Showing a purple tongue to Delhi heat
Jamuns, a seasonal purple berry
This monsoon season in Delhi, I tasted jamuns after nearly two decades. As a child, picking ripe jamuns used to be a pleasant way of killing time. It often involved sneaking into a neighbor’s yard when the elders were dozing off in the summer heat. It also meant getting up on precarious fences or branches to reach up the tree for a handful of jamuns. I saw some street urchins doing the same the other day; the girl appeared to be as old as I was then.
Baking in Delhi, waiting for the rains
Humidity and heat give mangoes a sweeter flesh and a heady aroma. The same dose makes my brain feel fried and served on a platter – all shapeless and gooey. Monsoons should smell of earth and mangoes but it hasn’t started raining yet. Air is so thick with humidity that I am practically breathing in water. Or is it soup? A soup spiced with exhaust fumes, and body odors.
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Fillmore Street Jazz Festival 2009
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What better way to celebrate July 4th than with the most American of art forms – Jazz. And the Fillmore Street Jazz Festival does the celebration with gusto. This year it was spread across eight or so blocks on Fillmore street, four main performance stages, and many smaller performances going on all along the street and in Jazz clubs lining Fillmore.
Kashmir – On not bus-ing across Leh
Thiksey Monastery
We abandoned our plans to hoof it around Leh, but we were still sample-the-local-culture type of tourists. So no rented SUVs for us, it was going to be local buses instead. We asked our inn-keeper for the night whether it would be possible to catch a bus the next morning to our next village stop. He assured us that there was a bus to be caught at 10:00 am the next morning. Excellent.
We had time to do the morning tea ritual and eat a leisurely, if spartan, breakfast. It felt like a vacation after all. We hefted our backpacks, walked half a mile to the nearest bus stop and patiently sat down to wait. The waiting was pleasant – deep blue sky, fresh mountain air, high desert landscape around us, the golden Buddha statue glinting in the courtyard of the monastery we had visited the evening before. Very picture postcard perfect. Put in some luxury tents and charge a bunch of rich tourists $1000-a-day perfect.
Coffee and chocolate at Fog City News
Fog City News Storefront
Fog City News is fourth in our chocolate and coffee series. The earlier ones are Recchiuti, Tcho and XoX.
- Location: Market Street, Financial District
- Coffee: None! Although you can find imported bottled soda here. And magazines …
- Chocolate: Tasting bites and bars – Dolfin, Vosges, Scharffen Berger to new a few …
FCN is not your atypical chcocolate store. It is an atypical magazine shop. If you like to lay your hands on hard to find magazines and periodicals, this is your place to be. Ditto for chocolates. The store fits in with busy life of financial district. Grab a chocolate and a magazine and be on the run…or, grab a soda and a magazine and be on the run … May even be a nice spot to spend ten minutes browsing during the dull part of the day. And to pick up gifts as well.
Coffee and chocolate at Recchiuti
Rose caramel
Recchiuti is third in our chocolate and coffee series. The earlier ones being Tcho and XoX.
- Location: Ferry Plaza
- Coffee: Peets’ or Blue Bottle is available a few doors down.
- Chocolates: Truffles, caramels, …
Recchiuti’s is what you would expect a fancy chocolate store to look like. All trim, polished and glittery and that is just the staff. No chairs for shoppers to sit around and look flabby, unpolished and drab. No coffee either to ruin any nice perfumes the staff or customers may be wearing. Their price helps to not overindulge.
Are we sounding curmudgeonly?
Coffee and chocolate at Tcho
tcho-a-day
Following up on our coffee and chocolate trail (inspired by David Lebovitz), the second one on our list is Tcho.
- Location: Pier 17, San Francisco
- Coffee: Blue Bottle
- Chocolates: Tasting squares and bars
We had known about Tcho long before we sampled it. They had been getting reviewed on boingboing since their beta days (yes, even chocolates have beta versions in silicon valley).
Our first taste of Tcho’s chocolates was on a walk along Embarcadero. On that occasion, we tasted all four of their varieties and picked up a small pack of 8 tasting squares. On our last visit, we picked up a 30 day package called tcho-a-day.
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Coffee and chocolate at XoX
Store front on Columbus Ave
David Lebovitz says that some of the best artisan chocolatiers these days are from America. So, we decided to bring to you as many of them as we can find in San Francisco.
We start with XoX Truffles – a friendly shop for a cup of coffee and some handmade truffles.
- Location: North Beach, San Francisco
- Coffee: Espresso
- Chocolates: Handmade truffles
The store front is unpretentious, the coffee delightfully strong, and the handmade truffles are small nuggets of perfection. These truffles have won so many awards that the list of awards exceeded our attention span.
They give away a free truffle for every cup of coffee you buy. Our plan is to sample all their truffles for free. OK, we lie. We buy them too. This time we bought a few Earl Grey truffles.
A saloon, a globe and a park – a spot of the old Barbary Coast
The Saloon
Walking in front of “Old Ship Saloon”, you would have never guessed it. Looks like any other brick building surrounded by many other buildings. But this saloon was originally on a ship. How did the ship get here? How did the saloon get here? Well?
Kashmir – On walking across Leh
Lamayuru Monastery from the Highway
A combination of lack of detailed maps, the locals’ flexible notion of distance and time, and the thin mountain air, made us drop our grand plans to wander across Leh on foot. But every day or two we did have to walk the distance from the nightly bivouac to the nearest bus stop, which usually turned out to be just beyond the next mountain (us) / hill (locals). After a couple of days of lugging my stupidly heavy backpack it dawned on me that there were usually two tracks leading across every mountain/hill – one around it and the other over it. The latter seemed as if someone had created straight-as-arrow paths on a flat piece of paper, and draped that paper on mountains and valleys.
Birds and Bees of Telegraph Hill
Houses of Telegraph Hill
Yes, the famous parrots. Not as many bees as there are flowers. And, last but not the least – the stairs – lots of them.
Telegraph Hill is where Coit Tower sits. You can’t miss Coit Tower if you are in San Francisco. You can see it from far and wide, standing out like a light house which it is not. Long time back, and for San Francisco, 150 years is a long time ago, Telegraph Hill used to be a bald hill. Because of the line of visibility, the location was used as a semaphore line. The role of the obervatory was to note the type of shipping vessel crossing Golden Gate Strait and let the town folk know. Even now, in spite of the dense foliage on the hill, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge.
Kashmir – On not walking across Leh
Hitchiking - the driver hadn't slept three nights ....
We traveled to Leh, in northern Kashmir, a few years ago. Good sample-the-local-culture tourists that we are, we traveled on crowded buses, hitchhiked on trucks, and once, memorably, on a fully loaded gasoline tanker truck driven by a dozing driver. One thing we did not try to do much was hike. It was not the lack of detailed maps that held us back. India is crowded enough that finding someone to ask the way to a nearby village is usually not a problem. The problem was estimating how long it would take us urbanites to walk across the hills and mountains of Leh to our destination. Actually, the problem was the set of short conversations we had with the locals one fine day, which I reproduce below.
The very edge of San Francisco
Sutro baths from Cliff House
What have we got at the edge of San Francisco? Sutro baths of course. Our very own modern ruins. And fog. I doubt a hundred years have changed the course of San Francisco’s weather. So, who built a public bath house on a generally cold and often foggy beach? A rich dude, of course. In 1896, Mr. Sutro, who owned most of San Francisco’s western front, built an indoor swimming pool, in fact a set of seven swimming pools, at a cost of over a million dollars. Why? I guess, because he could.
Urban hike in San Francisco, from Ferry Plaza to Fort Point
Marina Greens; Click for a photos from this hike ...
Choose a day that isn’t too cold. Start the walk from Ferry Plaza. If you start on a Saturday, you will be able to pick up your lunch from the Farmer’s market. When you are done exploring Ferry Plaza, start walking westwards and stay as close to the bay as possible. Many of these piers offer pedestrian walkways. The route is unmistakable, so there is little to no chance of getting lost. If you are planning on completing the hike, plan on walking about 10-12 miles and spending anywhere between 3-6 hours.
Here is what you will see on this hike – San Francisco skyline from several vista points, sailboats dotting the sea, yachts moored at the harbors, large container ships crossing underneath the Golden Gate bridge, kites doing acrobatic maneuvers by the marina, kids playing in big or small groups, people of all ages sunbathing or jogging, couples of all genders holding hands or kissing, buildings with military architecture – extensions of Presidio. In spring, you will see Crissy Field in a wildflower bloom.
Walking tour of San Francisco’s Chinatown
Click for photos of San Francisco Chinatown
At first glance, San Francisco’s Chinatown appears to be a collection of trinket shops. Only during the Chinese New Year celebration does this place truly come alive and then one has to be prepared to brave the cold winter rains which often afflicts the celebration, and huge crowds.
Bread, merguez, jam and coffee on a Saturday
Peach gallery; Click for Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market photos
My favorite bread is Acme, charcuterie Fatted Calf, jam June Taylor and coffee Blue Bottle. One place where I can find them all is Ferry Plaza farmer’s market on a Saturday.
It is no doubt a bit of drive from Bay Area. But once you manage to get yourself there, you will definitely break your budget. I promise you that.
Lentil bombs
Moong Daal Vadi
OK, thats not what they are called. But I am tired of the spelling variations – vadi, badi, bodi…
So what is this bomb?
Alford and Duguid and parboiled rice
Husband and wife, Alford and Duguid met on a hotel rooftop in Tibet in 1985. They have been traveling together and writing James Beard Award winning cookbooks since. While leafing through an old copy of New Yorker, I re-discovered them recently. Most of their travels are through South Asia and consequently the cookbooks reflect the tastes and stories of Asia. I present here an excerpt from their introduction to “Seductions of Rice“.
In the course of working on this book, we were walking early one morning along a narrow path past fields of rice just outside Calcutta in Bengal, in India. It was early November, dry season in Bengal, and the sun was already bright and warm. The rice was golden, it was harvest time, and in every field out across a large flat plain as far as we could see, there were groups of villagers working hard cutting and threshing rice. Their voices, together with the songs of birds and the occasional bump of a bicycle riding along a dirt path, were the only sounds to be heard… We were there taking pictures, asking the odd question, but mainly just being there. We were happy to be outside the city at harvest time, to see the water buffaloes chomping on the stubble in the fields already harvested, to see farmers slapping long bundles of cut rice against a threshing table so that the grain would dislodge from the straw.
Who moved my wife? – Ramlila in New Delhi.
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In 300 BCE, it is said, lived a thief, a kind of a highway robber called Valmiki. One day he tried to rob a sadhu, a wandering holy man, who had nothing to offer him so he gave him a mantra ‘Mara’. When Valmiki , in his distracted moments chanted it, he realised he was not saying mara-mara-mara but rama-rama-rama and that’s when he decided to write down the story of Lord Rama into an epic called Ramayana.
Eating a starfruit from a roadside vendor
Delhi vendor selling starfruit and roasted sweet potatotes
From a Delhi roadside vendor.
India’s village tourism
Recently New York Times published an article on village tourism in India – “Villagers in India Open Their Homes“. Author of this article stayed for three days at a small village called Samthar near Darjeeling, the tea hills of West Bengal.
This is distinct from staying a night at a village as part of an adventure trip. In this case the principal activity for guests at village homestays is observing and joining in the humdrum rhythms of village life. While a local government official was quoted saying that one has to stay for at least 3 months to enjoy and understand the villages, 3 days is a small beginning.
A small beginning to what? That is what I am pondering over.
A day at North Beach, San Francisco
Columbus Avenue, San Francisco
North Beach, the Italian sector of San Francisco – great location, great food, and great views. Just don’t come looking for a beach.
Winter camping in a desert park
Bow Willow Campsite at Anza-Borrego
It is raining cats and dogs today. Winters of Northern California typically bring cold rain and dark cloud covered skies. Good for water table but not good for the soul. My thoughts turn to Anza-Borrego desert state park, the largest of California’s state parks and a perfect escape from rain drenched winters. A couple of winters ago, we camped at the Bow Willow campgrounds. We are intermediate campers – we can do without the comfort of hot showers for a day or two but do need a chemical toilet. Bow Will was perfect – clear skies, not too cold, no bugs, hiking trails nearby.
I still remember that for dinner we had Trader Joe’s Lentil Rice Biryani heated on our camp stoves. Last night we had Chicken Biryani Dum Pukht style and while my Biryani is infinitely better on a culinary scale, there is something special about campside food. Is it the appetite built up from all day hiking, the fresh air enhancing the aroma of food, the effort of getting dinner ready in an unfamiliar setting, or sitting down for dinner without the TV?
Elephant seals of Ano Nuevo
Papa and baby elephant seal
December to March – they arrive, they mate, they have babies.
Elephant seals are big, brown, and blubbery. If you come to Ano Nuevo Beach – a small state park on the California coastline between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz – you will see hundreds of them. Blue sea, choppy waves, rocky waterfront, sandy coastline and what looks like large brown blubbery sacks littered all around. Males weigh 5000 lbs, females 4000 and newborns about 100. Maybe they are called elephant seals because they are elephantine versions of seals, or maybe it is because of the trunk the males have for a nose. Harems of alpha males number in hundreds. Sounds more exciting than seventy two virgins, eh?
Locomotoring 
Funny zone at Telegraph
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Sign on Leh-Kargil highway
Telegraph is upto week 43 of sign language now, so there are a lot of funny signs to be seen there…
Written by locomotoring
April 4, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Posted in World
Tagged with Commentary, Funny signs, Odd signs, Odd thing, Sign language