World Wednesdays: Vientiane food edition

We enjoyed our first meal in Laos on the outskirts of Vientiane. It was a Sunday and most of the preferred noodle shops were closed, but we eventually found a bowl of steaming hot noodle soup.

This photo takes me right back - I remember perspiring from eating too many chilies, and worrying about the water used to wash the fresh herbs. I remember chasing away flies with a flick of my wrist and trying not to step on the matted dog under our table. I remember children lazing in hammocks and chicken scratching the dry dirt. I remember vividly, the excitement from being in a new place.

Thum muk hoong, Lao papaya salad. Bursting with flavour and fiery hot (by far the spiciest thing I ate on that trip). The Thai version, som tam, is much sweeter than the Lao version.

My first taste of dragon fruit, a perfect respite to all the spice.

Grilled fish along the banks of the Mekong.

We were also lucky to be part of a baci ceremony, where we got to try some expertly prepared traditional Lao dishes by our friend's family. A few food photos from the ceremony:

The spread included,

beef laap,

a delicious soup (that I can't remember the name of),

fresh vegetables and herbs, and sticky rice (that I don't have a picture of).

Of course, there were crates of warm Beerlao to wash down all of this delicious food.

The aftermath.

Thanks for indulging me as I reminisce on this especially grey day in Paris.

World Wednesdays: Treats from Tokyo

I know, last night's dinner didn't photograph well, and I haven't been to Japan, but we cooked dinner with a couple of Japanese friends last night, and it was pretty exciting. Ingredients included kimchi, tofu, soya milk, fermented rice paste from making saki (not sure what it's called), a delicately flavoured herb that I didn't recognise (it was like a fennel bulb but much smaller and really quite different), shitake mushrooms, and sea weed. We made the unformed looking tofu in the center of the pan at home using the left over soya milk and a small sachet of nigari (magnesium chloride) that came with the soya milk. I've made paneer several times before but never tofu. I told you, it was pretty exciting!

We also scraped a little of this Japanese orange (mikan? mandarin orange?) into our bowls after serving ourselves. The flavour was exquisite. I'm planning to use the leftover fruit to flavour a simple chocolate sauce to go over vanilla ice-ceam for dessert tonight.

Other goodies that our friends brought along -

Time for a coffee break. Happy Wednesday!

World Wednesdays: Paris

I've had the opportunity to travel a fair amount this year but I haven't yet managed to sort through all the photos, ponder over my journal entries, or even try cooking some of the tasty dishes I tried along the way. With moving around so much and with most of our stuff in storage, it is hard not to feel a bit scattered. So this is a first in a series of posts that details some of my observations and thoughts from this last year of travel. I thought I'd start with Paris.

Parisians might think this next statement bold. Or even absurd. But Paris sometimes feels a whole lot like India. Big city India. Not like New York or D.C. but more like Bombay or New Delhi. I think it serendipitous that my husband and I spent so much time in India before our move to Paris - "good training", as we like to say in India.

A few observations -

Let's start with the greve. Within two weeks of being in town, there were people protesting on the streets. I had only ever read about French strikes in the newspaper and watched reports on the news. But this time I stood in the middle of the rue and watched hundreds of people protesting. In India, we like to protest a lot as well. We have morchas for everything from Bt brinjal to movies about child brides. Effigies are set on fire and cinemas are torched. Liberty.

What about all the merde? Parisian sidewalks are full of dog poop. Some stretches more than others. I've seen several posters encouraging pet owners to pick up after their dogs, and I hear there's a new law, but there is still a healthy amount of dog poop waiting to be stepped on. Especially by the unsuspecting new-to-town-ers. Just so you know, I haven't stepped in any yet. My 'training' in India has paid off. In Bombay we had to deal with not just dog poop, but big cow patties. And yes, sometimes human poop too. Moving on..

People like to walk straight into you on the sidewalks in Paris. Sometimes they are unarmed, but other times they come armed with prams carrying little children, fabric carts carrying groceries, or parapluies waiting to take out an eyeball or two. They just don't step aside.

A couple of weekends ago, there was a hand scribbled note in the elevator up to our temporary apartment. It was written in French but we read it and chuckled. It went something like this "...no heat, the lifts don't work, expensive parking, and now, no water...", and then it said that the apartment's management sucked. We felt bad for the person who wrote it. We unlocked the door to our apartment only to realise that there was NO running water in our flat as well. Not in the loo, not in the kitchen, not anywhere. It was Saturday afternoon. The problem was not fixed till 4:00 PM on Monday. Wow, that even beats our experience in India!

What? No, I'm not complaining. Just saying - I feel right at home. Shopkeepers seem like they don't really want to sell you anything, no one smiles at you (initially, anyway), and women wear their hair long. Meme en Inde. I've fallen in love with Paris - with all it's cliched beauty and it's not-so-chic side.