A couple months ago, while traveling through Lander, Wyoming, Dan and I ran into an evangelical healer from Texas. He was an older gentleman and very well traveled, so naturally, with a common interest, we became fast ‘friends’. He asked a question that no one has ever asked us before, “What is the best food you’ve eaten during your travels?” What a great and thought provoking question! That got us thinking and we chatted with this guy for a very long time about nothing other than the foods of the world!
Just recently when we were putting together our itinerary for the Asia bead-buying trip which we are currently on, we were trying to decide if we should journey further than Southeast Asia and do a little business in Nepal. I recall saying to Dan, “The only really good reason I can think of that we should travel to Kathmandu is to eat at that fantastic Israeli restaurant, OR2K.” And so we booked the flight. Oh and sure, we bought beads while we were there too.
The photos shown here are of the meal we ate just yesterday. Click on the picture to read about the dish. We were in Bangkok at a very small restaurant named Krua Apsorn. The famed food critic, Killian Fox, named this place as one of the 50 best places to eat in the world (and the best place in the entire world to eat curry), he is right! They also had the second best mussels in the world, next to Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove mussels, which seriously can’t be topped.
As I type this we’re on a flight from Bangkok to Bali and of course we are looking forward to eating the wonderful Indonesian food, but the dish that comes first to my mind is ‘babi masak bawong bombay’, I enjoy saying the name as much as eating it – try saying it a few times! Every morning we have mei goreng, a spicy noodle dish with greens and maybe a shrimp or two, mud-like Bali coffee and sometimes even a doughy pineapple pancake. Lunch is typically cap-cay (pronounced chop chai), which consists of veggies in broth with rice on the side, then we add a little red chili soy sauce. Or sometimes we have Balinese spiced fish grilled in a banana leaf – you eat this with your fingers. Oh, and I could never forget the ginger ice cream, pisang goreng (fried bananas), love that stuff! Yes, Indonesian food is fun!
We all have to agree that food is an important part of our daily lives, but I have to admit, with me it tends to border on obsession. And the five pounds I gain during every trip is proof of this (not proud proof, just proof).
A few of my favorites around the world: Turkish food – tomatoes, eggplant and lamb, and lots of it! Cod cooked under a thick layer of onions at a seaside village in Portugal. Razor clams in Chile. Goulash from the Czech Republic and those hearty pork dishes from Germany. REAL Mexican guacamole!! Ghana is a great place to eat Lebanese food, actually the Lebanese control the food industry in Ghana which is great, since I honestly don’t like Ghanaian food (fish bone salad & white yams, yuck. ANY Italian food – need I say more?
Okay, enough food talk, sadly enough I’ll soon be back home working on my diet.
During a recent bead-buying trip to Nepal, while I was walking from my hotel into Thamel (which is the area of Kathmandu where the millions of shops, restaurants, rickshaws and people are; where business happens), I took this photo of a little girl. She was carrying a bucket and most likely doing her morning chores. I enjoy photography and I take a lot of pictures when I travel, so it’s not unusual, since I have a bead company, that someone uses one of my photos as inspiration for a jewelry design, naturally it flatters me! But this time I was asked if it was okay if my photo be painted. My friend and artist, Tracey Ethridge, did a beautiful job of capturing the mood, the motion and the innocence of this little Nepalese girl and I feel tremendously honored to see my photograph as an oil painting.
Anyway, to make a long story short, when I pull out the money file it always makes me laugh. WOW! I have hundreds of Quetzales, thousands of Cedis, millions of Rupiah and only a few Swiss Francs.
