Merlion

I’ve just realised I have a packet of chewing gum with me, I told the flight attendant. No problem, she said, I can get rid of it for you. We were airborne, headed to Singapore. It was my first visit, a business trip. I’d been trying to catch forty winks before night fast-forwarded to day, …

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Seven Coloured Earths

I have kept away from Indian diaspora foods as much as possible – this blog is about trying new dishes after all – so as tempting as the Mauritian dholl puri was, it was familiar cooking not unlike the previously attempted Trinidadian doubles, so I had to pass. Instead, I looked to the country’s immigrant …

Temple of pythons

The title of last week’s Haiti blog was a nod to the country’s voodoo culture. This week’s Benin, the birthplace of voodoo, was a paranormal prompt to do better than just a reference. As with many people, my perception of voodoo was limited to pin-impaled dolls; a spot of educational reading felt obligatory. A few …

Bondye

Steely Dan was a crown jewel in my audio cassette collection. In later years, the cassettes were upgraded to CDs which I have to this day. I’d always wanted to watch the band play live, but for one reason or another, it never materialised. When the guitarist’s demise made the news, I thought it was …

Viva la Vida, Watermelons

The first time I saw snowfall was in Connecticut. I was headed over from my university department building to the eateries down the road for lunch. A piece of white fluff landed near me, then another, then two more. My first thought was, where did this cotton come from, there are no fields in this …

Kotel

There is no such thing as Israeli food, goes a common Arab refrain. Hummus, falafel, shakshuka, baba ghanoush, shawarma, kebab – the country’s most popular plates – all have their origins elsewhere in the Levant and the Maghreb. Perhaps, but Israel is a culinary melting pot, adopting the dishes of the region and giving them …

Looking at the world through the sunset in your eyes

The weekend newspapers had been a saturation of Brexit gloom. Is there nothing positive about this thing, asked my visiting father-in-law on Christmas Eve morning as I was leaving for work. In the evening, we discussed the secessionist arguments - cost, bureaucracy, sovereignty and the big one, trade. Central to the clean-break Brexiteer’s vision is …