Just a summer plum on the kitchen counter. Taken by Jerry in New Mexico while I’m here in Boulder….

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.)

Happy Easter, everyone. I know it’s technically spring, and many of you are just waking to the season’s first blossoms, the mercury’s first climb toward warmer temps. But here in Vientiane, it’s summer through and through. It’s an Easter skillet—and we’re frying in the middle of it. By 9 a.m. the sun’s too strong to face. A walk around the block makes the body a salt lick. The only reasonable action: drink another lime juice (as I am right now at Joma). Call it nam manao, nuoc chanh da or tuk kro’chma—it’s Southeast Asia’s answer to lemonade, made with little limes. I’ve been loving the stuff ever since my long-ago semester in Hanoi. I remember that first broiling afternoon, and my introduction to Co Phuong, who ran the drink shop on the ground floor of the Ministry of Education Hotel (my four-month home away from home). She served me that first sugary glass of fresh lime over ice, and thereby taught me the key to battling intense tropical heat.

Lately, I’m finding more and more Asian menus offering lime juice (or lime freezies) blended with mint—so much mint, the drink comes speckled with garden green dots and a big, fresh sprig at the top. Brilliant. It’s so simple, such an obvious thing—yet I’m not sure I’ve ever served this to friends back home on a hot summer day. Rest assured, you will find this drink at the Redcoates hacienda, come June!

Even if your Easter is battered with wicked spring winds (or, heaven forbid, snow), tuck this one away for a sunnier day. When the flowers bloom, the birds sing and you prepare for summer’s first barbecue, remember to quench your guests’ thirst with this:

*fresh squeezed lime
*crushed ice
*sugar to taste
*a bunch of mint

Simply blend and enjoy—and embellish, if you like. A little gin? Vodka? Perhaps rum? Or SAKE!

Egyptian wall art, outside the Tutankhamun exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young Museum

Actually, it was Amenhotep II’s pomegranate. But it was the de Young Museum’s Tutankhamun exhibit at which I learned of the ancient Egyptian practice of burying the elite with model fruits. (We had a quick few hours to take in a San Francisco museum before departing for Asia.) The artifact displayed was a little round faience pomegranate. (Many of the pieces were made of faience in the most fetching turquoise, the sort of blue that stops the feet and turns the head.)

“Egyptians often included miniature foodstuffs in their tombs in the belief that they could become real if required.” I never knew that—how fascinating. Amenhotep II’s tomb contained more than 50 such items. “These model fruits could magically provide refreshment, medicine, and aphrodisiacs in the Afterlife.”

If only we humans could turn ceramics into sustenance.

While much of the world celebrates December with feasts and festivities, millions still go hungry. If you’ve followed food blogs for a while, no doubt you will recall Menu for Hope, the annual campaign in which food bloggers around the world unite to raise money for the World Food Programme. It began in the aftermath of the tsunami that devastated parts of Asia and Africa five years ago this month. You can read the whole Menu for Hope history on Chez Pim, the online home of food connoisseur and author Pim Techamuanvivit, who organized the whole shebang.

How does this work? It’s really simple. Bloggers everywhere are offering up hundreds of delectable items. All you have to do is select the item(s) you would like and buy as many $10 raffle tickets for as many chances at winning your selected item(s). This year, the money will benefit a new WFP program, called Purchase for Progress (P4P), which helps small-scale farmers to supply food to WFP’s global programs.

The campaign begins today and runs through Dec. 25. Items are divided by region, but you can bid on anything you’d like. Check Chez Pim for a master list of all available bid items. In years past, The Rambling Spoon has been listed in the Asia Pacific region. But this year, yours truly is stationed in the United States through early January, and you’ll find The Rambling Spoon’s items on the West Coast list, with host Shauna of Gluten-Free Girl.

This year I’m pleased to offer you a personal selection taken from the fruits and labors of my dear husband Jerry (the professional responsible for the photos on this blog) and his mother, Jenny Redfern. We’re presenting seven of Jerry’s colorful prints, taken along our recent culinary journeys through Asia. These pictures, printed on 8 1/2 x 11 premium photo paper with archival inks, will take you to tea in India and Burma, and an onion market in Mandalay. They’ll introduce you to a Mandalay man with his chicken; and they’ll feed you momos in Darjeeling, a fish along the Mekong, and a glass of pomegranate juice in Kolkata. In addition, Jenny is offering six half-pint jars of her homemade Meyer lemon marmalade. No artificial sweeteners; only sugar, pectin and lemons straight from her backyard tree. (That package of Christmas lemons? Yep, the same bountiful tree will produce the lemons for your marmalade.)

See the bottom of this post for a glimpse of the photos on offer. If you’d like to bid on these items, please select prize code UW43. And follow the instructions straight from Pim:

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice from our Menu for Hope main bid item list.

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write in the number of tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code.

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 – 2xEU01, 3xEU02.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

And that’s it! Check back at Chez Pim for the announcement of results on Jan. 18, 2010.

Thank you.

Pomegranate juice, Kolkata

Chai, Kolkata

Momos, Darjeeling

Red teapot, blue table, Mandalay teashop

Onion vendor, Mandalay

Mekong snakehead fish, Cambodia

Young man with chicken, Mandalay

If I could, I’d have a lemon tree in my backyard. Can’t. Too cold. Instead, I have the next best thing: a mother-in-law, with her own Meyer lemon tree in her own backyard, who sends gift boxes stuffed with the lively little orbs.

Yesterday, our mail carrier left a package at the door. Inside were several neatly wrapped Christmas gifts surrounded by loose lemons, leaves still intact. What perfect package stuffing!

Now, a little history on the Meyer lemon: this China native has a pleasantly fragrant tang without the sharp bite of regular lemons. It’s thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange (or a mandarin), thus its sweeter characteristics. It’s frequently said that Frank N. Meyer “discovered” this intriguing citrus in the early 20th century while on a mission for the USDA. But historians also know the Chinese grew this fruit for centuries, primarily as an ornamental plant, before Mr. Meyer came along. So let’s just say he introduced it to the United States in 1908. Frank Meyer was an interesting guy, having traveled through Western Europe on foot in pursuit of botanical enlightenment.

I could try to tell you what to do with a Meyer lemon, but the LA Times already came up with a darn good list of 100 ideas. Meyer lemon-cardamom ice cream? Yeah. I’m there.

This is what happens when you toss a banana in the way back…and forget about it for months.

We’re having stellar days in the 70s but frosty nights in the 30s. It’s the end of the garden as we knew it. Onions, arugula, sage, mint, parsley, rosemary, thyme—they’re fine, for now. But the tomato and pepper plants have shriveled and browned. I made a quick dash to pick every last tomato I could before a particularly chilly bout of weather blew in. What you see above is the tomato patch that covered the entire kitchen table for more than a week.

Many have since ripened into juicy, red Romas suitable for sauce and fresh salads. But I spent much of last weekend in the kitchen dicing, slicing, blending, simmering all those green tomatoes into pounds and pounds of green-tomato bacon sauce and green-tomato salsa (cooked and raw). Success all around. But the absolute best recipe, I think, comes courtesy of my mother-in-law. It first appeared in the 1974 Ball Blue Book, “the bible for canning and freezing for many decades,” as Ma Redfern says. “Mine is falling apart, held together by a rubber band, and still has its price sticker for 97 cents. If it were whole, it would be worth $3.50 on eBay.” (If you get your hands on this 1974 edition, check inside the back cover for amusing instructions on “How to Preserve a Husband.”)

I’m posting the original Blue Book recipe below. But first, I’ll tell you of the adaptations I made, based on the ingredients at hand (and preference, too). The original recipe is titled Green Tomato Mincemeat, though neither Ma Redfern nor I have used the necessary suet to make it mincemeat. Instead, we’ve created more of a spicy, fruity relish. The day I began cooking, our local apple farm was closed (!), so I had far more green tomatoes and far fewer apples than the recipe calls for. I used tangerine rather than orange; that worked just fine. I added a splash of red wine, which was heading toward sour. I cut the sugar in half but added more raisins. However, I didn’t can the relish (ate some, gave some away, froze the rest—with thoughts of hauling it out at Thanksgiving). You might want to maintain the sugar content if canning the recipe. I also made two double batches (yes, we had that many green tomatoes), one with minced Hatch green chile for a spicy twist. It’s delicious. Both batches are. And they simply smell of the holidays. Here goes:

Green Tomato Mincemeat
Adapted from the 1974 Ball Blue Book

Ingredients:
2 quarts cored and chopped green tomatoes (about 20 small)*
1 tablespoon salt
1 orange
2 1/2 quarts pared and chopped apples (about 12 medium)
1 pound seeded raisins
1 1/2 cups chopped suet (about 6 ounces)
3 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup vinegar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves (I used whole, pounded with mortar and pestle)
1/2 teaspoon ginger (the recipe means dried, but freshly grated is much better)

Method:
Sprinkle salt over tomatoes. Let stand 1 hour, then drain. Cover tomatoes with boiling water and let stand 5 minutes. Drain well. Grate rind and chop pulp of orange. Mix all ingredients together and cook until mixture is boiling hot. Pour boiling hot mixture into hot canning jars, leaving 1 inch head space. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts 25 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. (Note: if you don’t put suet into this mixture, it should be sufficient to process the jars for 25 minutes in a boiling water kettle instead of a pressure cooker.) Yield: about 10 pints.

*Ma Redfern tries to remove as much as possible of the tomato seed gelatin. I was lazy. I’d already spent an afternoon in the kitchen and I wanted to get out before midnight. I used the whole tomato.

OK, so it’s true, I’ve been hiding out in one of the world’s greatest places: Missoula, Montana. I adore this town and I’m ashamed to say how many years have passed since last visit. I’m hitting the market tomorrow morning, and I’ll tell you about that as well as other intriguing finds. Meanwhile, have a glass of juice.

Our pomegranates have arrived. Just before we left home, I picked an armful of fruits, split down the middle, bursting with seeds. When a pomegranate cracks, it’s time to eat. I knew we’d be leaving for a week, so I juiced them.

How to separate seeds from all those membranes? It’s simple. Fill a bowl of cold water, submerge the fruit and dismantle it with your fingers. The seeds will sink, the membranes will float. Once you’ve discarded all the gunk, all you have to do is run those seeds through a juicer and you’re left with all that tart, nutritious goodness.

If you prefer to cook with your pomegranates rather than drink them, I highly recommend a trip through Laura Kelley’s new book, The Silk Road Gourmet, which offers plenty of tantalizing recipes that call for pomegranates.

More soon….

Our week has ended, the group has returned home to Yangon, and here I sit in the Denver airport. I’m bringing my parents to New Mexico for a few days, but we ended up on separate flights, and mine is delayed. They should be touching down in ABQ as I wait another three hours.

So, then. I’d love to give you a glimpse of last week, but that is not technologically possible right here, right now. Later this week, I will. But right now I can take you through a little camping trip we took at the start of September.

We packed the Camry, loaded the cooler, and strapped our bikes to the back.

We chose a convenient base at Valley of Fires*, one of the country’s youngest lava flows. Cacti and desert critters live in and among a carpet of black rock.

At night, the sky looms large and the campground offers vast vistas of White Sands and the mountains surrounding Capitan and Lincoln to the east.

People frequently call the desert empty or barren, but I’ve never understood those terms. There is so much life in these lands.

It blooms and grows in magnificent colors, and shapes that remind me of the creatures found on an ocean floor.

Plump tunas, we have above: lush and thick with juice. The cacti in our yard are producing similar fruits. Next year, I hope to harvest them.

We spent three days exploring the home of Smokey Bear and the little town of Lincoln, where Billy the Kid made his famous getaway.

One balmy night while cycling between those two towns, we discovered Laughing Sheep Farm, an organic sanctuary on the river, adjacent the Serendip Orchard. We returned after our ride and walked away from the little farm store, our arms full of hot jalapenos, the most delicious homemade raspberry chile jam, a pound of grass-fed ground beef and oodles of juicy blackberries, picked on site that afternoon. Blackberries! In New Mexico! Half the stash disappeared by the time we reached our camp site; the rest we ate with yogurt for breakfast the next morning. And the next night, we fried up thick jalapeno/garlic/onion burgers on our little camp stove and smothered the fresh beef in cheese. We declared those burgers among the best we’ve ever had.

That night, we spent farther south at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park*, at the site of an old ranch estate on the edge of an incredible canyon. The hills here are covered in ocotillo, lovely while green with leaves. Had time allowed, I would have hiked the entire Dog Canyon Trail, with its steep climbs and stellar views. As it was, we ventured a few miles up, rising 600 feet within the first half-mile. It was enough of an energy expenditure to warrant a stop at Phat Phil’s on our way through Alamogordo. I don’t agree with the man’s politics, but he makes a fine and tasty pulled pork!

*Just for the record, I love, love, love New Mexico’s BLM and state park campgrounds. They make car camping a breeze. For $10 to $12 a night, you get a tent site with water and nearby bathrooms with hot showers! Perhaps at an earlier age I dealt better with no-shower camping. But I’m older now, and I really enjoy a good rinse after a long ride or strenuous hike.