Order the pig.

I couldn't decide whether seeing the pig's head pointed at me was actually appetizing or not, but at the very least I was intrigued. My eyes had originally been drawn to the neatly arranged rows of jars and bottles at this Bali market's stand, but the pig certainly was an attention grabber. So I stopped, and tried to find out more about it. The woman behind the counter greeted me, and showed me to a glass display case containing bowls of fresh salads. "Lawar babi", she explained to me; the words meant nothing to me then, I would have to look them up later. She pointed to the pig again, and then her own cheek, indicating that if I tried the lawar, I would be treated to some of the animal's face. I wasn't hungry, but I had to try it. She grabbed a paper cone, scooped in some rice, then spooned on some of the lawar. To complete the dish, she ripped shreds off the pig's head, and folded them up into the parcel.

I didn't open the package until later, when we were sitting, legs tucked under the tables at Ibu Oka. Specializing in Balinese suckling pig, babi guling (a heap of which is pictured top right), Ibu Oka is famous worldwide. We had just had our plates set before us: waxy brown paper holding small mountains of rice, topped with tender shreds of pork and crispy squares of skin and fat. The first bite explained and validated the restaurant's fame: the crunch of the skin released a melting burst of rich, luxuriant pork flavor. 

Mid-meal, I remembered the package from the market still in my bag. It might seem like over-kill to pull out the lawar babi at this point, but I decided that if I was already indulging this much, I might as well just give in. I pulled it out, unwrapped it, and put it on the table to share. Amazingly, and this may just have been the rush of fat to my brain, it outshone the meat we had been consuming. While the pork in the lawar was not as good as Ibu Oka's-- the skin didn't crackle as much, the fat wasn't as tender-- the rest of the dish compensated: young jackfruit, green beans, shrimp paste, and shredded makrut lime leaves gave it an intensely exotic flavor. 

But either way, market stand lawar babi or Ibu Oka babi guling, order the pig in Bali and you won't be disappointed.

Eating Taiwan Famous.

And in news related to my last entry, I have started a second blog: Taiwan Famous. It's going to be a Taiwan only blog, a journal devoted exclusively to my explorations in eating on this island. I'll be chronicling my journey here as I effort to eat and shop locally on the island, seek out interesting local dishes, and try to learn the basics of good Chinese cooking.

I will of course still be continuing writing here on PRIMITIVEculture-- I say continuing even though my entries over these last few months have been pretty sparse. But in a way, I think this blog split will give me some new energy on PRIMITIVEculture. As I prepared for our move to Taiwan, my thoughts on blogging were starting to get so muddled that I really couldn't even write an entry. I wanted to write about all the different foods here, but I didn't like the idea of PRIMITIVEculture getting bogged down with so many minute details about a single subject that, admittedly, not everyone would be interested in. So in the end, a split seemed the best idea. This blog can continue as a visual exploration of the world (including, but not limited to Taiwan), with a focus on style, food, design and photography. And the new blog's project will have a very singular focus, which I think will give it a lot of strength.

So I hope you'll join me for a meal over there, and still continue to travel with me here.

Eating well in LA.

When the weather heats up in the summer, the kind of foods I start to crave become much simpler. Yogurt with homemade granola. Grilled meat. Fresh fruit. And LA is a great city for this. Because while it's always been a city that cared about its diet, its increasingly a city that loves its food; its a combination that means you can easily tailor your eating to be spare, fresh, and healthy, but still delicious.

Taco stands are probably the last place one would think of going for healthy eating, but a good taco can be a thing of beauty in its spareness. Grilled marinated meat, a fresh salsa of chile, onion and cilantro, and a squeeze of lime. A great meal for a smogy LA lunch.

Almost every neighborhood in LA seems to have its own Farmer's Market, one day of the week when stands set up selling overflowing baskets of fruit, vegetables and herbs. We visited a nearby market at Echo Park, where between buying peaches for a clafouti and heirloom tomatoes for a simple salad, we even ran into a few friends.

We picked up a mixed basket of berries which were u-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e. They fat and sweet, perfect in the morning with just a little tart yogurt. The evening after the Farmer's Market, we attempted to muddle some in drinks, and despite our weak mixology skills, the drinks still shone thanks to the flavor of the berries.

Of course, when you would like to be eating badly, that's easy too. Near the intersection of Echo Park and Silverlake, we found a truck fresh churros, dusted with sugar. The were still hot, the golden exterior crunching to give way to a doughy interior. They certainly made all that healthy eating worth it.

It's almost summer;

have you filled your popsicle molds yet?

Dispatches: Eating (May 21, 2010).

Dispatches from the world of food and eating.

School Lunch
Most of us are probably glad that we no longer have to eat lunch from the school cafeteria, but after seeing the school lunches from China and Malaysia that Robyn posted over on Eating Asia, we may start wishing we could enroll for 2nd Grade in Chengdu or KL. Aside from the pure aesthetic appeal of the images, the photos are worth examining to get a glimpse into the food culture of China and Malaysia. What we feed our children says a lot about how we think about food-- a rather troubling thought, if I picture the Salisbury steaks and soggy square pizza slices I got as a kid.

Pictured above is a school lunch I enjoyed while teaching in Taiwan last year-- tofu and braised pork eaten with wilted greens and thick slices of bamboo.

Crack an egg on it
I've been following ReadyMade magazine since it's third issue, and while its always been good, I've been blown away by how fantastic each issue has been over the past few months. Part of why I feel it's improved is that they're increasingly adding more and more features on food and cooking. They're really taking advantage of people's growing interest in knowing what they're eating, and where their food is coming from. Recent issues have featured articles on making your own vinegar, on raising chicken's for eggs, and on why you should have a a dough hook or offset spatula in your kitchen. And every recipe we've tried, like the breakfast pastry Bordeaux made in San Francisco, or the rhubarb tart I featured in yesterday's post, have been fantastic.

Now ReadyMade has even launched their own food blog, Feast, so you don't have to wait for the semi-monthly issues to come out. I've been visiting it daily lately, salivating over their pictures, and getting some ideas to implement at dinner. One tip they featured recently was that cracking an egg over certain dishes can instantly elevate the style and flavor of the meal. We'd actually been experimenting with that lately ourselves; our best successes have been egg on pizza (crack it on, then bake for a further 6 minutes to set the whites but leave the yolk runny), and poached over a salad of bitter leaves, which Bordeaux pulled off perfectly for our recent spring dinner.

Super Superette
Cape Town has always had some great cafes, but none as wonderful as the fantastic Superette, which opened up last year. Located in the grungy neighborhood of Woodstock, Superette was worth a visit if only to relax in the cafe's sleek interior-- gray concrete floors, a homey communal table, local artist's work on the walls, and an old-fashioned lunch counter showcasing the salads of the day (it shouldn't come as a surprise that the cafe's owners had previously founded a gallery, a design collective, and the wonderful Neighbourgood's Market). And the ever-changing menu, which focused on local organic produce, always had something good on it- like home-made cereal with preserved guavas, or a rich bread and butter pudding. Unfortunately, I won't be getting back in for a meal anytime soon-- so I was happy to find out that they've got a blog going, showing the activity their kitchen is up to. Even if you won't be visiting Cape Town soon, their blog is worth a visit just to admire their style or to get some inspiration for your own kitchen.

PS- If anyone has seen any great recipes, cooking blogs, or food photos online, I'd love to hear about them! Share in the comments.

On the road in NM.

We've actually been spending most of our time in New Mexico since we returned to the US-- my home-state just hasn't made it onto the blog recently because I'm super bad at remembering to take my camera with me when I go out. The only times I've really remembered to take any photos were on two road-trips-- one to the north-east, the other to the north-west. While the two trips focused on very different spots, the highlight of both were very tasty meals flavored with New Mexico chile.

Our first daytrip took us to the town of Las Vegas, NM. Despite the really incredible Victorian architecture in the city's historic downtown, the city had a rather depressing feeling about it. Luckily, we had a good lunch while we were stopped there. We dropped by Charlie's Spic & Span Bakery and Cafe, which unlike the rest of the town, was filled with people. We had massive breakfast plates for lunch-- I got the carne adovada, pork stewed in red chile, which were topped with an over easy egg. It all went perfectly with Charlie's freshly baked tortillas (we could hear them slapping out the tortilla dough behind us while we ate).

Our next daytrip was to the hotsprings in Jemez. Trips to Jemez were a regular part of my childhood, not for the hotsprings, but because the pine forests up there are a great place for picnics. On the way, we'd usually make a stop at a beautiful red-cliffed spot where women from the reservation would sell fry bread, loaves of bread baked in hornos, or cinnamon dusted cookies. Luckily my nostalgia linked up with Bordeaux's stomach, so we could both agree to make a stop. We opted for an 'indian taco', the somewhat silly name for a dish that I won't pretend not to love. Puffy frybread is topped with ground meat, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and, per our selection, green chile. It was surprisingly spicy, but practically worth the trip alone.

Sweet City.

There was something so charming about San Francisco-- the picturesque hills of Victorian houses, the toy-like cable cars, the dapper gents -- that it felt a little like being in a children's book. So somehow it seemed fitting that all over the city there were little shops specializing in treats, sweet shops selling delicious pastries, ice cream, pie, or donuts. Over our week in the city, we sought out some we'd heard of, stumbled on another, and enjoyed some of the best sweets the city has to offer.

Our first stop in San Francisco was at Tartine, which more than lived up to its reputation (and more than deserved the long line that snaked outside onto the Mission sidewalk). The cafe's interior looked like a cozy environment to sit and savor a creamy latte, but we got our pastries boxed. We opened them later on a picnic in Golden Gate Park, and shared the wide variety of pastries we'd selected. Two of the best (pictured top) were an almond lemon tea cake, and a creamy tres leches cake.

Back to the Mission on another day, we stopped at Bi-Rite Creamery, where we once again found long lines, and were once again rewarded for waiting. The strawberry balsamic soft serve was a little disappointing (not quite enough balsamic flavor), but the traditional ice creams, in flavors like brown sugar with ginger-caramel swirl, roasted banana, and toasted coconut, were rather tasty. The winner: honey lavender, which balanced not-too-sweet ice cream with an herby perfumed scent.

The only dessert in this entry that wasn't found in the Mission, and the only one that we stumbled upon by accident, was perhaps the most unique treat we tried. The Loving Cup, in Russian Hill, specializes in making a seriously undervalued dessert: rice pudding. I selected a cup of rum and raisin rice pudding, which tasted charmingly old-fashioned and incredibly delicious. The ingredients they use are local and organic, and they happily show nutritional information to tout their low calorie products.

But the sweetest highlight of the trip was a stop at Dynamo Donuts, which I'd been wanting to try since first reading about them in Readymade magazine over a year ago. Back then, I'd attempted to make their lemon pistachio donut, which had been a bit of a flop-- luckily that was one of the donuts on offer on our visit, so I could compare. We picked up a box of donuts for the family, and brought them back home to try out.

The flavors, in clockwise order from top-left: candied orange blossom, chocolate star anise, caramel del sel, mystery apple (we forgot to note the exact flavor), lemon thyme, vanilla bean, chocolate spice, maple glazed bacon, and the aforementioned lemon pistachio.

We sliced them up, sampled each of them, and debated on the best. The caramel del sel was fantastically rich, and the bacon donut was suprisingly satisfying, but the best may have been the simple lemon thyme (though no one else would agree with me, probably).

PS- And, in related news, I've had to go on a diet and start working out since I've been back. Even all the walking we did in San Francisco couldn't counteract the incredible sweets available everywhere. But it was totally worth it!

3 Binh My in SF.

One of the most surprising details about San Francisco for me was the way in which binh my, Vietnamese baguette sandwiches, have practically been adopted as a bay area specialty. We saw them sold everywhere and eaten by everyone, from non-descript downtown kiosks catering to local office workers, to the menus of trendy cafes and restaurants, to hole-in-the-wall Tenderloin shops where the queues were startlingly diverse. I love binh my, and likely could have eaten one every day, had I not forced a little restraint upon myself. But as it was, I was able to sample three different binh my, from radically different sources and in quite different forms.

I hate to say it, but the binh my I ate from Saigon to Hanoi might have made me rather particular. While each of the ones I tried in SF were great, I never found a perfect one-- though they came close. Any suggestions on where to try next time?

1. Binh My Pate, from Saigon Sandwich (pictured at top)
We swung by Saigon Sandwich to pick up binh my awhile before lunch-time, but even so there was already a line out the door when we arrived. And after unwrapping my sandwich and taking a bite, I could see why. The sandwiches had a great mix of salty, savory and spicy, with big slices of chili and a generous handful of cilantro. The only problem was the pate flavor, which had too much of a liverwurst flavor, which overpowered a little toward the end. Perhaps I should have ordered the combination pate and cold meats, for a more balanced taste.

2. BBQ Brisket Binh My, at Wexler's

When I saw the BBQ Brisket Binh My listed among the items on the US South-inspired menu at Wexler's, I knew I had to try it. Unfortunately, the result was a little disappointing. I should point out that had I ordered the sandwich simply as a BBQ brisket, I would have had no complaints: the meat was incredibly delicious. But the sandwich was really lacking the binh my flavor it promised. The cilantro and chili were barely present, the pickled cabbage not a perfect substitute for fish-sauce marinated carrots. A great idea, but not terribly well executed.

3. Hoi An Meatball Binh My, from Out the Door

Our first meal in the city itself was a fantastic Vietnamese lunch at the Slanted Door. After leaving, I glanced at their take-away cafe Out the Door, and noticed that they had binh my on the menu. So on our last day, I asked that we swing by the Ferry Building so I could grab one as a final lunch in the city. Though both the Roast Pork and 5 Spice Chicken sounded good, I opted for the Hoi An Meatball sandwich just to be a little different. And once again, the team behind the Slanted Door delivered with a fantastic sandwich that burst with the taste of Vietnam. My only complaint with the sandwich was that, unlike the sandwiches in the city it references, it had no spice. The binh my I had in Hoi An were always doused with a fiery chili sauce, which would have been a nice addition. Perhaps its available upon request?

eating culture/eaten: In-n-Out Burger and Shake.

Last week I got to spend an incredible seven days around San Francisco and the wine country with my family. Our holiday was planned mainly around eating some incredible food, starting with a much appreciated stop at In-n-Out on our way from the airport to Napa. It might seem like a humble beginning to a holiday in one of the world's greatest food centers, but the meal really summed up what we were after: simple, satisfying bites of local California flavor. And anyway, if you've had a burger and shake from In-n-Out, then you probably understand.

eatingCULTURE/eaten: Melkkos.

For a final breakfast in South Africa, we woke up early and headed out to Pretoria's Boeremark. We got there just as the sky was just starting to lighten, some of the late-coming vendors still setting up their stalls and laying out their produce. It had been raining the day before, and though the morning sky was clear there were still gaping mud puddles and a slight damp chill in the air. This made it the perfect morning to have a bowl of melkkos. A flour based porridge layered with strata of cinnamon and sugar, melkkos satisfies on all my requirements for a chilly morning meal: nourishing, filling, with just the right element of sweetness.

eatingCULTURE/eaten: Cendol.

In moving traveling from Taipei to Borneo, we had to make a quick adjustment from the cold, wet winter weather of Taiwan to the sweltering tropical heat of Malaysia. Thankfully, we were able to find an aid to that transition. While walking through the market in Kota Kinabalu, we saw vendors with large plastic tubs filled with strange neon-green squiggles, explained only by signs advertising ‘cendol’. While we initially eyed this strange dessert with skepticism, it quickly became our daily treat, and our favorite way of cooling off.

A sweet dessert ‘soup’ made of bright green mung-bean-flour threads served with a mound of ice and coconut milk, cendol was served rather simply in Sabah. In Melaka, we sampled a much more mature version of cendol, in which red beans were mixed among the threads of cendol. While they might have made the dessert a little more savory, the effect was balanced out with a dark swirl of gula melaka, the rich local palm sugar. It added an additional complexity to the dessert.

But to be honest, while I can appreciate the Melaka version as a superior product, there’s something I rather liked about the simple cendol we got in Borneo. Without the red beans and the darkly-sweet palm sugar, it was uncomplicated and uncluttered, creamy without being too rich or too complex; satisfying in the same way that a simple scoop of vanilla ice cream might be more refreshing than a rich gelato on a hot summer day.

A day on the plate in Kota Kinabalu.

Despite the mystery and allure evoked by its name, something about Kota Kinabalu keeps it from being a particularly engaging city. It's a city of placid avenues and grid-like concrete buildings, too modern to be characterful, but just a little too worn to be graceful. But if there is one moment when the city may be redeemed, it's when its residents sit down to eat.

Many people take their meals under the swirling ceiling fans of kopitiam, Chinese style coffee shops. For breakfast, this is where to go for a warm, sticky glass of coffee, sweetened with condensed milk. If you're lucky, you'll also be able to find a plate of bread with kaya, a rich coconut jam.

The kopitiam stay in business all day; you'll be able to swing by again for lunch. Items on the menu range from Chinese favorites, like char siew (barbecued pork), to Malay, like laksa (noodles in a coconut milk curry), to Straits specialities, like chicken-rice (poached chicken served with a delicate soup and a mildly garlicy bed of rice). Sometimes the most satisfying meal is the most straightforward, like the above mee ayam: a pile noodles (mee) that have been wok-fried in kejap manis (a dark, sweet soy sauce) are topped with cleaver-cut slabs of delicious crispy skinned chicken (ayam).

Elsewhere, Indian style restaurants sell a diverse range of curries, made with chicken, lamb, and vegetables, or even squid and shrimp. A few select shops serve their curry on a banana leaf; more often, a more humble presentation involves a plastic plate and a mound of rice. Look for the large griddles to identify a shop specializing in roti canai, unleavened bread served with small dishes of curry, or murtabak, a folded roti canai filled with meat or vegetables.

You'll still find the city's restaurants and kopitiam awake at night, but for a more lively dinner, head toward the night market on the waterfront. The stalls at the centre of the market seem oddly lacking in variety-- most sell fried rice, fried noodles, or soto, a spicy soup-- but you'll likely find a cheap, tasty meal at least. Around the periphery are dessert shops-- perfect for the sultry Borneo evenings are shops selling cendol, a pandan flavoured dessert served over ice with a dash of coconut milk.

For a more unique dinner you'll need to penetrate the clouds of smoke toward the back of the market. There, you'll find yourself among the grills of the Filipino Barbecue, where vendors display dazzling piles of seafood-- massive prawns, formidible lobsters, and technicolor fish-- all available to be grilled and served with a dressing of chili. It's perhaps the cheapest spot to indulge in the incredible catch available off Borneo's coast.

To walk through the city at mealtime is to hear the sound of spoons scraping at woks and of roti being slapped onto the griddle, to see piles of gorgeous seafood, ducks hanging in shop windows, and trays of colorful curries. It's encountering the unique mix of cultures-- Chinese, Indian, Filipino and Malay-- and the contrasting geographies-- from the tropic seas to the fertile forests-- that make up KK. You might not always be able to see what's exciting about Kota Kinabalu, but at least you can taste it.

eatingCULTURE/eaten: Papaya Milk.

The first thing I consumed after arriving in Taipei back in 2008, Papaya Milk remains one of my favorite Taiwan treats. Ripe papaya is blended with milk for a creamy, earthy, sweet-but-not-too-sweet smoothie. It's available fresh, from night market stalls or from fast-food style vendors, or pre-made at 7-11s, where it's sold in fantastically retro packaging. It's perfect for a steamy summer's afternoon in the southern town of Kaohsiung (where the drink is recognized as a local treasure)-- but as I found out this month, is just as delicious on a drizzly Chinese New Year's holiday in chilly Hsinchu.

eatingCULTURE/eaten: Kraw-coo-ka-pi.

One of the last things I ate before leaving Bangkok was one of the first things I ate when I got back-- kraw-coo-ka-pi (to use the spelling provided on their sign). In this salad, a pile of brown rice is topped with a diverse mix of ingredients: coriander, chopped chili, strips of egg, spring onion, shallots, little dried shrimp, candied pork sausage and whole dried chili. A well scooped bite is a mix of fresh, salty, sharp, and spicy, with a tiny hint of sweetness. As a dish, it neatly sums up what I love about Thai food, and what I missed while I was away: fresh, distinctive flavors are combined to startlingly delicious results.

eatingCULTURE/eaten: Salt Encrusted Fish.

Our return to Bangkok was of course an excuse to indulge in some of our old favorite dishes, but it was also an opportunity to try a few things we'd always been curious about. With its body entirely coated in coarse salt, the grilled salt-encrusted fish had always intrigued me, but I'd never found the chance to try it. So when we passed by a stand that seemed to specialize in them, we took the hint, ordered one, and grabbed a table. The fish arrived with its salty-skin already peeled back for us, and accompanied by a small bowl of a spicy chili sauce. The fish's mouth had been stuffed with lemongrass, which gave a gentle flavor to its delicate white flesh. And the salt, somewhat strangely, gave the fish an added moisture-- by first leaching the moisture out of it, and then gently infusing it back in.

A little frost with your penguins.

In my recent post on Simon's Town, I offered one piece of rather important advice: don't eat in Simon's Town. But I will make one small exception. On the walk between the Simon's Town beach and Boulder's (the spot for penguin viewing) there is a small window right on the sidewalk, offering ice cream by Ice Dream of Hout Bay. The menu is limited to what they can squeeze onto their chalkboard, and focuses on rich interpretations of classic flavours. Perfect for a frosty treat on the walk back from checking out the Cape's antarctic residents.

First Thanksgiving.

Currently, there is a turkey roasting in our oven, releasing the sharp scent of rosemary into our apartment. Meanwhile, two pumpkin pies are cooling in our kitchen, their smooth golden-orange surfaces flecked with traces of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger.

This might sound fairly normal, it being Thanksgiving and all, but it came as a bit of a surprise to me. For the weeks before, whenever the mention of Thanksgiving came up, I shrugged it off with little thought. I haven't celebrated the holiday in five years, the last time I spent a November in my hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then, I've spent the holiday traveling in Syria, studying in South Africa, working in Thailand, and stuck in the Incheon airport in Seoul; never once did I consider trying to celebrate the holiday abroad.

But a few weeks ago, Bordeaux begun to suggest more seriously that we celebrate it; primarily, I expect, because he was curious to try roasting a turkey. So I changed my mind. We have a good sized group of friends here, we know someone with a beautiful house who can host, and in the end Thanksgiving gave us a good chance to have a party and further develop our cooking skills.

Not the traditional reasons for celebrating the holiday, basically. But then something happened in our kitchen to change the feeling just a little bit. With Bordeaux in charge of the turkey and stuffing, and most of the side-dishes doled out to friends, I was put in charge of making two pumpkin pies. It wasn't exactly a seamless process-- our kitchen got too hot to properly make the buttery crust, and I misread one of the liquid ingredients and had to chuck in some baked gem-squash to even out the mixture (those are soft, edible gem-squash seeds you see in the pie below, as a note). But when I took the first pie out of the oven, I was hit by the warm buttery scent of nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon. It was the exact same scent that would greet me on Thanksgiving morning as a child, when I would go into the kitchen and smell the baking pumpkin bread. And, unexpected to me, filling my own kitchen with this same scent made me feel a lot better than I would have expected it would.

Only after our planning got under way did I realize that this will by my and Bordeaux's first Thanksgiving spent as a married couple. And though I hadn't thought it would matter to me, I'm actually rather glad that we're not just letting the day slip by. We're filling our home with the fragrances of spice, butter, and roasted turkey, and tonight we'll share a staggering meal with our friends. And though I can't say with confidence that I think the pumpkin pie we have for dessert will be 100% perfect, I can at least relax knowing that we'll have lots more Thanksgiving to develop a better one. Which is something to be very thankful for.

Walking out of a restaurant.

Last weekend Bordeaux and I decided to get out of town for lunch, so we drove up to the Winelands to have lunch at a wine estate. We'd done a little research, and picked a place that came recommended in some eating guides. But when we got there and looked at the menu, we were a little disappointed. The menu seemed a bit pretentious, trying too hard. The most succint problem with the menu was that there was something with 'wonton cups' in the appetizers-- and while I obviously have no problems with Asian food, I find it a bit tiresome how frequently restaurants in Cape Town add one token Asian-inspired item to their menu just to show how wordly and sophisticated they are.* Basically though, we were after a simple, delicious, lazy Sunday lunch, and this obviously wasn't the place for it.

So anyway, we walked out. We drove a bit to Fairview, a winery and cheese farm near Paarl, which we have visited often and always enjoy. We shared a massive platter of their hand-crafted cheeses (pictured above), which included a mature and flavourful la beryl, creamy camembert, and an incredibly rich and dessert-like cream cheese with cranberries. We ate it with crusty bread, a bitter preserved orange, slices of cured meat, and a chilled bottle of wine. Perfect for a late Sunday lunch on a very warm afternoon.

A few years ago, I never would have been able to walk out of a restaurant. I will admit it's a little tacky maybe, and I probably would have been a bit embarrassed about what other diners would think. But now I actually find something-- in an odd way-- satisfying about walking out of a restaurant. I suppose I've gotten to the point that I really care much less about what other people think, and I've also come to really appreciate the value of a good meal spent with someone I care about. I don't think it's worth wasting time on mediocrity, or settling for something less when there are much better options around. Admittedly, we could have been surprised. There's a chance that had we stayed we might have ended up liking what we ate, but we also just knew that we could have a much more enjoyable meal elsewhere. It's about realizing that enjoying the limited time I have is more important than worrying about my pride.

With all of that said, my grandparents used to walk out of movies that they found morally objectionable. I think their morals got stricter and movies more crass to the point that they would usually leave the theatre about five minutes in. So maybe it's actually just genetic, and I'm on a very dangerous road?

*And yet, good, straight-forward Asian food is very difficult to find in Cape Town. More on that some other time, perhaps.

Turkey and crisco.

I think sometimes I give the impression of being a food snob, or of only being into 'exotic' foods, but really that's hardly the case. I really just like simple food well made, in whatever form that might take. And I'm certainly not one to turn down something tasty from my home-country. Last time I was home, I had some incredible American meals in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Chicago. Ok, I might be more interested in the eating cultures of say Vietnam or Thailand, but now and then I really get a craving for a familiar American classic.

Like donuts. I can potentially count the number of donuts I've actually eaten in the past decade on one hand, but for some reason, the craving hit me recently. I don't really feel a need to justify this-- a well crafted donut (not from the above retailer, which was included for mere thematic purposes) can be a beautiful confection. Take, for example, these apple cider donuts I just spotted over on Smitten Kitchen. The warming aroma of apple, spiced with the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon-- it sounds like a brilliant celebration of an American classic. I'm trying to eat a little healthier* after too much baking lately, so this recipe could be a rather dangerous find, were two of the central ingredients, shortening and apple cider, not so tricky to get a hold of in South Africa. I've actually attempted to make donuts once before; last time I was in Albuquerque I took my stab at it, and came up with some rather dark and overly chewy donuts with a too-strong lemon flavour. Even with that to discourage me, I might still consider attempting these when I get back on American soil...

We've also been discussing American food recently over the topic of Thanksgiving, as Bordeaux and I debate whether we'll actually celebrate it. Bordeaux is curious to try roasting a turkey, but given Cape Town's climbing temperatures, I'm more inclined to play around with the holidays a little and have an evening with a barbecue and some root beer floats. But this afternoon I found myself poring over New York Times articles on preparing Thanksgiving dinner for some reason, and was left actually wondering if we shouldn't actually take a stab at a big Thanksgiving dinner.

Anyway, perhaps I will get something of a fill tonight, anyway, as we will be eating American for dinner. We're hosting a friend's birthday here, so we'll be having hamburgers, with home-made buns, no less. Though, well, I should point out that they're ostrich burgers. And we'll be enjoying them with South African red wines. I'm not really helping my point, am I?

*(after tonight, when I'll be having a piece of Bordeaux's double layer victoria sponge cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, that is)

eatingCULTURE/eaten: Beskuit.

Eating the world, one bite at a time.

No proper South African tea is complete unless attended by some beskuit. Known in English as a rusk, beskuit is the Afrikaans equivalent of biscotti: a biscuit that has been twice baked to dry it out and harden it, making it ideal for dipping into a warm mug of tee or koffie. Though classic beskuit have a relatively simple ingredient list (mainly flour, margarine, and buttermilk), they can be further enhanced with added seeds, dried fruit, or cereals. Pictured above are anise beskuit, made with self-raising flour for a more pillowy texture, and flavoured lightly with anise. If you're curious to try beskuit in South Africa, give the boxes in the grocery store a miss, and seek out some proper home-baked beskuit from a farm stall, a church bazaar, or a neighbourhood cafe; it will make all the difference for enjoying your tea.

For further reading, or to attempt some beskuit of your own, check out this recipe on Marita Says.