Travelogue #11: Foodporn.

An assortment of things I ate during my time in the US. 

Magnolia Bakery.

I think this was John’s Grill in San Fran. Solid and unexceptional food. Lovely atmosphere.

Ferry Building SF. 

Boudin, of the bread bowl soup fame. 

Sonoma wine trip

Salted caramel ice cream. Delish. 

Can’t remember the place, but it was prawn ravioli with pine nuts, pesto sauce and spinach, and it was ravenously satisfying. 

Triple choc pudding

The Plaza Bistro, Sonoma

Nations Cafe, New York. 

Dean & Deluca, Soho: the site of the only decent coffee I had this entire trip, and the most excellent babka.

Highland Kitchen, Somerville MA, one of the best meals of the entire trip - pork chops, apple salad, refried black beans and Spanish rice; pan roasted half chicken with herb gravy and asparagus. Noms. 

Somewhere near Harvard Square. Can’t remember, but the potatoes were a winner.

Sonsie in Boston, excellent (but expensive) food, better for people-watching.

Cod espanola at The Burren, near Davis Square. 

MOOOARR ice cream. 

Trying to explain “American food” is a bit like explaining “Australian food”. No one knows exactly what it is, or if it even exists, and attempts to define it usually end in cultural cringe.

The only two safe generalisations you can make is that 1) serving sizes in the US are appropriate only if you were feedings cows instead of human beings; and 2) the coffee taste marginally better than concentrated meat extract. And no - I do not need flavoured syrup in my cappuccino thank you very much.

The above mentioned aside, eating in the US - much like in Australia - is typified by the multicultural composition of the country. High quality food was easily accessible and the restaurant scene seemed active enough, though we did not bother to look too deeply into it.

We had some snooty, but exceptionally good French food in San Francisco; the world’s greatest Chinese custard tart from Golden Gate Bakery; plenty of cheap and delicious Mexican food everywhere we went; Korean food in LA; fresh, abundant seafood in Boston; and when I visited Main Street in Flushing after a day at the US Open in New York, I found probably some of the best, most authentic Chinese food I’ve ever had outside China. 

But at the same time, there was also an enormous amount of easily accessible and cheap garbage disguised as food for sale in the US. When we were in New York, we stayed in Brooklyn where some parts were full of hipster-populated cafes, and yet in other parts, the only restaurants we could find were depressing fried chicken stores with flickering fluorescent lighting. The food culture, much like the rest of the country, seemed to be a study in extremities and class. 

Travelogue #7: Memorialising loss

I wrote an essay for school once about how nations commemorate, honour and sometimes elevate loss into legends. In my essay, I talked about the design for the WWII Memorial in Berlin, the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance, and the soon-to-be-completed 9-11 Memorial in New York. 

Fast forward a few years and I found myself in New York on the 10th anniversary of September 11. For the most part, it was life as usual, and I liked that.

I like the fact that something so traumatic could happen, figuratively and physically scar a community, yet people still move on determinedly with their lives.

There were of course some reminders of the occasion: we could see signs of remembrance, personal and public memorials in parks and other public spaces. 

But of course, the most interesting of all was the newly opened 9-11 Memorial, still situated in the middle of a construction site at this stage. Some memorials glorify, others narrate, but the 9-11 Memorial does neither. 

You hear it first - the steady splashing of water flowing down into the North and South Pools, each representing a void. The water cascades further into a smaller square at the centre of each pool, creating a dichotomy of void and fill, motion and stillness, loss and hope, and above all - innocence, sorrow. 

Names of the victims line the perimeter of the pools. As you walk around, you can see flowers and flags left by family members next to certain names. It’s a strangely understated and poignant scene, and I was ever so glad city planners decided not to go with a more grand and glorified design.

Because watching water flow ceaselessly into the void of the two pools that day, it seemed to me that every other design would have been unthinkable, light weight, and inappropriate for memorialising this consuming loss.

And you can’t do much better than that. Props to the architect. 

Battery Park

Ellis Island - with the view from this window 10 years ago.

Memorial.

Lincoln Center, getting ready for the Memorial Concert. 

I heard they were playing Mahler’s 2nd. In case you’re not well-versed in your Mahlers, that’s the Resurrection Symphony. 

Aaaaah. Subtlety, eh? 

xx doots

Travelogue #6: Hi Mum!

I just realised I haven’t written anything substantive since LA, so here’s a whole lotta catching up. 

For our first two days in New York, it rained with the intensity and fury of a three year old’s supermarket aisle tantrum, and needless to say - we got wet, wet, wet. 

It was the kind of wet where you stand on the sidewalk, perfectly minding your own business, only to be splashed in the face by a taxi passing by. 

The kind of wet when your umbrella is blown inside out by a gust of wind and promptly falls to pieces, fluttering meekly against the onslaught of torrential downfall.

The kind of wet that leaves you so fed up, so distracted by the wet, shining pavements that you don’t even notice yourself walking straight into a ground-level fountain. 

Yeah. That kind of wet. Don’t be fooled by my squinty grin. I was wailing on the inside. 

But on the third day, the weather cleared up and looked like this. 

Immediately, New York became a different city.

The people were more cheery.

The streets were less chaotic.

The parks looked greener.

And the sights? Grander to behold. 

I won’t bore you with a laundry list of where we went and what we did. I’ll just pic spam you instead. Hurrah!

xx doots

(PS. Hi Mum!)