Food

News In SE Asia

Posted on by Laughingnomad

China, Cambodia, the Philippines, India and Burma are banning or reducing their rice exports in order to conserve enough supply for their local populations. Reasons for supply and demand are complex and theories abound. Iran and Indonesia are expected to place orders to Thailand the middle of this year. Thailand is working on a measure to sell rice at determined prices which are higher than the market price to slow exports. So you can expect the price of rice, especially Basmati and Thai Jasmine to go up adding to inflation.

Meanwhile the Bangkok Post had a front page story warning young boys not to seek early castration. The boys apparently are thinking that castration, comparatively cheaper than a sex change operation, will yield similar results like smooth skin and other femine traits. Now, any doctor performing the surgery on boys below the age of 18 without parental consent could have their medical certificates temporarily revoked. The owners of clinics performing the operation on boys under 18 without parental consent could also face a one-year jail term and a maximum fine of 20,000 baht ($636 U.S.).

There is an uproar in Bangkok about developers building high-rise buildings that reflect heat and sun glare. Developers are supposed to be required to use glass material that reflects no more than 30% sunlight. Hey, this might be the answer to Portland’s grey skies!

On To Jinghong

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Too cold to do anything in Kunming so am flying out today to Jinghong in the south of China where it is reportedly warm. Was in Jinghong in the tropical Xishuangbanna Region in December 2004 when it was much warmer than this year.  Lonely Planet says there are over 800,000 people  in Jinghong, the capitol, and the many surrounding minority villages. It will be fun to go there again. It is unusually cold in Kunming and nothing is heated…I mean nothing…not hotels…not restaurants…nothing… including my hotel room. During this unusually cold winter there is an energy crisis in China and President Hu has called on the people to conserve. But the heat pad under my bottom sheet is toasty and I can lie in bed and watch Channel TV Asia with information provided by Reuters out of Singapore…but am not sure.

Big deal on TV the last couple days is Spielberg’s resignation as artistic director of the Olympic games. President Hu (who?) says politics shouldn’t be mixed with the Olympics. But he doesn’t mention the fact that China is the biggest provider of arms to the Sudan, of course. Or that China is blocking a UN Security Council resolution against Sudan because China gets most of Sudan’s oil. Guess Spielberg et al figured it doesn’t do any good to talk nice to China and this was the only way to get it’s attention. A Chinese official says it is not China’s foreign policy to react to criticism.  BTW, China is very worried about the possibility that demonstrations will mar the games.

And then there is the case of the two spies for China that were arrested by the U.S. President Who says the accusations against China’s spying is a bunch of hooey. He didn’t say it that way of course. He says the U.S. is trying to start up the cold war again.

So it goes…

I plan on uploading pictures of Josh’s menu items when I get to a place where I can use my own computer.  He says that small groups of the Olympic committee have been meeting at the Hilton for the last four years, that during the Olympics the hotel will be 95% full with the entire Committee and that he is bracing for the walloping restaurant business.

Almost Didn’t Make The Plane To Kunming

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Hard to believe I was in Beijing for two weeks. But you know what they say about stinking guests if they stay too long. So today I flew to Kunming in Yunnan Province in the south of China. Stewardess announced that the flight would take 3.5 hours to go 200 kilometers. I figured there was something wrong there…think she meant 2000 kilometers. Warmer than Beijing but still damn cold…39 degrees F. Had hoped for it to be warmer this far south. Might have to keep on going.

But before I could get to the plane, I had an adventure! Got out of the taxi at the airport and walked around to the back of the car to get my backpack out of the trunk. Then I’ll be damned if the driver took off like a shot with me flapping my arms, running and yelling after him in the middle of the road…to no avail. A nice taxi was coming up behind me…told me to get in…he ran the first taxi down to get him to stop. Boy…woke me up! The driver was just stupid! Didn’t even know why we were pulling him over until we got him stopped and pointed to the trunk! My rescuer kindly refused money. Travel tip: don’t get out of a taxi, if you have baggage in the trunk, until you see the driver getting out too!

I’m in the Camellia Hotel where I stayed both in 2003 and 2004. Great buffet breakfast comes with the room…$28 a night. Couple bars, internet cafe…mostly lauwai (same as gringo only it’s what the Chinese call anyone not from China). There’s a hostel here too…but mostly with twenty-somethings and I want my peace and quiet so I have my own room in the main building. Channel TV Asia is the only English language station but I get most of the world news….as if I needed it. Announcers have a British accent…think it’s operated by Reuters.

Same cafe down the street but with a different name…Chinese and western comfort food…but now with free WiFi. Around the corner is MaMa Fu’s Cafe…hot and sour noodle soups. And next door is a big noodle shop with Over The Bridge Noodle Soup…platter of meat and vegetables comes to the table and you drop the food in and it cooks in the still hot broth…indigenous Yunnan style soup.

No colorful minority peoples selling things in the street now. Guess it’s either too cold or the government has banished them.

I really like the neighborhood here…with a market nearby. A group of crazy Europeans are biking China in this cold…bicycles all parked in the street in the front of a sports clothing shop while they make repairs…older Chinese men stopping by to peer at the loony western barbarians.

The Sad End Of Mexican Criollo Corn?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

NAFTA and Biotech: Twin Horsemen of the Ag Apocalypse
The Last Days of Mexican Corn

By JOHN ROSS
Mexico City.

The single, spindly seven foot-tall cornstalk spiring up from the planter box outside a prominent downtown hotel here was filling out with new “elotes” (sweet corn) to the admiration of passer-bys, some of whom even paused to pat the swelling ears with affection. Down the centuries most of the population of this megalopolis migrated here from the countryside at one time or another over the course of the past 500 years and inside every “Chilango” (Mexico City resident) lurks an inner campesino.

But the solitary stalk, sewn by an urban coalition of farmers and ecologists under the banner of “No Hay Pais Sin Maiz” (“There Is No Country Without Corn”) in planter boxes outside the downtown hotels, museums, government palaces and other historical monuments can just as easily be seen as a signifier for the fragile state of survival of Mexican corn.

As the year ripens into deep autumn, the corn harvest is pouring in all over Mexico. Out in Santa Cruz Tanaco in the Purepecha Indian Sierra of Michoacan state, the men mow their way down the rows much as their fathers and their fathers before did, snapping off the ears and tossing them into the “tshundi” basket on their backs.

In the evenings, the families will gather around the fire and shuck the “granos” from the cobs into buckets and carry them down to the store to trade for other necessities of life. It is the way in Tanaco in this season of plenitude just as it is in the tens of thousands of tiny farming communities all over Mexico where 29 per cent of the population still lives. But it is a way of life that is fading precipitously. Some say that these indeed may be the last days of Mexican corn.
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This Side Of The Border Problem

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Oaxaca is Mexico’s second poorest state with many mountain villages nearly empty of working age men. But over half of the poco English speaking men I have talked to have said they learned the language by working on the East Coast…sweeping a parking lot, waiting tables, dish washing, working on dairy farms in NY state. Many others refer to back-breaking work picking strawberries in California and Oregon….or better…construction in Las Vegas. A woman working as a janitor at the Toyota outlet here said her husband has been in the states for four years. “Oh, where,” I asked. She didn’t know.

My friend Mica had an aunt in Huayapam, Juvita, who sold her successful Tejate business in the market here and unbenownst to her husband, Pedro, paid huge money to an inept “coyote” to take her and two daughters across the border illegally. She died in the Arizona desert. Her daughters survived and are still in the US, leaving her husband here alone. Pedro’s sister, Carmen, is married to a man who hasn’t been back from the US for several years, leaving her here with her 4 year old daughter, Paula.

For 8 years, I mentored a teenage girl from a family of 10 from the Mixtec, in the northwestern Oaxaca mountains that have been playing both sides of the border for years…some of the children legal and some not. The parents have to return every year to work the communal land.

Many are trying to get legal status for work in the US. One young waiter in the Zocalo left his wife and two children in Los Angeles to come home to a small village in Oaxaca to file immigration papers. He is living with his parents and travels by bus one hour twice a day from Tlacalula to Oaxaca City to wait tables at a restaurant in the Zocalo…sending his wages home to his non-working wife. He has been told by immigration all he can do is wait. He has been waiting for one year.

A long-time American born friend from Oregon came to Queretaro with her new Mexican-National husband who is an auto mechanic to file papers for him. They tried once unsuccessfully. Now, in order to be with him, she is stuck in Mexico…trying again. He had been in the US for ten years, living frugally, sending every extra penny home (with Mexico ripping off up to 20% money sent home charges) to support an ill mother with the extra ($40,000) going into “savings” here. Big mistake. As often happens the two brothers entrusted with the money now say there “is no money.”

An AP article of April 27, 2007 illustrates part of the problem that leaves Mexican migrants in a catch-22:

Farm labor shortage may leave crops to rot in field
Tighter border, better paying jobs keep workers away

Making Tejate

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Tejate is a rich frothy drink that is famous in Oaxaca. You get hooked on it. Labor intensive, it is made with criollo corn boiled in wood ash and ground and mixed with toasted and ground mamey seeds, cacao and the flowers of a tree found only in Huayapam.

The annual Tejate Fair on April 1 in Huayapam is a huge deal with thousands coming from all around Mexico to sample Tejate and partake in the dancing, music and food and crafts tables. Late one night at Mica and Bardo’s house, they asked me if I wouldn’t show up at 9am the next morning. A local TV station was going to film Mica’s mom, Ines, a well known “Tejatera,” as she and Carmen demonstrated the laborious art of making Tejate. They wanted me to film the filming for the family.

Taco Surprise

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Yesterday, after a leisurely visit over coffee at the Nueva Mundo coffee shop in the Centro with Sharon, I drove out to Plaza del Valle, past the University, to Oaxaca City’s northern style shopping plaza which is newish…built within the last five years anyway…which sports a Burger King, Office Depot, Sam’s Club, Sears, Pizza Hut and a street full of upscale car sales showrooms, grocery stores, a movie multiplex, a French department store much like Nordstroms…even a Blockbuster video rental outlet. Not what you think of when you think of Oaxaca is it?

A few days earlier, I had taken Joe to Mailboxes Inc, to pick up a shipping box for his return to Chicago in April. Parked in front, I figured, oh the car will be alright so the one and only time I have my car unlocked in Mexico, for less than five minutes, guess what happens? Some guys sitting on the sidewalk (maybe waiting for a suspect) lifted my car tool bag out of the back! So off to Sears to buy a new set of jumper cables after which I wandered through the mall in search of lunch.

In the food court, I stopped at a taco stall and ordered tacos with those fantastic green onions that taste so sweet after they have been charred on the grill. An order included six tacos for $1.60. Not realizing they were only about five inches in diameter I said, oh, muchos tacos! The girl responded with quite a bit of espanol rapido… ending with the words “medio de orden” or half an order. Ok. Sounded good. When the girl set the food in front of me I see a styrofoam plate with six grilled green onions and a few wedges of limon. “No tacos?” I ask. She made a half sign with her hands. So I had half an order…the half with the onions!

Bob, Josh and Luk In Bangkok

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My son Josh is Chef de Cuisine of “One East On Third” in the Hilton Hotel in Beijing. He was sent by the Executive Chef to Bangkok last week to check out some restaurants there. Luk, a delightful Thai girl who is married to our son Doug, had been visiting Bob at his rental house south of Pattaya so Bob, took Luk with him to Bangkok to join Josh. (Doug is currently in Oregon and will return to Thailand in a couple weeks.) This was the first time Josh met his sister-in-law, Luk.

This is Bob’s description of the visit…made me salivate reading about the Thai food!

“Josh missed his scheduled flight to BKK so arrived one day late. I extended my stay to allow for an overlap. He had hotel and culinary related meetings but we shared a few meals and today roamed around Chatuchak Market which he seemed to enjoy.

Josh let me choose the restaurants. I was the tour guide. (Although Josh has been to Bangkok many times!) He ate his evening meals with the Hilton folks first night and his second night at the Four Seasons. I think they had steaks at the Hilton as Josh’s hierarchy wants him to offer more steaks at the restaurant. Steak apparently is in demand in Beijing.

When we went out I gave him the option of streetside or upscale. We settled on Jim Thompson’s restaurant on Soi Saladang (we ate there before.) Had pomolo salad, gai with lemongrass , shrimp in a coconut curry, a fish souffle and morning glory in oyster sauce. All quite arroy (delicious) except the chicken. Second day we ate at a sit down restaurant at Chatuchak Market. Had a spicy Thai salad, fresh spring roles and sticky rice with mango and coconut milk. Josh enjoyed the cuisine.

At Chatuchak he purchased many items of Thai motif as his restaurant is going to do some things with a Thai theme. He would buy one item and then plans on having it reproduced in China. I think he wanted to buy more but was limited by what he was capable of carrying.

He appears to be doing well. Both he and Amy, (his wife did not make this trip) are apparently adapting better to cultural deviation. He says that Amy’s sudden unemployment left gaps that have resolved with her new job teaching history in an international school. They will return to Thailand in May to spend time in BKK again and then venture down to Samui where Doug and Luk live.

Luk was traveling with this huge suitcase (with wheels fortunately) that she could not lift. When going to BKK she insisted on high heels that were the stilletto variety with a single small strap across the forefoot. If you can recall BKK’s sidewalks and then picture her trying to get on and off skytrains and navigating all on the cobblestones and drains etc. Also I ended up with the suitcase as well as booking her hotel room. She remains pleasant company and generates many laughs.

Josh and Luk

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Wedding In Teotitlan del Camino

Posted on by Laughingnomad

My friend Bardo is from Teotitlan del Camino near the Puebla border and his parents, three brothers and a sister still live there. Bardo’s father, Don Bardo, a furniture maker, and Dona Mari raised six children in their big open-air three story house in this town of 6000 so there was plenty of room for all of us who made the four-hour trip: me, Ana and Oscar from next door, Bardo’s wife Mica and her two children, Pavel and Angelita and Bardo’s sister Pilar. At the last minute Bardo didn’t go and missed the trip entirely.

We took the four lane Mexico City toll highway NE to Tehuacan and then through Puebla back down into Oaxaca again to Teotitlan del Camino (or de Flores Magon) and Pilar drove ahead with Pavel so that we could follow – which did us no good as I drove faster than she did. When it was time to leave the carretera Mica directed us to Miahuatlan instead of the road to Teotitlan so we ended up detouring slowly on pot-holed dirt roads through a couple tiny scenic villages…San Sebastian and Coxcatlan, the birthplace of corn…which was fine with me.
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Chef Joshua Goetz

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Amy’s (son Josh’s wife) last blog post: “For the new edition of Timeout Beijing they listed the top 50 restaurants in the city. And, yes, you guessed it – One East on Third was on the list!! It was one of only 3 hotel restaurants chosen. Here’s what it said in the magazine.”

“Hilton’s swish new eatery has been transformed thanks to the culinary master of American-trained chef Joshua Goetz, who serves up a creative new breed of contemporary American cuisine, influenced by African and European flavors.”
(Timeout Beijing, January 2007, page 37).

I was so proud I started crying…makes it all worth it, says Amy!