moneypassion: THE VACATIONIST

Friday, May 23, 2008

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (III)

Lecherones, Huarocondo, Peru. This little town is outside Cuzco and is justly famous for its crispy-salty-juicy roast suckling pig. The guy posing next to the pork is Manuel, my excellent guide along the Ancascocha trail that extends from the Pomatales Canyon up into the Huayanay range and intersects the Inca Trail on its way to Machu Picchu. (1.28.05)

THE WEST COAST IS NICE

I'm back in NYC now after the west coast whirlwind. Had lots of fun, saw friends, ate good things. That's COULTON up there in Santa Monica, holding an ice coffee purchased at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf where we saw Al Pacino. I went to Coffee Beans all over town but never saw Pacino again. That's the power of Coulton. Coulton played a great show with Paul & Storm at the House of Blues. Thanks for letting us party like (soft) rock stars in the green room. I am sorry I drank your third-to-last beer. Stein and I played tennis in Griffith Park. The bacon is at the Chateau Marmont and it is peppery and it is good (if maybe not Hall of Fame of Pork good). My old and newlywedded friend Chris Browne lives in LA. That's him with Chaffin and Jeana in the parking lot outside the restaurant where we celebrated the Mrs. Janice Browne's birthday, though she is not visible here. Nobody is really visible come to think of it. The guy with the pizza is my friend Joel Baecker who operates an excellent mobile wood-oven pizza operation up around Petaluma. More on that later but you can check it/him out HERE.

Monday, May 19, 2008

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (II)

Savory smoked-pork strudel. Restaurant Pretzhof. Tulve, Alto Adige, Italy. 2/2/08.

Friday, May 16, 2008

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (I)

My friend Mr. MARTIN wrote a great guest post over at EatingAsia about the babi guling from Ibu Oka in Ubud, Bali. I truly have no idea what any of those words mean and it is possible he just made them up. But it all looks and sounds delicious, makes me hungry, and inspired me to post some images and notes on Great Pork Things I Have Eaten. First in the series: the almost pornographically juicy rosso tonkatsu from Hirata Bokujyou, Tokyo. (More on Tokyo eats HERE and HERE)

HODGMAN DECLARES CANADA "PERFECT"

Hodgman seems to be in Canada and is saying NICE THINGS about this mysterious giant, the "Brooklyn of the Americas." While I can't agree with his assessment, there are some pretty & good things about our northerly neighbor. I was up there last August working on stories and had a great time. Above, hiking at altitude in the beautiful Adamants mountain range, British Columbia. Canadian Mountain Holidays runs these heli-hiking trips. They are the best. This is a good way to be healthy, ride on helicopters and eat cookies.

I also wrote about the restaurant scene in Quebec City, which is celebrating its 400th year and has much to recommend it. I didn't get to mention the greasy 2am poutine. I will mention it now: It is fucking good.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Mahatma Mensch

Randomly: Mani Bhavan, Gandhi's residence, Bombay. 11.1.07

SFO - LAX

Left: San Francisco sidewalk, yesterday; Right: West Hollywood street sign, today.

STUCK IN MY HEAD

Eight days later & I am still saying "playa del coco." Make it stop please.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

HOW TO EAT A MORNING BUN II

Morning. Tartine. San Francisco. 5/14/08.

HOW TO EAT A MORNING BUN

This is the morning bun. This is the morning bun I ate this morning. It's from Tartine on Guerrero. It is a thing of complex beauty. Orange-sugary, at once sticky and gooey and crumbly, with near-caramelized edges and a heart of golden butter. There are two schools of thought about how to eat it. I am the dean of both schools. One: eat the edges first, pulling away each gooey-buttery outer ring at a time, moving around and inward, leaving the nearly-self–contained cylindrical center for last. This is the prized shot-glass of buttery nectar. Two: Eat the shot-glass-center first. Then move outward in any manner you like. How you eat this depends on your theories about delaying pleasure or your feelings that day about the likelihood of a bus veering off 18th St, smashing through the window and killing you where you stand (you will have at eaten the best part first). This is glass half-full, versus half-empty stuff, except that the glass is full of butter. I once ran into one of Tartine's owner at some food-industry party in New York and cornered them to talk about my feelings about the morning bun. This is akin to (I imagine) going to a swingers club and running into someone from the PTA who wants to talk about your kids. One other tip: get there early before they are gone. One final tip: Never eat two of these in a morning.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

SOME GOOD THINGS ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO

I've been eating a lot of pizza the last couple days but need to save that for an upcoming story. The parking and the microclimate crap still drive me crazy. But there are some good arguments for this city. Like donuts and sunsets and junky old 7-Up signs on corner delis and Hog Island oysters. A few others: My pal Bootsy, aka Matt Harput, and his rare, vintage and dead-stock Adidas, pristine Beetle and general life-advice. Go to HARPUTS.

Making coffee the expensive, halogen-powered, bamboo-paddled way at BLUE BOTTLE.

Solid sushi advice at SEBO.

COSTA RICAN BIRD MANIA

I mentioned the monkeys, but it was the birds that were really going ape shit. This doesn't really do justice to the aggressive aural overload of standing under this tree thick with the crazy birds. It was a wild, textured, LOUD sound. Set against the orange-purple sunset, it was how I imagine it'd feel to take acid and visit a pet store.

Monday, May 12, 2008

HELLO NEW (MOSTLY NON-IMAGINARY) PEOPLE

Big thanks to Blogger.com for naming this one of their BLOGS OF NOTE. Above: the big party for new Blogs of Note inductees. (Actually that's Paris, about a month ago. Seated dinner for two hundred at the Opera House. I wore a velvet dinner jacket. I have no idea what I was doing there but the champagne was good and plentiful.)

FROM THE FILES: WHICH PASTA LANE?

Three random signs from Bombay. The no pet litter sign is part of a series about street cleanliness. Also forbidden: washing your car in public. No spitting is from the train station. I still can't figure out what the illustration is meant to represent. And 3rd Pasta Lane? Whatever it is, I love it. (India. 10/07)

MARTIAN SUNSET

Sunset on Playa del Coco. Once you start saying "Playa del Coco" it is very easy to keep saying it all day.

WHICH ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER ONES?

In search of a fourth. On a beach somewhere. 5/9/08.

Friday, May 09, 2008

TOMORROW'S HISTORY TODAY: THE PRESENT

Not sure who this guy is. But I like him. There were howler monkeys napping in the trees by the beach, their white balls hanging low like fuzzy dice from a rearview mirror. I didn't have the zoom lens (or heart) to capture them. Four Seasons Playa Papagayo, Costa Rica.

TRAINS OF THOUGHT

Sensitive. Amtrak, Union Station. Denver, CO.

Sensible. London Underground.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

SUNNY, BLURRY, BLEARY

Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica. Landed last night, woke up to this. Bad picture taken from hotel w/ "Photo Booth" on the laptop, then emailed, slowly.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

IN AN AIRPORT THINKING OF DONUTS

Flying to Costa Rica today. In the Houston (pronounced like the restaurant) airport. SPEAKING OF DONUTS: The above is from Abu Dhabi this summer. Emerati are just like us.

They drink RC Cola in Dubai.

They have pork shops for non-muslims. Pork which is "ALWAYS FRESH, ALWAYS NEAR YOU"

MENU CLIFFHANGERS

Japantown, San Francisco 5/6/08

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

FRIENDS ON TV DEPT.

My old pal SHIHAB RATTANSI was until recently an anchor on CNN International. He was the one with the posh voice and nearly crushing air of seriousness & dignity. (Not to be confused with Richard Quest, that absurd meth-taking muppet that Mr. Martin and I have long been interested in/horrified by.) Over many years and across many continents, I've made a stupid habit of taking (or trying to take) pictures of myself watching Shihab on hotel room TVs. Shihab just moved to a new job working for Al Jazeera America, which somehow I don't think I'll get around to watching quite so often. So in tribute to his long service to wandering new-viewers, I have put together a little photo album.

Shihab fans and people who like pictures of people pointing at television sets, please point yourself to:
WATCHING SHIHAB: A GLOBAL GALLERY OF GRAVITAS

DRINK, FUCK, FORGET

Hello Nice People —
Now a little back-story to this little blog. In January of 07 I found myself rather suddenly wife-less. After a period of sorrow and bourbon-soaked hibernation, I did what any injured, untethered, horny middlelatethirtysomething male newly unleashed in the world would do: I went a little crazy, traveled everywhere, stayed awake for months and months and got by on fun and distraction where I could find them. Then I did what any still injured but oddly triumphant, somewhat recovered and definitely self-involved writer would do: I wrote about it all in GQ Magazine. The headline and the pictures are a little sexed up. But this really is a story about loss and survival and an honest attempt to embrace the strangeness and pleasures of life's unasked-for second act.

The story's out in the April edition of GQ and finally up at the magazine's website HERE OR: PDF addicts may prefer to read it THIS WAY

Undisclosed Location w/ HODGMAN

Hodgman rightly takes me to task for not updating this thing. Here we discuss the situation silently in an UNDISCLOSED LOCATION. All I can say is: those are not his real shoes. AND: I WILL POST MORE FREQUENTLY. OFTEN IN ALL CAPS.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Sorry for the slow posting. More updates soon.

(Maui, 9/07)

(Delhi Airport, 10/07. I love this sign. This is a mere "inconvineance" in India, imagine what a real problem looks like)

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

before/after: italian dolomites edition

In & around Corvara and San Cassiano over the Brenner Pass from the Austrian border.
Beautiful mountains, exhilarating air, insane snowy roads, so much pork.
Next stop…Liverpool?

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Fecalnomics (flashback 12/07)

Huon Valley, southern Tasmania:

Tamar Valley, northern Tasmania:

Sunday: to the Dolomites

Saturday, February 02, 2008

On the road again

Home in NYC for a great month. Now it's somehow February & I'm back in motion. To properly re-discombobulate myself I stayed up all night Thurs, slept a few hours on Fri and took an early morning Sat flight to London. Tonight I'm at Yotel, the newish "pod" hotel in Gatwick. Japanese-style capsule hotel in a grim mall area of a British airport. Surprisingly good shower. Brought to you by the folks from the not-very-good kaiten zushi chain, Yo. Early flight tomorrow to Innsbruck, where I'll get a car, drive to the Italian Dolomites & eat speck as soon as possible.

The morning after

Survived 07. Pretty strange year for me. Some terrible—but so much good. More on all of that later. Happy new year, imaginary readers.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

me too

Confused (Tasmanian weather report)
Headed home today from Dubai. Between London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney and Tasmania it's been a good month—and I have no idea where I am. I'll post more soon but for now a few random images.

Sandboarding in the desert.

Racing Aston Martins.

Hobart, TAS.

Binalong Bay, near the Bay of Fires, TAS.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

SUN / MON / TUE

Tuesday: Dubai

Monday: London.
(Above: Eccles cake with lancashire cheese at St. John.)

Sunday: Wake in Louisville KY — find my courtyard and trashcans on the front cover of the Sunday NYT real estate section. Fly to NYC, shower, dump trash in said cans. Night: Fly to London.
Below: My brother Josh's head (left) containing the brain that invented his diabolical Thanksgiving tradition — Krispy Kreme pie; my head (right) containing the mouth that ate too much of it.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

NYC (weekend)

Exterior: Charlton Street.

Interior: King Street. Vegetable lasagna w/ thinly sliced grilled zucchini. Not bad. Too tomato-y. Nothing two pounds of slow-cooked pork shoulder couldn't have fixed.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Maasai

Life of the Maasai warrior:
Pros = Colorful robes; women do the wood-gathering and hut-building; spears.
Cons = Circumcised at 15; diet of cow's blood and milk.

Pavement Life

"Overbreathed" — grumpy V.S. Naipaul re: Bombay air. I am missing it I guess, even while I'm relieved to be home. Or not so much missing it as thinking about it a lot. Or belatedly processing it. Or something deep.

More Naipaul: "The main roads there are wide, wet-black and clean in the middle from traffic, earth-coloured at the edges where pavement life flows over on to the road, as it does even on a relaxed Sunday morning, before the true heat and glare, and before the traffic builds up and the hot air turns gritty from the brown smoke of the double decker busses; already a feeling of the crowd, of busy slender legs, of an immense human stirring behind the tattered commercial facades one sees and in the back streets doesn't see, people coming out into the open, seeking space." (India: A Wounded Civilization, 1977).

Dreamers with empty hands/ They sigh for exotic lands/ Its Autumn in New York / It's good to live it again.

It's the nicest season in the best city in the world. Woke up in Africa, took a crap in London, watched sixteen bad movies in coach, was at Pegu by 10pm & at Ssam bar for pork belly buns and head-cheese terrine round midnight. New York is oddly, wonderfully, weirdly quiet after the insanity of Bombay. Silent and serene. Happy to be home.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Zanzibar - almost

My scowl and I landed in Zanzibar today but didn't stay long. Zanzibar is not—like say Pittsburgh—a place you expect to just spend a layover in the airport. But my flight to Dar es Salaam from the bush did stop here and, while I've really wanted to see Zanzibar I've been away from home for too long & just couldn't extend the trip any longer. I've had romantic notions about Zanzibar ever since I fact-checked a piece about the island some awful number of years ago — so I got to fly back to Dar thinking maudlin and common thoughts about travel anticipation versus travel reality and the horrible passing of time. Ah, well, I'll have to go back. In the meantime, I'm putting my head (which is made of a kind of pink, chewy candy) down for some rest before flying back early tomorrow. See you in America, imaginary readers.

Good Luck/Bad Luck: Tanzania

I've been doing fancy safari things in AFRICA for the past week. And liking it. Tired now — more pictures soon.
For now, two views of the topi, a big elegant antelope. Above: Standing proud in the endless plain. Below: Another topi, not so lucky, caught by two female lions and beginning to be taken apart by their very cute (and totally deadly) young cubs.

Morning in the Serengeti

View from tent at about 5:30am.

Some time in the middle of the night I woke up and recorded these crazy sounds right outside my tent (I had the camera handy with the vague idea that if some menacing thing came to kill me in the night I could, at the very least, take a flash picture of it.) These were probably the same hyenas who snuck up and ate a bowl of nuts while we had dinner nearby.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

So long, Bombay

Leaving India later this morning. Sad to go. Been an amazing time. I'll post more pictures but now a little sleep. Next up: TANZANIA.

Short film about trying to cross the street.

Press the little arrow to play. Apologies to Wes Anderson.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

He's not just the owner…

Happy halloween all.

No idea.

Any guesses?

Yes, and that too.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Talk about mudflaps, Bombay's got 'em

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Today

Today I ate fried things from a street stall / watched kids play cricket on the street / saw a goat walking in a market and puppies eating trash by the side of a highway / went to a beach where kids rode in mini electric cars and an old woman pulled dozens of chicken feet from a bag full of chicken feet and fed them to wild dogs who love chicken feet / sunned myself next to the pool at the Taj / saw the body of a dead man on a stretcher covered with flowers carried past me down the street in a Hindu funeral procession headed to the crematorium (the dead man wore a white hat and an open-mouthed look of wonder) / stepped over an open sewer / was approached by a man asking me to be an extra in a Bollywood movie — his business card said: "Bollystars Casting (Specially Western People)" / played Xbox at a friend's apartment / looked away as an elderly couple urinated at the edge of a beautiful park / watched two men lathered up and shaved by barbers on the side of the street / saw a monkey / admired the gated palatial homes of Malabar Hill and the giant Art Deco banged-up jalopies of apartment buildings along Marine Drive / drank a can of iced coffee from a gas station convenience store / passed a sign that said "Special Bus Lane for Best Buses Only" and another that asked "Are You Ready For the Global Gujarati?" / ate squid koliwada and kerala prawns and butter nan and spongy neer dosa and drank Kingfisher beer.

That was today & I got a late start. And it was a Sunday.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Not the least intimidating vehicle in the world.

A few feet from the nicest hotel in Bombay. Unrelated: an ATM ate my bank card today and I found myself shouting at a bank official who asked for a xerox of my passport "I did not bring a photocopier to India!" Sometimes being right doesn't stop you from being an idiot.

Anthologized

The anthology BEST FOOD WRITING 2007 is out and in bookstores now. They re-printed my story about eating in Shanghai from Bon Appetit. That was nice of them. (The image on the right has nothing to do with the book or the original story. It's just a KFC tribute joint I saw in Shanghai and liked.)

Found: In Translation

A Japanese magazine (COURRIER JAPON) translated my New York Times T Travel magazine story about eating everything in Tokyo into JAPANESE. Cool. I am much, much funnier in Japanese. And skinny.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

BOM/STO

Still in Bombay but stuck inside writing a story about Sweden, so I'm putting up two images from my week in Stockholm this July.

On a ferry. I like how the windows look like pages of a book.

Biff rydberg. At tiny Bakfickan bar at the Opera House. Steak, potatoes, onions, an egg yolk—why/how so good?

moneypassion

Monday, May 26, 2008

THE VACATIONIST