There and back again- Wed 5/20/09

Dear Friends and Family,

In general, New Zealand has been great. There is something about this place...Actually, that's silly. For every place worth writing about, one might say, "there is something about this place." The problem in New Zealand is one of describing extreme physical beauty. It falls flat to say that this is one of the most beautiful places in the world. That says everything but describes nothing. It is not enough to talk about waterfalls, moss covered forests and ancient fiords carved out by glaciers. That doesn't bring you there at all. I'm at a loss. I just don't feel equal to the task at the moment. (See pictures below)

I spent the first 3 weeks hiking in the Fiordland in the South Island. Ari joined me for a week and continually said things like, "This is amazing" and "Oh my God" and other related commentary. I decided after the hiking to increase my altitude somewhat for an even better view by getting licensed to paraglide.

The internet tells me that paragliding is safe. It says that there is, in a bad year, only a .2% chance of dying in a paragliding accident. It says the equipment is foolproof and that the main reasons people get killed are that they make bad decisions, fly in poor conditions, or are extreme athletes pushing the limits of what is possible.

They have clearly never met Yeves, the French guy taking the paragliding course with me. He is a danger to himself and possibly livestock and has, in just a few short days managed to, crash into a hill, overshoot a landing (barely escaping death by tree-trunk castration), failed to take off numerous times and on at least one occasion bailed out of a bad take-off within feet of a big cliff. The hairs on my neck stand up every time I watch him fly. Forgetting the trees and the cliffs for a minute, how the hell do you crash into a hill? It's huge and green and you are heading right for it...try turning!!

Despite this, I still think it is pretty safe. Not for Yeves and people like him, but for people like me who are not accident prone. I'll pause here to let everyone's laughter subside. (For those who don't know my medical history, I've been in multiple car accidents (only two of which were my fault), I've had a rare paralysis tick make a home near my crotch, I've had to get 14 stitches in my forehead after a dancing mishap, I once punctured my eardrum on a blade of grass, just to name a few.) I'm not exactly the poster-child for airborne adventure sports. If I haven't called in a while my mother still answers the phone by saying, "Oh my God, what now?"

Still and all, I've thoroughly enjoyed soaring in the clear blue skies above New Zealand. I've watched the Frenchman nearly off himself a number of times, but I haven't had any difficulties at all and I plan on keeping it that way. That nearly brings you all up to date on my activities at present.

I have less than a week to go before I head home and I'm starting to get pretty nervous. I don't have a job yet, I'm out of money and, if the news is to be believed(and we must always believe the news), you all have swine flu.

I'd like to share a recurring paranoia that might, in a round-about way, shed some light on my mindset about my return home. Whenever I decide to shave after an extended period of beard growth, I always experience a brief panic. "What if my chin has somehow become hideously disfigured? I haven't seen it in a while. Anything is possible. What if, gasp, it's not even there at all and there is just empty space below my lower lip where my chin used to be?" I usually get a grip pretty quickly, boldly shave off the hair and find that my chin is intact but perhaps a little bit pale from lack of sunlight. It's like seeing an old friend again after a long journey.

After past travels, people have wanted to know how the trip affected me. What I have learned about myself. That sort of thing. I find it difficult to look back on a trip like this and come to any conclusions at all. The trip isn't over after all and I'd rather not force it. There is usually time for reflection later, after the dust settles. I think that is just the way I like it.

My preliminary thoughts are these: I'm tired. I miss my family and friends. I'm glad I left and equally glad to be coming home. I want to live in Brooklyn, New York for the conceivable future.

And that, as they say, is that.

Thank you all for keeping me sane in the wilderness. See you soon.

Love,
Alex

The Remarkables

Milford Sound

Fiordland- Above the clouds

Mountain Pass- Milford Track
Hairy man flying!



Ciao.

Fire/Water‏- Wed 4/15/09

Dear Y'all,

Don't you just love it when you are checking your e-mail and a pair of elephants trundle by?

I rolled into Bangkok, one of my favorite cities in the world, Monday at 5am. I hadn't been here for 6 years but I found my way through empty streets I remembered well, as though caught in a dream where the people had been removed but everything was just the way I had left it. I found the same guesthouse. I was put in the room next to the room I had stayed in. It was all a bit eerie.

Within a few hours, the streets were packed with people celebrating the New Year. It should be noted that this is a water holiday and across Laos and Thailand and possibly other countries as well, people arm themselves with water guns and buckets and spend the next three days soaking anyone who comes within range. Also, they distribute clay packets and it is considered good luck to have a few dozen total strangers spread slop across your face and clothing. (Come to think of it, I wonder how clean that water is?)

It is fantastic fun provided you give up any notion of staying even remotely dry. You just follow the press of people and try to give as good as you get. Too cheap to spring for the super-soaker, I rigged a series of large water bottles into a makeshift water-cannon by strategically punching the caps with the bamboo spit from a hastily devoured chicken kabob. Nobody suspects the innocent looking tourist carrying a water bottle of having a concealed arsenal of ice-cold heavy artillery.

So that's the fun part. Across town, anti-government riots are reaching a fever pitch. Protestors have been killed and hundreds wounded. Buses have been set on fire and the police are switching from rubber bullets to live rounds. While we play around with plastic pistols and mud, distant automatic gunfire is being drowned out by the dance music from all the outdoor speakers.

I could be getting a little too old for this, or it could be undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, but three days of non-stop booze-fueled, water-soaked, muddy partying is a bit too much for me. Well, now that I think about it, three days straight doing nearly anything is usually too much for me. I explored the first day, basically hid the second, and tonight I'm planning to throw on a bathing suit and get rowdy. Still, with the specter of violence in the background I thought it would be wiser not to overstay my welcome so I'm leaving earlier for New Zealand.

Hugs,
Alex

This is so me- Sat 4/11/09

Dear Connoisseurs of This and That,

One of the first things I learned in Bali, thanks to the generosity of my hosts, is that if you are seeking the perfect drink to go along with Southeast Asian cuisine, nothing (and I mean nothing) beats a nice bottle of Dom Perignon '93.

The problem is that once you have tried this vintage, by comparison all others will come up short and perhaps even taste offensive.

There are, I'm sure, spheres of appreciation that evade this metaphor but it applies itself very well to temples.

(I'm generally not easily impressed with the things mankind has built. The Taj Mahal is a dream. I have a personal weakness for great Gothic cathedrals. I'm sure there are others I haven't seen yet that would be on the list.)

A few days ago I went to see just a few of the many temples at Angkor. Now, well...Holy Cow. They set the bar and I don't think it will be touched for a long, long time. The only way they could be better is if I was wandering through the jungles with a machete and happened to come across them and they were filled with mysterious objects like fist sized rubies and holy grails. This will never happen since I'm a little phobic about booby traps, vipers and giant jungle spiders (which they fry and eat here). So, like the hordes of other people, I payed a lot for admission and got a tuk-tuk to drive me on the 20 km circuit.

The biggest is Angkor Wat. It is bloody massive. That is the third thing you notice. The first is that it's gorgeous and the second is that it is highly symmetrical. The third thing is that it goes on and on and on. When you finally make to to the other side, it is rather hard to believe you made it. The outer walls are longer than a football field. They ring three nested courtyard, each one 20-30 ft higher than the one before. There are endless bas reliefs, endless corridors, epic spires. The good stuff. It really defies description so make sure you check the blog for pictures.

The second temple we saw was the famous Bayon temple. It has great big faces hewn into its spires, facing all directions. The temple is so heavily carved, crenelated and stacked upon itself that there is little room in the passageways for people. Many of the spires are so damaged that there are gaping holes in them letting through ghostly shafts of sunlight. This is the temple of my dreams.

Strangely, the main thing I thought about while clamoring up its near-vertical steps and through its narrow passages was that it would be an absolutely spectacular place to play hide and go seek. (Mental note- Bring future kids when they are old enough)

The third is Ta Phrom, better known as the temple from the "Tomb Raider" movie. It is in the worst shape of all, due in part to the merging of jungle and stone. It has incredible trees growing, around and through it. Everyone's favorite is known to Cambodians as the "Spung" tree. Its roots look like enormous pythons dripping like wax over the stones.

These are the Dom Perignon of temples. There may be nothing else on the planet that can touch them. That severely cuts down on my list of "things still to see." In that moment I became a bit sad, but I was comforted when I realized that I was actually far more interested in the trees than I was in the temples. They are almost as old, and while the temples, particularly the last one, are falling to bits, they are looking strong and still growing. They didn't have to try hard to do this, they just sprang up and the temple never had a chance.

I think we might be glorifying the wrong things. I remember back to my last trip around the world. While in Singapore I was told to check out the highest man-made waterfall in the world. Sounded good but when I arrived there was a little trickle of water falling down a high rock wall. I just went to see the "famous" caves upriver from Luang Prabang, Laos. Famous because people built concrete steps up the rock wall and left thousands of little Buddha sculptures there over time. That was about as exciting as an average burp. Why do I keep going to these places? I must be hoping for some more Dom Perignon.

It is time to face facts. There are no more man-made sights I need to see in this neck of the world. Period. It is time to raise my game a bit and head to where the real party is. I'm referring of course to the South Island of New Zealand, which is my next stop after a quick shopping spree in Bangkok. There, the water is pure, the mountains are remarkable, some of the trees are rumored to date back to the birth of Christ, and nobody gives a damn who builds the biggest shed for their sheep.

Later,

Alex

Angkor Wat at Sunrise
Inner Courtyard of Angkor Wat

Central Temple (Off limits unfortunately)

Bayon Temple

Walking through Bayon Temple


Bayon Faces

Ta Prohm Temple
The amazing "spung" tree



Amazing huh?

Pig Perfect‏- Sun 3/29/09

(Apologies for yet another e-mail about killing animals. If you are sensitive to this, skip down to the second part. I've left a gap so you know where it is safe to read from. I hope.)

Dear Hungry Hippos,

As it turns out, it is hard to spit roast a 73lb pig (no pun intended). There are complications in this country that are pretty intense. Hygiene, for example, is a difficult thing to stay perfectly principled about. Transporting a muscular, squirming, screaming pig, from one village to another by motorbike, is another. But let's start at the beginning.

The thought process was simple. Almost every Balinese person I know goes apeshit about Babi Guling. Therefore, a good way to thank the staff was to produce a babi guling feast and invite everyone. Everyone would get their favorite food and I would learn how to cook it. I enlisted experienced help from the bartender at my restaurant. Apparently the guy is an absolute pro when it comes to dispatching swine. My host offered us his gorgeous compound in a nearby village as a venue. I put up some money and labor.

I arrived at the compound at 8am and met Poleng (the bartender) and 6 of his friends from the village. As they got to work setting everything up, Poleng and I got on my scooter and buzzed over to the next town to pick up the pig.

I had never seen a "pig farm" in Bali before. This one was situated in the back of a traditional family compound. It's kind of like entering another gangs' turf for business. Everyone is checking you out, wondering why you are there, where you came from. We passed a grandmother, putting the finishing touches on one of those large wooden shlongs they sell at the markets here. Way in the back was where the pigs were kept in concrete pens.

Frankly, I expected it to be a whole lot dirtier but it was really, really clean. There wasn't a lot of room or much in the way of piggy amenities, but the staff was constantly hosing them off and cleaning dirt out of the pens. The pigs actually seemed...happy.

That is, until three guys dropped down into a cell and threw a beautiful white one into a burlap sack, screaming the entire time. The others all knew what was happening and started to scream too, standing up against the walls of their stalls and trying to bite at the men as they climbed up with their cargo.

It was not pretty.

The pig struggled from within the bag and crapped itself. The men weighed it, took my money, and hauled it off to where the motorbike was parked.

Then, with me driving, Poleng put a plastic bag on his lap and held the squirming, stinky bundle as we drove slowly back to the compound.

I don't know how I feel about relating the rest.

Poleng tied the front and back legs and put a large metal bowl underneath. Then he made a quick thrust with a small knife to the base of the throat, severing the artery and the pig bled out, while I held it down. It was awful.

Then we laid it out in a tray and scalded off the hair. The entrails were removed through the smallest incision possible so that the body would be less likely to split open during roasting. Then we did a remarkable thing. We used everything.

[GAP]

We cleaned the intestines. We minced literally all the offal. We combined it with duck eggs, many spices and some flour and then stuffed us some sausage. The leftover intestines were sectioned, salted and deep fried.

In the meantime, the pig was spitted on a stout hibiscus branch. We stuffed the body cavity with spices and cassava leaves and sowed it up with a thread made out of the stout but flexible part of the banana leaf.

The rig for the spit was formed from sections of banana tree trunk. The banana trunk is like nested corrugated cardboard and it is strong enough to support weight but soft enough to drive a bamboo stake through. We made two 2-foot high walls in this fashion, 6 feet apart and built a fire. The banana trunk is so wet that the fire will singe but not burn it. When the fire was ready, we pushed it to one side and lay the spit with the pig across the two walls. As the spit started to rotate, it sank a bit into the banana trunks that were supporting it. In this way it not only formed its own groove, but the wetness of the trunk lubricated the spit and made it turn more easily. That is Balinese engineering at its finest.

We bathed the pig repeatedly in grated turmeric and water and in just three short hours the skin was beautifully golden and crispy as caramel. Once it started sagging off the spit we knew it was done.

Next to it, on a different spit, we wound the sausage and grilled that too.

Between that, some extras and the huge amount of lawar that the guys made, we had a feast fit for a Balinese King, which is exactly what I wanted to give to the staff to thank them for 6 months of amazing kindness and friendship.

They never showed.

That's not entirely accurate. A decent number of the male staff came (The
managers, a few cooks and the dishwashers) but 100% of the female staff did not.

I was crestfallen. What kept them away? Where did I go wrong? Also, how could twenty people finish off 25 kilograms of slow roasted pork, 10 kilos of sausage, 20 kilos of lawar, and 5 kilos of deep fried fat and offal...plus rice? It was hard to figure.

So I made four of the worlds largest doggie-bags, hung them off various parts of my scooter and drove to Ubud to bring the feast to them at each of the restaurants.

They were all happy to see me and apologized for not showing up.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Oh, Malu alEC."
That means 'shy'...

Aparently it was too nerve-racking for them to go to their boss's family compound. Too uncomfortable. Too socially strange. Too...American.

It's funny. We generally view equality through the lens of accomplishment. The lawyers would never invite the janitors to their party. The doctors would never invite the orderlies. Here, the women are the pariahs, staying home while the managers whoop it up with the dishwashers. It's a strange brand of egalitarianism. Maybe it is American after all...early American.

My host remarked that the pig was one of the best he had ever had. I did agree and made no effort to be humble because I didn't really cook it. Like everything else here, it was communal effort with me playing a minor role...unless you count the eating part because I played a major role in that.

I learned a ton. I could even replicate it in the states if I had enough time to track down substitute ingredients. I'm sorry I had to kill a pig but if you are going to eat pig, I believe you should be willing to get your hands dirty. Plus, I apologized to her, thanked her, and wasted nothing. That's about as respectful as a predator can be without changing his diet. As I've said before about chickens, if I had to kill one every time I wanted meat...I would eat a lot less meat.

So that's it for Bali. I'm actually finishing this e-mail in the airport in Hong Kong on my way to 'Nam (Things work here...it's weird). I hope you have enjoyed my stories. There are more to come but for now I'm a bit sad and already wish I was back in a place without a starbucks every ten meters and where fewer things made sense.

All the best,
Alex

Making Lawar

Getting ready

Grillin'

Grillin' on video

Food, Glorious Food- Sat 3/21/09

Dear Everyone,

This may be my last letter from Bali so it is fitting that it should be about the things that brought me all this way.

About a month ago, I discovered an interesting thing that some of the locals spend time doing when the rest of us are asleep.

Usually, I get off my shift at the restaurant buzzing and not at all ready to go to bed(despite needing to), so I go to the only internet place that is open late and spend some time. They close around 1:00am and I head home on empty streets, dodging dogs. This is the witching hour in Ubud.

On a particular day that week, I passed a group of men in shorts and flip-flops carrying large air rifles with even larger scopes. They were circling around a big tree.

I simply had to turn around to get a closer look.

I pulled up alongside them and asked what was up.

"Bats, Bro."
"Really?!" I must have made a face.
"Hahaha. Ya."

It's not every night you see a group of heavily armed hunters stalking downtown Ubud. I imagine it would be much like seeing men in the wee hours, tracking pigeons on Wall Street.

I cruised home and came across another group. This one staking out another big tree on the steep hill that leads to my house. Half the men were hunkered down in the shadows. The other half were taking shots while one of them pointed a large flashlight into the branches. Nothing was coming down but when I pulled over to watch, one of the guys held up a large bat by the wing and chuckled.

Turns out they chop off the wings and heads, skin them and make a dish called Gerang Assem. It's sort of a curry without coconut milk that the Balinese have great affection for. I had previously thought that it was made with the losing bird in a cockfight, but I guess there are no hard and fast rules about things like that here.

I am beginning to see what it takes to be a man in this place. In addition to being married and a chain-smoker, you've got to love your dog (but not in public), stroke your cock (especially before a big fight), and be batty about stew (I know some think that the pun is the lowest form of humor but sometimes you just can't resist).

Back in the present, all of Bali is celebrating a festival called Galungan. The streets are lined with long trunks of bamboo elaborately wrapped in all manner of palm fronds and bamboo leaves. The tips taper to a string from which hangs a sort of basket that is filled with offerings to the gods. The weight of the baskets pulls on the bamboo and arcs them out into the road in festive arches. It is quite lovely to drive down the street and just take it all in. Troupes of kids dressed in white tromp around carrying Barongs, which are huge, benevolent monster puppets that take two people to operate from the inside and remind me a lot of Chinese dragons. Gamelan music is everywhere. There are actually three days of celebrations for three different holidays but people just call the whole thing Galungan and that's that. Also, no one seems to know what it is all about.

"It's Galungan" They say.
"Yeah, but why are we celebrating?"
"We do this every six months."
"Yeah, but what are we celebrating?"
Stares.

A half Balinese girl I have become friends with told me that it is the Balinese Christmas...
"Yeah, but why are we celebrating?"
"Hmmm. I don't know. We just celebrate."

So I asked a westerner living in Bali who has read some books. I can't verify the truth of what she related to me but she said that at some point in history, there was a twin boy and girl born to the royal family. They were compelled to marry each other and their son was not only horribly ugly, but he was a great leader. He ushered in a new age of science and prosperity and because he had more or less abandoned the Hindu ways, he was assassinated. The people celebrated a return to Hinduism and that is what Galungan is all about.

Okay. That's not what it's been about for me.

For me it's been about stuffing my face with pig, 50 different ways.

I woke up with a call from my host. "Come to my family compound. We made some food." When I arrived there was a large table piled high with the following platters: A plate of sausage, a bowl of babi Kecap (basically sweet, stewed pig knuckles), tum (packets of pork and spices cooked in small envelopes of banana leaf), deep fried slices of pork belly (a personal favorite...maybe you can relate), three different lawar (it's like a salad of chopped long bean with chopped pork skin, coconut, fried shallots and garlic, the raw blood of the pig and some spices). I don't know what possessed them to make three different ones but there they were. Balinese are really passionate about lawar. Oh yeah, there was rice too.

After dangerously stuffing myself, I returned home and napped for a few hours before going to work. At work, they had made lawar and babi kecap for staff meal so I noshed a little. Then I left for an hour to go to a ceremony at one of the cooks' house.

It was his baby's three month ceremony, which means that his son has been elevated off the ground for the last three months (as dictated by tradition) and that was the day he got to touch down.

I had to go back to work before the end of the ceremony and the food, so when it was all finished, he drove half an hour to the restaurant with the hindquarter of a spit-roasted suckling pig (my favorite) and we all got to eat just a bit more pork.

I wish I could say that I was going to be doing a fruit juice cleanse after all this gluttony but I don't think it is in the cards.

Nope. This week is all about tying up culinary loose end by learning all the dishes I haven't yet had a chance to at the restaurant. It will culminate next Monday when I kill and spit roast an entire pig AND make a lawar of my own (with some professional assistance). I'm doing this to thank the staff at the restaurants for all their help and kindness over the last 6 months. It also gives me a good excuse to learn how to make these crucial dishes.

A disturbing number of the dishes I have learned this week require ingredients that I've never seen in the States. Take for example the smoked duck I promised to tell you all about. It has the following increasingly bewildering list of ingredients:

1)Shallot 2) Garlic 3)A duck 4) Hot and Red Chili 5)Coriander seeds 6)Pepper 7)Salt 8)Nutmeg 9)Oil 10)Lemongrass 11) Daun Salam (Balinese Basil) 12)Ginger 13) Fresh Turmeric 14)Galangal 15)Kencur (Lesser galangal???) 16)Shrimp Paste 17)Candlenuts (no substitute) 18)Fresh Cassava Leaves 19)I'm told there is one or two secret ingredients that are preventing my dish from reaching it's flavor potential. Anyway, after creating a paste out of the first 17 ingredients, you make a thick stew and boil the bird, stuffed with the same ingredients and some blanched, chopped cassava leaf, for at least two hours but hopefully more. You are supposed to smoke it overnight but who has the time...or the smoker? After it is tender and properly spiced, you cover it in more spice and cassava leaves, wrap it in banana leaves and then in foil and roast it for another 45 min. At this point it will taste at least as good as the second best thing you have every eaten but not as good at it could. I'll get it right eventually though (even if I have to grow the ingredients myself). Hopefully some of you will be the beneficiaries. You can also do this with chicken, which is really good too.

Whew. I'm tired and hungry. I'm leaving for Vietnam in about a week but it's just busy, busy, busy until then. Thank you guys for all your letters over the last months. They have really kept me going and have meant more to me than the actual trip itself.

I'm excited to resume the backpacker lifestyle. I'll write as often as I can.

Love,
Alex

3-Month Ceremony For Baby.

Galungan Decorations on every road.

Stick a fork in me...‏ - Wed 3/04/09

Dear Everyone,

I thought I was living in the jungle but is becoming increasingly obvious that I haven't left the farm. Today, the neighbor's pig got loose and when I left the house, he was happily munching on the plants lining the rice fields. I had to literally step over him to get to my motorbike. The fields themselves are heavy with rice, ready to be harvested. In the morning, I've been getting torn from sleep by a rooster I have started to call "The Warden". He goes from one end of the walkway to the other crowing until he reaches my house and bellows directly into my bedroom window for fifteen minutes. It is all I can do to refrain from going out there with my Balinese chopping knife. Perhaps it is my lot in life to be surrounded with loud, unruly animals (Is life in New York City any different?) Unfortunately, my friend Antonia had to suffer through this during her stay but we left town pretty quickly to SCUBA dive in the islands.

I'm calling her visit the "Culinary Tour of Bali." We did almost nothing but stuff our faces and hang out underwater. It was quite lovely and I got to introduce her to many classic local food items.

There is the ubiquitous Nasi Bungkus, the fried grease bombs with rice that the locals eat three times a day. We sampled the babi guling (roast suckling pig). We dabbled in goat sate and its equally delicious accompanying soup of goat offal. We slurped noodles and Bakso, which is a ball of any kind of smushed up meat, combined with cornstarch and egg to bind it together, cooked in soup.

(As a sidenote, the newspaper, after Obama was elected, had a front page article with the title "Obama Kangen Bakso" (Obama misses Bakso). Indonesians love that he lived here for a time.)

We ate grilled seafood on the beach...A lot of grilled seafood on the beach. We had an
exceptional duck feast, and we finished off the grand tour with another feast at the night market in Seminyak which serves that delicious squid I have gone on and on about. We ordered a whole grilled snapper, a whole grilled squid, a few tiger shrimp, a bunch of grilled clams, along with the usual green vegetables and rice, washed down with a couple of beers (all for $10). Not a bad sendoff after a nice trip, if you ask me. I also watched them prepare the tomato sambal that I said was the best thing for seafood ever. I witnessed another step that those cheeky ladies "forgot" to tell me about. They grilled the tomatoes before grinding them for the sambal. Just think of the flavors that would add.

But the real star of the show was the duck feast that I just ghosted over. The dish is called Bebek Tutu (smoked duck) and the recipe will have to remain a mystery until I learn how to prepare it next week. What I do know is this. The duck is stuffed with 15 or 20 Balinese spices (balanced with centuries of collective Balinese knowledge), as well as five whole hard-boiled duck eggs. Then they rub the outside of the duck with the same mixture. The seasoned duck is sealed in banana leaves and smoked over a wood fire for many hours. When the leaves are finally opened the duck inside is incredibly fragrant, fall-from-the-bone tender, and deeply seasoned in a way that I've never experienced before. I do believe it has changed my life. It has definitely set the bar for all subsequent fowl. When I told my host about how much I loved it she said, "Great! But if you want to try some really good smoked duck you need to try my mother-in-law's." Apparently there are realms of taste I haven't even begun to scale.

I have to admit, I'm skeptical. I mean, how much better can food get?

So I think Antonia had a good time. There is something to be said for spending an entire 10 days bloated and satisfied. I have to admit, when we got to the airport I had a strong desire to fly home and see everyone. Then the day after she got home a blizzard hit New York. I'm keeping busy detoxing from the food overdose and my sister arrived yesterday. After she leaves, I have only a couple of weeks left to learn all the recipes I haven't gotten down yet before flying to Vietnam. So I'm close...but not quite done yet.

Hope all is well back home.

Love,
Alex

Alex's Kitchen Nightmares- Thu 2/19/09

Dear All,

My hosts opened a new restaurant on Valentine's evening, It is billed as homestyle Thai food geared up a few notches to appeal to a more discerning crowd. It is an amazing mix of highbrow and lowbrow and physically the place is phenomenally beautiful. The food is fantastic too and not at all like what you would get at a standard Thai restaurant. There is the most delicious roasted duck in a red curry, crispy fritters with mussels and egg, pomelo salad with prawns, the list goes on and on.

Opening night was quite a rush. I had planned on observing and helping out in small ways but this was not to be. Most of the guests came at the same time and before we knew it the kitchen was 30 orders deep and sinking fast. The staff was still unfamiliar with the dishes and just couldn't get them out fast enough. I'm not saying I had to jump in and save the day because that wasn't the situation at all. Rather, they needed all the help they could get and so instead of being sidelined I worked solidly without taking a breather for 4 hectic hours. Now my host is telling me that I channeled my inner Gordon Ramsay. She's right. I may have gotten a bit passionate but hey, kitchens are passionate places. It was awesome, but more importantly, we got through the service and everyone got their food despite the long wait.

A few days before the opening we had the ceremony to bless the new building. By now I figure that you all are familiar with the way typical ceremonies work here in Bali. Large amounts of offerings are brought in. A priest rings a bell and splashes everyone and everything with holy water. We all get raw rice ground into our foreheads. Animals die.

Cock-fights and prayers, blood and flowers. That's pretty much how it goes.

I've discovered something unexpected during my repeated forays into the world of cockfighting. I'm really good at it. It must be all those years I spent upstate on the farm. I can now spot an strong, ornery and aggressive rooster more accurately than a boatload of Balinese.

That being said, when the chef asked me for money, I gave him some. When he told me to pick which cock was going to win the fight, I chose. I almost didn't realize that I had just bet on the death of an animal. Needless to say, my cock triumphed and I was left with the guilt of having been a part of the whole spectacle. I was handed my winnings and I brought them right over to my host and asked if she knew of any local charities I could donate to to assuage my guilt. I figured there must be something like a "Save The Cocks" Foundation that could benefit from my poor judgment.



I haven't said enough about the interplay of religion and life here in Bali. In every other place I have been in the world, religion occupies a place. It is usually limited to some special edifice where people go to pray. Of course that happens in Bali as well, but here worship is not limited to the temple. You don't go someplace to worship, you worship everywhere. There is a temple in every house. Offerings are laid at your doorstep to keep out the evil spirits. Your job site is a place that must be transformed through ritual. These things, and hundreds more, need to happen every single day, multiple times a day. The religion is everywhere you look, an integral part of everything you see.

So why is it that every time I go to a ceremony, I am struck by strong feelings of the mundane. Everything but the cockfight feels routine, habitual, non-intentional. It is so ingrained in everyday life that it ceases to seem special and without this familiar otherness, it ceases to seem holy.

At one end of the compound the Priest sat on his podium conducting the ritual. The womenfolk sat nearby in a huddled mass. At the other end of the building, the cockfights were eagerly held by the men. The cockfights are like an ecstatic ritual unto themselves. When one bird buries its blade into the other one, a cry of elation rises up. Half the men instantly adopt the grimaces of defeat. The other half can barely contain their glee. I saw one of the restaurant managers giggling like a madman. They cut the birds up while they are still in the throes of death.

It can be jarring, the intensity of such contradictions. Most of the time I truly enjoy the contrast and contradictions but sometimes it gets to be just a little too much. Sometimes I lose my calm, cool exterior and just feel unsettled. This, also, is how it goes.

I guess it bothers me because I think religion should be a certain way. It bothers me because it has been that way in all other places. And of course, I catch myself because this way of thinking is nothing but trouble. It avoids the issue and distracts from the real thing that is bothering me. The fact is, I have expectations about some aspects of life here without meaning to. It is not that anything "should be" a particular way, but rather that it "is". The only way to deal with crazy, perplexing crap is to just accept it and learn what you can from it but not to come to conclusions about it. In the most arrogant fashion, that approach just cuts you off from the flood of depth and possibility available in these experiences. When that happens, it is a sure sign that it is time to recenter.

Love,
Alex

Part of the opening ceremony

Oy.

The Chicken I didn't pick.

"Sit Ubu sit...mmm, good dog."- Tue 2/03/09

Dear Foodies,

(Disclaimer: As with select e-mails in the past, this one is not for the faint of heart...or for softies who think that cruelty to dogs should somehow be off limits. That being said, this one really might make a few of you throw up a little in your mouths.)

The single greatest danger facing the scooter rider in Bali are the hordes of mangy, feral dogs that litter the roadways like organic land mines. The concrete is warmed by the sunlight during the day, so day and night it is like a heat blanket for them. They lay comfortably in front of oncoming traffic and only move if death is imminent or if you honk at them a lot.

"Do the Balinese eat dogs?" is a common question among travelers. The uninformed answer is "no, that would be ridiculous." The idea of eating these flea-infested, disease ridden canines is just out of the realm of good sense. The true answer of course is, "Yes, and they are delicious."

Apparently, dog meat is not just a delicacy in Korea. The Balinese seem to enjoy a spot of dog on occasion. Daging anjing (dog meat) is everywhere, but behind the scenes, where most of the really good stuff is happening. The Balinese must understand that to the majority of foreigners, there is something repulsive and just plain wrong about eating Fido. Because of that, most tourists here are completely unaware that their suspicions are true.

Some time ago I was eating a sandwich (smoked marlin I believe) at my host's restaurant in Kuta. The manager came by to chat and to say goodbye because he was leaving the following day to join the staff of a big cruise liner. That was a shame because he was a friendly face. It is great for him too. He will make $1000 a month with few expenses. This is an exorbitant amount of money for a Balinese person. All he has to do is leave his family for two years.

To celebrate his departure, his friends killed a dog and made some sate from the meat. He swore it was really, really good. When I asked him where the dog came from, he said they just "take one that they don't need" and convert it from a household pet into nutrition.

A week before this, I was hanging at the beach with my Javanese surfer friend. He asked if I had ever tried dog. When I made a face and said no, he told me that he and some friends eat dog all the time. I asked him where he buys his dog and he laughed. "No bro, we just take the dog if there is too many." Then he continued. "You got to keep the blood inside or the meat taste bad."

"How can you possibly keep the blood inside if you have to kill it?" I asked.

"Sometimes we just beat it with a stick. Sometimes we put it in a bag and drown it. Sometimes we just put it in the bag and boil it."

"Alive?" I asked incredulously.

"Ya bro!" he answered, just a little too enthusiastically. "After it dead, then you don't worry about the blood leaving and you can cut it up and cook it."

I pictured a drowned, burnt, beaten, boiled dog with its intestines still inside of it and instantly lost any interest in food. I always thought it was a big no-no to cook an animal with the guts still inside.

The manager at a different restaurant told me that he loves to go to Gianyar (a nearby village) for dog sate.

With all these people around me indulging, of course I went to try it myself. I asked around the restaurant but nobody wanted to join me. The chef was disgusted with me. "No eat dog!!! Ugh!! No do that!!"

That was when I learned the words "Wibawa" (wise) and "Terhormat" (respectable). As in 'UNwise' and 'NOT respectable'. Apparently, there is a bit of stigma attached even for the locals. They don't even call it "daging anjing". They call it "RW", which is pronounced 'eirway' (Make sure to roll the R). Sounds nice huh?

My trusty friend Beni gave me the low-down on where to find a nearby dog meat shop. As he gave me directions, the chef walked by and shook his head in disgust. "You will be curse. The dog on the street will bark at you." Beni shook his head. "No, only if you prepare the dog yourself. Then they smell it. 'oh, you kill my friend. Bark, bark.' Ha ha."

The next afternoon, feeling a mite peckish, I drove to the nearby village of Mas and found the tiny 'Warung RW' sign on an even tinier shop. With great interest, the man and his wife plopped a steaming bowl of dog soup in front of me and stared at me intently as I dug in.

It tasted a bit like goat...no wait, lamb...hmmm, maybe just beef. It's kind of hard to say because it was so heavily seasoned. Beni said they do this because dog meat has a rather pungent odor that they have to mask. Maybe I just liked the seasoning or maybe my meat standards are deteriorating from eating so much spicy fried crap, but I rather enjoyed myself. The meat was tender. The taste was inoffensive.

I hope that it was a clean dog I ate. There is no telling what the food in this country is doing to my insides. Now that I think of it, I should probably consult with a tropical disease specialist when I get back.

"Where do you buy your dog?" I asked the proprietor, instantly regretting my decision.

"In the village." He responded. I found that answer neither comforting nor informative.

I thanked him, paid him the dollar he charged me, and left, expecting to get mauled by some angry dogs on the ride back to Ubud. They didn't budge from their places along the road so I guess Beni was right.

The next day, my body roundly rejected the soup. I've decided that dog is the Balinese equivalent of White Castle. It's really cheap, it is usually avoided by discerning diners, and upon ingestion it passes right through you.

When I got back to the restaurant everyone wanted to know what I thought of my "RW". A few of them have decided that it is now funny to make barking sounds at me whenever I walk by. Oy vey.

Cheers,
Alex

Sleep Deprivation and Black Magic‏- Thu 1/29/09

Dear All,

A few days ago the owner of my restaurant invited me to Java for a couple of days to camp out at an old temple in the middle of the jungle. Not only did it sound like an awesome trip, I had been planning to go to Java at some point for a look-see and didn't know how to get there. I ran home to pack and we drove to his house to grab some sleep. Four hours later we were on the road with four other men from his family. Three hours and a quick ferry ride after that, we landed in Banyuwangi on the island of Java.

My host told me that "Banyu" means "harbor", and "wangi" means "fragrant", "smelly" or, more charitably, "perfumed". I prefer to think of it as "stinky harbor" which was a perfect description.

He also informed me that Banyuwangi was famous for its black magic. "If you get involved with a Banyuwangi girl, she will block your vision and close your heart and you will never want to go anywhere ever again." I thought that was a weird way for someone to express their love and filed the new information away for future use. From the port, it was three hours to the temple in the jungle.

Along the way we went to visit a witch doctor in a nearby village. This man was reputed to be very powerful and my host had planned to go there to ask him some questions about the restaurants in Ubud.

It should be noted that both my host and I are serious skeptics when it comes to magic and divination. Still, we want to believe and it would be probably the coolest thing ever if the man was able to prove to us that he had supernatural abilities.

The shaman had the nicest house in the village by far. He was about 5 foot 6 with close cropped hair. Like all Indonesian men, he chain smoked and his voice sounded gravelly and sick. He was on his eleventh marriage and his cute 3 year old daughter ran around and made monkey faces at me. We sat in a circle, all six men happily and compulsively puffing away and me getting sicker and sicker. Then he took my host in the back and tried to do the reading. He couldn't do it, claiming he was distracted by so many people and could my host come back the following day without his posse. He then proceeded to do readings for the rest of us.

Frankly, I couldn't think of anything to ask him. My future is my future and I prefer to let it unfold as it will. I think I just wanted him to tell me things he couldn't possibly know. He seemed surprised that I wanted a reading and more surprised that I had nothing specific that I wanted to know about. I asked him to just give me some insight about my life at the moment and to please not tell me anything about my future. He wrote down my full name and disappeared into a back room for literally 20 minutes. When he came back he had an envelope with a code all over it. He said that because I was not married it was difficult for him to see anything clearly. He then proceeded to tell me all kinds of enormously obvious things about myself.

He told me that I liked to travel (gasp), had very close friends whom I trusted (how unlikely), and that if I stayed single I should keep trying lots of different things but if I got married I should start a business (apparently my wife will be a capitalist). He also told me I had a good future despite my request that he not go there.

Underwhelmed, we left and continued on our way. Our conversation went quite a lot like this.

"Do you think he had all those wives consecutively or at the same time?"
"Do you want a Banyuwangi girl?"
"I'm just amazed that he could manage to have that many."
"Well Alex, you know it is very easy to get married in Java. All you have to do is go to the family of the virgin you want and agree to give them 5 million Rupiah ($500)."
"Wow!"
"There is a Frenchman living in Banyuwangi who has had 90 wives!"
"Man, talk about being indecisive. He must not be a very nice guy."
"Ya. To get a divorce you only have to not support your wife for three months. Then you are no longer married."
"Oh!! No wonder the Banyuwangi women use black magic. They have to or their men will just take off. It all makes sense now."

The approach to the temple was 30 kilometers of poorly maintained jungle road. Full of deep holes, bumps and mud pits. Driving only 5kph we arrived at the temple compound well into the night. We had a preliminary ceremony with the priest, then set up our stuff on one of the covered platforms that are at every temple. The guys told me that this jungle in particular was filled with tigers, black panthers and snakes and that if I needed to use the bathroom I should go with someone. Then the other guys all lay down on the hard tiles, and while I was still wondering where the mattresses were, they fell asleep.

I tried to do the same for a little while and failed miserably. Finally I noticed that my host wasn't there and I went to go find him. He was chatting with the caretaker of the temple. He explained to me that after Suharto was ousted, the Javanese Hindu community felt that they could come out of hiding. They built or rebuilt their places of worship, many of which are hidden deep in the jungles, and are now a strong but quiet minority on the island. The reason we had come here, besides the novelty, was that this particular night is called Siwaratri. It is when Shiva comes down to earth and Hindus are then supposed to stay up all night fasting and meditating. I looked across the compound at the other guys sleeping soundly.

The caretaker asked us if we wanted to go into the jungle with him and see the original temple. We asked if it was safe with all the large jungle cats looking for a snack. He reassured us (sort of) saying that in the old days before the wall, tigers would roam the temple grounds freely and never attacked anyone. He added that the jungles were full of Hindu ascetics and that none of them get eaten either. We shrugged and followed him out into the darkness.

We walked through a forest of huge mahogany trees and came to a clearing with a tiny walled-in temple. This was the site of the original shrine. It was mostly crumbling, covered in offerings, wrapped in ceremonial cloth, and arched over by an old banyan tree, dripping vines. The caretaker put down a woven mat and I followed my host through a little ceremony. It was all very peaceful. Just jungle sounds and incense and ancient rites that I didn't understand.

When we got back, I thought that maybe I would be able to get some sleep. The flying ants had other ideas. Just as my eyes would close, one would crawl up my ankle. Then another dropped down the neck of my shirt. I brushed one out of my eye and it sunk its pincers into the soft flesh there. Suffice to say there was no sleep for me that night.

Thankfully, the others rose at dawn. We all helped sweep out the temple compound and then packed up to return to the witch doctor. This time the man followed through. He told my host things about the restaurants that he couldn't have known. He knew that he was the third owner of the land and that he had torn down the old building to make the new one. He made a cold rock become blazing hot by pointing a kris dagger at it. He communed with the guardian of one of the restaurants and said he was a nice old man.

My host came out of that room with a surprised look on his face and said, "well, he's for real."

I don't know, I didn't see it. I wish I did.

I'm still hung up on the worldly aspects of the witch doctor. When I asked the others what it takes to become a Balian (shaman) they said that anyone can become one but they have to study and meditate a lot. I instantly got a mental picture of this chain-smoking, marriage addict, sitting in the lotus position in a cave with a clove cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and huge jets of smoke shooting out of his nostrils as he breathed deeply and opened a direct line to Allah. You can see my problem.

My host later contradicted the others. He told me that the Balian had said that he had been like this since he was 8 years old and that he had spent most of his life considering his gifts to be a curse. Now he just does what he does to help people. To his credit, he didn't charge my host a dime although he was given a nice donation.

In the car, semi-conscious, I decided that next time I'll try harder to think of a good question to ask. I'm still hoping to leave a room one day saying, "well, I didn't expect that to happen."

We got back to east Bali late and I slept like a dead man.

Hugs,
Alex

The Balian is the guy sitting next to me.
He randomly picked that moment to look fierce.

Outside Temple Alas Purwo in the morning.

The Future is later- Sun 1/18/09

Dear Y'all,

This e-mail is about near-death, thinking you are near death when you actually aren't, thinking you are near death when you actually are, and of course celebrating not dying by swimming naked. It is also about other things, like going up and down steps, but that sounds less catchy.

The other day while I was on my way out of my jungle abode and on the way up my rather steep and slippery steps, I came face to face with a beautiful, slender, bright green snake. It had a triangular head that ended in a pointy snout.

Flashing back a month to a conversation I had with my host's brother-in-law, he told me that the only really dangerous animal in Bali is a bright green snake with a pointy nose. If it bites you you experience about an hour of agonizing pain before dropping dead of respiratory paralysis and cardiac arrest. The anti-venom only works 20% of the time and that is only if you can get to medical facilities that keep it stocked.

My response was to run away like a frightened kitten yelling, "GREEN SNAKE!!!! BRIGHT FUCKING GREEN SNAKE!!!!! RIGHT THERE!!! OH CRAP! OH SHIT! OH etc. etc."

Once I found my balls (which were lodged far, far up my abdomen), I went back to see if it was still there. Mercifully it had gone off into the woods to ruin the day of some innocent marsupial and I was able to continue on my way.

This reminded me of when I was in India during college and our Yoga guru was talking to us about the nature of human understanding(or misunderstanding) of the world. He used a classic example to illustrate his point. You walk into a dimly lit room and see a cobra coiled in the corner. You become highly agitated. When the light is turned on, it reveals that what you had at first thought was a cobra was actually just some rope left in the corner. Thus, your misapprehension of the true nature of reality caused you to be quite upset. He went on to say that much of our understanding of the world is like this.

I find this quite profound. I also think that when you live in India (or apparently, Indonesia) and there is actually a good chance the rope is a cobra, it makes it a little more rational to have a fear response. I know that sidesteps the bigger lesson but there is a reason.

My destination that day was an island off the coast of Bali called Nusa Penida. A friend of a friend of my mother has hosted a group of Oberlin students there for the last two years. They stay with host families for a month and learn what they can about agriculture, culture, crafts, and a number of other topics. He suggested I come out and teach them a little about the cuisine of Bali.

After a drive to the coast and a half-hour ferry, I found myself in an undeveloped green place with nothing but little villages. Tiny, barely paved roads wind down jungle valleys and up grassy hills to ridges with epic views at all points.

The host Mark, has a beautiful but fairly modest house(by western standards) on the second highest point on the island. The view from his porch covers the entire western half of the island and the ocean, with mount Agung on Bali rising in the distance.

I spent the next few days learning about Nusa Penida with the students and teaching them some basic Balinese dishes in the evenings.

Nusa Penida has a reputation on Bali for some seriously powerful black magic. Mark told me that this is probably because they not only practice a highly animistic form of Hinduism, but also because it was used as a penal colony for the Gelgel dynasty many years ago, which gave it a bad rap.

We toured the alternative energy facilities on the island. Bali had hosted a conference on global warming last year and to prove to the world how green they were, the government had turned Nusa Penida into a haven for alternative energy. To that end, they had built 9 giant wind turbines, a $300,000 solar panel grid, a solar powered seawater purifier, a dung-methane seperator, and large waterworks to pull freshwater runoff from the cliffs back up to the villages for drinking. It was kind of an heroic effort on the part of the government. Inspirational even. The problem is that very little works.

Right after the conference, the government promptly stopped caring about their backwater little island and the machinery is slowly falling into disrepair. Only two of the wind generators work and their operation has not been authorized in Jakarta because someone forgot to grease the political wheels. The solar panels provide light for a few temple shrines, and the big solar grid is enough to provide everyone on the entire island with 7 watts of electricity. The seawater purifier seems to work, but the family that was supposed to use the methane separator has decided that rather than shovel tons of poop for a tiny amount of methane gas, they would rather just buy kerosene at the local shop.

One gets the feeling that the green revolution has come too soon to this island. It requires education and ongoing support from a government that is a little less corrupt. It is sad to see but also kind of predictable. What you end up with is a kind of defunct shrine to a potentially more sustainable future. One with adequate drinking water and energy for the poor despite drought and isolation.

On my last day, I took a hike to one of the freshwater runoff sites on the eastern side of the island. This side is all steep cliffs that plunge 400 feet or more to the sea. Most of the rain that falls on the island sinks directly through the limestone. This speedy runoff has historically produced persistent drought conditions. The water drains down until it hits denser rock and then makes its way towards the cliffs, eventually coming out in freshwater springs that eject directly into the ocean. The government found that if this water was collected and piped back to the villages, it would end all drought on the island. They built sketchy ladder/stairways down the cliffs to the runoff points and then installed pump houses and holding tanks to receive the water and bring it up to the top via massive steel pipes.

I started down the blue metal staircase. I should say that it wasn't really a staircase in the traditional sense. That is, the stairs were just 4 inch rectangular pipes welded at 2-foot intervals to the frame. It was really more of a ladder, which worked well when the stairs went nearly vertical, but not so well when they were less steep and there were huge gaps for you to slip into or through. It didn't help that everything was soaked from the recent thunderstorm. Along the whole staircase was a 12 inch round blue pipe as well as electrical cables. These acted at times like an additional handrail.

After a few minutes, the stairs opened out on a vista from which I could see up the coast and down to the water. I caught my breath. The sky was clearing. The surf crashed far below like a giant breathing. I felt that I was all alone in another world.

I continued down for a while and near the end, the metal stairs turned into wooden planks. They were sturdy...but they were wood, and they were situated in such a way that any error in engineering or even a rotten support beam would result in a 150ft death plunge onto the rocks.

Things were going alright until I reached a section that had partially collapsed. The rail was gone, there were no support beams underneath, and the whole 8ft section was tilted at a 10 degree angle towards the sea. I got weak in the knees but I could see the end, the wood felt fairly secure, and I thought perhaps that I would regret it if I didn't go all the way. Plus, I could always cling to the pipe if the stairs gave way.

I would love to say that I took out my whip, threw it around an overhanging branch, and swung to safety, but let's face facts...I didn't have a whip. Instead, I sat on the pipe with one leg on the broken stairs and shimmied across on my ass to the stronger planks at the other side. From there it was a quick trip to the waterworks and the falls at the bottom.

To celebrate my continued existence, I stripped down and swam around in the freshwater pools. I also left an offering at the shrines down there to ensure a safe return.

This brings us back to the snake. When I got back to Ubud the next day, I checked online to find more information about the deadly green serpent. As it turns out, there are deadly green snakes in Bali but mine was not one of them. Instead of the Blue Temple Viper (which is really, really bad news), what I saw was a Long-Nosed Whip Snake. The latter is a member of the cobra family but it is rear-fanged and reportedly not dangerous to humans. I guess my guru in India was right about misunderstanding but wrong about the cobra.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be careful, especially when taking risks, but why freak out? The snake might not be dangerous, the collapsing staircase might not be ready to give way yet. Things are not always what they seem.

Are any of you nodding your heads in agreement? You are so wrong.

The Blue Temple Viper could be in the next tree, the collapsing cliff-side stairs of death could easily have picked that moment to drop. The fact that we are alive at any given moment is never something to be taken lightly. I think what I'm trying to say is that (sensible or not) we are lucky and should all get naked and go swimming.

Love,
Alex

The View from Mark's Porch (Mt. Agung faintly visible)

The view from the other side of the porch

Trucking around Penida

Farmers drying seaweed

Cockfights:
Betting


Long Fight


The Cliffs!

The Stairs!

Better view of the stairway from above
(note the collapsing portion)
Sweaty dude
Meet the long-nosed whip snake...

I've got an awesome drawing board- Sat 1/10/09

Dear Foodies,

I had the best squid of my life the other night in a night market in Seminyak. This is just you average run-of-the-mill night market and there is no pedigree that would suggest great food but nevertheless, it is the best squid I've had to date in Bali and also in life.

The first reason it tasted so good is that it isn't called "squid". Here in Bali, it is called "chumi-chumi" (pronounced Choomie-choomie). Doesn't that just sound tastier than "squid"?

The second reason is that the chumi comes directly from the boat to the grill, a distance of only a couple hundred yards.

Third, it is nice and thick. For some reason, a lot of the chumi I've had in Bali has been thin. There is no need for that! The thick is better because when it is grilled over coconut husk coals, the outside gets a nice char but the inside stays juicy.

Lastly, they use the best marinade I have ever tried on seafood. It was sweet and spicy and garlicky in the perfect proportions, and is cooked right into the squid. What more could you ask for? Well, I asked for the recipe and a bag of it to go. The lady told me that there were only 5 ingredients(tomato, sweet red chili, garlic, salt, and brown sugar) but that sneaky little fox lied!

I've become accustomed to the locals "forgetting" what goes into the food they have made day in, day out for the last umpteen years. I forgive them too, since their livelihood depends on them giving something that can't be gotten elsewhere. Since I'm hip to this, I never believe anything until I not only have the exact proportions in my greedy little hands, but have tried out the recipe successfully.

To that end, I wisely brought the sample bag to the restaurant and placed it in a bowl on the counter. Then I took out a tray and arrayed the raw ingredients that I thought were in the mysterious concoction. What followed next was nothing short of inspiring.

The other cooks all gathered around, intrigued by the project, and tasted the marinade. All agreed it was very good but they could tell instantly where my ingredients were lacking. One person removed three cloves of garlic, another person demanded both shrimp paste and raw peanuts (both lacking from the woman's recipe), I could tell that there were hot chilies in there as well, but they added another to the two I put out. Lastly, they insisted I use palm sugar instead of brown sugar, and removed a chunk of tomato.

I toasted the shrimp paste, whizzed it all in the blender and then sauteed the paste in a little oil until it thickened and became fragrant. Lo and behold, it was nearly identical to the original. Actually, I thought it was a bit better. Then, as if waiting for his chance, the head chef came over, quietly took a single slice of kaffir lime and squeezed it into the mix.

It is difficult to describe what this did to the marinade. I suppose you could say that it infused it with a little raw electricity and a dash of hot sex so that when you put it into your mouth you felt excited and just a little bit guilty about feeling so good.

The difference between really good food and fucking great food is as simple and as difficult as this. Anybody can follow a recipe, so why aren't all restaurants as good as the French Laundry? How can we find that crucial thing that takes a dish to the next level, or even the level after the next level. How many times have we bitten into food and been well satisfied, when all it would have taken was that little something extra to make it mind-blowing. This is both miraculous and sickening to me, because it makes me realize how much there is to learn. I never thought there was an endpoint but still, getting humbled by a lime can be an eye-opening experience.

The end result is that I have what is to me, the best seafood marinade in the world (especially for Chumi). All it took was a taste-test, a team of Balinese chefs, their decades of experience, and a single slice of Kaffir lime.

All the best,
Alex

Here is the recipe:

Tomato Sambal/Bumbu

small tomato 1
raw peanuts(skin off) 1 Tbsp
hot chili 3
sweet red chili 4
shrimp paste 2 tsp (less if you don't fancy the rather strong but lovely fishy taste)
Palm Sugar 2 Tbsp (brown sugar is ok at substitute...but a little different)
Salt 1tsp
kaffir lime 1 nice squeeze
If you want to get really fancy you can take the kaffir lime leaves, slice incredibly thin and mix a pinch in with the cooked bumbu. Don't cook the leaves or the juice.

Directions:
-Toast trassi until it is a bit dry. Over an open flame is good, but don't burn it.
-Whiz all ingredients in blender except kaffir until pretty smooth. You may need to add a little water to aid blending.
-Saute until fragrant. Should not be wet. Cook out most of the water.
-Paint any grilling seafood or fish with the mixture a few times as it cooks. You can also marinate the seafood in it as well.

Island Paradises?- Wed 1/07/09

Dear All,

When I first came to Ubud, I started running in the rice fields to stay in shape. Rice fields, if you've never had a chance to see any, are beautiful. They are expansive and green. Poignant in the poverty and smiles of the workers. Rewarding in their isolation. When the rice is ready, the stalks ripple in the breeze. When the rice is harvested they flood the paddies and the pools of water reflect the sunlight in dramatic ways. They are really, really nice.

Just imagine how elated I was during my first run. Then, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, I came across a restaurant with a blue tarp for a roof, sitting on stilts, right there amongst the rice stalks. It sort of floated over the paddies like an alien spacecraft, selling noodles and organic vegetable dishes. Though quite beautiful, it struck me as odd. I got back to my bungalow and just gushed about the run to the Balinese grounds keeper. Then I asked him about the strange restaurant. He knew about it and said that it belonged to an Israeli guy and his Balinese wife. Then he suggested I buy some land, which also struck me as a little bit odd but I guess that owning things is what wealthy people do, and to the average Balinese, anyone with pale skin is wealthy.

Around that same time I was meeting a lot of the local expatriates. I was thrilled to bits with Ubud and my new lifestyle but they kept repeating the same things. They would say, "Oh, you should have seen Bali 10 years ago. It's ruined now." Or, "Oh, you should have seen Bali 20 years ago. It was all dirt roads and rice paddies. Now it's all over." They always get this far off look in their eyes as though thinking of a long lost love.

I have a message for all those wistful old-timers: Fuck you!

Are they blind? Most of these expats own businesses and villas along the very same roads that used to be dirt tracks through terraced rice fields. The artists and searchers that found their Shangri-la here are largely responsible for transforming this island into a tourist paradise. There are lots of islands in the world, do they think that Bali was developed by random chance? It happened because of them! Are they trying to keep Bali pure by opening up organic/holistic businesses and pricing all their merchandise in U.S. dollars? Do they love the culture so much that they erect western style eyesores on the main thoroughfares?

We are all beauty junkies over here. Searching and searching for the next hit. Each one fails to satisfy unless the mountains are steeper, the jungles are more lush, the people are smiley-er, the coastline is a more soothing shade of aqua. Eventually a place is found that represents the pinnacle of travel bliss and it is there that the lifers will settle down and stay for good. They must harbor the false hope that things will never change. That their paradise will remain unspoiled and perfect forever. This is illogical but when change strikes again, they are unprepared and end up whining about the good old days to some bright eyed newcomer in a bar.

That is part of what I appreciate about my hosts. They wouldn't deny that they are a part of the development in Bali. There would be no point. Development is not necessarily a bad thing. It, like so many other things that don't fit into a fairytale, is just a fact of life. What they do is develop nice things. Things that fit the landscape and are more or less in tune with the culture they are so intimately a part of. They love the place as much as anyone but are refreshingly unsentimental about its beauty, future, and the things they have to do to take care of their family.

The people wishing that Bali was a big cultural preserve would have no place here, no way to live. Would that make them happier? It would certainly make them less annoying. It is an interesting disconnect but then, Island culture is a weird thing. Lots of people are drawn to places like this but it seems like it is often more about what they think things should be like rather than how they actually are.

Love,
Alex

Your new to-do list- Fri 1/02/09

Dear All,

Happy new year! My own was a little disappointing. You see, I've been alternating great and miserable new year's eve parties. Two years ago was one of the worst ever. Last year was amazing. This year...

I started out the night getting minor surgery on my right middle finger. I had the hangnail from hell and when I ripped it off it sort of turned the skin along my nail inside out. Then it got infected. The doctor had time to see me new year's eve, so on the way to my party I pulled over and had a little roadside surgery. Then, with my finger swathed and with very little feeling in my hand from all the anesthetic, I rode my scooter an hour to the beach for what promised to be a truly excellent party with lots of thought provoking women. On the way there I got caught in a monsoon and found the beach entirely populated by dudes. That was around when the anesthetic wore off.

I don't mean to bring anyone down. One night means very little compared to a whole year. I'm sure you all had a good time and made a new year resolution or two. I've made a resolution of my own to provide a silver lining to the debacle. As any good plan originating here in Bali, mine makes little sense. Bear with me as I describe my method.

I am going to more fully embrace my burgeoning inner Bali-ness by living my life in accordance with the Balinese calender.

To approach this task, I figured I should turn to my local spiritual leaders for guidance. In a local tourist publication, there is a monthly posting of Gede Marayana's "List of Auspicious Days According to the Balinese Calender." As soon as I saw this, I new I had found a source of wisdom. If you are living in the land of the gods, the only thing to do is live your life in accordance with their preferences.

Guru Marayana lists a number of auspicious days for the month of December. I'll call it my Balinese to-do list and I don't think its wisdom is limited to the island, or even Southeast Asia. In fact, maybe we should all agree to follow his advice and see if we aren't living happier, more spiritually aligned lives by the end of the month. I've abbreviated the list to make room for the busy western leisure schedule.

**Firstly, you should only get your hair cut on Mondays, but the preferred day is the 26th.
**The 20th is the absolute best day to make a fish pond.
**There is something Mr. Marayana refers to as "burning the bricks." I don't know what this means exactly, but you should only do it on the 4th, 11th, or the 15th.
**The best days to "start learning" are the 10th or the 27th, which is good news for procrastinators everywhere. If you have already started learning something in previous months, then I think those are free days.
**The 24th is Siwaratri. That's the day that Shiva comes down from heaven to hang with earthlings. Be nice to everybody on this day because hey, you never know.
**The 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th, 15th, 21st, and 31st are the best days to make a fishing rod.
**If you are going to start practicing Yoga it should be on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd
**It is a good month for long trips but stick to the 1st, 2nd, 8th, 10th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 25th and 29th
**Cutting a big tree down is best done on the 2nd, 14th or 26th
**Planting a tree that bears fruit should be done on the 1st, 5th, 12th, 16th, 25th, or 30th
**You should only dig a well in the early half of the month. Either the 8th, 11th, or 14th. Check with the city first to avoid punching a hole through a water main.
**Castration of your animals should only occur on the 5th and/or 21st.
**Lastly, the best days for making love are the 1st(damn), 5th, 12th, 16th, 25th, and the 30th.

Later I'll let you know how my new plan is working out but I'm confident that if I stick to it this year will be the best year ever. My finger is starting to feel better already. Now I should go find some animals to castrate before Monday.


Sincerely,
Alex

This a video of another wedding I went to today. It should give you an idea of the blistering excitement that occurs during a Balinese wedding (it is rather interesting actually). Three points of interest. 1)You will see the groom get handed a cell phone during the ceremony. 2)This will go on for another 2 hours at which point the happy couple will move to the family shrine for another hour or so. 3)In this case (as is true quite often here) the couple, though in love, had to get married years before they wanted to because she got knocked up.

Who's the dork?
I love this guy!