Kyle Cornforth, Thai corn

Now in The Faster Times: Kyle Cornforth tells all about her year away from Berkeley’s Edible Schoolyard, her forays into Thai farming and cooking, and her deep worries about the future of Thai food. Read the story.

Some of Kyle’s students learn that lemongrass helps deter snakes from gardens.

One set of new chopsticks

Jerry left me in Boulder with a tiny kitchen and dishes for one. He shopped at a local culinary fun house (which I’ve yet to explore) and found a pretty set of new chopsticks, Japanese style, with bright red tops and little yellow squiggle designs. But only one pair.

Only one set of chopsticks, on purpose. Though we’ll both be traveling to and fro in the next 8 months, I am, for all practical purposes, on this particular journey alone. I’m only one week into it, and I’m discovering my comforts and annoyances. Things I’m happy to have, others I miss. I’ve been taking mental notes from a largely ecological perspective. In no particular order, these are

THINGS I LOVE:

- This open-minded, educated, forward-thinking community. Its brain jibes with mine.

- Trails. Everywhere—for feet and wheels. All I do to find the view below is head half a block downhill, turn left past the nature center, and there it is: covered in myriad paths up and into and around the Flatirons. Heading there right now with my coffee….

- Drivers, who more or less are courteous to the cyclists and pedestrians who—almost—dominate Boulder’s roads.

- Fitness. I thought I was in reasonable shape (and I know I am). Yet I sputter in the wake of so many pro and nearly-so runners, bikers, hikers and all-around athletes who scale these mountains with barely a breath. But I’ll get closer—I’m walking or cycling everywhere these days.

- The Boulder Farmers’ Market, a beautiful sprawling tapestry of fresh foods and colors, accessible by bike (it’s right on the Boulder Creek Path, another new commuter’s love).

- The Chautauqua Dining Hall, a first-class restaurant one block out my door. Huge wrap-around porch, the perfect place for a glass of wine and sunset. (Plus, residents get 10 percent off!)

- So many restaurants and pubs with live music and general liveliness all around. Welcome back to college!

- And last but definitely not least, the Scripps program, one of the greatest contributions imaginable to journalism and the environment today.

The Flatirons, from Chautauqua

THINGS I MISS:

- My husband, of course. Family and friends. Remember the song, “Make new friends, but keep the old….”

- My big, open kitchen with room to maneuver and the appropriate dish or utensil for every idea in my cook’s mind.

- New Mexico food, wine and beer prices. Period.

- The ability to buy all of the above at one store.

- Perea Farms, El Mezquite, Valencia Fresh Fruteria, my neighborhood farmers’ market, fresh tortillas made daily, honey and eggs for sale around the corner, the scent of roasting chiles in the air everywhere this time of year. I know the local food scene has a lot to offer Boulder, and I have much to explore. But I do miss the down-to-earth nitty-gritty feel of food plucked straight from the dirt—a benefit of living so close to so many farms.

- My garden. Right now, right this very minute, I am missing loads of grapes, peaches, tomatoes, eggplants, chiles, chard, collards and arugula.

- My herbs. It’s a jungle out there among the dozen basil plants, oregano, onions, chives, parsley, sage, thyme, tarragon, marjoram, rosemary and mint. I’ve bought a few little plants for my Boulder porch (below), but I no longer have the option of chopping down a bundle of onions or a heap of basil and mint for a proper batch of laap.

- Dark and quiet. Previous residents have raved about Chautauqua’s peaceful nature. But I’m spoiled, already having the experience of living and staying in some of the world’s most serene locations. I’m liking my cozy cottage quite well, but this park is a tourist destination and a favorite of anyone in hiking boots. I get foot traffic through my little yard all the time. At home in New Mexico, I almost never need to close the drapes. Here, I feel just a bit as though I’m living in a glass house.

- Patio dining. Cooler nights spell perfect times for BBQs. Miss that.

Small herb garden in the making

AND A FEW RANDOM ECOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS:

- My graduate-level environmental studies class watched a video clip of Rachel Carson this week. The last time I’d seen similar footage was in Burma for an Earth Day celebration last year. Here, 20 percent of the class had never heard of Rachel Carson.

- Laundry. I’m actually less efficient living alone because I brought few clothes. I’m having to wash smaller loads more often. The machines here are not ENERGY STAR, and I can’t adjust for load size. Plus, I have no laundry line, which means I’m using the dryers.

- Garbage. I’m tossing more, more often because Chautauqua does not yet have composting facilities (we’re told they’re coming soon!). At home, we are able to compost or recycle almost all our waste. Some weeks, we have but one little bag in the trash can. Since I’m also tossing food scraps here, I’m having to take out the garbage more frequently because of the smell.

- Attitude. Despite the notes above, it’s a given in Boulder—people consider the environment in their daily actions. Bags aren’t immediately given in stores. Shops everywhere sell organic, biodegradable, compostable items. (Just bought a biodegradable plastic file folder.) Living green is the community norm.

- Cooking for one. Either I must change my habits, or I’ll have to start giving daily dinner parties. After so many years of cooking for at least myself and a hungry husband, it’s hard now to think and shop in terms of one. I can’t believe how long a single dish lasts—through the next breakfast, lunch, dinner and beyond. Must. Think. Small.

A baby Naga chile—the world’s hottest—hangs from a plant in a Wisconsin garden on the edge of Pewaukee Lake.

And so the Boulder life begins. The week passed in a gust of activity—I’ve been packing, planning, meeting and orientating. Picking classes, touring the library. Setting up my new computer and phone. I’ve discovered a treasure in the government and international organization stacks of the Norlin Library—acres of shelving (actual books!) devoted to water, agriculture and natural resource studies conducted by various agencies around the globe. And I’ve learned exceptionally easy ways of searching the library’s online databases by country. Classes begin Monday, the day my fellow Fellows and I “shop around” for the courses that will most benefit our projects and interests (and expand our minds). Just for fun, I’m thinking of ceramics. And maybe a little intro to Chinese or Arabic…. I’ll keep you posted on what I find.

Meanwhile, let me point you to growth of another kind: pictured above is the first fruit of the plant that grew from the Naga chile seeds I had given my brother-in-law. He started the seeds indoors, in the cold spring months of Wisconsin. When we visited two weeks ago, we saw the plant rooted in soil, in John’s garden along the shores of Pewaukee Lake. Though flooding destroyed tomatoes and other plants earlier this summer, the chile remained intact.

And that’s it! No mistake. I saw that wrinkled skin and instantly knew it was a Naga. A while back, I corresponded with a chef who thought he had planted these chiles, starting from seeds he had ordered. But when I saw the pictures, I knew they weren’t Nagas (which are also known by the names bhut jolokia and Raja). A genuine Naga looks precisely as the chile pictured above. It will grow a bit bigger and turn an orange-red. And it should set the mouth on fire with the teensiest bite.

Just for the record, I do not feel as though I’ve had a summer. Is early August too late to start? For many reasons, big and small, this feels like the shortest, most harried summer on record. Now, suddenly, it’s August. And soon I will embark on this next important phase of my life. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining. It’s all good, what lies ahead. And I’m thrilled to be doing it. But right now, I just want a little rest and a little peace and a few free moments to watch the night hawks circling overhead (they’re very graceful).

So tomorrow morning, waaaaaaay too early, we’re catching a flight and we’re taking a short trip to see family for a few days. We’re going to a baseball game and a pool party, and we’re going to have ourselves a little bit of summer. (If you’re a friend back home, wondering why I haven’t told you—this is a spur-of-the-moment journey. We haven’t told anyone outside of family and friends who water our plants.)

And then next week, I hope, I will return refreshed, ready to face a few more deadlines before I pack and gather my conscience for the big shift.

It’s life—it’s always on the move. Just like culture, just like food. Everything always grows, changes, evolves. Nothing ever stays the same (first lesson in Buddhism, first lesson in anthropology—and first lesson in the kitchen, I think). If ever I need reminding of these facts, all I need do is look at my garden or the nearest farmers market. The world is constantly in flux.

Which, finally, leads me to the picture above. Not too long ago I bought a bunch of fresh, sweet garlic from our summer market. Along with the cloves came a bundle of scapes—those beautiful long flower stems that some people say resemble an octopus (true). They have many uses in the kitchen, and believe me—I had plans. But the scapes escaped me.

They sat on our counter, and they evolved. Life moved on, and so did they.

Their flower heads grew and burst, putting forth masses of little bulbils—this plant’s answer to seeds. At first I was slightly annoyed with myself for not having eaten the scapes sooner. But then I examined them closely and realized they had become works of art.

And now, as I think about those scapes in my frazzled state of mind, I realize they had something to say. They were trying to tell me: just sit back for a while, and let life take care of itself. It always does.

A farmer in Sepon, Laos, stands in his field, which he cleared of ordnance by himself. He said he found many munitions. The small banana behind him grows in a bomb crater.

An international treaty banning the cluster bomb takes effect today. Cluster bombs are large weapons that hold up to several hundred small explosives designed to scatter across the land when dropped from the air. They are deadly hazards to farmers in postwar societies around the world.

Farmers in Laos have faced these dangers for decades. Millions of cluster munitions remain in their soil since the U.S. bombing campaign ended nearly 40 years ago. Since then, more than 20,000 people have been killed or maimed in accidents involving unexploded ordnance (UXO). Aside from soldiers, farmers account for the majority of UXO accident victims in Laos. Note: the United States has not signed the treaty banning cluster bombs—but 107 108 other countries have.

My story on Banning the Bomb runs today in The Faster Times. It’s part of our ongoing project to document the effects of UXO across Laos. Earlier this week, we had an article in GlobalPost examining the many ways Laotians turn bomb scrap into tools. This is all part of our forthcoming book, Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos, to be published next year. This work is written and photographed with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

A boy in Xieng Khouang digs for ant eggs on a hillside that was heavily bombed. Many locals have found bombies nearby. When a teacher tried to warn the boy about UXO, he said he was not afraid because he had dug in the area many times before.

Part of a cluster munition found in a farm field in Khammouane province in 2009. Farmers placed the bombie near a tree stump in the hopes that a clearance team would return and demolish it. It was still there in late April 2010.

A woman weeds her garden while a clearance team searches for bombs behind her. The woman did not want to stop working. That day, the team found a bombie in her neighbor’s field.

A boy in Khammoune sits in his family’s field, which they have set afire in order to clear the land for planting. Fires can cause buried bombs to explode, and many people do not stick around for the burning. Another boy in the area said he finds UXO every dry season. “When we burn the rice field—BOOM, BOOM! Explode. Every year. When we burn the field, we run away.”

Just a photo I’ve always liked. Those are my hands in the upper left corner. I was in southern Thailand, learning about cashew apples. I’d spent the hour before exploring Krabi’s Ban Laempho Gastropod Fossil Beach—an ancient cemetery of mollusks preserved in layered beds—when lunch called my name. A few little stalls selling fried chicken and Muslim curries were clustered at the park entrance above the beach. I climbed the hill, pointed to a bin, and immediately roused a swarm of women.

“Himaphan!” they shouted in unison. “Cashew! Eat! Eat!”

But it wasn’t the nut I found in my salted-fish curry—it was the cashew apple. A vendor ducked into her kitchen and returned with a bowl of freshly cut fruits, pale yellow, some tinged in red. She sprinkled them with sugar. They were juicy, with a guava-like flavor and an endnote that sucked my mouth dry.

The women showed me a specimen recently plucked from a tree. “Here’s the flower. Here’s the fruit,” they explained. A curious thing: the nut, which is technically a fruit, resembles a green lima bean. It dangles beneath the apple, a pseudo-fruit, which swells as it grows—until it’s picked and sliced and curried by the enterprising Muslim cooks of Krabi.

There in the picture above, you can see the bowl of whole fruits beneath the sugared slices and just to the right of the mustard-colored salted fish curry.

Also, you can see my fingers in the process of scribbling. Yes—I do it the old-fashioned way. When I’m out and about and eating in the great, wide world: I write my notes in cheap little notebooks sold at 7-Elevens and local markets all across Southeast Asia. I stuff them with business cards and maps. Sometimes I sketch little diagrams to aid my notes; sometimes my pages get smeared in the curry at hand. Sources often grab my notebooks and jot information in their own language, which I can investigate further as I proceed with my story. This is enormously helpful when working across language and cultural barriers. And in these cases, a digital recorder (which I do have) or other electronic gadgets wouldn’t help. I might go through five or 10 notebooks on an in-depth article; many, many more for projects and books. The result is that my office closet contains giant boxes filled with years and years of little notebooks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, as I work my way through Nicholas Carr’s account of the Internet’s effects on our brains—the way we think, read, see and process messages. It’s a fascinating read and an enlightening examination of the way our brains change with the technology around them.

And then, of course, we have the issue of all that paper accumulated after years of reporting. What’s the ecological footprint of that? (Then again, what’s the ecological footprint of factories that poison the workers who make our electronic gadgets?)

Much to ponder.

(In other ponderables, today’s GlobalPost contains our story on tools made from bombs in Laos. It’s one in a series of articles we’re doing in conjunction with our forthcoming book on UXO in Laos — a project I noted almost entirely by hand, in little notebooks.)

When I booked my tickets to Costa Rica last summer, I didn’t realize I’d set my departure from Liberia on the morning after an all-day, all-night hoedown. July 25 is Guanacaste Day, the anniversary of this northern province’s annexation from Nicaragua in 1824. Locals celebrate with a horse parade known as a tope.

Party time.

It’s like this: I’m traveling alone (my companions having left me a few days earlier), and I arrive in early afternoon via bus from sleepy Tilaran. I drop my bags at my hotel and head to the Liberia public square, where the streets are blocked to traffic and the entire place is packed with party-goers on horses.

Imagine Milwaukee’s Summerfest let loose (with everyone in a saddle); the walls down, the gates wide open and revelers spilling through the city. No boundaries, just open fun. Put every man on a horse and give him a girlfriend in the saddle, too. Bring out the speakers and blast anything  you like—country, pop, mariachi, reggaeton, Michael Jackson. And beer, everywhere, sold from vendors’ coolers pushed through the streets, and stands with banners screaming Imperial. Shove a can or six into each cowboy’s hands. You’re feeling the vibe of Guanacaste Day.

But that’s early on. As the h0urs pass, the air grows ever intense. More beer gets drunk, more horses do their duty in the streets. Vendors grill their pinchos (kabobs) and the ubiquity of libations spurs straw-hatted youngsters into dance and public embrace.

It goes on all afternoon, and I keep waiting for the parade to begin—until I finally realize this is it. Some riders wear numbers, and occasionally small groups of horses prance and gallop a stretch of the street. But mostly people hang out, as they would on the ground—except half the crowd is mounted while the other half stands by the sidelines, watching, drinking, eating, until a friend on horseback stops to chat.

Those who don’t stand sit on collapsible chairs and benches lining the sidewalks. Every parking space has a pickup truck, their beds hosting small parties in and of themselves. Most everyone wears a cowboy hat; many, also, leather boots.

By dark, the horses have gone, mostly, but the shrill shriek of a lone cowboy echoes through the rain-soaked street. Youngsters gather in dark corners, dancing to music blaring from trucks. The party persists, apparently, all through the night. At 6 a.m., just as the sun warms the air and fog clings to the trees, I catch my taxi to the airport. Young Ticos still drink and cluster in the streets. And a few smitten couples lean their bodies into each other, swaying gently to the tune of a dirty dance.

“This is the end of the fiesta,” my driver tells me in Spanish. He thinks it was a good one.

Three summers ago, we bought a little house near the Rio Grande. You might recall the dump that it was. It’s still a work in progress (and I’m beginning to think we will never reach completion). But every now and then, I glimpse a few photos of years past and I see that we have indeed progressed—all new kitchen, new floors, new windows and trim.

But the most remarkable changes have taken place outside, in a fertile yard with peaches clinging to young branches, a pomegranate tree that’s nearly doubled in size, five productive varieties of grapes (one so laden with fruit, its bunches touch the ground—we can’t keep them up!), a shaded table for our outdoor dining, and two comfy hammocks strategically placed for alternate daytime/nighttime use.

And the herbs.

Three summers ago, I planted a small herb garden on the north side. I started with a little oregano, parsley, basil, thyme, and a single Egyptian Walking Onion. I knew nothing about this plant, Allium proliferum, except what the store tag told me: this onion would “walk” itself around my garden as it grew. I planted it, gave it some compost and water, and let it go.

Well, dear readers, this is what we have today: an enormous shrub of onions, expanding in every direction. Jerry thinks they’re aliens.

I love the way they form small bulblets atop a hearty stalk. New little onions sprout from the mother below. We sometimes get three generations of onions, all reaching toward the sky, until finally the stalk tumbles beneath so much weight. They’re “walking” now into the neighboring mint, oregano, chives, thyme and Texas tarragon. But it’s not a problem. If the onions walk where I don’t want them, I just pick them up and aim them elsewhere. Most fallen stalks “plant” their new onions atop the soil. It takes months, even years, for the newer onions to dig themselves in.

Both bulbs and stalks are edible, though the youngest growths have the sweetest flavor. The biggest stalks are hollow inside, big as bamboo, with a potency that renders them unpalatable.

But these little beauties are delicate enough to slice and eat raw, or cook as one would with shallots.

These right here are my favorites. Such tender baby green stalks, slowly walking the garden as they await my plucking and chopping and mixing with fresh greens, tomatoes, a bit of crushed young garlic, a touch of mustard, olive oil, paprika, s&p and—when I’m lucky—wild Alaskan salmon.

A flower display at the Santa Fe Farmers Market

Maybe you’re married or maybe you’re not—but you know about Date Night, right? I’m not talking about the movie (which I haven’t yet seen) but the general concept: couples get caught in the routines and responsibilities of everyday life. They need a little time for themselves. They need dinner, a movie, whathaveyou. They need Date Night (remember, the Obamas raised a ruckus last summer when they flew to New York for a night on the town?). Well, lately, we’ve been chatting with a couple of friends about needing more of these “dates” more often. We exchanged recommendations—restaurants, bars, cafés. And we vowed to do better.

So last weekend, Jerry and I did something we’d intended to do for more than a year. We turned Date Night into Date Day, taking the train to Santa Fe (beautiful! relaxing! convenient! and super cheap at $7 roundtrip!), meandering through the sunny hours of a perfect Saturday.

We began just a block from the station (where else?) at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, which reflected a full-on cliché of color (see photo above). I stuffed my tote bag with garlic and onions, and a scent that followed me through the city. I noticed I was not the only customer to browse the nearby Borders in a cloud of Allium perfume!

We lunched at Zia—poky service, mostly mediocre food. But the light! It struck the table at so many angles, and it put Jerry into an artsy photographic mood…

Light on lemon in water, Zia Diner

Light on blue bottle top, Zia Diner

Utensils reflect red awning, Zia Diner

And truth be told, my gazpacho sparked a creative nerve in me—I have plans to tinker with that cold avocado/zucchini/red pepper/corn soup.

From there, we dipped into various galleries, and a thoughtful Bill Eppridge exhibit. We totally lost ourselves, for hours, at Photo-Eye, and the neighboring Garcia Street Books (where I found a great new gem, which I’d known all about but had yet to hold in my hands: Susan Herrmann Loomis’s latest, Nuts in the Kitchen.)

And that took us through to the moment we glanced at a clock, uttered a few naughty words, and began a quick trot back to the station. We made it—with time enough for a beer (he) and a margarita (I) at the Railyard just before sitting to a stellar sunset ride south, back home.

Great Date Day. What about you?

A taxi driver eats noodles at his regular coffee stall hangout in Phnom Penh.

In The Faster Times today, I have a primer on Asian eating. I get a lot of questions about etiquette from people traveling to Asia for the first time, wondering when to use chopsticks, what to do with sticky rice, and (primarily) how to eat without offending. It’s a big continent, and customs vary dramatically from region to region. But this quick little guide should at least help you through the basics.

I also thought I’d take the opportunity here to share a few shots of eating in Asia. Read the article to understand the significance of what’s going on in the pictures.

Down the hatch and chuc suc khoe!

Cocktails with straws, Vientiane.

Tissues on the floor (1), Cambodia.

Tissues on the floor (2), Cambodia. Note the basket, normally kept beneath the table.

Lao noodle soup with chopsticks and spoon.

Thai coffee brewed with a cloth bag.

Thai noodle soup with chopsticks and spoon.

Bangkok street vendor.