Got Goat?

Haiti may not have much of a future, but it's got good food. (It's got some good people, too, but after my last post I cannot officially go on the record saying that.) I’m not sure I’d ever eaten goat before, but I’d happily do so again.

The majority of our diet there consisted of various staples consisting primarily of fried meats (usually goat or chicken) and fried plantains supplemented by a few eggs, a few breakfast spaghettis, and a few sandwiches of what I can only guess was brain cheese. All washed down with either a 1 L bottle of coca-cola or a pint of Prestige, Haiti’s surprisingly satisfying national beer. There was also conche which tasted like... well, conche, so they can't all be winners, but our best meal, our big banquet meal our final day, was Chinese food. The best damn Chinese food in Haiti and, arguably, in all of New Hampshire and Vermont. And for dessert? Dous makos. Sugar, condensed milk, and... silly putty?

Eat it, share it, or press it up against a newspaper comic to save for later.

 

Uhoh!

Two weeks ago my parents came for a visit. Just a few days ago they left. I'm still finding random objects left behind. Whether to call them gifts or not varies depending on the object. Today's gift: two umbrellas in my closet! Awesome, I've been needing an umbrella for oh... about four months now? The black and white checkered dress shirt distinctly suggestive of a picnic table cloth on the other hand I thought I had disposed of before they left.

Their visit though somewhat lengthy by the standard of most visits to small town, middle of nowhere, went surprisingly well. There was the requisite major family argument about whether or not the October Nor'easter was going to end life as we knew it on the Eastern seaboard or not, but that aside it was a remarkably pleasant two weeks. Much of it was spent watching a great if not eventually disappointing World Series or making trips back and forth from Price Chopper with various things to stick in my fridge. Such as a six pack of Romaine lettuce heads which I will hold onto until the gigantic-salad-composed-of-nothing-but-lettuce craving kicks in. And when it does I will have two different flavors of salad dressing to chose from. Or A1 steak sauce. Or Worcestershire sauce.Or an industrial sized bottle of ketchup.

The rest of the trip was divided amongst road trips to Woodstock, VT; Burlington, VT; and Seacoast, NH. The only one of these worthy of note was the last as it was both scenic and complete with a trip to Markey's Lobster Pound where my parents reminisced about their prior visit some twenty years before by eating the largest lobsters they could find. My dad even somehow managed to come away with some vintage postcards from the time of their visit and a coastal New England restaurant guide all complements of Mr Markey who they chatted up as they are want to do. Woodstock and Burlington on the other hand, are worthy places to visit only if you have no other places worthy to visit.

Other highlights of the trip include my mom cleaning my apartment to a level of cleanliness it will likely never see again; my dad bumping, kicking, and karate chopping my coffee table sufficiently till one of the wooden rails broke off; and an early Christmas present consisting of a huge, new, flat screen television complete with swanky new stand which I am still not entirely sure what to make of. I think overall they had a pretty good time; I know for the most part I did. And I hope to eventually one day stop finding new bath towels in my cupboards, closets, and washing machine. Until then I gotta find a way to dispose of a dozen bagels and a half dozen apples before they go bad. Someone may be getting a pretty unique gift basket in the next few days here.

Thirty-Four Hours Later (Mexico to New Hampshire)

Patrick and I drove for what very well may have been forever. I haven’t added it all up yet. We crossed over 2,000 miles and drove through what must have been 400 different states. The last few hundred miles of which, it should be noted, were on small town country roads which are not particularly suitable for overladen U-Hauls with trailers attached. For all the talk of America being a patchwork of different and distinct communities and environments it all seemed to run together to me. Texas was dry and flat. In Arkansas trees began showing up. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio were just more trees. And in New York mountains were added. And I guess in Vermont we started seeing signs warning of moose crossing, but we saw no meese. We had no schedule to start with and it quickly became evident that even winging it would require a fair amount of improvisation. The end string of events which we’ll call a plan consisted of a late start from San Antonio followed by a late arrival in Little Rock where we stayed at my good friend Trent’s family’s place. After waffles for dinner and waffles for breakfast we had another late start and decided, heck with sleep and time tables, let’s just drive until we puke. Or fall asleep and drive off a mountain pass, whatever the typical end result of driving more than humans were ever intended to drive. This led to dinner in Nashville that same day, a semi-delirious midnight drive through Ohio on my part, a completely unarousable period of sleep where I’m told Beeders drove through more of Ohio, lunch in some random Vermont town whose name I can no longer remember, and, finally, a reasonable arrival into Lebanon about 54 hours later. It is conceivable according to Google Maps that if we had driven continuously without eating, worn spaceman adult diapers, received inflight refueling by military aircraft, and somehow pole vaulted over all the mountain towns of New York and Vermont we could have done it in 34 hours, but I believe that has only been successfully completed once before by people far more industrious than us. Perhaps the Japanese. So all in all I got to say not bad. If there’s ever a national U-Haul racing circuit I think Patrick and I just very well may place. Maybe go semi-pro.

And now for a Beeder photo montage...

Pre-trip. Patrick wanted nothing but the finest of food on this adventure. So I took him to Rudy's. I think he liked it. Or we should never trust his thumbs up ever again.

Although the theme for this photo slide show adventure is "places Patrick ate," I felt we needed a picture of our crammed U-Haul + crammed MINI. In the sense that a MINI can be crammed at least.

First stop. The Czeck Stop! I was never truly a full convert to the cult of kolache during my time at Texas A&M (I will always love myself some donuts), but I did have to admit these kolaches were pretty great. And so I made Beeders eat some.

Beeders has kolache poisoning. He later gained 5 lbs and then woke up.

In the middle of Vermont. (I think I lost my picture at Coco's Italian restaurant in Nashville, the best restaurant.) This place had "spiedies" which were... I guess messy sandwiches? It was connected to a tire shop so they may just have been heavily sauced, bread wrapped vulcanized rubber scraps for all I know.

Lou's in Hanover. Good hamburgers. I approve. Patrick approves. Everybody approves.

First night in New Hampshire: Ramunto's Brick Oven Pizza! Made by robots in cast iron baking vaults. Although it was attached to a building made of brick, the only bricks actually in the joint were placed there by accident. Or as props. That said our super garlic pizza was pretty good.

Lastly: breakfast at Ace's Diner in Lebanon. The inside of this place was great, like a giant classic diner stereotype, and the food was tasty. Patrick on the other hand was not amused. Or just not happy that I was about to ship his butt off to Boston on a bus.

In the end the drive was long, but not too long. It was boring, but not too boring. The trailer amazingly never unhitched and the truck amazingly never exploded. Patrick forgave me for the bus ticket, and I think overall he had a reasonable time. He tells me such at least. He may just be saying that to practice his diplomacy as an aspiring ambassador, though. Perhaps he's secretly developing a covert nuclear weapons program. In either case, I appreciated his help and I'd be more than happy to provide him with fissile material should ever the need arise.

India Trip: The Smells, Sounds, and Tastes of India

FROM 1/18/07:

My parents keep asking me what the food is like here. In fact I believe its been in every email my loving mother has sent. In order to finally appease them and stop deferring my answer till later I will share with you all now our menu.

But first let's talk about the stink. Actually, so far India has smelled much less than I anticipated it would. I had heard from many people and sources that due to trash and hygiene and pollution and sewage issues (in some areas sewage disposal is a cement ditch immediately outside your residence) India would be quite smelly. At times it is and a few times it definitely is -- outside the fair grounds on the way to the hospital there is about a 100 yard stretch where I think vomiting would be inevitable if you stayed too long -- but for the most part, however, India has not smelled too bad. By and large most of the time it smells like any other dusty city aside from an occasional whiff of stink here and there. The only smell that does seem to be just about everywhere is the smell of burning diesel fuel. I would gamble there is not much regulation of automobiles and motorcycles as the streets can be a choky haze at times. So while the aroma of India, or Vellore at least, may not by and large be too great, it is certainly tolerable.

The sounds, on the other hand, are a little bit crazier. There is of course the usual sound of incessant honking to accompany the smell of smog, but the sounds of the city are not too out of the ordinary. It is the sounds of nature that are nutty. The birds, primarily, are the ones out of control. There are growling crows, sonar beeping birds, and what I imagine to be little finches chirping as loud and as fast as they possibly can. Add to that an occasional monkey fight (or sexual encounter possibly) at 11 pm and you have an almost nonstop background chorus in the trees. They do all eventually calm down around 2 or 3 in the morning, but at 4 on comes the Hindu music blared for all to hear over the seemingly invisible but ubiquitous loud speakers. The songs change almost daily, as do their volume, duration, and location, but they are just about always daily. Ear plugs are a must for light sleepers here.

And now, finally, the tastes of India. At first I loved Indian food, it was great, but after almost two weeks of nothing but spicy Indian food I am confident I am ready to move on. It all tastes the same. There is some Chinese food in town which is different, kind of, and the "samozas" do taste a lot like chimichangas, but our options are otherwise pretty much only Indian or Indian. Oh wells, you guys do not care to read my complaints and whines I imagine so instead I'll get on to our eats : (I cannot guarantee by the way that I've spelled anything correctly.)

At the cantina on the CMC campus where we're staying the menu is pretty limited, but it's cheap and tasty. You have your bread type foods like "dosa," a thin, almost crepe like fried bread that I do not particularly care for; "champatthi," a good tortilla like bread; "parotta" a thicker, chunkier bread without easy comparison and my easy favorite; and stuffed "gnon," which is like dosa kind of but usually stuffed with something to make it taste a little better. There's also the "vegetable biriyani" which is basically rice with vegetables and curry, "onion uthapam" which is essentially a pancake with onions in it, and the "egg and cheese sandwich" which is essentially a sandwich with egg and cheese in it. Many of these dishes do not taste too great by themselves, but with the accompanying sauces, or "gravies" as they like to call them, they're usually quite nice. For whatever reason the cantina only serves certain items at certain times so while you can get a vegetable biriyani and ice cream at lunch you cannot at dinner.

If you want meat -- and especially if you want it without a hundred little bones -- you must go off campus, though, in which case you have three main options. Right across from the hospital is China Town, a place that despite its name is pretty good; Hotel Darleeng, which is good but generally slow service; and Hotel Shitabi, which is great and generally has fairly quick service. Here you can get all sorts of chicken, fish, and mutton dishes in a wide variety of sauces. "Chicken Tika Masala" seems very popular amongst our group. I personally think the "Dragon Chicken" is best And the "Devil's Chicken," despite all its bluster, is not too spicy or flavorful. Make sure you order rice or a bread along with the meat dishes, though, or you'll just be eating a small tin of meat with a whole lot of gravy.

As a side note there is also a YWCA cantina on the hospital grounds that is Western friendly, but it's essentially a less nice version of campus cantina previously mentioned.

The drink options are, everywhere, essentially Coke, Sprite, or Fanta with a few places offering Pepsi. There are juices in many places too but they tend to be rather pulpy and so are not really juicy in the typical American sense. The tea is all chai, for the most part pretty good, and I hear the coffee is great too though I do not care for coffee myself. Milk is usually warm.

And deserts? Well, there's ice cream. I like that. Some places offer "lassis" which I have never tried but have been told are sour and absolutely terrible. And there is a guy who bikes around the fair grounds which a huge stack of cotton candy affixed to his ride, but we've never purchased any ourselves. To my knowledge that is about the extent of the desert selection though I kind of have to imagine we're missing something. The campus store is about 40% packaged cookies, though, so there's always the cookie option.

So that is what we have been eating for the last 14 days. I've liked it all, but I cannot wait for a pizza, box of donuts, and cold glass of milk. So, in summary, India is a sometimes smelly, often noisy, and generally tasty place.

And now off to Mamallapuram for the weekend!