Greens To Go

Freshly dehydrated, this may not look like much.  But when you are preparing for a multi-day trip, which will require you to pass through US Customs numerous times, these dried collard green chips can be a real life saver.  Packed in an airtight Ziploc bag, an entire head of collard greens require almost no space in my carry-on bag.

I cleaned and trimmed a large bundle of greens, tossed them in a little tahini, salt and cumin; and then left them in the dehydrator overnight.  Et, voila:  the healthiest thing that I'll be eating over the next several days.

Multitasking on the road.

For the times when you don't have three hands, a rolling beverage holder.  Now it's possible to wheel through an airport with your grande macchiato while simultaneously texting.

Food and Beverage in Kazakhstan

                 At the Zelyony Bazaar in Almaty, KZ.  Anyone know a good recipe for sheep's head?

Decisions, decsions.  Which of the hundreds of different vodkas to buy from the local supermarket?

Lunch time in Almaty's Gorky Park.  Would you like chicken or lamb shashlik?  I recommend the lamb, (especially when it has been marinated in kiwi.)

Springtime in Kazakhstan

Darkness comes slowly onto the icy barren tundra of northern Kazakhstan.  The hazy glow of the sun is eventually enveloped by the frozen horizon.  I’ve come here for 2 years to accompany my finance with his work in the capital city of Astana.  We’ve only arrived into the country a few days ago, after about 30 hours of travel from our home in South Florida.  Several hundred miles from both the Chinese and Russian borders, which encase the mysterious lands of Mongolia and Siberia, our new home couldn’t be more different from our home in sunny Florida.

With the 11 hour time difference between Kazakhstan and the East Coast of the US, the days pass slowly, and I find myself awake throughout most of the nights: reading, surfing channels on the TV, surfing the internet.  Some days I begin to drift off into slumber only after sunrise and my return from the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

It is one of these days, jet-lagged and a blurry eyed, that my fiance and I stumble across a neon light flashing letters of an alphabet which we recognize.  The advertised establishment is a cozy English pub, appropriately called North Wind.  We dart inside quickly to escape the brutal north wind that has been bearing down on us for the duration of our wintery walk.  Happy to receive menus in a language that we can read, and also happy to read an offering of food that seems familiar to us, we order a pizza, a Russian beet salad and a couple of beers.

Slowly we begin to warm up from the frigid temperatures outside and enjoy the pub’s entertainment, while we await our meal.  A slight woman is seated behind a piano, playing a vast assortment of songs.  Latin salsa to Russian folk music: she seems to cover the spectrum.  But it is one particular song that grabs my attention.  A familiar chorus evokes memories of a simpler time; memories of my childhood home.   The singer’s heavily accented English cannot mask the unmistakable lyrics.... “almost heaven, West Virginia, take me home country roads”...  It's just about the time when our beers arrive that things suddenly start to seem a lot less exotic here.

Vampire time

Flying half way around the world will do several things to things to a person: increase tension and irritability, create muscle soreness and back pain, and dehydrate skin, lips, fingernails and eyes.  These symptoms may go away after several hours of sleep or downing a liter bottle of Evian, but what lingers for hours, days and weeks is the jet-lag of adjusting to a 12 or 13 hour difference in time.

I secretly take a sick pleasure in staying up all night long fueled by my jet-lag.  Full of energy, I preform tasks like running the vacuum at 3a.m. or baking a cake at 4:30 a.m., which would otherwise seem forbidden.  I do it just for the thrill of it.  And then the sun comes up, and like a vampire I crash.  I sleep until late into the afternoon, brew some coffee and repeat my nocturnal schedule on vampire time.