Category: Travel for Fun

Reasons to Like Los Angeles, Part 3: Food

So by now, you’ve all got your March issue of Saveur, and you already know L.A. is a great food town.

They can point out all of the specifics, but the big one for me simply is: in February, you can eat beautiful fruits and vegetables. Yes, they’re eating potatoes and kale out there, just like we are on the East Coast, but they’re doing it in the sunshine, and that makes all the difference. Where we subsist on two varieties of tangerine (the only dose of color in my winter diet), they have about 46.

I had the pleasure of meeting the brains behind A Thinking Stomach, and she arrived with Meyer lemons and a bag of snap peas, like it was no big thing. Snap peas! In February! I’m crying.

In part because of this freshness, and in part because L.A. is like Queens but a million times bigger, we ate amazing food three nights in a row, without even trying.

Moles La Tia, on Cesar Chavez in East L.A., is the kind of place we just don’t have yet in New York–Oaxacan food, a little fancier than you might expect, not dirt cheap and all exceptionally good, right down to the clearly housemade salsa and the slightly funky goat cheese grated on the guacamole. Man. I totally misordered (wound up without any mole), and it was still better than most Mexican we get here. And semi-fancy Mexican–I’ve watched a ton of these places go under, just in Astoria. Breaks my heart.

The next night, we went to Soi 7, downtown, for Thai food. Having just come back from Thailand, I was starving for everything, but slightly skeptical that it would measure up. Again with the misordering–following my suggestions, we wound up with chili-basil everything. But whoa–so good. There were wee sweet scallops in the noodles, and the eggplant is something I’d want to eat for lunch every day. And because we weren’t in New York, we could sit for a full four hours at our table and talk and talk. We got about eight rounds of tea (white, with black fruits–so delicate!).

And on Sunday, I went to a Chicks with Knives dinner. I have spent the last nine years or so throwing dinner parties for fun and very occasional profit. I got a book deal out of it, but I’ve gotten precious few reciprocal dinner invitations. And I’ve never gone to someone else’s supper club. (I was just about to go to Lightbulb Oven, but then she moved to Dallas–kills me!)

So I have fresh appreciation for anyone who has ever made the trek to Sunday Night Dinner, showing up totally cold in the middle of a strange neighborhood. And I’m sorry I couldn’t provide them with the fabulous digs I enjoyed at the Chicks with Knives event. Again, we were downtown–this time in a fabu loft. And the food was fantastic–I love hollandaise on anything, but who knew it would be so delicious on fennel? And I have to start making my own butter, stat.

And I have to start rounding up some more smarty-pants friends. New Yorkers–watch your backs. You think you’re the wittiest, most intellectual folks around, but, no offense, because you don’t have to drive home, you get pretty sloppy drunk by Hour Three and start repeating your jokes.

Which is about the only point in favor of a car culture that I can think of: staying sober enough to drive home leads to far more charming conversation. If you’re not sure how to cope without the sauce, please see the Dinner Party Download.

So we come relatively full circle. And because I have no other photos in this post, here’s a random one, from the cathedral downtown:

Reasons to Like Los Angeles, Part 1: Downtown
Reasons to Like Los Angeles, Part 2: Weirdness

Reasons to Like Los Angeles, Part 2: Weirdness

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about downtown L.A. It borders on weird, because of the architecture and the schizophrenic quality of it. And everything seems weirder when the sun is blazing down–the balmy weather somehow backfires in L.A., and gives everything a slightly dystopian feel. At least to my grumpy New York eyes. But some things are stranger than others.

That honor is reserved for the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I first read about this place in 1994, in a fabulously disorienting article in Harper’s by Lawrence Weschler; it still stands out as one of the best pieces of art criticism I’ve read. (I will violate all kinds of copyright laws by posting it here, until someone tells me not to. Really, you should read it.) I’ve loved Weschler ever since, and of course hankered to visit the museum.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t recreate Weschler’s experience, of walking into the place cold–I know too much. But I was surprised at just how much the exhibits could pull me in, even though I know their conceit. I spent an hour believing/not believing, and could have spent hours more.

Last fall, I saw David Wilson speak, and he presented a couple of the newer exhibits at the museum. At the time, I fell asleep. But in the context of the museum, with Wilson fully out of the way (behind some curtain somewhere, most likely), the strange Soviet science business and the ponderous films actually all worked together, and I was properly mesmerized.

Alas, I did not have time to enjoy tea and cookies in the salon upstairs. If you go, have some for me.

We also stopped by Watts Towers, which I somehow have never seen. I thought they were bigger. The fact that they’re kind of small makes them all the odder. And I didn’t realize how intricate the metal structures were. Nor that the guy had skipped town and never came back to revisit the place, even when the city got to arguing about the towers’ fate, before he even died.

In other weirdness, I much enjoyed the fact that the counter ladies at the China Cafe in the Grand Central Market (another downtown attraction) all spoke Spanish, and that the bulk-chile-and-beans vendors all seemed to be Chinese.

While I was snapping photos, some guys chatted me up (with the flawless opening line, “Take a picture of this guy–he’s a criminal!”) and made me realize how much I miss hearing the northern Mexican accent in New York. We have Mexicans now, and some of them even live in Astoria, but even they don’t really speak with that same just-over-the-border cadence. Raul and Martin congratulated me for taking the time to slow down and talk to them, even though I was one of those fast-moving New Yorkers. Then I actually had to say, “Gotta go–I hear my mom calling!”

I’ll get into the L.A. food stuff in the next post…

Reasons to Like Los Angeles, Part 1: Downtown

Reasons to Like Los Angeles, Part 1: Downtown

My epiphany, on my most recent trip to Los Angeles: L.A. is like the Queens of California. (San Francisco is the Brooklyn, natch.) As a New Yorker, I am duty-bound to think like this–the world revolves around us!

Queens is spread out, low-rise, disconnected communities with no real center. And it’s bursting with amazing food. Also, New Yorkers hate Queens because it embodies all the horrors of suburbia that they’re trying to escape.

Likewise with Los Angeles. New Yorkers–including my very own husband–hate the place on principle. (In fact, Peter just walked up behind me and saw the title of this post and shouted, “WRONG!” But, but…we live in Queens! We love Queens!)

Humph. I had a great trip! And it was sunny! And there was amazing food!

Some things I appreciated:

Downtown:

I was born in L.A., and I didn’t even know L.A. had a downtown! I guess it wasn’t up to much till very recently, but still. I saw lots of gorgeous old buildings, like the central library, where the murals are outstanding; the Bradbury Building, where the elaborate wrought-iron interior staircases are clearly the work of a deranged mind; and Oviatt’s, likewise deranged with Deco. When Peter’s mom dropped me in front of Oviatt’s to poke around, she advised me, “Sweet-talk your way in.” I suck at sweet-talking, but I did get to poke my in the store-turned-restaurant, where they were setting up for a wedding. Holy woodwork! We also got to leaf through the happy couple’s photo album, which was pretty funny.

But, as Lars von Trier says, you have to take the good with the evil, so there’s also a whole crazy office-park part of downtown, where great slabs of concrete are connected to other slabs by skyways and secret tunnels. Which I got a brief tour of with the guys from The Dinner Party Download (an excellent podcast that I love because I can imagine a world where dinner parties are a common thing, and where people don’t spend all of dinner talking about the food). We got to walk through the Bonaventure Hotel building, which is one of those ridiculous 1970s-vision-of-the-future creations that’s all curves and atriums and external glass elevators.

Aaand, that’s about all the attention span I have for today. More L.A. attractions to come…

Thailand, Digested: Bonus Bug Round

There’s a lot of weird stuff to eat in Asia: dogs, snakes, sketchy-looking eggs. And bugs.

I like food. I’ll taste almost anything. But I refuse to play the macho “what’s the weirdest thing you ever ate” game, and if I’m just not hungry, well…I’m just not hungry.

That’s what happened to Peter and me the day we finally saw bugs for sale. We had just spent several hours grazing heavily at Chatuchak and Or Tor Kor markets. First, we had some strawberries:

Strawberries

Then we had some fried chicken:

Chatuchak Chicken

Then we went to Or Tor Kor and ate all kinds of beautiful fruit. We didn’t have any durian, though, partially because they looked so menacing:

Sneaky Durians

Straight out of a sci-fi film. Imagine the stinky but strangely custardy aliens that would burst forth!

Anyway, we were finally trudging back to the SkyTrain when we passed the cart selling bugs. They were all deep-fried and covered in salt, and you could mix and match about five different varieties. Peter stopped. “Bugs?” he asked, halfheartedly. “Enh,” I answered, weakly. It was 3pm–naptime–and 95 degrees. We kept walking.

“I thought you’d be the one to talk me into it!” Peter said, with a shade of disappointment in his voice.

“Sorry–I’m stuffed,” I sighed. I did feel a little regretful.

Not long after we got home to New York, we invited a few people over for a bonanza Thai dinner. Peter pedaled off to the Thai grocery in the next neighborhood over. He came back with durian chips, dried shrimp, lemongrass, perky little ‘mouse-shit’ chilis…and frozen bugs.

They were labeled “crickets,” but lord help me if I ever see a live cricket that big. These crickets had full-on biceps and quadriceps. Even through the plastic wrap, I could see the texture in their wings.

To make them extra unappealing, they were labeled “fish bait”–to convince the FDA that no nutritional labeling was required. I gulped.

“How do we cook them?” Peter asked.

I told Peter that was his department, and tried to put the whole thing out of my head.

Fast-forward to dinnertime. A crowd of hungry friends is in the living room, eating crispy spring rolls. The fat is still hot in the wok.

“I’m gonna go ahead and cook these,” Peter said to me, “but I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to eat them.”

They sizzled and popped in the frying oil, and came out looking even more creepy and glossy. Peter sprinkled them with salt and sugar and whisked the plate out to the coffee table.


There was a short pause, a collective moment of anxiety, and then our friend Katie shrugged and popped one in her mouth.

“Huh, they’re good,” she said, shrugging again.

Well played, Ms. Trainor. Well played. Now of course we all felt like idiots and had to dig in. I eyeballed mine. His glossy head and torso looked like they would explode with goo when I bit in. I closed my eyes and chomped off the back half of the cricket.

In a single instant, the cricket transformed from horrifying over-large bug to…tasty bar snack. It was crispy and salty and would go great with a beer. And it was nearly hollow–any inner goo had been cooked away in the deep fryer.

As I marveled at the capacity of the human brain to transform everything into food, I chewed. And chewed. And chewed. I started to gag–I could feel the cricket’s hairy little legs scraping around in my mouth. They refused to succumb to my teeth, the bastards. I finally had to spit a nasty wad of gray, gritty stuff out into the trash. I was glad I wasn’t doing this on a Bangkok street.

About this time, I heard Katie–who is known for her ability to eat a chicken leg clean down to the bone–say from the other room, “Oh, yeah–they’re a little better if you pull the legs off first.”

I didn’t try another. But a couple people, including Peter, ate two or three. They were a hit. And now I know: next time I’ll rip the legs off. Because I’m an omnivore with an incredible capacity for rationalizing what I’m eating…but my teeth are not that powerful.

Thailand, Digested: Top 5 Delights, Part 1

Grilled BananasOK, before we begin, I just want to make something very clear–something that other people failed to do for me before I visited Thailand. (To be fair, Cristina did come closest to warning me, in the way her eyes gleamed when she talked about the place.)

Sure, I read that the Thais have a very strong food culture. Yes, I knew they were into street food. Yes, I was sure Thai food in Thailand would be very different from what we get in restaurants here. But this did not even begin to scratch the surface of the truth:

The Thais are complete maniacs about food!

Really. Slavering maniacs. In the best possible way. I have never been anywhere where people are so food obsessed. I’ve been to France. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve been to Aleppo, where everything is delicious and people talk about food all the time.

But none of this was anything like Thailand. People are eating 24 hours a day. You cannot walk a block in Bangkok without passing some stall selling food. And not just, like, hot dogs. This is food that involves a dozen ingredients, and it’s made to order. Food that is deep-fried on the spot. Food that is simmered to perfection. Food that is savory. Food that is sweet. Food that is mind-blowingly both.

I left Thailand more than two weeks ago, and I still quite can’t believe all that I saw and ate, and we barely scratched the surface. So, to bring some arbitrary order to the buzzed incoherence, I put together a short list of the best things we ate. And because I got too enthusiastic while typing, I broke each item into a separate post. So:

1) Cockles and mussels. This was the night the true bizarreness of Thai food culture finally sank in. We walked all day through Chinatown, which, because it was Sunday, happened to be mostly closed. We had some dumplings and some noodles with spicy beef and also some meat on a stick, and some odd little deep-fried puffs. Like I said, most everything was closed.

Late in the afternoon, we finally got over to a dedicated market zone, but everyone was closing up shop. I got a charger for my phone for $2, so it wasn’t a complete loss. We figured we’d wander back to the nearest metro stop and skip out of this dead neighborhood. The area was also oddly dirty. (This is another thing no one told me about Thailand: the Thais are total clean freaks. Not a shred of lettuce on the ground in a market, for instance.)

And that was when we turned onto Thanon Yaowarat.

While we’d been walking around in the shuttered business-y part of Chinatown, half of Bangkok was setting up the dinner stalls along this street. And the other half of Bangkok had arrived to eat. Imagine the strip in Vegas, but with all the neon in Thai and Chinese characters, and instead of casinos, restaurants selling various parts of pigs. And then add a second layer of sidewalk restaurants.

We wound up on a side street called Soi Texas, where every sort of seafood was available. Which was where we sat by a street cart and ate the clammiest little cockles, with black-bean sauce, and meaty mussels, all shucked by a husband-wife-daughter team who were totally in the zone.

Cockles and Mussels

After this, as well as some satay from some other alley, we finally staggered out of Chinatown. We went to a crazy-deluxe movie theater (Barca-lounger seats, with pillows and blankets) at a mall, but not before getting briefly lost on the ground-floor food court. Which was, of course, mobbed (I thought everyone was in Chinatown!) and delicious-looking, even in its upscale-ness. After the movie, we staggered out of the mall and peered over the SkyTrain platform onto the street below. And of course the street was lined with street carts, all of which were thronged with customers. That’s when Peter and I just started laughing out loud.

Sidewalk Food Stalls

To be continued….

**For more pics, see my Flickr set.***

RIP, Khun Samak

Just read the obituary of briefly-prime-minister-of-Thailand Samak Sundaravej in the Economist.

His most famous recipe, “Pork Legs in Coca-Cola,” began with the straightforward instruction: “Place five pig legs in a large pot. Pour over four bottles of Coca-Cola.”

samak-mercadoCoca-Cola notwithstanding, this guy was a serious cook. He had his own TV show, called “Tasting and Ranting.” (I call dibs on that as a title for a food show here in the US.) He had a signature paste (coriander, white pepper, garlic and fish sauce). He went market shopping himself.

Oh, yeah, and he was also kind of dick and may have encouraged the burning-alive of some student protesters in 1976.

This is exactly what I was saying in that earlier Momofuku post about professional kitchens being the perfect place for rigid perfectionists.

Much the way the NFL is a healthy outlet for guys who otherwise might be in prison on homicide charges, professional kitchens are where would-be iron-fist dictators can carry out a purge without actually killing any unarmed civilians. And, as a bonus, they’ll cook amazing food and the public will adore them.

Politics is altogether more complicated. Khun Samak, I’m not excusing anything, but congrats on continuing your cooking show while in office, and for getting the boot from politics because of it. If you hadn’t, things might’ve been a whole lot worse for Thailand.

Aleppo Falafel

Thanks to Syrian Foodie, I am now starving. But starving in the way only a plane ticket can fix.

Syrian falafel rocks the house. No mucky tahini to make things heavy–just really tart yogurt and tons of fresh mint and tomatoes. And the really skilled sandwich makers (I assume this guy too, though he’s working so fast I can’t see) break up the falafel a little bit, so it’s in crumbly pieces in the sandwich.

And I can I just add how great it is that Syrian men seem to love the camera? And they’d better not change that movie poster before I get back to Aleppo! How else am I going to find the place?

Confessions of an Introverted Traveler (Me Too!)

I don’t read World Hum quite enough–there’s always some good take on travel there.

The most recent good thing is this essay by Sophia Dembling, Confessions of an Introverted Traveler.

So true, sister! I struggle with the extroversion/introversion thing all the time. I love the idea of throwing parties (and getting all ready for them), but in practice I really prefer to stay home at least five nights out of seven.

When I travel, I do get a little more lively, but not much. Flipping through guidebooks, I get excited at the sight of various bars and clubs and events, but what it all boils down to, usually, is sitting in a cafe and watching the world go by.

The only real problem with being a relatively introverted traveler, I’ve found, is that it puts you on the defensive, rather than the offensive. Because I’m not busy chatting up the most interesting-looking person in a bar, I’m a sitting duck for anyone who decides I look intriguing. I have met some great people this way, but it often leaves me smiling gamely at someone for a long stretch (I am terrible at extricating myself), and then dashing off to my hotel for a much-needed rest.

And, alas, I’ve just never been one of those people who has fabulous international romances. It sounds like such a great idea, and surely would help my foreign-language skills, but I just can’t do it. The one time I did try it (he made the first move, of course), it did not pan out well at all. No, reader, I did not kill him, as he chattered on in the passenger seat.

So you might wonder how I handle being a guidebook author? It involves traveling alone, for the most part, and getting information from people. I admit, my books are not packed with the collected wisdom of everyone I met in the hostel that night. But the very fact of having the job does make me a little more outgoing–I’m on a mission. I remember talking about this with another Lonely Planet writer at an author workshop years ago. “I’m not normally nosy,” she said. “At home, I’d never walk up to a crowd of people on the street and ask them what they’re all looking at, or standing in line for, or whatever. But when I’m on the road, it’s like I’m a different person. It’s my job to go up and find out what’s so interesting.”

I can’t say I feel quite so transformed on the road, but sheer boredom on trips can drive me to chat with people I wouldn’t ordinarily, and that often gives me some great information I wouldn’t have found any other way. And it reminds me that I don’t actually dislike talking to strangers–I just don’t want to do it more than maybe an hour a day.

Anyway, thanks for writing this, Sophia.

Oh, and for sharing this wisdom in the comments:

To digress, one of the first rules my father taught me about flea marketing was, “Never buy anything from anyone wearing a funny hat.” He believed that if they need that much attention, their prices would be inflated.

Oh, and the recommendation of the book Introvert Power. I feel better already, just having put the title on my request list at the library. (Bookstore: too much of a social space.)

Syria–Be Careful What You Wish For

For photos and more anecdotes, see my Flickr set.

My mother has this saying, “It’s hell having a good time.” Best uttered near the tail end of a party, when exhausted, or when the logistics of entertaining oneself prove very challenging.

Also, to oneself when lying in bed, bloated with delicious food.

I signed up for a culinary tour of Syria because I love Syria and I love Syrian food. Makes sense, right? Let’s just say I didn’t really think through the implications of the phrase “group trip”–ie, that we did everything as a group. And that was a lot of things, and never really included naps.

Maybe I do more stuff in a day when I’m on a research trip, but, hey, that’s work. Syria was my big vacation. So when I had to roll out of bed the first day after just five hours of sleep, it felt a little rough. Actually, it felt like karmic payback for nearly wrecking my mother during my research trip to Spain.

Granted, I’m inherently lazy, and there’s something to be said for making me do stuff. But, ohhh, I never thought I would complain about having to eat so much in such a short time. But here I am.

What we ate was remarkable. It happened to be the season for rose-petal jam, so there was quite a lot of that. Also, of artichokes–though I think the Syrians are so into sour that they sometimes forget salty, and artichokes need a lot of salt; some we ate were quite bland and didn’t have that special zing.

It was also the season for desert truffles, or kama’. I’d never had them before, and I started to get worried that we wouldn’t get any, because it was supposedly near the end of the season. Not to worry–at a massive dinner at the Club d’Alep, they were served two ways. I could only muster a couple of bites, though, because yet again, I’d managed to eat too much that day, and each bite of that dinner felt like it might be my last, before a Monty Python-esque explosion.

They were intriguing. Nice dense mushroomy texture, with a mellow, kind of all-purpose spring-vegetable taste that lasted a surprisingly long time. Nothing at all like European truffles, of course, but then neither are Mexican truffles, or huitlacoche. “Truffle” is the new “Riviera,” in terms of creative naming.

We also tasted quite a lot of varieties of kibbeh. I rarely order it myself, because it just doesn’t seem all that interesting. But we had a very nice grilled rendition, filled with a molten center of pomegranate molasses and nut paste, and the more I looked around, the more varieties I saw and tasted.

Sweets

One night mid-trip, I was lying in bed, again in some digestive misery, and it dawned on me that my money would probably have been better spent on, say, a trip to China, where I really do need someone to lead me around and translate, and to explain the food to me.

And then I woke up the next day, and we went to Pistache d’Alep, a fancy bakery, and visited the kitchens. Not being a huge sweets fan, I wasn’t expecting much. But, whoa. Words cannot begin to convey the complete niftiness of the industrial equipment at work, and the depth of craftsmanship in all the meticulous handwork. I put up a whole separate Flickr set just for the bakery trip. Don’t skip the videos.

After having my mind boggled by all the weird sweets-producing technology, we had coffee (and more sweets!) with Willy Wonka himself, who used to live on Long Island. His right-hand man, Hassan, expounded on food in a philosophical way that reminded me of Ali.

We absolutely must eat seasonally, he said, because our health comes from nature–not only is it wrong to eat oranges in the summer, he said, it’s bad for your health too. While he was saying this, however, this was going on outside the windows of the cafe:

I cannot explain…

Getting Schooled

The other really outstanding thing we did was go to the house of a woman chef for a cooking demonstration and big lunch. I could’ve sat there for days and watched her stuff eggplants. We occasionally were put to work, but kind of botched it. Here she is impatiently emptying out a mis-stuffed eggplant and refilling it the proper way.

I also learned the dirty secret to muhammara, the red-pepper-and-walnut paste: sugar. Loads of it. Also, citric acid. Apparently all the restaurants use citric acid instead of lemon juice, because the flavor doesn’t go off as fast. Of course purists frown on this, but still fascinating to know. Will mentally file with judicious use of MSG.

Solo in Damascus

After that was all over, and I bid fond adieu to my fellow travelers (the actual group part of the ‘group trip’ was excellent), I got on a train back to Damascus. On previous trips, I’ve spent just about all my time in Aleppo, so aside from a memorable nap in the Umayyad Mosque and some excellent blackberry juice just outside it, I had little impression of Damascus.

So it was a double treat to explore a new city, and to do it completely on my own terms with no schedule whatsoever. I really just wandered aimlessly for three days, eating street snacks and taking photos.

I did get a good scrub at a hammam, and drank myself nearly sick on frozen lemonades and mulberry juice. My last night in Damascus, after the one lemon slush I really didn’t need, I collapsed on my bed in a mild sugar shock.

Some random observations: Syrian men are exceedingly polite (I even witnessed a man chide his son for making flirtatious noises at me–export to Egypt, please!), but they are also giant hams. Some of the most fun I had was taking pictures of all the guys who begged me to. I was very glad to have a digital camera.

Syria seems like a notably less paranoid place than when I first visited 10 years ago. Change is happening. And here’s hoping the US doesn’t somehow screw it up with some ham-fisted negotiations.

It’s also a far less cheap place than when I first visited. That’s probably rough for Syrians, but OK by me–it used to be embarrassing how cheap it was. Now it’s on par with Egypt, roughly.

Syria is still the only place in the world I’ve gone back to just because I like it so much–if it’s possible to have a crush on a country, I suppose I do. And I’d still go back–maybe next time in the fall, for a whole range of different seasonal treats.

For photos and more anecdotes, see my Flickr set.

Syria Pics

In an amazing turnaround, I’ve managed to put them all up online within less than 24 hours of my return home!

Check out the Flickr set here.

That, however, does not include the real highlight of the trip, which was a visit to the basement lair of Pistache d’Alep, a sweet shop in Aleppo, where we got to see how all the various thready, flaky, crispy, crunchy, nutty things were made. It kind of blew my mind. So there’s a separate Flickr set all for that, which includes this video:

I love the music that happens to be playing in the background of the first clip. It really set the tone for wacky sweet shop hijinks. Imagine that on endless loop, a battalion of sixteen-year-old boys running around, giant bubbling cauldrons, flour hanging in the air and bizarrely specific industrial machinery, and you have a small hint of what it was like down there. Oh, plus, add lots of butter.