My E-Reader and Me

As soon as I rolled into Baltimore two weeks ago, I patronized the local independent bookstore Atomic Books (who are awesome), and, when I finished all of those books and was stuck in Union Station longer than anticipated, I bought more books to read.

The problem with this book purchasing compulsion is not the expense (having no local library to call my own in my nomadic existence, I spend a large % of my disposable income on books), I love buying books and thumbing through the pages and writing in the margins. I love re-reading part or all of the foodie tomes that have filled my shelves of late, passing on books to my friends, and trading in books at second-hand book shops in Cyprus, Egypt, Austria or wherever else I find them.

The problem with my reading addiction is weight.

Summer Love

How much am I in love with summer produce?

Voila! My dinner:

Mixed greens, sirloin steak, grilled local peaches, sliced American avacado, 

crumbled goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette!

The Land of Non-Dairy Whipped Topping

Tomorrow I will spend the Fourth of July with family (and six dogs) in the oppressive humidity of Florida (at least it's cooler here than in Baltimore!). Mom's making some sort of Shrimp Curry thing that I will probably only pick at because there is a whole pint of JUMBO LUMP CRABMEAT in her fridge with my name on it that I will likely devour within minutes of my arrival to her house (and then I will spend the rest of the afternoon complaining about a tummy ache). This is what America represents to me - food I can eat raw/days old out of the container with no fear of parasites. God bless the FDA.

I've been gorging myself on organic berries of the Straw, Black, and Rasp varieties - smothered in non-dairy whipped topping. I've been eating baby spinach salads like it's 2001. I have a pint of funkily-flavored (in a good way) frozen yogurt in the freezer that I am snacking away on whenever the opportunity presents itself. I am in foodie heaven.

On the pet front, Little Man continues his adjustment to his new environs. He can't go out and lay on the balcony in the shade - the humidity would probably make his hair curl-up and get wet and clumpy, which would be bad. He found a chair that is now 'his chair' for the next few weeks and he's happily napping the days away as he always has everywhere. The cat food available here is a bit fancier than in Egypt (and about 1/3 the cost) so he's also in kitty-foodie heaven.

In just a few days I'll jet up to Baltimore (and possibly to  Philly and NYC) to enjoy the delights of East Coast Cuisine (I will get steamed crabs this year if I have to drive to Smith Island to get them!) and delight in the hugs of my East Coast Friends (who are awesomer than steamed crabs, if that's even possible!).

Ah, America, you sure know how to spoil a girl!

Summer - Year 2

Summer Year 2 was the "pack as much in as possible" summer. I spent the first two weeks exploring Italy, then it was off to Baltimore, DC, New York, and Florida before heading back to Cairo (again, in time for my friend's birthday party ON the Nile).

It was the best summer ever in terms of catching up with friends and family; a big shout-out to everyone who put me up (and put up with me) and roommate from Cairo, who was on her first adventure to America. It was a two wedding summer - one in a beautiful nature center, the other at the burial place of Edgar Allen Poe (there's an old church on the site). It was also the best summer for entertainment value (Jason and the Aquanauts water ballet in Balitmore, Hamlet in the park in Ellicott City, The Birdcage on Broadway, Dracula performed at the Bargello Palace/art museum in Florence, Trixie and Monkey in Baltimore...) and FOOD - I easily put on 15 pounds gorging myself on Italian and American delicacies!

Milan, Italy

 

 

Vernazza (the Cinque Terre), Italy

 

Pisa, Italy

 

Florence, Italy

 

 

Baltimore, MD

 

Washington, DC

 

New York, NY

 

 

Ocala (?), FL

Year 2 2009 - 2010

Distraction from reading the news this morning seems like a good thing, so I bring you Year 2, my travels from September 2009 - April 2010. I actually didn't have many crazy adventures abroad that year, but I did have loads of visitors; which made life in Cairo interesting as I was suddenly not so much a passive observer as a tour guide and resident - suddenly I felt like I LIVED in Egypt; and that was very cool indeed. I also got to take one of my brothers on his first trip to Europe when we went to Rome in October; also very cool. There were also a random few nights stranded in NYC in a snowstorm while trying to get back to Baltimore, a conference in Bangkok, some mini-vacations to Cyprus and Alexandria, and my first trip to Luxor.

I am including one picture from Cairo that year, possibly my favorite picture I've ever taken. In Spring 2010, I visited the El Safa Center (a retirement home) with my National Honor Society students. There I met three sweet old ladies who wanted nothing more than to pose for pictures; and the results were the most beautiful portraits I have ever taken (and likely, the most beautiful I will ever take).

Rome, Italy

 

 

Pompeii, Italy

 

New York, NY

 

Baltimore, MD

  

 

Luxor, Egypt

 

Bangkok, Thailand

 

 

Cairo, Egypt

 

 

Limassol, Cyprus

 

Alexandria, Egypt 

Summer - Year 1

My first Summer living in Egypt seemed endless; probably because it was the first summer as a teacher that I wasn't working to make ends meet. In fact, it was the first summer I hadn't worked since I turned 16 - even the summer before moving to Egypt I worked as a barista AND as an event manager, so having a whole summer off was a dream I had never dared dream before!

I went home to Baltimore with a jaunt to NYC, flew off to Florida and took a road-trip to Miami with my brother, returned to Cairo for a few days, then explored Eastern Europe (by plane, train, and hydrofoil) before returning to Cairo just in time for my friend's 30th birthday.

Baltimore, MD, USA

New York City, NY, USA

 

Miami, FL, USA

 

Vienna, Austria

 

Salzburg, Austria

 

 

Bratislava, Slovakia

 

 

Trencin, Slovakia

 

 

Budapest, Hungary

Jet Laggy

GOOD MORNING, BAAAAAL TI MORE! (or rather BAWL DEE MER)

Amazingly, I am awake, and it is morning, and shortly I am going to get a shower in floridated water (my teeth are very excited!) and eat leftover Shrimp Egg Foo Young for breakfast (which to me is the best thing about being in America - after visiting friends, of course).

I'm still a little jet laggy. Yesterday I flew 1/4 way round the world and spilled cranberry juice all over a very nice British lady who was practically apologizing to me for my mistake (like Eric Idle in European Vacation when Clark W. Griswold runs over him with the car), hugged my awesome brother who leant me my old car back for the week, and then got a tour of my best friend's new house from her energetic four year old (after I had already been awake for 20+ hours) and finally crashed at hour 21 - when my poor body just could not take it anymore. (Did I mention I still have a cold/chest infection that I started with earlier this week?)

I woke up at 4am confused as to: 1) where I was, 2) why the clock said 4am and I did not hear the call to prayer, and 3) what time it was in Cairo...which was 10 am, which meant second period English, which meant thinking about all the marking I left in Cairo that I could have done on the plane instead of not seeing the end of Jane Eyre because the plane couldn't show us videos while we were circling Heathrow for 30 minutes, which was also time wasted that I could have been sending that email to my friends about meeting up at Golden West (my favorite restaurant with antlers on the wall) which I had forgotten to send in the weeks leading up to the trip.

So I sent some emails at 4 o'clock this morning that may or may not have made more sense than this blog post and went back to sleep.

Ah, the joys of international travel.

Anyway, Baltimore - Hi! I missed you! How you been? Why do you have to lay the 32 degree smack-down on me today when it's been in the 60's for the last few days? Why you gotta be like that, Baltimore? Is this punishment for having left you?

Ok, that's enough blogging. Time to go roll in some glitter and get the day started Charm City style.

My Top 5

Okay, so I'm posting this from Luxor during Eid el Adha; but this post has nothing to do with Luxor, or the Eid; other than the fact that I've finally had a break long enough and relaxing enough to read an entire book.

I’ve just completed Grant Achatz’s Life, On the Line. Among other things (life and death, a desire for adventurous food, a need to schedule a trip to Napa), the book got me thinking about great meals I’ve had in my travels. Early in the book, Achatz describes his disappointing experience with highly-rated restaurants in Europe. Every food-lover who has ever traveled out of the way for a great meal, only to find over-cooked, mass-produced food or snooty, unappreciative service has felt this pain: disappointment in the first bite.

The first unique and amazing meal I ever appreciated was in the early 2000’s. For my birthday, my mom bought my best friend and I each a ticket to a beer-tasting dinner at Brewer’s Art in Baltimore. At the time I spent a great number of happy hours in their basement bar drinking their Resurrection Ale and eating my weight in garlic fries (that they came with mayonnaise instead of ketchup was, to the 21 year old me, so cosmopolitan). This time, however, we’d be eating a chef’s tasting menu in the dining room with a range of foodies, critics, and beer enthusiasts.

Pairing food with beer, particularly heavy ales with notes of chocolate and coffee, is no mean feat. E and I sat with the chef’s wife and mother-in-law. The chef was new to the restaurant and this was his introduction to the diners, so he brought his A-game. For a gal who worked at a family-style seafood restaurant at the beach, and counted special events at the local Spanish restaurant (which had not changed, in menu or decor, since the late 60’s) as one of her few fine dining experiences; the beer-tasting dinner was a revelation. A salmon SKIN cracker? Food presented in martini glasses? and SQUAB? What the hell was squab? I didn’t know, but also did not want to appear gauche by turning it down when someone said it was 'pigeon'. The rich flavors of the squab perfectly complimented the beer and I was hooked – in an instant I was a foodie.

Since then, I have traveled and eaten in some fine establishments that disappointed. But, like Achatz, I have also had food revelations - in a few unlikely places. Over the past three years, I have documented my travels, my life in Cairo, and my journey discovering food on this blog. So here’s a list – a top five restaurants from the last four years of travel. There are plenty of great meals not mentioned from during these three years and before – an extravagant meal at One-Fifty Blue in Chicago on my first business trip and the feeling of great reward for being included in the outing; the night at Perilla when I sat alone at the bar savoring the duck and pomegranate seeds after having just accepted my job in Cairo; the meal at WD-50 with a few courses that blew my mind and the most excellent service I’ve yet found equal to (a good bartender who can make a single girl at the bar feel like a VIP without flirting or being intrusive is worth his weight in gold); Immervoll in Vienna with their super-fresh ingredients and outdoor tables; my thirtieth birthday dinner at Charleston in Baltimore, with Mom and George, that started with a soup as the amuse...these were great meals, too.

But most of the top 5 beat those meals because of that little something special that I’ve not found anywhere else. It's never just about the food - it's about the memory, the trip, the service, the friends sharing the meal. So here we go; my top 5 restaurants from my travels over the last three years. These aren’t in any particular order because I wouldn’t begin to know how to rank such different, amazing experiences. The links are to my blog posts about those meals; but I've re-posted the pics here.

1. Alain Parodi’s Eat-at-Milton’s; Athens, Greece. I am known as a bit of a soup-nut. Here, it was the split-pea velote with creme fraiche topped with chorizo and spring onions that won me over and brought me back for a second taste. I may have tried to lick the bowl.

2. La Lanterna Due; Sorrento, Italy. I’m putting this after Parodi’s because of the Cream of Asparagus soup that blew my mind, and again, brought me back for a second time. Soup = comfort = happy me. I don't have a picture - it was just a greenish bowl of soup; but on a chilly April night in an alleyway off the main drag (after a glass of wine and a gorgeous sunset by the harbor spent chatting to some old men in pidgin-English/Italian) it was AMAZING.

3. Restaurants on the Plaza in Vernazza, Italy. Ok, I actually can’t remember the name of either of the two restaurants in the plaza in Vernazza (according to the plate in one of the pics,the restaurant with the great mussels was Gambero Rosso), but they were both amazing and deserve equal billing. One for its clams and “Octopus In Hell;” and Gambero Rosso, as I mentioned, for its stuffed mussels (which now reminds me of the excellent deep fried mussels in Turkey...but then we're up to 7 restaurants on what is supposed to be a list of 5...) and trofie pasta in pesto. Both had great service, beautiful views at sunset, and fantastic food.

4. To Frourio; Limassol, Cyprus. This small, family owned and operated restaurant was the highlight of my first two visits to Cyprus. One Easter they had no meat (the meat market was closed and they would only buy fresh meat and produce) so the owner offered vegetarian moussaka instead of the usual pork - it was the most amazing vegetarian moussaka I've ever had. On my third trip to Cyprus, the restaurant was very sadly gone. However, the memory of their bubbling pork (and vegetarian) moussaka, fresh crusty bread, and bottomless carafes of house-wine still makes my tummy gurgle in anticipation.

5. Casa Mono; New York, NY. When staying in NYC last summer, an old friend recommended that my travel-buddy and I visit some foodie-haven near Union Square for lunch. Wandering about, famished after a morning of sight-seeing, we couldn’t find the restaurant, but there was an inviting bistro-type place on the corner just opening up. Despite my Top Chef obsession (Elan from season 2 had worked there), I didn’t recognize the name of the place; I also didn’t understand why the waitress was asking if we had a reservation – sure the place was small (it would fill up) but surely it was just another New York restaurant [it wasn’t] and it would just be a casual lunch [not at all]. Again, a meal so good, my friend and I popped in again the next day on our way to the train station. Same table, same waitress (who remembered what wine we ordered, our entire food order, and helped us through the menu to choose more adventurous flavors - though we stuck with the pumpkin goat-cheese balls both times), same awesomeness.

A definitive list? Not by a long shot. Just the meals that I remembered most fondly as I read Life, On the Line.

Not in Egypt

I have been taking a break from blogging while I catch up with life in the United States - this means eating out a lot and spending quality time with friends and family.

This trip I've been to Baltimore and Chestertown, MD; Sarasota, Miami, and Ocala, Florida. I still have Washington, DC and New York, NY to visit (and hopefully do some foodie tourism in). I have been sailing, walking, coffee drinking, driving a car again (wow - not at ALL like riding a bike - which I have not been doing, by the way), catching up on films and teevee shows, tapping in to pop culture a bit, going to parties, hoola-hooping and keeping up with my photography.

It's really great to be back in the states, and there are certainly things I appreciate more than before I left - but I also miss Cairo and the friends I've made there. I guess this will be my life from now on as "home" moves around the world and friends no longer occupy only a 2 mile square on the map.




One last note - I've noticed my readership has picked up something crazy in the last few weeks; I can only assume some of these readers are folks like me a year ago who are gearing up for a move to Cairo and reading the blogs like I did. Hi folks! Drop me a line, feel free to comment, and I look forward to bumping in to you around Cairo!

A Little Background

Oh goodness, where to begin? I have been teaching in Baltimore City for the last two years at a really fantastic school called Doris M. Johnson High School at Lake Clifton. I followed my students from 9th to 10th grade there and, while I love them all very much, found that it was time to leave them.

Baltimore was beginning to feel very small. Between my teaching duties, my involvement over the last 8 years with fluid movement, and my part-time job as an event manager at the Creative Alliance I have met many wonderful people from the Baltimore community: teachers, writers, performers, artists, shop keepers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, food critics; and made many wonderful friends - but I have spent all but 6 years of my life here in "smalltimore" and there is so much more world to see!

I applied in November to teach internationally. I didn't even have a specific place in mind (though South America and Italy were particularly high on my list in the beginning), I just knew that it was so important to get out and experience the greater world. Before applying I had visited 12% of the world (according to my "World Traveler" map on facebook); Italy, Britain, Ireland and Canada being among my favorite spots. As the interview dates approached I began to get interview requests from places I had not even thought of: Thailand, China, and Egypt included, and I realized that the world was an ever bigger and more exciting place than I had ever dreamed.

In February I trekked up to New York City for a week of interviews. By the end of the first day (and 12 interviews) I would have 2 concrete job offers: one in Mexico and one in Egypt. I also had potential job opportunities in Ecuador and Singapore. In the end, the decision was nerve wracking and quick. I had been to Mexico and was not ready to live a 24 hour plane flight away. I have always wanted to see the pyramids and was obsessed with Egyptian history, art, and mythology as a child - even working it in to some of my English classes when I could. The school representatives were exceptionally kind and had a table of gummy worms, peanuts, and other snacks sitting on a reception table in the hallway for potential employees waiting their turn, which was like a sign from Isis that this was the job for me! (I am a complete sucker for gummy worms!)

After accepting the job offer early on the second day of interviews and signing a mountain of paperwork, I took a cab from 42nd Street to Union Square and walked right into the Barnes and Nobel travel section - which had only one book on Cairo: "The Practical Guide to Cairo", which has become my bible and is already highlighted to the hilt. I also treated myself to a very special dinner that night at Perilla in the East Village, which was opened by Harold Dieterle, the winner of the first season of Top Chef (I am a HUGE top chef fan, I also treated myself to lunch that day at Craftwich, Tom Colliccio's sandwich shop). My dinner was perfect - possibly sweetened by my success!

And so here I am 4 months later getting very excited for the adventure of a lifetime! While my departure is not for another 9 weeks, my journey has already very much begun!