New York and look at old buildings and sigh: “Why can’t people build things like that anymore?” I harrumph. Rockefeller Center. The General Electric building–that kind of thing.

In Morocco, it’s still happening! I’m not saying every new construction is lovely, and the country is aesthetically seamless. Not at all. But a certain, very specific style is completely intact and vibrant.

So here are some photos, to try to recapture a little of that feeling, the silk-button feeling. I recommend looking at these while wearing comfy slippers and drinking mint tea… (I also recommend opening each one in a new tab–the details are key!)

June 3, 2013

Two Amazing Cookbooks from Gaza and Iraq

“Heh, that’s not a very thick book,” a visitor to my house wisecracked when he saw my copy of The Gaza Kitchen laying out.

Woe to he who utters the untutored statement in my house! The guy got an earful of all the amazing things I had learned from this truly wonderful book: Gazans cook with dill and hot chili. They pound everything in clay mortar-and-pestles. There’s a hot debate over whether Gaza should even strive for food independence. And any Gaza cook worth her (it’s usually her, in this book) salt gives meat a quick boil first before doing anything else.

I see why this guy made this off-the-cuff lame joke. We in America don’t get a lot of information about Gaza, and certainly not about something so trivial as, oh, you know, food. This cookbook is a beautiful document of real daily Gaza life, which you never see. It has great photos of women at home, in their kitchens; of markets and ingredients; of street scenes. It talks about traditions, regional biases and yes, some political issues, which are of course sometimes impossible to extricate from our daily meals.

Every cuisine should be documented this way–not just through recipes, but with these generous biographies of the cooks, photos of techniques and ingredients, and discussions of food supply and how dishes are adapted due to non-food-related issues.

For instance: Gazans traditionally favors so-called “red tahini,” from toasted sesame seeds. But due to the blockade, it’s too expensive to make–so regular imported white tahini is used. I like to think that, thanks to the careful documentation of Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt, a detail like this won’t be lost in a few generations’ time. This cookbook brings a whole food tradition to light for those who haven’t known it, and it helps record it for those who cook it every day, whatever the circumstances.

Lecture over. Phew. Buy the book. If you don’t believe me, please note: Anthony Bourdain blurbed it!

***

Two weeks ago, I got to meet Nawal Nasrallah, the author of Delights from the Garden of Eden, an Iraqi cookbook. It was just reissued this year, by a new press that invested in gorgeous color photos and more. Nasrallah was visiting NYC, and wound up cooking dinner at a friend’s house.

I was all breathless and told Nasrallah I’d had her cookbook for almost ten years, and loved it so much. “So, what have you cooked from it?” she asked me.

Er. Um. The thing is: every time I’ve decided to use the cookbook, I get distracted by the amazing historical details. The Akkadian etymology of seemingly every Iraqi food word. Odd factoids (Sumerian women called their husbands “honey man”!). An hour later, my head is full of fabulous stories, but I still haven’t decided what to cook. So I make a salad.

The dinner I had with Nasrallah was just the starting point I needed: red rice with chickpeas, lamb shank with raisins and almonds and onions, baklava filled with a delicate soft cheese. Oh, and the original “moussaka,” which has very little to do with the Greek stuff.

Nasrallah isn’t just a collector of recipes–she’s a scholar and a translator and has burrowed down into medieval cookbooks and back to ancient texts to really root Iraq’s food in place. The detail in this book is hilarious and enriching.

Buy it. Even if you never cook from it. Though I strongly suggest you do. That baklava with cheese is dreamy…

May 28, 2013

Mexico City: Plaza Garibaldi

Another major hot spot we just didn’t manage to get to on our first trip was Plaza Garibaldi, where all the mariachis gather. The symbol on the signs for the metro stop is a guitar.

The plaza had a reputation for seediness, and it’s now being spruced up in that slightly heavy-handed way city planners use when they want to get rid of blight. Lots of LED lights and green glass, and a museum. Presto!

The actual open area was a bit too tidy and unfocused for our tastes, so we hightailed it to Bar Tenampa, which is famous as apparently the first bar on Plaza Garibaldi. Inside, it feels like the party has indeed been going nonstop for the better part of a century.

It’s a big barn of the place with high ceilings and huge murals of great singers, and bright lighting.

Those are jarocho guys, with the harp. Mariachis lurk in every other corner.

Mere words and photos can’t describe the atmosphere of the place. Let’s try a little multimedia experiment instead.

First, pour yourself a drink. We were fond of palomas–tequila and Squirt (say it ‘Esquirt’), with salt around the rim. I can also recommend a ponche de granada, which Tenampa seemed to specialize in, and of which I had never heard. It’s booze and pomegranate juice, aged for a bit, and served with crumbled pecans floating on top. Seriously, dangerously drinkable–good thing I only got around to ordering one on the last round.

What really makes it is the dainty glass!

Now, all settled in with your drink? Start this video playing.

That’s just for background, really. What we really care about is the next song. The lyrics are painted on the wall:

Que borracho!

Maybe best to click on that and open it in another tab, to see the words.

Got that? Now start this next video. Yes, at the same time as the other one.

WHAT?! YOU CAN’T HEAR ME? THAT’S OK. THAT’S NORMAL! JUST RAISE YOUR GLASS AND SING ALONG!!! THAT’S WHAT THE PEOPLE AT THE OTHER TABLES ARE DOING!

If you’re still not feeling the cacophonous, drunken magic, go stick your finger in a light socket.

Because, as an added attraction, in addition to the three separate mariachi groups in the bar, and the jarochos, there are guys walking around selling electric shocks. With, like, jumper cables. Apparently this is a thing in Tijuana and Juarez, and I guess wherever vast amounts of tequila are drunk; I never knew how sheltered I was.

Near the end of the night, one of our party said, “I’m exactly three shots away from doing that.” It seemed like a fair assessment. He’d already done quite a few.

My magic camera that captured the evening just as I saw it.

Hiring a band (M$120 per song; M$50 for the puny jarochos) was a way of coping, of creating a wall of sound that screened out the others. The bathroom attendant, for her part, wore noise-canceling headphones.

In a way, the noise was so solid that it made everything like a silent film. Far down the end of the room, I watched a small, brief melodrama unfold: two tall, jocky American bros guzzled shots, stood up and jumped around and posed for pictures and danced. I glanced away, then glanced back, and they were already back in their seats, bent over, heads on the table.

I would totally go again. I just want to learn some lyrics first.

May 20, 2013

Mexico City: Beyond the Palacio Nacional

Peter and I went to Mexico City two years ago. It happened to be the week before Easter, when the city runs at half-speed because everyone’s on vacation. We were too, so we just didn’t wind up doing very much sightseeing.

Oh, why am I making excuses? We never do much sightseeing. It’s just too tedious to make big plans and maps and timetables, and get your heart set on any one thing. (Precise opposite: friend of a friend who planned her family’s trip to Disney World with a spreadsheet, down to the minute.)

Awe-some. Like, really, awe.

The other problem with planning too much is it’s basically admitting you’re never going back to a place. If you have a big checklist, and you check off all the sights, well, then why would you come back?

I know, the world is a big place and we have a limited amount of time here, so I see why people are strategic (especially with only two weeks of vacation a year; the American workplace is savage). But let me dream, OK? I would much rather leave a place with a pang of regret–which may be strong enough to make me go back–than some kind of bucket-list satisfaction.

This is all a very roundabout justification for my own laziness and the fact that, on our first visit, we didn’t even manage to see the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional. They were, what, five blocks from our hotel?

This time, we were three blocks closer. No excuse.

I could load you up with photos, but I’d seen the photos before, and I didn’t understand how powerful the murals are. While we were in Puebla, Peter and I were in awe of the buildings–like, how was it the Spanish were building such amazing things just 40 years after they discovered the place, and the English couldn’t even keep a colony of settlers alive?

The answer is in the last of the murals.

If you answered ‘slave labor,’ you win a prize.

After that, we cheered ourselves up with ice cream.

Colors of the Mexican flag, no coincidence.

And some tacos–grilled beef and cactus.

Gorgeous.

That were grilled in this contraption:

See that? Next trend in food trucks. Mark my words.

Not sightseeing rewarded us with those tacos, and several other neat things.

Crazy bottles of booze.

The pinafore store–for all your street-vendor-uniform needs.

The Mercado de Dulces…which really was the candy market.

Funny fonts. It’s like they saw the ‘circ’ and thought ‘circus’.

Shrimp ‘cocktel’.

A perfectly nice art deco warehouse.

Wait, you’re saying, that’s just not interesting at all. No–look closer!

Hello, plaintains, ripening like hams in the Alpujarras!

The most trivial thing we did in our post-Palacio walk was stop for many long minutes to watch a street vendor make a perfectly round pancake, without the aid of a mold. While we were sitting, playing it cool, waiting for him to pour the batter, I realized why you can’t always travel like this, planless.

People! Other people! What a pain they are.

No, seriously, we love our friends we went to Mexico City with, and we would have happily spent all of our time with them. But they’d gone off to Trotsky’s house, which is amazing, but we weren’t sure we needed to see again.

Practically speaking, you can’t stop a group of four or six people and say, “Hey, guys, check out that pancake maker. Let’s watch him for a while.” At least not if you want to make it through the day alive.

Hell, you can’t even do this with one other person, if that other person isn’t totally on your travel wavelength.

I feel incredibly lucky that Peter is. Sure, sometimes I wish he’d wake up maybe a little earlier, but he’s totally open to the ‘Wait, stop, let’s…’ and ‘Take a pic of that weird thing’ (most of the photos here are his, at my prodding) and ‘[Chortling at some incredibly immature thing]’.

The fundamental similarity that makes it all possible, though, is that we don’t care if we miss some big sights. We get so many little ones instead.