Tag: food

THIS is lime pickle

We had lunch at the XL Hotel in Fort Kochi yesterday. Don ordered butter chicken, I ordered a local dish – nadan chicken. Don had two beers, I had a Pepsi. We chatted about our morning exploring Mattancherry.

Then our meals arrived, and the conversation somehow became completely one-sided.

“Oh,” Don moaned when he tasted his dish. “Oh, this is good.”

“The flavour!” he exclaimed before I could speak. “It’s like it’s just that little bit more. A little bit over. It just goes over. You know what I’m trying to say?”

I opened my mouth to answer but apparently it wasn’t an actual question.

“Oh my,” he continued, “oh wow. I mean, you think you’re having lime pickle, but no, THIS is lime pickle. And THIS is butter chicken. It just is the thing. The real thing. THIS is butter chicken.”

I nodded. Yes, this was indeed butter chicken.

“So good. Is this the best meal we’ve ever had? It could be the best. I think it’s the best. This is the best butter chicken I’ve ever had,” he went on as he dipped his parathas into my curry. “Oh my God, yours is amazing too!”

He sat chewing, deep in thought, lost in contemplation of the amazing flavour that was my lunch. “So good,” he repeated, then back to his own.

He continued talking and groaning and working his way through the food in front of him until he finally leant back in his seat.

I opened my mouth to speak.

“No, no, I’m not finished yet,” he lurched back up, “I can fit more in. Wait,” he said to nobody in particular, and started scooping more rice onto his plate.

“We don’t cook rice like this. Do we?” he asked. “Do we cook rice the wrong way? We need to learn how to cook rice like this. I don’t even like rice. The carrots, the carrots in this rice are amazing!”

“Oh my God, that was so good. Ok, that’s it, I’m officially done,” he finally said, pushing his plate away and picking up the last scrap of parathas and dipping it again into the remains of my curry. “Except for this. Hey, are you going to finish that?” he asked, reaching for one of my chicken bones.

Finally he truly was finished.

“Well, that was one of the finest meals I’ve had in my entire life. Can you take a photo? No, no,” he waved me down and pulled his phone out, “I’ll take a photo. That was magnificent.”

He snapped a quick pic, then reviewed his work.

“You bet your arse that’s a good photo,” he was now definitely just talking to himself. “This will remind me how good that meal was.”

Yep, that plus this blog post.

Five nights in Bangkok

No but seriously, have I mentioned we love the heat?

Urgh.

We’ve been to Bangkok several times before. We love this city – the whole noisy, hectic atmosphere of food, markets, people, shops. But Bangkok is hot. Like, really hot. Muggy, sweaty hot. We can no longer wear the same clothes five days in a row hot. It’s quite a dramatic change.

To counteract the heat, Don has purchased cloth trousers and more sarongs, and I have purchased batik* Thai** pants and an elephant singlet.

I shall wear all of these back in Australia.***

However counteracting our new, cooler outfits we are eating chilli for breakfast, lunch and dinner at street vendors across the city. Big, fat red chillies that take you completely by surprise**** if you’re not looking. Chilli to turn your face red and make sweat cover your brow.

To counteract the chillies, we’re drinking gallons of water. Bottles and bottles of water, as well as bottles and bottles of Pepsi***** and Coca-cola.

Counteracting all of this water and cola consumption, we are walking everywhere (in our new outfits), for miles and miles, seeing temples and markets and statues and shops and people. It’s pretty hard going.

To counteract being hot and worn out from walking****** we’re buying fruit at every corner. Vendors sell it from ice laden carts, chopping it fresh in front of you – watermelon, pineapple, mango, other fruit.*******

Yep, Bangkok is pretty fabulous, but pretty darn hot.

I guess the other thing we could use is our air-conditioned hotel room and the swimming pool, but then that would be quite lazy of us.********

________________________________________________________

*not really batik, just “batik-look”

**not worn by any Thai people, worn only by tourists

***probably not, going on past experience

****yep

*****not really Pepsi, a kind of sugary cola substitute

******ok so perhaps we’ve jumped in a tuk-tuk several times

*******small, round brown things, sliced green things, pale yellow segmented things

********alright yes we are totally being lazy every afternoon from around 3:30pm

The Christmas markets

Dresden

We had a moment last night. Standing on the cobblestones of the Neumarkt in Dresden, the majestic Frauenkirche looking down on us and Christmas markets surrounding us. The bells of the church were pealing, our fingers and toes were icy and it was absolutely magical. We stood until the bells were silent, soaking in the atmosphere so as to never forget it.

We are beside ourselves with the pure joy that is the Christmas markets in Germany. They have been a beautiful surprise and a highlight of our time away.

Each market we’ve visited has been in a fairytale setting – huge domed churches, squares that are hundreds of years old and filled with history, cobblestones and gaslights. It’s been freezing cold, but that’s ok, there’s glühwein at every third stall. Enormous copper pots steam invitingly from the front counters. You can add rum, or amaretto, or even alcoholic cherries. There’s eggnog, there are hot toddies, there’s cider, and from 10am onwards everybody has their hands wrapped around a ceramic mug filled with their choice of hot drink.

There are rows and rows of stalls to wander down, all surrounded by decorated pine branches. Exquisite wooden Santas and Christmas figures holding steins, fishing rods or rolling pins. Delicate white ceramic stars and hearts, miniature German buildings to house candles. Ironwork happening as you watch, lacework, felting, glass. One stall filled with brushes of every kind, another with tiny mechanical boats. Wooden candle holders, trees and cutout decorations. Christmas figures made of prunes!

There is so much food – barbecued bratwurst, currywurst, goulash, potatoes. It’s being dished out as fast as the alcohol. Cured meats, the biggest slabs of grilled cheesy bread we’ve ever seen, chestnuts on open fires. Something sweet? Enormous mounds of nougat piled on top of one another, hot sugary nuts being stirred around bowls, gingerbread hearts hanging from the eaves. Dough balls frying in hot oil before being covered in icing sugar or filled with marmalade. Stollen, apple fritters, pancakes, chocolate covered fruits. The food smells mingle with the glühwein – sugary dough, warm alcohol, barbecue smoke.

Everybody is smiling, laughing, talking, having a good time. It’s like a gentle happy murmur across the square. There’s Christmas carols – in Berlin there were choirs all night, in Dresden a small group of trumpeters in the giant German Christmas pyramid. Our room was so close in Dresden that when we got home, frozen but full of food and glühwein, we could keep our window cracked open and listen until late.

We’re in Nuremberg now, our last stop in Germany. I’m sure I’ll add to the many photos I’ve taken and beautiful decorations already bought, but the best souvenir I’ll have is the memory of that moment last night.

One of everything, thanks

Barcelona

I am in dire straits when we get home. Other than the fact that this will mark the return to reality and I’ll have to go back to 9 to 5 and all that carry on, the thing that’s most worrying is what on earth I’m going to cook for dinner.

It was all going ok until Barcelona. Until Barcelona we’d tried many different delicious new dishes. The tuscan sausage and bean dish in Florence, cioppino in San Francisco, the lamb soup in Iceland, eggplant parmiagana and seafood chowder. All of these dishes have made me think about looking up recipes, experimenting with flavours and adding to my repertoire of possible dishes.

And then tapas happened.

We love tapas. We’ve had tapas before. We’ve been out for tapas at home. But we haven’t had tapas at least once a day every day for five days in a row.

Tapas is like opening up the menu and saying I’ll have one of everything, thanks. And if we’re not full after that we’ll have another one of everything. Yesterday at lunch when we asked for the menu our man told us he was the menu, and then proceeded to list and point.

“Baby calamari and white beans, tuna with oil and onions, grilled prawns, croquettes, peppers, asparagus, octopus with potato and jamon…”

We said ‘Sí’ to every single dish. Well come on, did you read that list?

I need to somehow transfer this to home. I guess all I have to do is cook seven dishes each night, after I get home from work, after stopping at the supermarket, after battling public transport, after changing out of work clothes, after pouring a glass of wine.

Or we could just get takeaway, times seven.