I look forward every morning to NOWNESS, a quirky, diverse, engaging blog. I recommend it. Take a look at today’s offering..if it doesn’t lift your heart then it must be a very gray day indeed!
http://www.nowness.com/day/2012/4/30?ecid=ema1689&CID=
About Lisa
A traveler since childhood with a passion for seeing the world. Travel writer with five books published and the founder and owner of Lisa Lindblad Travel Design, a travel company that designs travel the world over for a bespoke clientele and LLTD2, one that designs travel for the next generation. Loves Africa and Southeast Asia, loves world music, loves to read. Loves markets, textiles, handmade objects.
Month: April, 2012
Meditations #34
Exquisite, formal, detailed, respectful, restrained
The complexity of Japan is puzzling yet bewitching
Calm, warm, sensual, organic, poetic, quiet
Because I meet Japan at this moment, I am at home
Photograph: Ben Simmons/AsiaQuestJourneys
Pueblo Garzon Updates
Our new watering hole…
Our newest shopping venue…
But the important things remain the same.
Kajitsu: Shojin Cuisine
On Manhattan’s LES resides a moment - an experience of quiet, meticulous proportions that surprises while it comforts. Enter a an oasis of calm on a gritty east 9th street and find a long sushi counter and a scattering of butcher block tables. The interior is not as beautiful as it should be but, perhaps, that is not the point.
Here you will be offered Shojin cuisine, an ancient Japanese cuisine developed in Zen Buddhist monasteries. Following the Buddhist principle of not taking life, Shojin cuisine does not use meat or fish. Meals are prepared from fresh, in season vegetables, legumes, wild herbs, seeds and grains, chosen at the moment in the season that best reflects their flavor.
The offering is kaiseke here..a series of small dishes that have been designed seasonally by the chef. There are two menus – Hana and Kaze – and each can be paired with sakes. We chose Kaze, the smaller of the two with four dishes, and enjoyed a meal that told the story of seasonal transition. My favorite dish was the Spring Vegtable Sushi with Cherry Leaf, a composition of thinly sliced vegetables nestled against fragrant rice and covered by a salted, fried cherry leaf. Each of our courses was interpreted for us and here we were told that the cherry leaf is winter’s overcoat (the salt crust on the leaf did indeed look like ice) and, once eaten, it reveals the stirrings of spring underneath.
Nicest of all were the sake pairings – the Denshini being my favorite – that came with each dish. And, yes, my inexperienced palate could actually detect the marriage of the ingredients with the different sakes.
Delicious. Tantalizing. Transporting.
Smorgasburg
Smorgasburg makes it’s triumphant return to the Williamsburg waterfront this Saturday, offering creative prepared foods from purveyors throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn and fresh produce from local rooftop gardens and small farms Upstate. Try Brooklyn Oyster Party‘s local oysters, homemade soups from La Buena Gazpacho, and the famous Blue Marble Ice Cream, with flavors that change season to season. Those with bigger appetites must try Cemita’s Mexican sandwich, stuffed with your choice of meat, veggies, pickled onions, Queso Oaxaca, chipotle spread, black bean puree and avocado…native to Puebla and absolutely delicious. Perfect pair to the nice weather coming this weekend…
http://www.brooklynflea.com/smorgasburg/
Reported by Rebecca MacGregor
Aung San Suu Kyi
A new dawn appears to have come to Burma. After years of stultifying inaction, thick obfuscation, an iron hand on the head, Burma is emerging from its prison walls into the sunlight. Aung San Suu Kyi, my hero – the world’s hero – prevails. Quietly, patiently, peacefully, Suu Kyi, embodying the best in us, has proven that good can outlast, outwear and overcome the negative around us.
