I wanted to share with you a delicious little secret that has been keeping me happy and healthy for the last few months. Matt and I have been on the move a lot lately. We were in India in March, spent some time on the Ayurvedic detox treatment Panchakarma, then two incredible weeks at Tom Brown Jr’s Tracker School learning tracking and survival skills, and a lot of time going here and there and everywhere. 2010 has been an amazing journey. This spring has been about getting back to the roots of our heritage, nature, and bodies as physical beings.

A few weeks ago we drove from Santa Fe to our new home in Portland. Along the way we stopped at Mesa Verde, drove through the sandstone deserts of Utah, spent a day in Jackson Hole and an evening camped under the majestic Tetons, two days and a backcountry camp in Yellowstone, and a burger in Boise (photos below). Road trips are still the best American pastime, and I can’t imagine a better way (than on foot) to experience the continuously changing terrain of the west. However, we have little in the way of funds and did not want to leave our stomachs to the whim of chance. Good, hot food is essential for comfort. When you’re traveling or camping you could be defending yourself against unwashed bedcovers or grizzly bears. You need all the good fuel you can get!

Normally on a road trip we’d pack a couple jars of peanut butter and jam and a lot of beef jerky. But before our trip to NJ my mom had an ingenious idea: why not cook kichidi in a thermos?! Of course all of the camping world already knows about survival lentils and rice, but I wanted something that tasted delicious and was completely satisfying. Well, we tinkered a bit and voila: a revelation. With very little cooking time I could produce a smooth, creamy, delicious kichidi that made me smile.

For those unfamiliar with kichidi, it’s rice and dal, simply cooked and gussied up however you like. In fact, this recipe is so versatile and life-giving, it kept my father fed every day through grad school. With a thermos, though, you cut out all but 10 mins prep time and while you’re doing whatever you do, your food is slow-cooking between breakfast and lunch. Now, it must be a thermos that locks tight, completely seals in the heat, and holds enough foods to fill you up. The night before, you soak your grains. Then the following morning, as you brush your teeth, you turn on the rice and dal to a boil, turn it down to simmer, and cook it for as long as you have. Even if it’s only five minutes, it’ll do the job. You pour this into your thermos and get on with your day. Three or four hours later you have a delicious meal. Sandwiches and to-go meals are great, but nothing beats a bowl of goodness.

So right now, get up from your computer, head toward the cupboard that houses all those random kitchen contraptions you never use, pull out your thermos, and give it a good wash WITH SOAP. I’ll wait. Tomorrow (or today if you’re feeling ballsy), soak some grains. The following day, lunchtime, you can thank me. Clearly, this is a field that needs more investigation by home cooks. What else can we do here?!

Kichidi to go
Serves 4
1 cup brown basmati
1/2 cup split mung dal
5 cups of water

2 teaspoons spice blend
1 tablespoon ghee
1 teaspoon salt

Soak the rice and dal in enough water to cover by 2″ overnight. In the morning, rinse and place in a pot along with 5 cups water. Bring to a boil. You can either take off the heat now or cook for 5-10 minutes. Each 10 minutes will speed up cooking time in the thermos by about an hour.

Place the kichidi in a thermos. You have the option here to add in the spices and ghee now or later. Experiment. I found the most delicious way is to add 1/2 now, 1/2 later, but it’s up to you.

Additions and adaptations
Greens go really well with dal and rice. You can also add in fresh herbs, summer vegetables, tomatoes, cauliflower, etc. Just put them into the pot when you heat up the dal.
+ Add in kale, chopped and sauteed in a bit of ghee where you vagar* 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds. Add a bit of water, cover, and cook for 10 minutes, until tender. Add to the thermos.
+ Add in a cup of blanched fresh or frozen peas to the thermos.
+ Add in 2 teaspoons of spirulina for all the minerals and vitamins you need
+ Add in a handful of spinach and some toasted sesame seeds

* Vagarifying is when you heat up ghee in a saute pan and add seeds like mustard or cumin until they pop.

Spice Blend
This blend is simple and satisfying. You could really use anything. The most effective blends will be those with varying tastes. You already have sweet and salty covered, so pungent, savory, and bitter are good to play with. Add in a little chile powder, some cloves or star anise, or experiment with dried herbs. Remember that spices are tiny powerhouses of vitamins and minerals and can be used to balance your diet.
1 tablespoon coriander seed
1 tablespoon cumin seed
1 tablespoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon turmeric

Dry roast in a saute pan on medium until toasted. Grind and store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to one month.

Now it’s time for a picture show…

Cliff palace at Mesa Verde

Driving through these western landscapes makes you dizzy with wonder. We also picked up a copy of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Reading a book so provocative and filled with such utter devastation, well, it colors your trip considerably. In Mesa Verde we were slowed to a crawl because they were repaving roads, so we only made it to the Cliff Palace. Looking out over the cliff at the higgledy-piggledy house structures, you get the smallest glimpse of what humans were like when they integrated with the land, instead of living upon it. The foundations are still standing some 800 years later and their rudimentary grouting, studded with corn cobs and bits of pebbles, is still very much intact.

Remnants of 2003 fire at Mesa Verde

As we drove through the Mesa Verde lands we were surrounded by the charred tree remnants of a fire from 2003. We wandered through the knotted trees looking for life. Wildflowers were rampant, and some succulents had grown back, but not much else.

Utah

The landscape of Utah is dotted with mesas, severely steep sandstone composites that are all that remain after the rest of earth and stone has fallen away. Beside them are shitty, deposited houses-on-wheels, manmade structures that clearly don’t belong and will just as easily blow away if humans turn their back for more than a moment.

Prairie Dog

Buffalo amidst the Grand Tetons

Johnny Cash was already blasting as we rolled into Jackson where we had a walk, a delicious bison burger, and a photo under the antler arch. At dusk we made our way though windy dirt roads in search of an unmarked campsite recommended to us by a shop owner. Of course we never found it, but did happen upon these bison crossing the road beneath the beautiful, busty Tetons – probably the coolest mountains ever. We did find a site beside a lake and had a helluva time getting our seriously low underbelly VW, Gloria, out the next morning.

The lodgepole pines of Yellowstone

Yellowstone, America’s first national park, was at first horse and buggie affair, but by 1933 became a popular roadside attraction; a way to view the wild from the privacy and efficiency of your own vehicle. Granted, those early 20th century Americans were certainly more adventurous than their 21st century counterparts. A ring of a road circles the outer perimeter of the park, making the greater part of the 2,221,766 acres, the backcountry, navigable only by backpackers if at all. In the two days that we drove and hiked Yellowstone we were visited by rain, sleet, hail, snow, impressive clouds, wind, and glimpses of sun. With steam bursting from geysers and mist wafting off the springs, it does resemble a land of another time. As Yellowstone newbies, we took the “WOW” exit to Old Faithful, then spent the afternoon following the “cruisers” on the safari-like journey around the park, stopping wherever we saw an enormous camouflaged monocular or camera.

But no trip is complete without a hike into the backcountry. We had to travel to the top of the park where the elevation is lower (Yellowstone has snow in May?!) When we arrived it was dusk and raining softly. We had a moment in the car deliberating over whether we’d be freezing cold and wet or happy as pigs in shit to be out there in the wild, then we hiked the 2 1/2 miles to our designated site. We were the only people in the world in a completely foreign land. It was brilliant.

Shedding mule deer

Spring in Yellowstone

Upper Geyser Basin

Springs and geysers of Yellowstone

Calcite walls

Petrified tree

Lone tree

Snowy buffalo jam

White-footed trees

Mist over the Grand Prismatic Spring

Fields of Idaho

Hills of Oregon

I love the sound of black bean soup. I imagine the rich color of those small, rounded, black rocks glistening in an earthy, dark broth, sometimes studded with bits of jade, gold, and ruby and topped with a bit of fresh cheese or a swirl of sour cream. Done well it’s a beautiful, satisfying, and simple soup. Mostly, though, when I’ve actually ordered black bean soup in a restaurant, I’m presented with something that looks like an asphalt mud puddle after a storm. The beans are overcooked or (more consistently) undercooked, and the heaping mound of sour cream threatens to overtake any semblance of color or spice. I’ve never attempted to make black bean soup before, but I’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately on Elise’s Simply Recipes and came across just the recipe. Elise’s mother grew up in Arizona, just around the corner, so she has a wealth of good Southwestern recipes.

Lately I have been reading about the Japanese cooking philosophy, washoku, in a wonderful book of the same name by Elizabeth Andoh. Included in the principles of the washoku philosophy are considerations of: the five colors (go shiki), five tastes (go mi), five senses (go kan), and five ways… of preparing food (go hō). These principles are used to prepare meals daily, from elaborate multi-course kaiseki to the simplest of breakfasts. While they can easily be identified in Japanese cooking, and the Japanese certainly do a beautiful job of interpreting their philosophy, guidelines like these are an excellent way of exploring any meal or cuisine. While the list may seem daunting, it’s quite simple, and quiet effective in guiding us to create healthful, satisfying meals.

In Japanese cuisine, the five colors present in every meal are red, yellow, green, black, and white. Using a variety of colors derived from whole foods in each meal stimulates our sight, but also automatically helps us to vary nutrients and taste. You don’t need to think about it much to realize the benefits of eating a variety of colors. Consider the chlorophyll and B vitamins found in leafy greens, the antioxidants in red and purple berries, the carotenoid-rich carrot, the abundance of vitamin K in dark kelp, C-rich lemons, and potassium-pumped bananas. In this soup, orange sweet potato and red chipotle, white cheddar, green cilantro, black beans and purple tortilla chips, and yellow pepper create a semblance of colors to entice our eyes and nourish our bellies.

Adding different flavors into a dish or meal helps to satisfy all taste buds without overwhelming them. For the Japanese, the five tastes are salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy. While I certainly don’t use all of these tastes all the time, it’s hard to forget the pleasure of tasting something sweet accompanied by something salty or spicy. In this dish the sweet potato and onion adds a sweetness that helps to heighten the smokiness and spiciness of the chile, the lime and tomato add a sourness and acidity that counters the creamy richness of the soup, the cumin adds a bit of bite, and the salty tortilla chips help to enhance the taste overall on the way to your mouth.

The five ways include cooking techniques like simmering, broiling, steaming, sauteing, boiling, etc. In many Japanese dishes, ingredients for a single dish will be cooked separately and then assembled together at the final stage. This gives complexity and variety to foods without requiring a lot of rich fats and heavy cooking techniques. While it’s not so easy to have 4 different pots boiling to create a single dish, here the caramelized vegetables add some richness to the boiled beans, sauteing the aromatics helps to bring out their flavor, and pureeing the soup as a last step gives the soup a body without requiring any heady stock or fat.

Finally we consider the five senses of taste, sight, sound, smell, and touch. In addition to taste and color, the crunch of the chips, the aroma of chile and cumin, and the creaminess of the soup engage all five senses.

While I changed some of the proportions and ingredients from Elise’s original recipe to produce a delightfully orange color, I guess this suits another Japanese principle I enjoy… suiting the seasonality and locality of your physical place. To many Americans this means “eating seasonally and locally,” but to the Japanese it means much more. It means considering your mood, atmosphere, the weather outside your window, a particular dish in your pantry, or a thought that comes across you.

Matt and I just returned from a road trip to the red dirt of Utah’s Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. The winter snow is actually sticking to this arid desert more so than it has in the past 30 years. Thousands of years of water wandering through the limestone and sandstone (or “slick rock” as it is called locally) has created a playground of different rock formations: some as archways, long roads, steps, canyons, and giant, muddy-looking statues. Everywhere you look rocks and trees twist into elaborate shapes, succulents pierce the snow looking for moisture, and the dirt is ruddy and cracked. So lets just say the sandy, ruddy dirt of Utah turned my black bean soup a vibrant orange.

Black bean soup
2 cups cooked black beans, see below for options

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, 1/4 inch dice
1 celery rib, 1/4 inch dice
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch dice

4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin, toasted, and ground
2 tablespoons medium heat red chile powder, like this one
1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder

12 oz can whole peeled tomatoes, squished between fingers
4 cups cooking liquid + beans
1/2 orange or yellow (or orange) bell pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Juice of 1 lime

Cilantro, minced for garnish
Jack cheese, grated, for garnish

Heat the oil. Add the onion, celery, and sweet potato, and saute, until lightly browned, about 10-15 minutes.

Add the garlic, cumin, chile powder, chipotle powder, and saute a few minutes more.

Add the beans, tomatoes, cooking liquid, bell pepper, and salt. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, uncovered. Puree 1/2 of the soup. Return to the pot. Add the lime and adjust seasoning. Serve with garnishes, tortillas, or chips.

Cooking dried beans
1 cup dried black beans

3 thin slices of salt pork

2 bay leaves
1 garlic clove, squashed

1/2 onion, peeled
Rinse and pick over the beans in a colander. Soak the beans overnight in enough water to cover them plus two inches. Drain. Place all ingredients in a 2 quart stock pot. Add eight cups of water. Turn on to boil. Turn down to simmer, covered, for 2 hours. The beans are completely done when they are smooth, tender, and not starchy. Remove from heat and drain, reserving 4 cups of cooking liquid.

Using canned beans
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

3 pieces salt pork
2 bay leaves
1/4 onion
1 garlic clove, squashed
4 cups water

Place pork, bay leaves, onion, garlic, and water in a large pot. Turn on to boil, then turn down to simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes or so. Strain. Continue with recipe above.

A trip to Arches National Park…

It’s freezing in here. Is it freezing out there? Time to build a fire. Outside our window the trees twist and bend and blacken against the first clouds I’ve seen since we arrived. Yet somehow it’s still light and warm outside. In this filtered light the adobes across the street are a beautiful sienna. I remember loving the name, and by extension the color of burnt sienna in my fourth grade art class. If you squint your eyes here, it’s as far as the eye can see, this deep, ruddy, rich color. The earth, buildings, food, and sometimes the sky all bleed together. If you look closely, this land has gradations of all colors of the wheel, some more saturated and some just hints and flecks.

It’s no wonder this place is sought after by artists and writers alike. New York expats beam over yoga classes and the landscape. When we ask them where they’re from, they smile sheepishly at first, as though we’ve caught them in the act of a Great Escape. Then their eyes start to twinkle when they realize, for the first time this morning, this move was the greatest change of their life. It feels good to feel good against the sky and the earth. It feels good to be here cooking. But there is this inkling, in the back of my mind. I wonder what they were escaping from. I try to keep distance by not drinking too much of the Kool-Aid.

Everything about the land is painterly. Peering through my lens I realize how much a photograph fails to capture in its ability to only depict one scene at a time, one frame at a time. A landscape is so much more than a photograph or a canvas. Here it’s about the sense of space and the interaction between ground and sky. Santa Fe is studded with sparse evergreens clinging to the jagged mountains. A walk in the foothills exposes cactus and marbled rocks of every imaginable color.

The sun itself is warm, even in the winter, and feels as though it is streaming down instead of piercing all the surfaces and reflecting in my face. But the sky and the clouds are what catch me, every time I step outside. This is a place where the people are deeply rooted to the earth and its offerings.

My 2009 went out with a bang. Well, actually, I spent the wee hours of Jan 1 throwing up. Not from intoxication, but from the first really evil food poisoning I’ve had in ten years. I should have known better. Yet still, I started out all gringo on the chillis and fish tacos.

The cuisine of Santa Fe, a blend of those cultures who have come to call the high and dry city home for over 400 years, is part Spanish, Native American, and Mexican. The cuisines of these cultures combined with the sparse Southwestern land to develop a distinct New Mexican cuisine, and one whose roots are as complex as the people themselves.

Traditionally, little more than corn and chillis grew in the land surrounding the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where Santa Fe is perched. As far as the New Mexicans are concerned, you couldn’t pick two richer ingredients for the basis of such a flavorful cuisine. With the influx of tourists and also the affluent expats who have built summer adobes in the surrounding hills, the downtown restaurant cuisine of Santa Fe has become somewhat streamlined in its attempt to capture the richness here. So says a good cookbook I picked up at a local bookstore called The Feast of Santa Fe by Huntley Dent. This is why in Santa Fe, as well as in every new place I experience, I turn to home cooked meals and ancient traditions for some hints into the deliciousness found here.

These days, visiting a place and feeling alive and excited in it is, well, more difficult. With the web, countless tour guides and books, we have trouble “exploring” anymore. Instead, we come with our heads chock-full of movies and TV shows, great novels, paintings, and songs written about a new place. In fact, this content drives us there. Of course the oral tradition of stories and poems of different lands have been doing the same thing for centuries, tempting the human curiosity to explore. Yet in our time this curiosity can be more realistically satisfied with a few hours worth of surfing or a trip to the bookstore. Once we get there, however, we’re a complete mess. Thinking some things would be bigger, the people more foreign, the cities more vibrant, and the landscape more picturesque. It just feels so… familiar, before the plane even lands.

Matt and I have been honing our traveling methods for a couple of years now to prevent just this. It all started with a three day trip to Mexico City. We had booked the trip the night before, got on the plane with a few handy guide books, and attempted to orient ourselves on the street maps and brush up on our Spanish before we landed. Due to our fortunate lack of planning, we were able to explore, eyes wide and camera snapping, for three days straight.

We came back thinking Mexico City was one of the friendliest and most impressive cities we had been to, only to find most others who had visited felt it “Mexican,” dirty, and dangerous. Well, we have attempted to travel this way ever since. It’s our own immersion traveling.

Most of these tips are stating the obvious. But on an adventure, where anything can happen, many times the obvious is what’s forgotten. For us these reminders can be thought of as an insurance policy. I hope these simple tips can help you in your journeys in 2010…

Tactics for exploring new land

A shaman in a township outside of Cape Town, South Africa

Find guides who are like you. Find walking guides that traverse the city by foot. When you’re researching, look for forums and specialty books, not standard guide books and travel agents. People travel for different reasons. When we all read the same guide book, nothing can ever be new. Shopkeepers already know you’re coming, waiters know what to serve you, and locals know exactly how to point you to the “right” sights. Every town, city, and country has a “face” for tourists. Don’t let them give it to you. Popular guide book are for everyone and no one. A single Lonely Planet or Rough Guide cannot please, it can only be used as reference for the basics.

Matt donning two sets of glasses on a sunny day in Swaziland

Pack smart, reuse. We’ve selected quite a bit of gear in the past couple of years and have learned from both ultra-light hiking techniques and also our own mishaps. Rushed packing will travel with you for the remainder of your trip. Pack early, only bring items, especially clothing, that you can reuse. We would recommend: backpacks, backpacks, backpacks and layers, layers, layers. That is all.

When it comes to airplanes and commercial travel, think of the most heinous trip you could imagine and multiply it by 10. Hello 2010. Check baggage costs for your flights in advance. You could find yourself paying $50-100 for a domestic flight for two in addition to the cost of your ticket. Carry on whatever you can, and make sure to bring on a couple changes of clothes.

Senso-ji in Tokyo, Japan

Travel off season. What is so special about traveling with other tourists anyways?! If you’ve already had your European backpacking right-of-passage trip, you probably don’t care much for seeing other American tourists. Off season means things are cheaper, people are more relaxed, and you can have your pick of places to stay and times to go visit the sites. Sometimes less is more. Just make sure the things you want to see are still open.

Fruits in Harajiku

Forget what you’ve seen. Spend the first few days, weeks, or months forgetting everything you think you know. Forget what the guide book said people would be like, where the best food is, and what the sites are supposed to be like. Forget all the well-composed shots you saw in books or browsed on flickr, and forget whatever the travel rags or newspapers said about the place. Just explore. Experience as much as you can. Get lost as much as you can. If you’re not one for forgetting all the preconceived, single paragraph summaries about where you’re going, then next time maybe you shouldn’t have formed so many opinions up front. We have a rule of not browsing Flickr for shots until we return.

Remedy for the sick in Playa Del Carmen in the Yucatan, Mexico

Learn a few words. It won’t kill you. Learning how to say “Hello,” “Goodbye,” and “Can I have a beer, please?” in the language is not for you, it’s for everyone around you. Learning some semblance of pleasantries not only allows you to feel you’re communicating in some small way (culture shock is real!), but also lets people around you know that you respect their culture and want to make friends. Being a tourist means forcing your own customs on others. Try on new customs, learn the history, and ask as many questions as people will allow.

An abandoned gas station in the Panhandle in Texas

WALK! (if you’re not in imminent danger) Taking the local mode of transportation in a city goes without saying. You can get a feel for the pace and find out how good of a navigator you are in a foreign land, which is humbling on its own, but sometimes it’s good to walk. Your spirit and your sense of adventure will thank you. Walking slows everything down. It gets you up close to everyday life. It lets you discover things that, thankfully, guide books and personal recommendations can never cover: life. You never know what kind of weird sh*t you’ll see. Besides, when you’ve just arrived somewhere you’ve never been before, how can you really know where you want to go?

Our first sunset in Santa Fe

If you want to see things, take a drive. The quickest way to cover ground and get yourself off the beaten path is to rent a car. Taking responsibility for your own transportation can be frightening but also liberating. It can be exceptionally fun to get lost on crazy, windy back street with a local cabbie yelling and waving his first in a language you don’t understand. But it’s even more fun to get lost and find your way on your own.

Tatemichiya in Tokyo, Japan

Find a local spot. Find a good place with wifi and coffee, or tea and a cozy couch, and go there, often. Make it familiar as quickly as you can. Get to know the people. Tip them and they will tip you back. Our favorite place in Tokyo was a local izakaya called Tatemichiya. We were so excited when our waitress Anka, who we summoned by yelling sumimasen across the room, drew a perfect little pig with a squiggly tail to help bridge the language gap. We immediately nodded and smiled and were delivered succulent pork skewers. Amen.

Baker’s instructions in Kyoto

Listen to how people speak of the land. If all things are lovely and new that’s a good indication that the city is filled with expats and tourists. Venture out to where people say that it’s “just so.”

Grilled fish in Kusatsu in in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture, Japan

Find out what the locals eat. And I don’t just mean what the local spots or watering holes are, but what the locals eat at home and what they eat every day. Get invited to someone’s house for dinner. Scrounge around in the local specialty stores. Head to the markets. Find the home-style restaurants. And never, ever, unless you’re dying of hunger, eat in a touristy downtown spot. In Japan last year we realized that, while New York had plenty of sushi, ramen, and yakitori, the real meat of the Japanese cuisine was found in the home cooking (osozai) restaurants, izakayas, soba joints, and on the street. Japanese eat sushi infrequently, and when they do, it’s nothing like the gorging we Americans do on California and spider rolls.

Teotihuacan, central Mexico

Look up. Go up. It’s always a good idea to get different vantage points wherever you go. Hills, rooftop restaurants, towers, back alleys, fire escapes, high rises. There’s always a free way up or in. Discover. The best seat in the house, the rooftop of an unfinished hotel, the veranda of someone’s house party, or a cozy booth all to yourself. Do not underestimate a change in perspective. Outside of Mexico city, the pyramidal ruins at Teotihuacan reflected the ancient civilization’s desire to reach the sky.

A flower woman in the Yucatan, Mexico

Don’t forget to stop and watch. Head to a museum’s steps. Watch the people. Watch how they move on the street. Watch how the traffic flows. Close your eyes and feel the sun’s rays on your face. Is it warmer? Colder? Smell the air outside. Is it fresh or stale? The light in Santa Fe is much warmer and the air much drier than back home. Because it lacks moisture, smells are generally more subdued than in the NE.

Malalotja Nature Reserve in Swaziland

Look. Then shoot. While capturing the perfect photograph means always being ready, it’s even more valuable to capture things permanently with your mind’s eye. Memories stored only in the camera may make your wall more interesting or your wallet more full, but it’s not going to enrich your experience. If you don’t look closely and observe, you’ll never really see what you’re looking at. We visited the Malolotja Nature Reserve while in South Africa in May 2008. Because it was so off season, they gave us one of the cottages to stay in overnight on the property. We woke up to this expanse of sky and mist with blesbok galloping in the distance.

A street-side taqueria in Mexico city

Research food before you go. When traveling to a new place, especially a place with vastly different food sources, it’s always good to have some information before you land. Get an idea of what grows in abundance and what doesn’t grow at all. Research about how animals are treated and vegetables are grown. If you don’t have the time, many things are easy to infer based on climate and location. Are you near water? What types of food are popular here? Are there rolling hills and local farms here? Are you in a tropical climate? In Mexico and India food is spicy to promote sweating to cool you down. In India specifically, all food is cooked to prevent sickness. Many colder, northern climates rely on more food that sticks-to-your-ribs and eat many tubers, fatty meats, and cabbages year round.

Sushi keychains in the kitchen district in Tokyo

Eat small portions, often. Once you’re there, eating in small portions is the most unencumbering way of enjoying new food with minimal damage. In addition to taking on a culture’s customs, you’re also potentially taking on new ingredients unfamiliar to your system, including good and bad bacteria. Eating in small portions means relatively minimal damage if you do encounter a good but foreign cut of beef, or in my case, a seriously hot chili. Not to make new foods sound deadly, only that they can be without proper precaution. In Santa Fe it’s chilis and corn, and there is an abundance of grass fed beef and there’s an exceptional year-round farmers’ market. The culture here is very rooted in the earth, so there’s an abundance of Organic foods, but since we’re still in the mountains, it comes at a fair price. Gravitate towards the local cuisine, and skip out on foods that are truly remote or not fresh (e.g. New Mexico is landlocked, so fish is out).

Tsukemono in Nishiki Market in Kyoto

Find fermented and nourishing foods. Many cultures, especially those where raw or spicy food is eaten frequently, incorporate fermented foods to help keep the body in balance. Japanese have miso and pickles, the Koreans have kimchi, Indians have spiced pickles and chutneys, and we have kefir! Restaurant food will not always give you the balance that a diet needs. I read an article not too long ago about a journalist traveling to Korea. She kept getting sick from the food and couldn’t figure out why her co-workers were doing just fine. When she asked they said, “Pssst. Eat some kimchi.” From then on she was fine.

Pure water on the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa

Be careful how you quench your thirst. When it comes to water, I’d give the same advice as food, but with more advanced research, and over a longer period of time. If you’re going to be in a place for only a short time and you’re in an unfamiliar place with even remotely questionable water sources, it’s safest to drink your water bottled or more preferably, boiled. If you’re there for longer periods of time, research the water in advance and decide accordingly. For relatively clean systems which may still have things like chlorine, using a Brita or installing a carbon filter in the faucet where you’re staying can be helpful. We also have a SteriPEN which uses UV light to destroy waterborne microbes. Swishing it around for 90 seconds in a liter of water kills most of the dangerous bacteria and parasites, including giardia, but hopefully we won’t be putting that to the test anytime soon.

A man selling mochi in Kusatsu

If you find yourself hugging the toilet one evening… Treat yourself with the following remedies. If after 24 hours you still feel sick or have sharp pain in your intestines or around around your appendix (thumb and pinky length to the left of your bellybutton), go see a doctor. If you’re prescribed antibiotics, make sure to take a probiotic supplement to boost immunity and restore the health of your gut.

We found that charcoal works really well to absorb some poisons in the stomach. You can find the edible capsules in most health food stores. Having a bottle of probiotics can also help you adjust and recover quickly. Look for bottles that have between 35 – 50 billion CFU and a brand that says “active” or “live” on the label and a variety of L. casei, L. acidophilus, and L. bifidum and one that indicates the particular strain as a “-#” at the end of the name (e.g. L. casei-108). This is a good indication that the product is well regulated. Nature’s Way probiotics are a good brand and have worked well in the past.

Lastly, I leave you with this tonic recipe which my mother discovered. Upon further search it turns out this recipe is known for curing indigestion by balancing the pH level in your stomach.

Apple cider honey tonic
1/4 cup Organic non-pasteurized apple cider vinegar (from a health food store or an orchard directly)
1 teaspoon local raw honey (local to wherever you are)
8oz distilled water, heated

Put vinegar and honey in a mug and add as much water as you need to make the tonic palatable. Drink right before you go to sleep!

Matt and I did some driving during Christmas break. Quite a bit, actually. We finally, after almost 10 years, moved out of NYC. It involved not only an anticlimactic exit culminating in hours of Jersey traffic, but also countless hours packing our car chock full of everything we felt was worthy of making the trip. It was a liberating and slightly nauseating experience.

We drove 2,300 miles through PA, Ohio, and Missouri, narrowly missing the snowstorm I’m sure covered many of you back east. We then met up with the Mother Road, Historic Route 66 and drove through the heartland, across the Panhandle and into the Southwest. Our little car and all our worldly possessions headed up the mountain to Santa Fe, New Mexico on Tuesday, December 22rd. The following day we surprisingly found an adorable adobe house, were all starry-eyed at how this would never have been possible on Christmas Eve in NYC, and settled in for a dry, snowy Christmas.

I’ve been on the verge of leaving NYC for years, it seems. My departure is both abrupt and also epic. But it’s from the point of departure from the “biggest” city on the planet that Matt and I seek a journey, not a destination. We will rely on a solid net connection for work and seek out any and every experience in between.

Growing up in rural Connecticut, I wanted the big city so badly I started spending one weekend a month there (more if I could have) when I was 14. Just like most who grew up rural, I hated Colonial houses, golden retrievers, polo shirts, and lawn mowers. It’s in our nature to retaliate against our childhood. As we get older, we learn to appreciate at least some of where we came from. I love bright lights, big cities, but I also love trees, clean air, and people with time to smile. I love the cacophony of noise, grittiness, and endless expanse of people going in every which direction, but I also love being in the middle of the woods without a human for miles. For now, I’ve decided not to choose between the two.

In six days, after many meals of chilies, Mexican hot chocolate, enchiladas, and tortilla soup, you could safely say we are enjoying both cooking in and eating out. While it would be too soon to say we understand the meaning of the “Land of Enchantment,” our winter respite is sizing up to be an incredibly friendly, outdoorsy, delicious, big sky creative sort of an affair. Just as those who moved here 30 years ago and never left would probably agree. While we’re only just beginning to explore this new culture, cuisine, and terrain, we are getting plenty of meat to help relieve some of the altitude weakness. This pork loin was especially tasty on this cold afternoon in December. I thought I’d share it with you all. Its fieriness reminds me of the Southwestern cuisine, its sweet richness of the people, and its bite like the refreshingly cold winter sun in Santa Fe. Happy New Year all!

Serves 2 for lunch
Ginger mustard sauce
1 tablespoon peanut oil (can substitute sunflower or sesame)
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon mirin or sweeter red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
2 scallions, sliced thinly
A few grinds freshly ground black pepper

In a small sauce pan heat the peanut oil on medium. Once hot, add the garlic and ginger and saute for 2 minutes. Add in the rest of the ingredients and allow to come to a boil (it’ll bubble a bit). Simmer for 5 minutes until the mixture thickens. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Ginger mustard seared pork loin
1/2 pound pork loin
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 sprigs rosemary, cut into smaller sprigs
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
2 tablespoons Dijon
2 tablespoons sunflower oil

Make shallow cuts into both sides of the loin. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff with the ginger and rosemary, and then paint with mustard. Let stand for 15 minutes.

In a saute pan, heat the oil on medium. Once hot (around 250 degrees), add the loin and sear on all sides, about 6 minutes, turning with tongs. Turn down to medium-low and covered for 8 minutes, until reaches an internal temp of 140. Let stand for 10 minutes. Slice thinly. Serve with ginger mustard sauce.

Route 66

Driving along Route 66 was as much iconic and fascinating as it was barren and many times deserted. I hope you enjoy the below photo essay. Go to my flickr to see our full set of NYC to Santa Fe. These photos were taken by both Matt and myself.

Signage in Missouri

Gardenway in Missouri

Meramec Cavern

Meramec Cavern

Meramec Cavern

Truck-bed caroling

Sunset in Missouri

Ultimate fat kid mascot

15 well-marked minutes in Kansas

The “real” Mater in Kansas

Matt’s General Store in Oklahoma

Red dirt in Oklahoma

The biggest soda

Welcome to Shamrock, TX

Not picking cotton

A recently abandoned gas station

The state of Texas in cement

Barren Cactus Inn

The BIG crossing

Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas

Big Sky, Texas

Lately I’ve been interested about the impact quality of light has on quality of life. I’ve been dreaming about kitchens. A beautiful, soft and naturally lit kitchen is… well, a dream for me until I no longer live in a major city. Light not only gives life, it restores the living quality of food when we present it chopped, boiled, seasoned, and cooked down. When photographing food in a real kitchen the right quality of light is an ongoing mystery. Our lighting options appear simple enough: natural, artificial, or a combination. We aim to capture the kitchen’s “best side,” when the indirect sunlight is in its full glory. But few of us are probably even home then. Of course there’s artificial lighting to hopefully soften, warm, and make something that tastes delicious look delicious. Artistically, I am capturing light as I wish it to be.

For a while I’ve been taking what I can. I would rather capture what is then create what isn’t, but sometimes there just isn’t enough light to give you an idea of what this wheat berry salad looks like. Then again, a pre-eaten artificially lit shot also doesn’t give a sense of how much I loved eating it. These are all elaborately documented and opined conundrums for the food blogger and amateur cook.

But what about light and cooking? I honestly don’t know how I would fare in a kitchen with no windows and little light, cooking an elaborate meal to the hum of a fluorescent. My respect goes out to those who do. Cooking needs to be a sensual, creative act, something that connects us to our food and our bodies. Without light, there’s no life. And there would be no cooking.

My apartment faces the center of my building, and there’s a lush courtyard beneath (which I unfortunately don’t have access to). My kitchen faces NW and if it weren’t for the two avenues of buildings to my west I’d be able to see the Hudson River. My apartment isn’t particularly long, but because it’s in the core of the building only one side is flooded with direct light. All this light meets in the kitchen. When I first visited the place seven years ago on a September afternoon, light was leaking through the large kitchen windows, softly illuminating the counter tops, and streaming on through the stained glass into the church at my back. It was incredibly peaceful, friendly, and well, light.

Seated at a stool in my kitchen in the midst of a hot August morning, I wonder, as I often do, WTF anyone designed the apartment in such a back(*ss)wards way. While I was so taken by its fall light, in summer the kitchen cooks the food regardless of whether I’m there. When I am there it’s only moments before my top lip beads with sweat, and I generally want to strip down and cook naked. (When I’m not in danger of spattering my limbs in hot oil, I sometimes do.) But still I wouldn’t trade my situation for anything tinier or anything more windowless, so I count myself as an incredibly lucky New Yorker.

But what of the light outside of New York? In an interesting turn of events I’ve spent only a week home in the last couple of months. On a series of whirlwind road trips and travel weekends I was blessed to have seen clouds rolling by in the Shenandoah pastures of Virginia, the Great forests of North Carolina, the beaches of South Carolina, the Spanish moss and rain streaked streets of Savannah, the first flush of fall in Tennessee, a flash of Mississippi, the blur of neon and white sun in Nevada, and a vibrant garden deep in the woods of Connecticut. Sometimes, during great fits of rain, I thought for sure we were going to run right into autumn without any sunshine. Returning back to New York this week I was relieved to find the softened fall glow filling my kitchen. It was empty and fresh, ready to receive me.

I leave you with this mélange from our trips and this question: when did you last see food, or life, in a new light?

Polyface Farms, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Sun peaking through rain in Savannah, Georgia

Driving over the bridge to dinner in Charleston, SC

Middleton Place in Charleston, SC

Tail of the Dragon, Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carlina

Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Sunset at Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Anadama loaves ready for the oven, Simsbury, Connecticut

Basil, mom’s garden, Simsbury, Connecticut

Nasturtiums, mom’s garden, Simsbury, Connecticut

Happy New Year! Holidays behind us (and soon resolutions as well), I am busying myself with my college final, set for Inauguration Day. Two days following I will be shipping off to Tokyo for two weeks! This somehow excuses my lack of updates.

The last time I posted I was making Christmas dinner. After Christmas we went on a road trip with friends from New York down to Tennessee, and celebrated New Year’s Memphis-style. There was The King, blues, luscious barbecue, and good company.

We tried to get out fill of Americana on the drive from New York to Kentucky, tourist season permitting. Although sadly some of the great road destinations were closed, we did visit the Creation Museum, Mammoth Cave and Diamond Caverns, Big Mike’s fun house, and as many kitsch or antique stores as we could find signs for. Here’s a sample of the sights…

Our GPS, the Garmen, was a Christmas present to Matt from his folks. Thank you! She gave us her best stern British accent when we drove “off the map” and many times instructed us to turn around. But we always found what we were looking for, regardless of how many turns involved.

Keep moving, nothing to see here. It’s just Adam and Eve bathing at the Creation Museum. Adam is jacked.

When we humans can’t grasp nature, we just give it a name we understand. Diamond Caverns included bacon, cauliflower, and broccoli rock formations.

What would you do with that whole length of Big Mike’s Pickled Rope Bologna? Apparently they’re “Great for Camping & Picnics”.

It is a fact that vending machines in Kentucky have more patriotism than I can muster.

The dude in this “Big Rig” went to Hunting University, and is proud of it.

In spite of the novelty above, the most unusual thing for me was the abundance of road food. In the face of HFCS and factory meat, we ordered the hell out of those speaker boxes at the drive-ins. Nutter butters, breakfast burritos, sugar-free energy drinks, Sonic burgers, fries, and Krispy Kremes all went down the hatch. It was all washed down with some seriously watery coffee.

This is the most fast food I’ve eaten since I was 12, and probably the most processed food I’ve eaten in the past five years. I was in the midst of Fast Food Nation the first leg of our trip, reading Schlosser’s more pithy observations aloud to amuse Matt while driving. We barely noticed the change from KFC to Chick-fil-a on our way down the interstates. It was shocking to myself and also convenient for our trip that given no clear alternative to drive-in, I accepted and ate bad food that looked and tasted good. In this case convenience and assembly lines are clearly not healthy. None of the four of us frequently eat at chains, but on the road it’s eat or die (i.e. fall asleep at the wheel). We were a long way from college towns and big cities.

Once back in New York, we felt a little dirty, and desperately wanted to use the kitchen. The morning after returning, we made this un-McMuffin. It was unholy. Some truffled semi-hard cow cheese, an organic egg lightly fried in a couple teaspoons of unsalted butter, and a perfectly toasted honey-wheat English muffin. Nothing clears up indigestion like a little slice of homemade.

In all seriousness, if you have not read Fast Food Nation, I strongly recommend it, especially if you were scarred by the cinematic version. The film is all Linklater in all the wrong ways (monologues and running at the mouth aplenty, sex, drugs, bad stereotyping and Ethan Hawke, need I say more?). The book, however, is a well done exposé that opens with Uncle Walt and closes with the Cold War, and whose tone starts with sentimental and ends with shocking.

I will leave you with this quote, so profound it changed the American chicken:
“‘I have an idea,’ Fred Turner, the chairman of McDonald’s, told one of his [chicken] suppliers in 1979. ‘I want a chicken finger-food without bones, about the size of your thumb. Can you do it?’”

The last five days for me have been filled with programmers, Mickey Mouse, gators, and guns in where else but the sunny, now blue state of Florida. Matt’s RubyConf in Orlando gave me the opportunity to revisit as an adult the place where dreams are made. After three days of theme parks and visits backstage at Disney, I’d had my fill of screaming children, long lines, and well, sugar. On our last day we headed out of Orlando to find some of the more backwater Florida entertainment. Simply put: guns and gators.

Shooting a gun for the first time is one of those experiences you can’t do justice in writing. [Mom, don't worry, I was safe the whole time.] In Disney speak it would go something like: HOLY FAIRY DUST. DREAMS DO COME TRUE. While shaking from the adrenaline rush we headed out of the gun range for an airboat ride.

Lake Jessup’s Black Hammock Adventures houses a biker bar, 12 foot long alligator named Hammy, a couple of airboats, and a restaurant serving among other local water creatures: gator. Perfect. The place is run by a blond, blue-eyed, and rough-skinned 50ish Frenchman who presumably came over from the bayou. After sipping a beer by the bikers, we climbed aboard an otherwise empty boat for a personal tour of the lake with the largest gator population. Turns out we were the only ones to show up for the 5pm ride because it was too late in the day to see gators. We did, however, see tons of cormorants and palm trees under the setting sun.

Although we didn’t get the opportunity to see gators in the wild, we did head back to Black Hammock’s restaurant to taste some. In addition to fresh cod, catfish, and shrimp, they served gator nuggets in various flavors. We ordered some Cajun nuggets, fish ‘n chips, and a cheddar and bacon gator sandwich.

I thought the restaurant would be the owner’s last concern, but I forgot how much people like to eat gator. And if you’re going to go scope gators as a tourist, you most definitely should make sure that the establishment is run by a Frenchman who used to run a restaurant. My first tastes were succulent, a little smokey, and with a bit of bite.

While on the boat the owner mentioned that each hunting permit can haul back 5 gators. He mentioned bonfires and if I had turned around I probably would have found his mouth watering.

Gator, like every other unusual animal meat we come by, tastes like chicken, but with a little more flavor. Gator bites, while a fairly tamer preparation of a seriously mangy animal, were nonetheless super tasty. We were, of course, in the hands of a man who understands how to fry. Our breading was light and crunchy, and our fries were creamy and slightly hollow on the inside and perfectly fried on the outside. My fish ‘n chips were floating on a cloud.

Alligator meat is considered an exotic meat, about as commonly found as ostrich. Commercially found, most gator cuts are from the tail, which is said to be as tender as veal but similar in flavor to chicken or frog. My tastes also found it similar to pork. The darker tougher midsection can also be found commercially, and was on the menu at Black Hammock. Some people also enjoy the feet or “wings” of the alligator, which are said to taste like frog’s legs. While actual frog’s legs were on the menu, these were not. From a nutritional standpoint, alligator meat is lean (about 17% calories from fat), high in protein, and relatively low in carbs.

We left for the airport happily full of gator and pleasantly surprised by the mishmash of cultures we had experienced once we’d driven away from International Blvd.

If you like food, live in a walking city, feel personally punished by the illusion of good quality and diverse produce, despise Whole Foods and other overpriced Organic marts, and long for your childhood pick-n-patch, you’ve considered visiting a pick your own. OK. That was my own personal moment. More likely it sounds novel and fun.

What do you imagine? My visual goes something like this: sweeping hills, quaintly terraced vegetable patches, produce so beautiful, flavorful, and cheap you feel like you’re stealing the farmer’s children, and trees with sagging limbs under the weight of sweet, plump fruit. Growing up I picked a lot of fruit from our local farm in sub-rural Connecticut, and would leave red-faced from eating raspberries off the bush and dragging a bag full of apples. I decided to test the fruit and vegetable landscape in upstate New York. My choices came from this useful list of pick your owns.

While fruit is generally obvious (if it’s sweet and falls off the branch, eat it), vegetable picking requires some know-how and tools. I wondered if I’d know what a ripe eggplant looked like in a sea of ‘em. Scroll down to see my experience or visit the full Flickr set.

Picking Apples
When you’re expecting to drive 100 mile away, it’s not about local or saving money, per say, but about quality, value, and novelty. After sitting in some awful leaf-peeper traffic on 87, we finally arrived at 5 on Saturday at the Jenkins-Lueken apple orchard in New Paltz, an hour before the sun would dip behind the Shawangunk range overlooking us.

Knowing we were hitting the end of the season, we scoured for the last of the ripe Macs and Macoun. My apple tastes in order of enjoyment would be (most to least): McIntosh, Empire, Macoun, Granny Smith, Fujii, Gala, Jonagold, Honey Crisp, Lady, and both Goldens. So generally I am a tart, crisp, sweet girl, in that order.

Of all the crop we picked that weekend, the apples lived up to expectation. The Macs were so bloated with sugar it was amazing, but still brought their tartness. We also snuck in to try a peach and a plum. The trees, past season, had continued to produce the fruit but weren’t ripening them further, leaving them stringy and dry.

Each bag of apples, which you could fit about 25, ran you $18. Not super cheap. When you think about cost at a pick your own, you incur the labor, which is a lot of the cost. What you forget with apples is that generally, you pull on one with your hand and three others fall on your head. They litter the ground and rot, and the farmer isn’t able to collect. That’s of course in addition to the 5 or so we scarfed while “working.” So what the farmer is really giving you is novelty, freshness, and selection, for the price of about 72 cents per apple (plus gas and tolls).

The following morning we drove around early in the mist, taking in Ulster county, and partaking in some peeping.

Picking produce
We then headed on to Newburgh to Lawrence Farms Orchard, where they claimed to be picking all sorts of vegetables I didn’t think were in season anymore. The setting of the farm was overlooking a valley with a low cloud coverage floating by. We learned that 20k people (estimation based on the number of cars) the day previous. Uhm, ok, so what’s left? We were given a cart and a direction and went to find out.

Reaching the crossroads, we chose to head towards the peppers and eggplant. There they were, row after row of maybe 15 types of peppers and eggplants each. Some I knew, some I had no idea, and all I was unsure of if they were ripe. It was impossible to think that 20,000 people had come into the farm and done anything other than pull unripe produce from the ground and either place it in their baskets or toss it aside. Turning up with 10 beautiful peppers and a couple Indian eggplants felt like I’d won the Easter egg hunt.

After a survey of the Disney-size ground, we headed toward lettuce and cabbage, stopping only to admire the bounty of the nearby Japanese family. Yes, the Asians, myself half included, seemed to be the only ones coming out on top. The whites, specifically those being carted around in 4-wheel vehicles, definitely did not know their Indian from their Japanese eggplant, or even their Macoun from their Golden Delicious. At home in the Stop & Shop we have one “apple,” one “eggplant,” one “hot pepper” and one “bell pepper.”

Thankfully, Matt had come prepared with our camping knife, or we never would have wrestled this cabbage out of the ground. It was so tasty I ripped off pieces and ate them like jerky. Our total, minus the large handsome pumpkin we picked up to carve came out to $13.

In summary, our culture is becoming more disconnected with food and the land. Our produce is now being grown in massive farms studding the Midwest. As urban dwellers, we are a little more curious, and a little more in touch. So what does the upstate New York farmer do to attract a lot of city folk? He leaves his crop on the plant and welcomes all to come pick it off.

After our survey of the grounds we found that what they were picking was more a survey of the plants they had, not the ones where there was actually ripe crop growing. Those who live nearby and grew up in a culture more familiar with tending crops (who brought their own knives) will reap the benefits. Everyone else will come in their tanks, let their children run around and pull things off trees, and maybe get a doughnut before heading home. If you can stomach the theme park of it, there’s an educational experience waiting for you, and some good produce to boot. But you leave with the sinking understanding that the majority of visitors don’t consider this a trip to the grocery.

My parents live in the woods in northern Connecticut. My mother has always had a garden and grown vegetables whenever she could. Matt and I had the good fortune of taking a final peek at her produce this weekend, before the frost steals the rest.

The amount of edibles growing in what she calls her “little organic garden” makes me feel like an ass for living in New York and periodically buying herbs that come wilting in little plastic containers for $4 when I’m in a pinch. A pinch for my mother would be attempting to procure mint in the backyard while throwing a dinner party for twenty during a hailstorm when everyone is just finishing their main course.

Gardeners are excellent to have as friends (or even better, mothers!). There is never a time when they don’t have more produce than they know what to do with. Although it’s a triumph to have pickled and preserved and frozen and eaten all of nature’s goods, it’s just as satisfying to give some to those you love. Most of my mother’s friends also tend their own gardens, and there is some admitted rivalry amongst them. When a gardener’s reputation is at stake, the default is grow as much as possible, and figure out what to do with it later. Besides, it’s not like nature gives a heads up on how many peppers its actually going to produce from one plant.

Before returning to New York on Sunday, we picked up some sheers and a basket and headed up to the garden. It was incredibly lush in the afternoon sun. She gladly offloaded two gorgeous parsnips, a handful of carrots, beets, leeks, poblano peppers, frying peppers, green beans, squash, two kinds of sage, oregano, and three kinds of mint. I am currently sitting amidst a bunch of cookbooks with the exhilarating task of figuring out how to turn it all into dinner for a week.

Selecting your own squash, ripping carrots straight from the ground, and sticking your face into the sage plant is invigorating, and really inspires cooking. If you don’t have a family garden on hand, I strongly suggest a trip to one of the pick your own farms before October is out. While it’s not as intimate or as free as a garden experience, the local produce is obviously still excellent. The area around New Paltz is particularly stunning in the fall, and has some of the best hiking. Even if all you do is take the train up to a small upstate town and stuff a bunch of raspberries in your mouth, those will probably be the best berries you had all year. If you have been up to the farms, tell me about it. I’m looking to find recommendations on farms to head to in the next couple of weeks!

For any unfortunates who are unfamiliar with the Big E in West Springfield, Mass, it honors the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island (oh, you thought New York was part of New England?). The expo boasts food (mostly fried), product exhibitions, animal competitions, state houses, and a carnival, and is also the 8th largest fair in the country. It’s a syrupy concentrate of Americana, straight out of the coffee table books, but east coast style.

My highlights would be: my first bite of fried dough, my first in person glimpse at a horse cock, experiencing a rural interpretation of what “international” means, looking at all the show sheep get gussied up, and the life-sized butter cow in a glass case donated by Cabot which even sports a life-sized artist to be observed “live.” And of course walking through each “state house” where we sampled New Hampshire apple pie and maple candy, Mass staties (oooh, whoops…), Vermont cheddar and flatbreads, Maine blueberry crumble, and Rhode Island crab cakes.

For anyone who has only tasted the dough at San Gennaro’s and appreciates a good carnival, you can’t really beat this one. Of course, you need to get yourself into the mindset when heading out. So remember, you work with your hands for a living, or you clean house. You saved up for the deals. Oh, and the five food groups are fried dough, fudge, pie, pickles, and corn dogs.

Mom comes to stock up on chamois, but it’s also all about never-get-dirty mops, stain removers, magic irons, heating pads, and the like. And for dad, there’s “live” bears, giant looking tractors masquerading as off-roading vehicles, enough cowboy hats to cover you for the year, and hearty, salty, beef jerky. For the kiddies, in addition to games, there’s an endless supply of cream puffs, fudge, chocolate covered everything, pies, crumbles, and corn dogs which conveniently come in small, medium, and deep throat sizes (about a foot). The family as a whole can enjoy sheep sheering, cow milking, horse shows, and animal petting.

It’s on until the 26th. Go. Get chamois and fried dough. You know you have some nostalgia in you.

Photos by Urtica, kristaleigh, pmilg, and martineno.