Angela L. Das

Sitting at a picnic bench, overlooking the hills, horses, a beautiful wine tasting room and my then-boyfriend-now husband bringing out a picnic complete with a chicken piccata sandwich, my favorite olives, and an engagement ring.

I’m passing through London for a day on my way back to California, and I stop at my brother’s flat in Earls Court. I hold my 3-day-old nephew, Tomasz, for the first time.

We spend the first day on the beach about three seconds away from our hotel room in Nusa Dua. It’s overcast, and the tide is low, so we stay there all day ordering a couple of cocktails and exploring the exposed undersea inhabitants (like star fish that are bigger than the size of my head), laid out under the sun and waiting for the water to come back.

We hit the breakfast buffet the next morning, hungry and happy. Except my husband seems frozen in his seat at the table. When I ask him what’s wrong, he says (careful to move nothing but his lips), “I think I got sunburned yesterday.” And I notice he’s as red as a lobster.

The rest of the afternoon disappears getting after-sun treatments and massages at the hotel spa. Just as I step, blissfully massaged and relaxed into a warm, stone bath full of fresh flower buds, I’m handed a cup of delicious tea. A satisfying tropical rain starts as I sink into the tub.

*** Ramadan is the traditional annual Muslim festival that involves fasting from sun-up to sundown***

Petaling Street and Central Market, usually the human equivalent of beehives, have been practically deserted all day. We’ve had the most amazing chicken rice in the world, gone shopping, seen some sights…then the sun goes down and locals seem to come out from everywhere. Suddenly the world is incredibly crowded, hungry, and looking for a party…Actually alarmed by the sudden change of pace overtaking the city, we find a rooftop bar with a great view of the beautifully lit Petronas Towers and spend a quiet evening taking it in.

I lived there for seven years, but this kopitiam has everything I want to show my husband in one, tiny breakfast nook. The staff are friendly, the food is above-and-beyond delicious, and I swear if we moved back, I’d go there every. Single. Morning.

I order one of just about everything for my husband to try and the whole bill comes to about US$7. It’s so good, we’ve entered into a silent agreement to appreciate this moment of bliss-infused food without words and with hearty, appreciative eating. Everyone who comes in while we’re there takes one look at us and assumes we haven’t eaten for days.

My husband and I hit Bourbon Street – and promptly get pelted with beads from drunk kids on a balcony to let us know we’ve arrived. We’re absolutely enthralled with the place, drink our first real Hurricanes, discover Abita beer and stuff our faces with

oysters at Acme Oyster House. On the way home much, much later, we bump into a couple who are the spitting image of The Dude and Walter. My day is complete.

My speed-demon mother and I are stuck behind a car proudly displaying a DE sticker on it that refuses to drive above the speed limit (despite the fact that everyone else does there). I hear her swear alternately in two different languages for over

an hour at it. But the meal we get when we reach Gargiano is totally worth it: seafood and asparagus tart on a bed of fresh red cabbage, followed by a baked pear with Asiago cheese and walnuts. Mixed seafood salad (of grilled fish with fennel seeds with fennel puree, mashed potatoes and fresh salad on the side – apple torte, to finish, with coffee.

My usefulness-to-humanity factor gets raised a notch when I’m in a bookstore and an American man is grilling the saleswoman on how best to use his transit time on his way back from “Europe” to visit the city of London in 9 hours. Between grinding my teeth, I decide to put my 7 years of constant Tube-travel while living in England to good use, and pull him aside. I tell him everything he has to know to store his luggage, get on the tube (including telling him the exact price of a day ticket), what station he wants to aim for, what to see, what he can walk to and what time he’ll need to get back on the Piccadilly line in time to catch his flight home. I answer every question the saleswomen couldn’t answer because she didn’t actually live in London, but commuted from Reading.

This man is older, and bewildered on a number of levels. He takes vicious notes, and never says thank you.

My husband and I take a weekend just o appreciate the The Hitching Post, a steak house made famous by the movie Sideways, and Pea Soup Andersen’s, a quirky diner next to our hotel.

It’s a busy night at The Hitching Post, so we aim for the bar first. After a glass, two seats become available and we opt to order an appetizer. Some guy sitting next to my husband strikes up a conversation and within mere minutes has ordered us some of the best mussels I’ve ever eaten (***link to Moules Mariniere), and ordered us a glass of the Highliner. This guy looks like he’s in the area on business, and I’ll be honest, I’m suspicious that he’ll start trying to sell us something. But he’s interested in wine, which is what keeps bringing us back to the area, so we have a nice chat and he turns out to be pretty nice.

When we move to our table about 40 minutes later, we find he’s picked up our tab.

We’re driving around and getting utterly lost in the rolling hills and gorgeous scenery. I experience a moment of zen-like bliss in the passenger seat as I let go of every thought and feel the worries of the world release themselves from their stronghold on my shoulders. It takes considerable determination to do this mentally, but the scenic grapevines, farm houses, gardens, horses,

cows, and perfect sunshine streaming through perfect clouds in a perfect sky make it, somehow, seem easier.

Suddenly, I hear my fiance ask impatiently if I wouldn’t mind helping out a little with the directions, as we’re well and truly lost. I snap to attention. Engaged to each other for less than three hours, I suddenly panic as though the whole thing is off if I don’t do my part to navigate. I pull out the GPS which is still charging, my Blackberry for Google Maps (in case the GPS doesn’t load fast enough), and some print outs of the area I made before leaving for the trip. I’m also trying to find somewhere to put my sunglasses, but I’m all confused with wires and paper and technology, and nothing is moving fast enough. I realize I’ve started to sweat under the pressure. He obviously hasn’t gauged how seriou

sly I’ve taken this, because he then says, “What are you doing? Put all that down and LOOK AT ALL OF THIS GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL SCENERY.”

Every time I think about that moment, I get a huge grin on my face.

Looking forward to what 2010 brings…:)

All of your wordly possessions are located in one of those crates.

While working at my first job, back in 1999 on a street called Free School Lane* in Cambridge, I had a boss who took a great interest in my background and where I had been growing up. A former history teacher, she was and continues to be the best boss ever for lending me the phrase, “So, ‘home’ is where you hang your hat.”

I’ve had many “homes” then, in over 35 different countries and across 4 continents. Realistically though, when I feel the pangs of homesickness, they are usually narrowed down to only 3 or 4 specific places, where I have actually lived for more extended periods of time: the small town where my family still lives in Italy; England (both Cambridge and London); Singapore, where I spent my teenage years; and occasionally, my mother’s house which, like me, moves in shape and distance across the globe like ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’.

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Andre Organic Lavender

My love affair with the smell of lavender began in Provence when I was sixteen. With plenty of purple fields, gorgeous sunshine and blue skies, I thought I was in heaven at the time, and I swore when I left that I’d go back to live there some day. So imagine my surprise when on the road to Sanford I found a lavender field and the Andre Organic Lavender Shop.

With a particular recipe in mind, I visited this shop in the middle of the Santa Ynez Valley and was amazed at the variety of lavender products I had never seen before. Among them, a Lavender Breath Spray, which packed a strong punch of refreshment and woke us right up and out of our wine haze. Lavender, amongst its many uses is also a known natural anti-inflammatory and antiseptic. So, if a bit powerful, a good lavender breath spray should clear you of bad breath for life!

I was looking, in particular, for culinary lavender. Culinary lavender is collected from the flower buds, picked before blooming, dried, and sifted through carefully for any impurities such as dirt or leaves. The buds are what contain essential oil from which commercial scented oils are derived, and the collection of culinary lavender is a careful process that requires good timing and patience, of which I have neither.

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A "hodad" is a 50's term for surfer groupie

It started, as it has for so many since, with Guy Fieri’s show on The Food Network.  The show, plus the appeal of seeing something on TV one Saturday morning, liking it, and driving 3 hours to go and see it for myself. It also starts with a literal starvation for a decent burger while living in London (a matter not addressed by English restauranteurs until relatively recently).

A good burger shouldn’t be hard to make. I’m not for over-seasoned beef, over-cooked or processed into perfect looking, 12 cm diameter patties. Good bread, good meat, good salad and good ketchup should be all that is required.  And, generally speaking, the number of napkins used to eat a burger with any kind of social etiquette is directly proportional to the excellence of the flavour. My order of 1 hamburger, 1 side of onions and 1 strawberry milkshake took approximately 11 napkins to consume gracefully, scoring Hodad’s an 11 on a normal scale of 1 to 10. Good job, guys! (more…)

My first (of probably many) trips to Bakersfield was for a fundraising poker night my future brother in-law was organizing for his son’s baseball team. We drove up Saturday night, where Brian gave everyone a run for their money at the tables before losing his $100 buy-in. (So what? Its for a good cause and the taco bar was both home cooked and amazing.) Gladly, I have not yet fallen into the Los Angelean mind-set that everything is too far to drive with too much traffic involved. In fact, I loved the hour-long drive through farms and fields and beautiful landscapes so much, I couldn’t stop taking pictures on the way there, or the way back.

So we’re driving along Highway 126 and I’m literally drooling at all the fresh fruit and veggie stalls since we left all our cash in Bakersfield. Assuming these stalls won’t accept credit cards, we resigned ourselves to redirecting our route home via Los Olivos for a bit of Sunday relaxation. Then I start to see these signs for a “Honey Tasting Room” and decide to make a stop.

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Pea Soup Andersens & Why I think the Danish Are to Blame for Buellton

To begin at the beginning for, yes, Part II of the story, Buellton is a city in the Santa Ynez Valley that can be found by veering off the US 101 north of Santa Barbara. By forcing yourself to slow down to an abrupt halt in order to stop there (on your way to far prettier places), you would actually be demonstrating the fundamental principle of inertia. This is, by no small coincidence, the very definition of Buellton’s disposition.

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I have a bee in my bonnet. It’s called Buellton. Possibly the creepiest town I’ve ever visited in my life. I can’t put my finger on what it was exactly that made me feel weird to begin with, but I can tell you that by the time we made it to the Hitching Post for dinner, I was pretty creeped out. If you want to eat the most amazing steak in the world and be literally scared shitless while chewing, visit The Hitching Post in Buellton, CA. Me and my fiance (of 2 days- hooray!), checked into our hotel, hopped in the car and headed straight for the excitement of the famous “Sideways” restaurant.

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Evolution | Reversed | Let's Break Something

I arrived in London the Saturday morning of the protest just in time to catch all the hype on the tv over breakfast. I wanted to meet a friend at Embankment, she was late, I took off on the march without her. I wasn’t trying to come across as an anti-capitalist, although I did want to hear what the pro-environmentalists had to say.

But there’s a reason why I bailed out at Trafalgar Square and headed for the relative safety of the National Gallery: There’s just something altogether far too disturbing about British crowds. (more…)