Friday, September 25, 2009

Guardian groans

For a while now I have been despairing at some of the tosh that appears on the Guardian Unlimited website. It seems that their Comment is Free section, as well as the blogging sections are just excuses for really bad, lazy journalism. Writers seem to take pleasure in choosing a populist topic and try and ram holes through them for the sake of it. Thank god I only really come across them when someone else has sent me the link lambasting them.

I read this article on Comment is Free today, by someone raving on about how much they hate cooking. I did wonder whether it was written in the 1960s by some raving feminist for a while, so violent is some of the language, declaring that cooking is "another chore that highlights the futility of life". To be honest, I am not annoyed by the fact that she doesn't like cooking - I completely understand that some people don't get it, quite like how I don't get gardening, or bird watching. What I am annoyed about is how they have managed to get such dross into a national newspaper website. Who reads this nonsense?

The other, non-food related article that has also irked me recently is this one about apparent racism in British advertising. This one is just simply hilarious, and I loathe to repeat the phrase political correctness gurn maaaddd. Scroll down though and read the amount of abuse that is hurled at the guy! Had me in stitches for ages!

Bedrocks and tumble-downs

There is a new series on BBC called Economy Gastronomy at the moment, very appropriate for the times, trying to educate the British masses on how to save money whilst still eating well. Apart from the appalling title, the programme has irked me somewhat in how patronising it is. The whole premise of the programme is to have a 'bedrock' recipe, normally a big hunk of roasted meat, from which you can have 'tumble-down' meals from to last you the week. It has annoyed me that they talk about it as if it was some fan-dangled new invention, but I guess this is geared towards people who haven't used their kitchen beyond the microwave.

I am still welcoming the extra free time I have on my hands with my new job, which has given me so much more time to cook at home. This week I have been doing lots of tumble-down meals, mainly as my parents left me with a fridge full of goodies. I had at my disposal some crab, roast pork (燒肉 rather than 叉燒), roast duck, as well as my mum's massive collection of sauces and goodies ranging from oyster sauce to dried shrimp to fermented bean curd. I have always been terrible at cooking Chinese food, but I'm trying to improve at the moment.

Here's what my mum did with the crab:

Crab with spring onion and ginger (serves 4 with leftovers)

2 crabs, still alive
Cooking oil
1 small onion or big handful of spring onions, finely chopped
Glug of Chinese cooking wine
1 egg
Tablespoon or so of ginger, chopped into matchsticks

1. Prepare the crab. Make sure it is still alive when you come to cook - my parents either leave them roaming in the garden and then put them in the fridge for a while for them to go to sleep. Brutally kill them by levering the shell to come apart from the body. Take out the lungs/ladies fingers, take off the legs and claws, and chop the remaining body into quarters. Use the back of the knife to crack open the claws so it is easier to eat later. Set aside the legs as they are a bit hairy for this.

2. Heat some oil in the wok to a high heat, then add the onions. Stir-fry until soft, then add in the crab, along with your glug of wine. Stir-fry to make sure even distribution of heat.

3. After the crab is 80% done (easiest way to check is looking at how solid the brown meat has become in the shell), add in a beaten egg, which will collect up all the good crabby juicyness. Mix well, and finish with the ginger.

It is an amazingly easy recipe really, really letting the gorgeousness of the crab shine. The best bit is scooping out all the cholesterol-ridden brown meat from the shell and mixing it with plain rice. Here it is in all its magnificence (obviously my mum made this, I'm just trying to take credit now):

In an attempt to clear my fridge-full of food, I invited Eugene, Jess and Martin round for dinner. It dawned on me that it would be the first ever family-style Chinese dinner I've cooked for friends, and I was a bit worried. There were 4 things on the menu:

1. Braised roast pork with tofu and broccoli
2. Gingery duck with peppers
3. Morning glory (通菜) with fermented tofu and chilli
4. Leftover crab

The trickiest thing I found was to time everything. The 3 dishes I had to cook where all wok-based, and the challenge was to cook quickly enough to ensure that nothing went cold. I cheated somewhat by having two woks on the go (I am inviting unnecessary jokes about my surname now, aren't I?), and I dirtied a whole load of bowls along the way in an attempt to be all Delia and tidy. But here was the resulting feast!:

The dish I was most happy with was the morning glory I think. It is so prohibitively expensive in restaurants, but a plate cost me about £1.75 to make, helped by the leftover fermented tofu my mum had in the fridge!

Morning glory with fermented tofu and chilli (serves 4 as part of a Chinese meal)

Half a bag of morning glory (I bought a bag from Dragon Gate Supermarket in Chinatown for about £3.25 and got two meals out of it)
Cooking oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small red chilli, chopped small
2 tablespoons of fermented tofu (南乳)

1. Wash the morning glory and separate the leaves from the stalks. Cut the stalks into 2 inch-long pieces.

2. Heat the wok to a high heat with some cooking oil, then add the garlic and chilli, stir frying until soft but not browned.

3. Add in the fermented tofu, with a little water to stop it catching. Add in the morning glory stalks, and stir fry for a minute or so.

4. Add in the leaves, which will reduce down like spinach very quickly. Mix well and serve.

If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that we set aside some crab legs earlier on. My mum always steams them on top of the rice in the rice cooker, and there are a million things you can do with the meat other than just eating it just like that. I spent almost an entire episode of Economy Gastronomy getting all the meat out of the legs that were leftover:

Lucky I love extracting crab meat, because look at the paltry amount of meat you get at the end of it!:

I was debating what to do with them for ages. One option was to make them into crab cakes with my successful potato harvest (my first ever!), but given I'd just been worked hard by Susan at yoga class (that woman is a masochist in the nicest sense of the word), I needed some pasta.

Linguine with crab and chilli (serves 1)

125g linguine (quarter of a packet)
Leftover white crab meat
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small red chilli, chopped small
Little bit of grated lemon rind
100g baby spinach, washed
Juice of half a lemon

1. Put pasta on to cook. Put spinach into a colander.

2. In a small frying pan, add the olive oil, garlic, chilli and lemon rind, and fry very slowly until it simmers and the garlic is soft.

3. Drain the pasta by throwing it over the spinach (thereby cooking it), and mix with a fork in the colander to avoid big clumps of spinach.

4. Add the pasta and spinach into the frying pan, along with the crab and lemon juice. Mix well and scoff.


And believe it or not, I still have bits and pieces left in my fridge for me to tumble-down some more! I guess I need to put on more weight though before I can rival the lovely Allegra :)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Addiction

It was probably the time when I worked in Hong Kong for 6 months that I developed my tea habit. I really did miss the comforts of Britain at times, and I found myself making lots of cups of tea in the afternoon at work, even though I wasn't really a heavy tea drinker at the time. Ever since then though, the addiction has just gotten worse. I get through an average of 8 large buckets of Earl Grey or PG Tips during a workday, delivered in my trusty Guardian thermos mug, and often supplement that with more Chinese or rooibos tea along the way. In fact, one of the things I miss most about living in China is the availability of hot water everywhere, from corner shops to airports, and the little vacuum flask lined with some tea leaves which I took everywhere.

The journey to Nepal started very well, where the Costa in Bahrain airport served me a small swimming pool of Earl Grey, so big it needed two handles!:

But it all was downhill from there. Nepal is a tea-drinking country, and their chiya is just like my much-liked massala chai from India, but I couldn't get over the overwhelming milkiness of it. I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to milk, and Nepali milk is all a bit rich for me. Similarly, when they offer you a cup of 'milk tea', it is literally a mug of hot milk with a weak tea bag dunked in it. Ming ming ming! Whilst in Naranghat, I had to content myself with one teeny cup of black tea in the morning and one in the evening, it's a miracle I wasn't more grumpy that week.

In Pokhara, I did manage to find a substitute. Lemongrass tea was everywhere here, taking me back to lovely Busaba. Their lemongrass is not like the tough stalks we have in England though, but lovely green and leafy, turning the tea into a nice green tinge:

I didn't feel very well in the last few days in Pokhara though, and I do suspect that it was the lack of caffeine. I do have a funny relationship with caffeine - I can hardly drink a cup of coffee without feeling a bit 'weird', yet the vast amounts of tea must mean I am constantly on a caffeine drip. In any case, it wasn't until our last meal in Kathmandu that I found Earl Grey tea in Nepal. Again, it was at my favourite Roadhouse Cafe, it was probably the tea rather than the food that made me like it so much.

Bliss!

This post was brought to you with the help of a cup of Xiamen jasmine tea.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Lentils and rice, rice and lentils

Now finally, onto the food! But unfortunately, there really isn't much to write home about Nepali food, which has to be one of the uninspired cuisines I've ever had. Being sandwiched between two of the greatest cuisine nations, I was quite taken aback in how little variety there was in Nepali food. Their national dish is dal bhat, so reverred to the extent that every meal is literally just lentils and rice.

Dal bhat is actually very pleasant, and probably very healthy. The lentils are cooked into a soupy texture and spooned over the rice, and very often it comes with tarkari, or vegetable curry of some kind. We had some wonderful dal bhat in Aaptari, cooked by a team of village ladies:



The problem is, dal bhat day in day out is bland to the extreme, and I am truly curried out. During my little yogaing retreat in Pokhara, where I was essentially staying at a family's house, the monotony of dal bhat became all the more apparent. The yogi there believed in some mumbo-jumbo Ayurvedic cuisine, which basically entailed eating the same breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. It was actually some very beautiful food, but I was only there for 3 days and already got thorougly bored. Breakfast everyday was a very pretty muesli and yoghurt and fruit concoction:


Dal bhat for lunch:

And vegetable soup for dinner:


It was no wonder then that I did, to my shame, find much relief when the places we were staying in attempted to feed us 'continental' food, even if it doesn't really resemble what we would eat at home. They seem to think that us Westerners are obsessed with 'sizzlers', slabs of meat with chips and veg served on hotplates, no wonder there are no smoke alarms in Nepal:


Our resort in Chitwan National Park also humoured us with some barbequed chicken on our last night, which was actually very yum:


The place we stayed in Naranghat actually seemed quite ashamed of its Nepali offerings, and tried to serve us Chinese food almost every night. I suppose it must be the proximity to Tibet which has led to the popularity of Chinese food in the country, but unfortunately it is very Chinese takeaway in standards. The only saving grace is the momo, which is basically the traditional dumpling 餃子 but normally made with chicken rather than pork, and often served with some hot sauce (of course, curry has to be somehow incorporated):


Apart from the momos though, it was all sweet and sour with fried rice and fried noodles. I think I ate more sweet and sour in that week than I have had in my entire lifetime, bleurgh, bleurgh!:


And once we got back to Kathmandu civilisation, I have to admit I was happy to luxuriate in more Western options. The Thamel backpacker area has a lovely selection of roof-top terraces which are lovely both morning and night. We had lunch at Le Bistro bang in the middle of Thamel, with some hilarious consequences. This was their attempt at garlic bread:


But I have to admit that their creamy carbonara with mushroom was exactly what I wanted as comfort food:


My big recommendation for Thamel, however, is the more unassuming Roadhouse Cafe. A glance at the accurate English and variety on the menu will immediately tell you the place is owned by foreigners, and the quality of the food is as good as any bistro in London. There is a real wood-fire oven for their pizzas, and the menu has a nice Mediterranean selection from pasta to tzatziki and hummus to chicken caesar wraps, and Joe and I rejoiced at being able to have gorgeous fresh tomatoes in their bruschetta, which was the first time we saw bread which wasn't in the form of cardboard squares:


It was our last meal in Nepal before we left, so I really pushed the boat out and had a glass of wine with my vodka penne with shrimp. This was probably the best plate of food I had the entire time I was in Nepal, and just what I wanted - simple, light, delicious:


And as with all these Habitat trips, I end up craving home comforts like spag bol and shepherd's pie, but I got really lucky this time as my parents were round mine when I got home, and they fed me crab and roast pork and homemade soup :) Can't think of a better meal to go home to!

Chitwan, Pokhara and Kathmandu

For our R&R, we somehow managed to find a lot to do without ever setting foot on a trek! Chitwan National Park used to be a darling to the tourist industry, home to Bengali tigers and numerous one-horned rhinos, but after the Maoists blew up a bus enroute to the park, tourist numbers are way down, and there has been a lack of development in the area in recent years. However, we still managed to have a fabulous if sweaty time there.

The main attraction was the number of bred working elephants in the park. There is a successful breeding centre, which housed the first ever recorded elephant twins. There were no hippos for me to get gooey about, but these nellies were wonderful, much smaller and cooter than their African cousins.



Amongst the activities available, I have to say the very juvenile 'elephant bathing' was probably the most fun:

Elephant safari was really quite uncomfortable:

And I was deeply suspicious of the rhinos we saw - surely they were just mechanical robots to fool us silly tourists? Especially as we saw them literally as we entered the park:

Back in Kathmandu, the main sights for me was to see how big city life was for most people. This was right next to our hotel, right in the centre of town about 3 minutes walk from Thamel, backpacker city. Large watering facilities were built throughout the city as places to wash back in the day, and they are still regularly used by the locals:

I also loved wandering around the back streets of Kathmandu, trying not to be too concerned about when the tangle of wires at each electricity pylon will catch fire:

The other overwhelming thing about Kathmandu, and the country in general, is how religious the whole place feels. In central Kathmandu, you are always (literally) tripping over shrines and mini temple. Joe even spotted one that looked simply like a rock in the ground! Here is the Buddhist temple Swayambhunath which wasn't quite as overrun with monkeys as advertised:



Joe and I also spent an afternoon gawping at the expansive temples in nearly Patan. The little blue building in the centre of the square was actually a blood donating centre - we debated whether we'd prefer to drink some tap water or give blood in that city!:

Finally, I also spent a few days in Pokhara, the 2nd largest city gorgeously located next to a lake. After the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu, it was just so chilled and just what I needed. I stayed right up in the mountains at the Sadhana Yoga Retreat, a sweaty 15-minute climb up a hill with your big backpack, but the views made up for it:

The yoga, on the other hand, was just way to mumbo-jumbo for me. I know, I know, the stuff I do in gyms and yoga centres in London isn't 'proper' yoga, but I do it for the exercise, not because I need to find my inner self. It gave me lots of time for reflection though, as well as learning the 5 commandments of being a tourist in Nepal:

  1. Thou shalt shed your normal clothes in favour of ones that do not fit, preferably in combinations of orange and purple, and look ridiculous in the process.

  2. Thou shalt only read books popular with other travellers, namely The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, Sold by Patricia McCormick, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. If thou shalt insist on looking more individualist, autobiographies by Obama, Nelson Mandela or one of the Clintons may be allowed.

  3. Thou shalt stop showering, because the sweat in the 90% humidity naturally cleanses thy clothes.

  4. Thou shalt insist on going everywhere by bus, even when thou canst afford the plane, because being trapped on the bus for 16 hours after a landslide is way more 'real'

  5. Thou shalt bad-mouth India, and insist that thou canst only find thouself in Bhutan nowadays, man.

Hee hee!

Dedication

When it comes to house dedication, I am almost guaranteed to be reduced to tears, and being team leader, I have to somehow not embarrass myself with the speeches they make me do. This time in Nepal, the entire village turned out, with about 100 chairs lined up for the ceremony! I did manage to cry with a little bit of dignity for once.

We had split into two teams, and had become very attached to our homeowners. My demi-team simply referred to our homeowner as Ama, affectionately 'Mother' in Nepali. Her real name is Dhan Maya Karki, who has 2 sons. Her blubbing at the ceremony was my cue to blub also:

The other demi-team worked with Bishnu BK and her family of 4 children - I still don't understand Nepali names, lots of people seemed to have 'BK' as a surname:

And here is the finished houses!!! Almost all built in 4 days:


And here are some pictures of the celebrations. I shall not be posting the video of me trying to dance for obvious reasons:

Us ladies also got henna mehndi:

And we were so adorned with gifts and blessings, three members of my team turned into gnomes:

Probably one of the best house dedications I've been to, and it all underlined for me the big reason I do Habitat.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Habitat for Humanity Nepal and partnership with Lumanti

I was extremely fortunate to lead a second Habitat build this year, and my trip to Nepal was my first to Asia with the charity. Apart from Everest, I actually realised I knew very little about the place. The country has had many challenges in the recent past, having declared itself a republic only last year after a royal scandal, and even today the Maoists pose a threat to everytday stability. Given the levels of tourism attracted to the trekking in the country, its poverty is rarely highlighted: per capita income is under US$500 per annum, and literacy is estimated to be around 50%.

Habitat has been working in the country for around 10 years now, and has this year just celebrate the completion of its 5000th house. Like many countries, it has adapted the traditional Habitat model to best serve its people - instead of local Habitat affiliates, Habitat partners with multiple other charitable organisations in order to better understand the needs of each region. In our case, we were building in Aaptari, a community near the major town Naranghat in the Chitwan region, about 20 minutes flight from Kathmandu. Habitat's partner here was Lumanti, a women's cooperative. Both the families we built for were members of the cooperative, and Habitat's financing model is also done through Lumanti.

Many parts of Aaptari can be said to be urban slums. The main city isn't far away, yet you feel like this community has been forgotten to a large extent. Most homes were still made the traditional way with mud and thatch. The culture is to have the entire family living in one room, where all the cooking is also done, and where the goats also sleep. This is an example of a typical slum house:

There are cement block or brick houses dotted around the village we were working in, the financing mainly coming from relatives working abroad in the Middle East or other parts of Asia. Most of the community work as labourers for around US$1.50 a day, but these are the relatively fortunate ones who have steady income into their families for them to be able to sustain a Habitat home. Anyway, here is some pics of my lovely team's work!






As is normal with these builds, safety standards are not quite at the level we are used to in the west! I include a few pics here to give Liz a few heart attacks. Here, our builder Dai was rigging up some dodgy looking scaffolding, I like the fact it is right next to the Habitat Site Safety poster:

And here is some more dodgy scaffolding: materials were so short, they used tin drum with a massive hole in it!

The community really welcomed us with open arms, and I think most of the fun from the build was spending time in the villages, playing with the kids, trying to console the goats after we demolished their house. Best of all, we became the local celebrities - we somehow managed to get on the telly multiple times whilst we were there! Here's a clip!