Farming in the Shan State

I’m slicing potatoes and plucking rosemary and thinking about a death toll of possibly 100,000 in Burma’s cyclone. I’m 8,500 miles away in New Mexico, and I don’t know what to say—except to say what I feel, from the gut. That’s where these things hit hardest; these storms, be they natural or political, that rip through human life. I ache to think of the hunger that will follow.

Cyclone Nargis raged with 12-foot storm surge and 120-mile-an-hour winds. It was the most destructive Asian cyclone in 17 years, one of the world’s biggest disasters since the 2004 tsunami. It flattened homes, tore the rooftops from shanties and demolished the rice-growing belt that feeds the nation. Food prices doubled overnight. It’s a matter of pennies—but if you have only pennies, they mean everything.

When the first shipments of foreign aid reached Yangon this week, workers reportedly unloaded crates by hand because forklifts were not available. The US State Department has said it won’t give Burma more than an initial $250,000 contribution unless the ruling junta allows a US assessment team to enter the country. Laura Bush scolded the generals for failing to warn people of an impending storm. It’s disaster, followed by politics as usual; and the people go hungry.

Rice fields, Shan State

Problem is, they already were hungry. I remember years ago meeting a young man named Etan employed at a restaurant in the tourist town of Kyaiktiyo. He worked seven days a week to earn $7 a month. He slept in the restaurant dining room, “on that table, only one blanket and one pillow,” he said. He sent money home to help feed his mother and three sisters.

Poverty has long been Burma’s biggest danger, another man named Than told me a few days later in the northern Shan State. The 78-year-old ran a restaurant near a monastery, where an old monk had grabbed my hand, prayed for my good health and shoved me a couple of oranges amid peaceful chanting from the temple interior.

Than told me his country is run by crooks who abuse their money. Foreign companies have left, in protest, and consequently the Burmese have less work. Many people go hungry, he said, eating only once a day.

And many people grow all of their own food, on patchwork lands of rice, corn, sesame, peanuts, beans and greens. Local farmers told me they were required to sell a quarter of their rice harvest to the government at cut-rate prices.

“The government is killing the life of the people,” said a guide whose company led tourists through farming country that was technically “off-limits.” He held hope that one day the generals’ oppressive regime would end. “Because we do not live forever,” he said, and all of this would be but a “black spot” in the history books of Burma.

It’s interesting, I ate some of the freshest, liveliest dishes on that trip—peanut stew, ginger fish curry, bean and tomato soup, cabbage straight from the ground, new avocado with sugar for dessert. Even in the cities, the Burmese made the most of what they had, for they never had a choice. “Some of the best food is prepared in the dimmest, grungiest of kitchens, eaten on the greasiest of floors,” I wrote at the time.

This week, I’m wondering about the Burmese people I have met. Do they have enough to eat? Are they standing in line for water with thousands of others? Will the soldiers allow them food?

I read again my journal from rural Burma, and I come across a line that seems, sadly, to hold perpetual truth: Their earth is abundant—but it does not belong to them.

Yangon boys wearing the traditional Burmese cosmetic called thanaka, a sunscreen and skin conditioner made from tree bark

Click here to see a photo story by OnAsia photographers on Burma’s economic troubles

Car with cabbage. Poipet, Cambodia, 2004.

Unsolicited advice: always wash your vegetables.

Back in January, I had the good fortune to meet a couple of fellow food hounds who happened to be passing through Chiang Mai as I was there. Chef and cookbook author Susan Loomis, on a research trip for her latest tasty project, introduced me to Andy Ricker, owner of Portland’s Pok Pok. We chatted over bowls of spicy noodles, and thus a connection was born.

As was an idea. Andy and I got to talking about the difficulties (and delights) of shopping for a Southeast Asian street food restaurant in the not-so-sweltering Northwest. How did Ricker win votes for Portland’s restaurant of the year? How does he maintain that authentic street flavor? I was curious.

So several weeks later, we went shopping on his turf.

I spent the better portion of a day following Andy around Portland’s east side as he dug into crates of new mangoes and sniffed his way through bins of chives and Chinese celery. It’s no easy task, trying to duplicate dishes from half a world away. But Ricker has a highly refined nose for precisely the right flavors—a characteristic that has evolved through many years of Thailand travels.

You can read the rest of the story here on the Gourmet site. If you’re really itching for a bite, sign up for one of Ricker’s Thailand tours. Or, just sample his dishes at Pok Pok.

The Pok Pok Special: roasted game hen, green papaya salad, sticky rice, dipping sauce

Andy Ricker eating Pok Pok’s Yunnan-style Lamb Noodle Soup

Khao Niaw Dam Sankyaha: coconut-palm sugar custard scented with pandanus, served over black sticky rice with coconut cream

Flower in the Pok Pok window

Buddha in the truck

Andy Ricker, down the aisle

I’m pimping my work—but that’s fair game, no? A rather substantial effort went into this month’s issue of Gourmet, and the results are now in print. Several weeks last fall and early this year had me pounding, sweating and stirring in the kitchens of five Southeast Asian cooking schools. Take a peek at the magazine to learn more about old-world village food at Thai House, just outside of Bangkok; the sweaty, hard-core kitchen of Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School’s Master Classes; Luang Prabang’s down-to-earth (and refreshingly authentic) Tamarind; and the twin indulgences of Chiang Mai’s Four Seasons and the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi.

Ooooooh boy does this cookbook stink. Not the recipes, but the paper itself, which was stashed in a damp Oregon storage locker for six years. It reeks, musty and moldy. But I thought of this cookbook for years in places far from tortillas and beans. And olives. You must try Marjie Lambert’s recipe for olive salsa. It. Is. Sooo. Good. So good, we had it made by the bucket and served at our wedding to 75 dancing guests. 

Yep, I thought of those olives in Thailand. I don’t even remember when or where I acquired that cookbook, but I had visions of salsa 8,000 miles away (she has a winner black-bean salsa, too; and if I remember correctly, a yummy lime tortilla soup….). Now the book is back in hand (stinky though it is), and I give you the recipe. It’s simple. It’s a perfect party dish. Pine nuts and anchovies are key. Feel free to play around with olive and vinegar varieties:

Olive Salsa, from Salsa Cooking by Marjie Lambert

1 jar green olives (pitted)
1 jar black olives (pitted)
minced garlic
chopped jalapenos
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 can anchovy fillets, minced
1/4 cup roasted, chopped pine nuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Drain olives and coarsely chop. Mix with other ingredients and let sit half an hour before serving.

Happy Earth Day. A few days ago, a reader asked me to “kiss the New Mexico sky” for her, and that’s precisely what I’m doing on this cloudless day. Lately, I feel I’ve been kissing the ground too, tasting its grit between my teeth as I dig around the yard and the wind kicks up.

We’re attempting to restore the beauty inherently here on this land. But for so long, this plot of earth was neglected, abused, trashed, polluted. Last week we hauled off 1,480 pounds of metal to a recycling center, where old cars and washing machines mingle with rusty water heaters and general junk, dumped onto mini-mountains towering high toward the sky. A massive claw of a machine snatches that metal bit by bit, making piles to be crunched into perfect, solid rectangles and shipped to India. Whole cars! Smashed to shipping-container size.

And where did we get all those pounds of metal to add to that insanity? Right here, in this backyard. Acres of fencing (the previous owner had dogs and peculiar hobbies) attached to more than 40 posts, each of which took inordinate muscle power for Jerry to remove.

And junk. This yard was covered in junk that still worms its way to the surface and appears out of the blue in the wake of a strong wind. Old poles, shattered glass. Bits of concrete. Enough beer-bottle caps to keep a man drunk for a year. Broken yellow plastic, foam balls, baseball cards, gardening gloves, pot pipes, part of a plow. And a crab claw. I unearthed a crab claw last week in our backyard! In New Mexico, which is nowhere near the sea.

It’s hard to feel optimistic about the Earth these days, what with all the news of climate change, toxic bottles, biofuel, a worldwide food crisis and contaminated blood thinner made from Chinese pigs. I feel like I’m never going to win this battle to respect this Earth and all its living creatures. I ride my bike along the Rio Grande, marveling at the season’s first whiptails, sniffing the sweet cottonwoods that haven’t been crowded out by invasive elms. I watch birds ducking through the trees. Then I sadly look to the scummy residue along the riverbank—evidence of so much fertilizer and pesticides dumped on nearby farms.

All I can do is what I can do—which, right now, is to fix this piece of land beneath my feet. We spotted the year’s first hummingbird on Sunday, and I took it as a sign. I dug through the herb garden, making room for new additions of parsley, basil, dill, cilantro, peppers, tomatoes, mint. I’m amazed. In just one year of care—or at least the absence of abuse—formerly rock-hard, clay-like soil has turned earth-wormy rich. Last year’s onions keep going. Flat-leaf parsley, sage and oregano, too.

And today: the grapes busted out with their first tiny curls of leaves. Winter is over. The apple trees stand in full bloom. When we turn the hose on their trunks, finches come to leap through the puddles.

Happy Earth Day.

I’ve been thinking about Kolkata again. This month’s National Geographic has a Calvin Trillin and Ami Vitale essay on the city’s rickshaw pullers. Then, last night, we watched City of Joy. You know—Patrick Swayze. 1992. Bad hair and Hollywood cheese. Actually, it wasn’t nearly as suffocating as it could have been. Plus, I feel bad for Patrick these days. I had seen the movie in the theater when it came out, but Jerry never had. We both read Dominique LaPierre’s book in India, thus our interest in the movie. Curiously, perhaps sadly, we were able to pick out the Fairlawn Hotel, Sudder Street, Park Street, Howrah Station and so many other Kolkata locations that look almost exactly the same today.

Well, anyway, I’ve been thinking of Kolkata and its character. I’ve been thinking again about tea. I’ve told you some things about chai served in little terracotta cups, but there’s more to the story. Because not every tea-wallah has a roadside stand with room to move. Look at the man pictured above, in his “office,” where he squats for hours on end. Look at that! Can you bend that way? All day?

The cubbyhole tea-wallah’s job is performance art, conducted in the smallest of spaces. These vendors maneuver in miniscule shops at the feet of passersby. We stopped one evening at this man’s cafe, beneath a rubber-gasket and belt stall above. The chai-wallah, dressed in a white tank-top undershirt, crunched his body into a workspace approximately 7 feet wide, 3 feet tall and 3 feet deep. He did brisk business at dusk, when workers stopped with a thermos to fill and take home, or for a single serving drunk on the spot.

The man crouched with his back to a shelf of cups. A gas burner blazed before him, and a metal basin of milk sat beside him on the ground. He kept a wooden tray of bills and a pile of coins next to his leg. His mortar and pestle: a stone slab with a divot gouged out, and a flat-edged piece of metal for pounding spices. The man’s movements required gymnastics. He gripped the edge of his blue-painted stall to grab a cup from behind or serve his customers on the sidewalk.

All the hour, as the sun set near the Hooghly River, men stopped, paid, grabbed their cardamom tea and disappeared into the maelstrom of street life. Five rupees (about 12 cents) bought three cups.

In terms of human history, tea is a relative newcomer to the Indian diet. But you would never guess it while wandering Kolkata’s streets. You would never guess it, seeing how these men have evolved body and spirit to revolve around a job, a life, a tiny cup of tea.

The Great American Tax Day has come and gone, and the bags beneath our eyes are that much bigger. Here’s some advice: never keep two freelance journalists, whose jobs entail TRAVELING and EATING, in one household. Never act like two journalists, waiting until the very last minute (a.k.a. deadline) to begin sorting through a year’s worth of receipts. But DO keep all of those little slips of crinkled paper with scribbles of foreign script. The Tax Man actually might want to see them someday, should he come around. But beyond that, you get to ponder the ubiquity of curious restaurant names in this big, wide world. India was great for that. Here are just a few of my favorites:

- Kunga Restaurant (I just love the word. It sounds earthly and tribal. Darjeeling.)
- Dignity (Need I say more? Kolkata.)
- Blue Sky (Something rarely seen through the city grunge. Kolkata.)
- Sun Flower (It made me think happy thoughts, though it was quite possibly the coldest restaurant I’ve ever visited. Darjeeling.)
- Fresh & Juicy (Which is exactly how my innards felt after eating there. Kolkata.)
- Gangaur. (Another word I like. Kolkata.)
- Amalgamated Bean Coffee (Darjeeling.)
- Zurich (Which is about as far as one can be from this place. Kolkata.)
- Veg Restaurant (Simple. To the point. I like it. Kolkata.)
- Hot Stimulating Cafe. (This one gets big points for imagery. Darjeeling.)

Under ordinary circumstances this New Mexican brat, eaten at about 5,000 feet, would be less radioactive than a brat in Denver or Quito or Lhasa because our exposure to cosmic radiation increases the higher we go. But this brat is special.

This brat was sold beside cheeseburgers, chips and hotdogs last Saturday at the Trinity Site where, on July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project secretly tested the world’s first atomic bomb. When windows shattered 120 miles away, the US Army said a munitions shed had accidentally exploded at Alamogordo. Not until after the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, three weeks later, did President Truman explain what had happened in this remote, dusty expanse of New Mexican desert.

The Trinity Site, within the White Sands Missile Range, is normally off limits to visitors. But twice a year, for six hours at a time, the military opens the gates and thousands of people from around the world flock to this eerie, windy, contaminated land. It doesn’t necessarily look like much unusual—cacti spread their prickly arms across the desert, and dust devils stir in springtime winds. The site offers little to see beyond a small lava monument marking Ground Zero (the original Ground Zero); and the McDonald ranch house, an old adobe home that was “acquired” for the assemblage of the bomb core. The thick-walled house with wood-plank floors had sheltered remote farmers who lived without electricity, cut ice from the water tanks in wintertime and kept a charcoal filter atop their house for collecting and purifying rainwater. They lived an isolated, hard-working life. And then the ranch became famous.

The bomb was detonated atop a 100-foot steel tower two miles from the ranch. The explosion sucked great quantities of sand into its fireball. The intense heat melted the sand, which fell back to earth as green glass-like particles called Trinitite. Most of the remnants have been removed or bulldozed and mixed with sand. But you still find tiny pieces, scattered around Ground Zero.

The US government says a one-hour visit to Trinity results in radiation exposure much less than that of a cross-country airplane ride or a chest X-ray. It’s about as much radiation as an American might get watching TV in a year. I’m not overly concerned, though I am slightly second-guessing my decision to pick up a piece of trinitite with bare hands. Trinitite is an alpha and beta particle emitter. Well… it was a small piece and I didn’t hold it very long. But in retrospect, it was a kind of stupid thing to do.

Visiting Trinity, however, I do recommend. It’s a weird but informative and thought-provoking historical excursion. Curious? Check out the next public opening on the first Saturday of October.

Just a chile, spilling its seeds on the counter. I liked it, that’s all.