Cooking for Kings & Getting Back to the Mountains

So posts here have been few and far between, not because of a lack of interesting things happening or things to discuss, but just due to a sheer lack of time. Last week we had a huge 4^th of July event that catered to some 200 people (I had expected maybe 50), we had a great Friday night following with a friend of ours, who is a DJ, setting up a good dance party, and then we hosted the former king of Nepal for his birthday on Sunday. By the time Monday rolled around all I could do was lay in bed and sleep- as for the week prior I had averaged about 4 hours of sleep and consumed more alcohol than I’m used to. When every night is a party your life is the opposite of everyone else’s, all you crave is a night where you can get home and go to bed at 10pm and not have any alcohol in your system. With the amount of work I had to do to prepare and get ready for Sunday’s event I had shunned any drinking for at least a couple of days and I’ve learned to start walking around with a bit of cranberry juice with ice in a rocks glass and claim it’s cranberry and vodka so people don’t try to buy me too many drinks. This isn’t a problem I ever thought I’d have.

Grill House owners and staff with the former King of Nepal

While the other events were fun (although the 4^th was complete chaos) the royal birthday was a once in a lifetime experience that while very stressful, was something I’ll always look back at as a really great experience. I mean who moves to a foreign country and ends up hosting and cooking for royalty? Me apparently. I also think it may have been a first in Nepal, as normally they are hosted at the 5 star hotels in the city, and not at local restaurants, no matter how nice they might be. So this was not only something completely new to me, but was also something outside of what they normally do.

Maybe In Time For The Super Bowl

It's now December and the restaurant is still coming together, but we aren't quite there yet. We are being held up by a lack of doors and windows going in, which once done we can get seriously started on painting, which once completed means we can move in all the other interior elements and equipment and furnishings that we got in China. Right now the trellises out on the patio area are going up, the bar and service counter granite tops are going in and the tile for the outdoor area should be going down soon as well. Primer paint is up, floors are in and the bathrooms walls are tiled. Our counter tops and shelving for the bar and kitchen are scheduled to be ready in just about a weeks time as well, so physically we could be put together quite quickly.

Floors Are In, Primer is Up

Aside from the restaurant Kim has also been in the country for the last three weeks and just landed back in Tampa this morning (my time). Was great to have her here, but it's unfortunately no longer her favorite place on the planet. Visiting is fun for most people, living here is more difficult and if you can't find that groove than it can become just maddening. For what ever reason Nepal seems to agree with me most of the time, and though it has its challenges it also has some advantages that I find compelling. So while it isn't the ideal situation to be some 8,000 miles apart, we are both essentially where we want to be at the moment, and if the last three weeks proved anything it was that I'm too busy to really do anything fun around here at the moment- at least anything fun outside the valley.

Most of Our Interiors Are Ready Off Site- Such As These Pots

Readjusting to the Old Normal

I've spent almost the last two years converting rupees to dollars every time I made a purchase, so I found it odd when I was at the supermarket today and I found myself converting dollars to rupees. I was doing this while staring somewhat slack jawed at the price of produce in the US, 2.99/lb for tomatoes, 3.20 for a bunch of Basil, 3.99/lb for red peppers. To think that you pay less than a fraction of that for things per Kg in Nepal made me realize joust how inexpensive produce is there. Then I had to wrap my head around the size of the produce here; garlic and tomatoes larger than my fist, red onion triple the size of any thing in Ktm, and a selection that dwarfs even the best stocked stores in city. While the produce seemed extremely expensive, the cheeses and meats were either cheaper or about the same. Still I ended up spending what would be roughly 4,000 Rs for a single meal for 4 people, much higher than if I had made this meal in Nepal, even after you consider the cost of imported cheese.

Making a Menu in Nepal

Doing business here can be challenging and so can cooking. If you combine them together you can get one really good sized headache, but as they say the harder the challenge the greater the reward. Putting a menu together here has lots of challenges ranging from seasonal or unreliable availability of many ingredients to strange pricing structures that make it hard to cost things effectively or even accurately due to variation. Despite this we set out to create a high end pub style set of food that we believe we can reliably make at a cost that people will find acceptable. Exciting for me as well is the fact that we were able to put together a full western style menu complete with graphics and proper descriptions, I think a first in Nepal. It's still not done, and I have no prices actually listed, just place holders but in this post I thought I'd talk about the menu's development to this point. For those that are curious I did the design work in a combination of MS Expression Design and Publisher.

Menu Cover 

The only thing to say about the cover is the logo. We've gone through roughly a dozen logo incarnations, and have almost settled on this one, any further changes should be rather minor. One of the challenges we faced in logo design is that the brand will not be just the restaurant, but a variety of packaged goods as well that we already will be selling at the farmer's market here and hopefully at some of the grocery outlets in the not too distant future after launch. Thus we needed a logo that could transform to fit other foods, but still be the same base logo. Other logos had fonts and flames that couldn't be transformed without removing all resemblance to the original and thus any connection to the brand. This logo on the other hand can keep the same geometry, the same font for "Brian's" and just change the colors, remove the flame and change the font in the center and have individual product packaging that resembles the original closely that people realize it's all related.

Buildings & Condiments

So things are continuing to move along with the restaurant. I stopped by our floor the other day and walls had been knocked down, new doorways erected and service windows were knocked out for the kitchen. It's exciting to see the plans becoming a reality. I was most excited to see the north wall opened up where our bar is going to be, giving me the first actual view of what you will be able to see while sitting there. Even with the monsoon rains and cloud cover obscuring the Himalaya it was still really nice, and I'm really looking forward to what see what the views will be like in the Fall when the monsoons clear and visibility is at its best.Below are a couple photos showing the space under construction.

 The open terrace area on a clearer monsoon day

 The north wall, where the bar will one day sit- clouds obscuring the great view.

Looking inside from where the bar will be. 

 Entrance, that opening on the left will be the service window to the kitchen.

Still lots of work to do!

As the construction continues we're still working on plenty of other things. Refining the menu, filing paperwork,putting together seating plans and figuring out how we will train staff. One other thing I've been doing is working on which recipes I want to use for things like condiments and sauces. Some I've made for years and are quite comfortable with, like the Tequila-Lime marinade and the salsas. Others I've learned since I've been in Nepal and have become comfortable with as well, like mayo, and pasta sauces. Some others though are things I'm either less familiar with or I am still playing around with different recipes to find something that is at least as good as the stuff that comes in a bottle. For instance BBQ sauce is something I'd like to do myself, but I won't use my own until I can make something that I'm as happy with as say Sweet Baby Ray's- and as of yet I haven't found that. I'm still playing around with ketchup as well, but I'm happy to report that I may have finally stumbled upon the recipe I want to use yesterday, as that batch came out very close to what I want.

Brian's Grill House

I have alluded several times to the fact that there may be a restaurant coming soon with me cooking in it, and it is now looking like this is just about certain to happen. Locations have been found, documents are being signed and hands have been shaken. So after many weeks of debate about the name we all decided on Brian's Grill house. No I did not suggest this, and I think I was the last one to know. Although no ones ever accused me of being too modest, I'm also not so ego driven as to suggest a restaurant that five people are putting together be named after me. In fact there were two other names that didn't mention me that I potentially liked more, but we are all happy with this and it will translate easily to our bottled products.

Early Logo Draft for the Restaurant

Saturday was a particularly productive day for us, as aside from settling on a name finally we also found a stunning location. Although it won't be great for foot traffic it has far more space than we initially thought we'd get and has stunning views of the valley and, when clear, spectacular views of the Himalaya. Further we're getting all this space at a price that is about the same as if we'd rented about a third or even a fifth as much in some of the other locations that we had looked at. This has opened up opportunities to add some cool features that I'll be glad to talk about when things are a little more set in stone. 

Now that the name and theme are better defined we will also be getting to work on a more concrete version of a menu. I have a general rough draft of one already penned up, but now we can start giving the plates names, and pricing things out. Our concentration will be doing pub style food really well, with much of my cooking having a bit of an american twist to it. So as far as I know we will be the only place in the city doing real wings (and we plan on having 6-8 different flavors), and we will have an array of different burgers as I've mentioned in previous posts. On top of this I plan on doing some American BBQ, authentic Tex-Mex and I'm sure we'll work to get some British offerings in there as well (though to be honest those will not be my recipes). Kathmandu also seems to attract an incredibly large number of vegetarians, and we'll be taking this into account as well, with many vegetarian selections despite my personal desire to add meat in some form to almost any dish. 

Aside from the food, which is what I'm probably most excited about, we will be putting together a bar that will try and provide the same level of quality and selection that you find in the US or Britain. Our beer selection will have some limitations just due to laws and our geographic location, but that said we hope to have the best offering in this country as well as putting together by far the best cocktail bar in Kathmandu. Just like our food there will be certain ingredients and even glassware that we plan on sourcing from the US to make sure that we do things right. I plan on putting my experience as a bar tender at a very nice restaurant back in the US to work and aside from properly training staff, it gives us an opportunity to offer some really great looking and, more importantly, great tasting drinks that people are not all that familiar with here. 

All of this doesn't come without its challenges, and we will be extremely busy in the coming months to put this all together. I have a little bit of concern that the trip I was planning to go to the US, which initially was primarily to see family and friends will now predominantly be a trip to get stuff for the restaurant and I'll be quite busy working on it even when I'm not in Kathmandu. Also I imagine that from the month preceding us opening and through the first 6 months or so I foresee roughly 14 hour crazy days followed by only slightly less crazy 12 hour days for the next year possibly. As a result it is altogether conceivable that this blog may suffer slightly as a result, if for no other reason than the content will be lacking its normal diverse experiences as I don't think I'll get out of the restaurant too often, let alone outside of Kathmandu. Still it will be all more than worth it as this is something I've wanted to do for some time, and it will add something that is not at all present in the current dining environment of this city. 

The Kathmandu Burger Project

As I mentioned in this post it is tough to make a really good burger in Kathmandu, but this hasn't deterred me from trying. So yesterday I gave it my first real attempt since I've been living here, and despite some of the components being substandard the result wasn't bad at all. 

Real Hamburger- Step One

Getting real, decent hamburger in this country is a little tougher than most due to its Hindu heritage. Why people of various religions think God(s) is(are) interested in micromanaging our diets is beyond me, but I digress. Nina & Hagar's supplies ground beef tenderloin and it can be purchased for a reasonable price, but it does come frozen. Despite this, the quality seemed decent, although defrosted hamburg is harder to shape properly. I made use of wax paper and a rolling pin with a little shoring up of the edges with my hands afterwards to create burgers that would cook evenly.

Condiments, toppings & Bread

What prompted me to finally put this all together is that a shipment of cheese from the US arrived via Harilo a few days ago. While you can get some Australian cheddars that aren't terrible, they aren't really quite right. For this time around I cut up some New York sharp cheddar and grilled up some bacon for New York cheddar & bacon burgers. In addition I grilled up some onions, mushrooms, peppers, chopped some fresh lettuce, tomatoes, and broke out the Heinz ketchup (though I may start making ketchup from scratch) and Grey Poupon. 

One difficulty was still the bread. Kim made some really nice bread the other day, but I have no head for baking. So I went off to European Bakery, which produces some of the better bread products in town, only to find that they were closed. Stuck between a rock and a hard place I lowered myself to buy the rolls at Bhat Betini- and these are rather terrible. It looks like a roll but the texture is just all wrong, it's far too light, and they disintegrate rather easily, not unlike Wonderbread. To combat this I toasted the rolls over  a girdle which firmed them up, and lets face it, toasted rolls are better anyway.

Result- New York Cheddar Bacon Burger

I'm happy to report that the first test run was relatively successful. The weakest link was the bread, but I'm confidant we can overcome that problem. The burger itself was quite tasty, the cheese we shipped worked out well, the bacon was good, and the toppings were all there. Although I'd normally have a burger with fries, recent events have had me cooking more fried food than I like to eat, so instead I took the opportunity to make some other items I had wanted to test out including some walnut & Gorgonzola stuffed mushrooms and a salad with apple, cranberries, walnuts, cucumber, Gorgonzola, tomato and tossed in olive oil. This is just one burger of a list of about a dozen I have to experiment with so I'll be sure to update my pursuit of burger perfection in the hardest place on earth to make a good burger. 

Appetizers for 20 People- Serving 5

So the other day I cooked up a huge pile of food, roughly nine different appetizers that may or may not appear on a menu of a restaurant that may or may not be opening this year. Some things I had made here before, but most of them were things I was familiar with but had never tried to cook here. As I am still waiting on a shipment of cheese from the US I had to forgo making quesadillas, or anything that has cheese as a major component. I did get some very poor cheddar to top off the potato skins, and I picked up some very over priced danish blue cheese to make some home made Blue Cheese dip.

As much as I would like to keep some things exactly like they are made and served back home, there are a few small  places that it makes sense to make compromises. For instance when making a Ranch Dip or the Blue Cheese dip I would normally use buttermilk in the recipe, but it just isn't all that affordable over here. On the flip side you can make some really high quality yogurt at a decent rate, and if mixed correctly with slight adjustments to the other ingredients you end up with a healthier product that is just as tasty and maybe a bit creamier in texture, which I actually enjoyed. Another thing is that you can't get celery stalks, so wings get cucumber and carrot sticks instead.

Mangoes & Weddings

Each season has a distinct feel to it in Nepal, and this time of year is marked by the rain storms that break the dry season, the arrival of abundant and tasty mangoes, and the bands and colorful saris that mark the arrival of Nepali wedding season. Of these, I look forward to the mangoes the most, as at heart I am a person who loves food. In April you get teased with absurdly priced 400 Rs per kilo (roughly $3/lb), but the upside is that you know that not far down the road mangoes will be everywhere and quite cheap. Last week I was thrilled to see them show up for 125 Rs/Kilo, and this week they are down to 90 Rs/Kilo and they are everywhere.

Now if you've never been to a place that grows mangoes you might wonder what the big deal is. I know I use to get mangoes back in Maine and they were like $3 each and they were horrible quality. If that's all you've ever tasted than you probably don't get too excited about mangoes. But fresh picked just off the tree sweet and juicy mangoes are something to be cherished and devoured in quantity. Aside from being quite tasty on their own they are great in tons of different meals from my mango salsa I've started making for the market, to being used in salads, cooked with chicken or turned into chutney. Jams, deserts, juices, shakes, or just with yogurt- the mango is something to really enjoy when it comes into season.

Unknown to much of the world is that mangoes come in many different varieties, much like apples. Right now it's the big yellow juicy ones, but as mango season goes on we get access to a number of other ones, each with their own texture and flavor. My personal favorite are the slightly smaller ones that usually have a more greenish tint to them as they are perfectly sweet and have a slightly firmer texture, which makes them perfect in salsas and for things like Caribbean tacos. Those won't start showing themselves until roughly the end of July though, but in between I get at least three or four other mangoes that are all worth eating.

While making mango salsa last week I was treated to the music selection of a wedding party across the street which was playing a horrendous mix of terrible Western pop and dance music (that one would normally hear at a strip club) and some Hindi pop/dance. Much of the western music that gets played here often seems to be music that follows the same formula as Hindi music, meaning it has to often be light pop style music, preferably with woman singing at a high pitch and better if it's a duet with a male vocal component, which is lower than the female voice. Songs like Barbie Girl are thus often favorites, as are singers like Shakira, the Spice Girls and the Pussy Cat Dolls. Apparently in the Hindi music it's cool to have a single English line that includes some common phrase, usually about love or maybe some one liner you might hear in a film. It's strange to hear something that being sung in a foreign tongue and then all of a sudden hear a familiar English phrase in a strange accent.

Terrible music aside, weddings here are quite the events and often there are several in any given neighborhood at any one time. Increasingly the sounds of bands playing at houses and in the streets can be heard as well, with some not so in-tune instraments making their way through our neighborhood and settling in to various walled compounds for extended parties. These I actually enjoy listening to, and despite the fat that they often start at 7AM I still find them charming. Woman's party sari's can be seen hung from the third floor of a building to dry, their colorful sequined fabric draping the entire length of the building. Occasionally you'll pass a small family on their way to a wedding, dressed all up, henna drawn on their hands, and  full dress outfits including colorful or ornate bindis and little boys with very cute kapi hats.

Mixing with the music, color and aroma of this season as been the near constant sound of thunder. Every day it seems at least one storm moves through the valley which is stark contrast to the dry May we had last year. Even when there are no rains thunder seems to echo through the valley of Kathmandu. The valleys bowl shape and high mountains in the north cause the noise to echo, so even when there is no storm over the city, you can still hear it if there is one anywhere in the valley. All of these sights, sounds, tastes and smells, combine to make spring a unique time of year, and one I look forward to in Nepal.

If you were a hamburger in Kathmandu, where would you hide?

Maybe it plays into stereotypes but if there is one food item I have really come to miss in this city it's a really good hamburger. Yes I'm American, yes I like hamburgers, and no you can't get one really worth eating here. Maybe that's how Nepali's in the U.S. feel about hunting down momos or dahl baht. When I've mentioned the lack of good burgers I'm often met with a curious response, as plenty of places claim to make them, and if that's the only type of burger you've ever had I suppose you think the claim a bit odd. But to use the former analogy it would be like me showing a Nepali a pile of plain over-cooked rice and some dryish lentils and saying, "What do you mean this isn't dahl baht?" Yes it would be rice and lentils, but no that isn't how you enjoy it.

One of the things that conspires against the creation of a good burger in this country is that it has several parts, none of which are popular or even in South Asian cuisine. Beef for example is not to be eaten as the cow in Hinduism is sacred. This leaves you with a few options, which is import the beef from India (also a Hindu country but apparently with less qualms about killing cows) or places like Australia. This inevitably means less fresh meat, and requires freezing which often reduces the quality in my opinion. That said, I've had some really good steaks here, so getting good cuts of beef is not impossible. Another option is to use an alternative  but similar animal such as water buffalo or yak. Now buff (as water buffalo is referred to) is OK, but it has a slightly different taste, different enough that I'm not a fan. Yak on the other hand is quite tough, but when ground up as burger it actually is quite good. Thing is that most places in Nepal that advertise yak are actually selling buff, and most of the actual yak meat I've eaten was in Tibet and not Nepal. So really just trying to find decent whole steaks and then grinding them locally would most likely be the best option. Most places though seem to settle for frozen buff which is the worst of both worlds.

Articles, Restaurants, and Happy New Year 2068

So the other day I was in the paper. The Kantipur Saturday edition is having a weekly article that gives an expats view of Nepal. Dinesh Wagle, who maintains a good blog over at Wagle Street Journal, interviewed me a few days before the article and translated it to me over the phone before it went to print. Since I can't read Nepali to save my life, I still have no clue how the article reads, and the only two words I can discern are harilo.com and smith-kathmandu.blogspot.com. Still I haven't received any hate mail, so it can't be too bad and I have had a couple people stop by the blog and give me a call as a result of the article.

I'm the article in the top left.

Some of the calls, and e-mails I received were about the fact that I'd like to do an American style restaurant. Apparently there are more than a few people looking for this, but the trouble with partnering is the compromises. I'm not really interested in Nepali food, as I'm not very good at making it, and there are a hundred places in this city already doing it. I'm also not interested really in a place that specifically targets tourists, as that demographic is very seasonal and largely are looking to experience "local" food, although 90% of them returning from a trek are very much craving food reminiscent of home. I've also mentioned it at the market a few times and have a few people showing me places in the Lazimpat and Baluwatar areas. Not sure where all of this is going, but it could be interesting.

Somewhat  unrelated, we celebrated four different holidays in a single week this last week. Nepal celebrates more holidays tan you can shake a stick at, but the big one for this week was Nepali New Year, celebrating the year 2068. So happy new year to everyone in Nepal, even if it's a little late. We had Losar earlier, which is celebrated by the Tibetan, and related peoples in February, and we'll have another new year celebration in the fall some time, followed finally by the western calendar which celebrates it in January. That's four times celebrating the new year, each year! The holiday schedule winds down a bit for the upcoming months until we hit August and everything picks right back up. By the time Fall rolls around we celebrate more holidays than days without holidays it seems. such is the pace of life here though, and may it be a good 2068.

More Than Just Salsa

There has been a strange trend as of late that when I meet people for the first time their first response is, "Hey you're the guy who sells salsa right?" Yes I am the salsa master, well at least according to the business cards that Kim had printed for me. It's not a bad thing to be known for as it is usually followed up with something like, "My room mate bought it and we both loved it so much we were eating it with a spoon." Which is a nice compliment, especially considering I don't even eat it with a spoon....well maybe the pomegranate.

This last weekend though my brand of Enlightened Salsa was no more, I'm rebranding and expanding into a wider array of food. If this first weekend was any indication, then it should be a success as I sold out of almost everything that I cooked up for the markets. The new items expand on the Mexican theme, providing things like; veg. chili, refried beans, and south west style pulled chicken (soon to be chipotle chicken when I get my peppers from Harilo). The larger expansion is into other American styles of cooking offering everything from Italian style pasta sauces to Tennessee style BBQ. This weeks items included BBQ Pulled Pork, Marinara sauce made with roasted red peppers, Mushroom Garlic pasta sauce, Bruschetta (which to be fair is just a slightly altered form of my old Greek salsa), Tzatziki, and Greek style triple strained yogurt.

Really the dairy products may be one of the largest areas I could expand into. The yogurt and tzatziki sold out about half way through the first day at the market. I've already been making my own butter, and butter milk but really haven't had any suitable packaging to sell it in. I'd also like to possibly move onto selling sour cream and possibly flavored cream cheeses if I can get the process down a bit more reliably, as I think those items would sell very well for the breakfast crowd. The problem with dairy is that it really needs refrigeration on site, and coolers here are absurdly expensive. My next order through Harilo will include a collapsible cooler which will make my expansion into dairy products possible.

Harilo also offers some room for further expansion, as you can get quite a few items from the States that aren't available here or items whose quality is vastly superior to what is available locally. Corn products for instance are a real problem here, and there is nothing worth using. Making BBQ mean you really want to have corn bread, and making Mexican dishes you really want corn tortillas. So in my shipment that is on the way I have a 4 pack of 20oz bags of Bob's Red Mill Cornbread mix and in my shipment I'm putting together now I'll have a cast iron tortilla press and a 10 Lb bag of Masa Harina so I can actually make tortillas. Beyond just corn products though I'm also able to purchase certain spices that you can't find here like the previously mentioned chipotle peppers, American style chili powder (which has a very different flavor than the local stuff) , the best BBQ sauce in Sweet Baby Ray's gallon containers (which is cheaper through Harilo than buying inferior quality stuff at Bhat Betini), and kitchen utensils like whisks which are apparently unavailable in Nepal. Who knew? But then what Nepali food would require a whisk to make? Once I have a whisk here I'd like to make home made mayo...possibly some flavored stuff, as my food processors whipping attachment just isn't capable of making it. Sure you can buy low quality brands of mayo here, but it's very expensive compared to the ingredients.

All of this is part of an expansion that I'm planning to do as a way to move into catering and hopefully a restaurant if the stars align for me. I'm putting together a business plan and a mock up menu for the restaurant idea, but as one can imagine getting hard numbers here is a bit tough. The idea though is to have a place/person that people can go to to get authentic North American style food, which is currently completely lacking in this city. I think there is a ton of potential for this, but there are some good sized hurdles too. Getting quality beef cuts in a Hindu country isn't as easy as walking down to the local butcher...I think it's still a crime to kill a cow. Cheeses such as Monterey Jack, Colby, Sharp Cheddars, Provolone, Swiss and Blue Cheese will all have to be imported (by the way I compared prices and it's half the price per unit weight to import through Harilo as it is to buy at Bhat Betini). Fountain drinks aren't the norm here and most people use bottles, but figuring out how to get fountain drink machines running here could mean a good size reduction in price and that would allow for free refills, which is something that is lacking and drives me crazy here. Then there is the whole planning prep in a country that is often lacking electricity and thus consistent access to refrigeration.

It's the difficulty though that I find attractive, because if you can solve the puzzle it's almost sure to turn a profit. It's a design and tuning issue, a combination of balancing numbers, creativity and quality. That kind of thing I've always found attractive, and it's the kind of thing I can throw all my time into and be perfectly happy doing so. So if you happen to be in Kathmandu, I'll be having more than just salsa available in the future. Hopefully soon I'll have something put together for catering, and I'll post all the info here. Until then may we all dream of six different kinds of Buffalo wings.

Everest, Moving, Cooking

So I got back from my trip to Everest Base Camp a few days ago but haven't had a chance to post on here. While I was gone we moved to a new apartment a couple blocks away from where we had been and the internet isn't quite hooked up yet. We have been using these nifty USB connection things put out by Ncell, but they get used up by the amount of data you download, so I've been rather sparing with it. Should have our internet connection back up and working today though, I think.

So the trip up to Everest went really well and I'll have photos and some more detailed posts soon. We walked from Jiri to Lukla in four days, had some pizza at Khumbu lodge, and then made our way to base camp after a rest day in Namche and a few shorter acclimatization days on the way up the track. The upside of this trip was crystal clear skies, the clearest weather I've had up that way. The downside was that it was quite cold, and on the day we planned on heading toward the Cho La we got hit with a decent snow storm that kept us from crossing the pass and even made the high trail to Phortse questionable so instead we just headed back to Kathmandu. Still, I got some of my best photos of Ama Dablam, Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse and others that I've ever been able to get. Donnie even got to drink his Everest Beer at Everest Base Camp.

While we were gone, as I mentioned, Kim got us moved into a new apartment. This ones a two bed, two bath, with a full living room dining room and a nice kitchen with a pantry. In an attempt to move to something that comes closer to resembling the first world we even bought a washing machine, so no more laundry by hand. This place is on another dead end street so it's still quiet for Kathmandu, which is a big bonus. Marble floors, moldings on the ceiling, and a bedroom almost as big as our last apartment has me feeling like we moved into a palace, but the electricity black outs sure enough remind you that we are indeed still in Kathmandu. Still we've been able to run the projector off the inverter and have been watching the first few seasons of Dexter at night while munching on whatever food I've been experimenting with. Hellfire wings a couple nights ago, various pasta sauces the night before and a blue cheese based yogurt dressing with a huge salad last night.

Which brings me to the final part of this update, new food and cooking. I'm planning on expanding what I sell at the market by a significant amount. The plan is to include the south west style pulled chicken, pulled pork, at least two different pasta sauces and a marinara sauce if I can get my hands on any red bell pepper, along with a hot sauce, some Greek style yogurt dip, and maybe a few other items. I'll also expand to pesto, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and possibly a Buffalo pulled chicken with blue cheese once I get some supplies from the states. The aim of all of this is to not only produce a bit more income, but to gage interest in a few items as I possibly start working toward putting a restaurant together. The big question mark is of course the up front financial investment, let alone figuring out how to get fresh beef in a Hindu country, how to keep prep refrigerated in a country that is without power more often than it has power, where to get things like fryolators, fountain drink machines and the gas that goes with them as well as syrup, and how you could motivate a staff of south Asians to run an American style restaurant. Starting the process of looking into all of it anyway, and in the meantime putting together some new recipes. 

Bangkok- Food is the Real Carnal Pleasure

When you mention Bangkok to many people they often imagine something out of the opening part of the second act of Full Metal Jacket, one that involves a girl in a very short skirt propositioning Joker with the now famous line “Me so horny”. Although the GI presence here during the Vietnam war was the jumping off point for the go-go bars that were at one time famous here, Bangkok has changed considerably in the last few decades and it has shucked off most of its seedy image and emerged as a world class capital city. This is not to say that the lineage of the go-go bars and what came after isn’t still here, I’ve seen plenty of old men with young Thai girls, but it is not nearly as prevalent or in your face as it was even when I was here in 2002 and 2004. Back then any time Kim got more than five steps away from me girls came out of the woodwork with greetings and smiles, now they're hawking only drinks, legitimate message, crafts, or food…at least on Kao San road.

I have no problems with these rules, though friends back home may suggest that I'm stealthily dodging the last one. 

Dinner at South Beach

So it looks like I'll be cooking at South Beach Pavilion on Wednesday for what I'm hoping will be one of the better dining experiences in Kathmandu. Now Nepal being Nepal I'm of course having difficulty finding the needed ingredients, for instance the guy that sells feta cheese has been MIA and thus the secondary person I buy from who gets direct deliveries from him is also having a shortage, so sourcing the Feta has been a little work. Herbs seem to be disappearing as well and I had to place a special order for fresh rosemary and thyme. Despite the difficulty in getting all the ingredients I need together I'm excited to be putting this together for people, and am really looking forward to the event.

South Beach Event Menu

The items on the menu are things I've developed since living here, making use of some of the great produce that are available through the year. I've started using pomegranate quite a bit, because it has such a great subtly sweet flavor and is available year round here. Other more exotic fruits, like persimmon, are things I really enjoy experimenting with since I just never had the opportunity to cook or eat them back home...or at least I never noticed them anyway. I've also managed to find really good whole cream at the dairy down the street from me which is exciting for me as well, and I think it will make the dessert great. Hopefully we'll get some good pictures of everything for a future blog post.

For those not familiar with South Beach its a great event space that sits behind the Wunjala Muskva restaurant in Naxal. The space has a very Miami style feel to it and Akshay and Jenara did an excellent job with its design, look and feel. We've previously attended a few tea events there as well as monthly movie viewing.  Anyway it's a great space, and I'm looking forward to being part of what should be a really fun and tasty event.

Giving Thanks

Last Thursday was American Thanksgiving, and celebrating it away from home in Nepal is makes it a little more meaningful for me. I remember when I was a kid my dad telling me that Thanksgiving was his favorite holiday, and as a kid this struck me as an odd choice. I mean how could Thanksgiving compete with the sheer awesomeness that was all the gifts and decorations of Christmas, or the costumes and candy of Halloween, it seemed at best tied with Easter which gave a whole basket of candy but had the downside of a long church session. Thanksgiving seemed to just be a large dinner, some boring football games (which I no longer find boring). Point being is that it didn't seem to stand up to the other holidays that seem geared toward children.

The themes that a holiday is often supposed to make one reflect on are often overlooked for what is practiced in the practical terms. So for children (and maybe some adults) Christmas and birthdays are about the gifts, and Thanksgiving is about the food. As I've grown older though I've come around to my father's point of view, Thanksgiving is firmly my favorite holiday. Unlike other holidays that require gifts, cards and other distractions, Thanksgiving requires only that we come together in common company and give thanks simply for what we have. We do this by sharing a large meal together, and though the host often undertakes the larger part of the cooking, guests often bring plenty of side dishes and deserts.

Some like it Spicy

There is this strange perception that goes around that white folk don't like spicy food, or can't handle it. As someone who has spent most of my adult life sustained almost entirely on spicy foods and bothered to order a gallon of Frank's Hot Sauce from the States, because I miss good hot sauce, this perception can be rather annoying. I first encountered it when travelling in Thailand back in 02'. I'd order Thai food and get this tasteless crappy version that was clearly prepared for that portion of the white population that prefers mayonnaise to Tabasco. Sure you could add spiced oil and red pepper flakes, but it usually wasn't as good as when the chilies are cooked into the dish. We encountered similar silliness in Nepal, India and Mexico as well, and I spend an awful lot of time convincing the people at the restaurants that, yes I really do want my food prepared hot and spicy. Half the time it still comes out and isn't that hot.

This kind of treatment normally gets me into a bit of a huff, and I find myself wanting to challenge the poor waiter to a contest of who can eat the spiciest food. "I'll bury you pal!" is the accompanying thought. seriously, I've happily consumed meals that when they touch your skin it turns a bit red from irritation...I can put down some seriously hot stuff. Since I've been in Nepal I've found that many Nepali people don't think westerners like spicy food, or that we can't handle too many hot peppers. When I first moved here one of the first foods I went ahead and tried to make was Mexican style chili, and my hosts thought it was intriguing that not only a man was cooking, but that I had bought chilies. The dish calls for not only chopped up chillies but I also added a fair amount of chili powder, which made my host question why I was making it so hot. Because, some westerners do indeed like it hot, in fact hotter than my host would have liked it.

Is Nepal a Culinary Gold Mine?

To most people that have spent any time here, the question on its face may seem like some kind of joke. When I did some travel writing on Nepal early this year the book's editor asked if I could do something on Nepali food, as all the submissions she had so far received had been mostly foreign adaptations. I explained to her that Nepal lacks the kind of culinary diversity of its neighbors like China and India, and that Nepali cuisine could for the most part be summed up in four words; dahl baht takari, mo-mos. Now to be fair there are plenty of regional and ethnic cuisines here that are good, Newari food in particular takes advantage of many different ingredients and subtle flavors. Many Nepali people are also very proud of their dahl baht, they love the stuff and often explain to me that they just don't feel right if they don't have a meal of it at least twice a day. Still in a country that has access to such an awesome array of fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and neighbors with such rich culinary histories one can't help but think of someone in the Louvre that is content to sit and play with an etch-a-sketch.

Experimenting with some gourds

Silence of the Goats and Celebrating Dashain

So the holiday season is in full swing in Nepal. Someone might wonder what qualifies as a holiday season in country that has holidays every week. Well you see those holidays are only a single day, now that we're into the big ones they get entire weeks.  Dashain is a a full 10 day holiday and it is followed not long after by Tihar, another multi-day extravaganza. The first few days of Dashain were rather tame, but the festivities come into full swing in the last three or four days. It reminds me in many ways of Thanksgiving back home, comprising of family get togethers and lots of food. There are plenty of other ritual and religious overtones, but the result is essentially the same, only they don't watch Football.

Nepali Goat at a Temple

Enlightened: Selling Salsa in Kathmandu

I had been trying to get in the habit of posting on this blog just about every day, and every other at a bare minimum. As you can see though this is day three since the last post. My excuse is that I had to get the packaging and product ready for my latest venture, which is selling salsa at the farmers markets in Kathmandu. Getting salsa made right here isn't as easy as you would think, as many of the spices are just a bit different and finding some ingredients can be a chore. That said, the base ingredients are very abundant, and Nepal offers some great additional fruits that are cheap and fresh. Just the other day I saw avocados being sold too, which means even more options very soon!

Vegetables Dry from an Iodine Bath

On Thursday I bought what I thought was enough ingredients and had it all soaked in an iodine solution for an hour. Now normally I don't bother doing this when cooking for myself, but many people (especially expats) consider this essential. Now since I'm selling it to other people and not just making it for myself, it's also important that I do everything I can to make sure that the food is hygienic. Once everything dried I divided up all the different ingredients and went out to pick up my labels.

Abhishek Shrestha did an excellent job printing up labels for me, I unfortunately didn't measure the jars correctly as I didn't realize they had such a curve to them on the top and bottom, this caused the labels to crease a bit at those ends, but it still looked good. By Thursday night I had all my labels I would use for my first test run attached to the jars.

Now chopping that huge pile of vegetables and fruit pictured above into five different one gallon batches is no simple feat. Friday morning I started at about 8:30AM. I took a quick break to run to Bhat Betini to get a larger bowl to put the batches in once I realized the existing one wouldn't work. I also stopped briefly to check my e-mail around 4PM. Other than that I was chopping, slicing, dicing and mixing. Some time after 6PM Kim and I stepped out to eat some dinner, as I had essentially skipped lunch. We also had to stop to get some more tomatoes, onions and garlic on the way home. After getting back I went back to chopping and finally got to bed some time just before midnight.

Selling Enlightened Salsa at the Farmer's Market

So I arrived just before 9AM and spoke with Francois, who is one of the two people in charge of the market.  He sets me up with a table and I put the samples out and the jars. Almost immediately people started showing up and I sold some of the Original Mexican style, which seemed the most popular with Nepali's who tried the different flavors. Some time after ten thirty I sold out of the Pomegranate, then the Original, and then the Greek by 11AM. By the time I was done all I had left was a couple bottles of hot pepper and one Thai.

Salsa Ready for Sampling

What I learned in my first attempt is that there is definitely a market for salsa in Kathmandu. Having the Greek stuff was a great way to have something to sell to people (especially Europeans) who don't like spicy foods. I could have easily sold half again the number of Greek and maybe Pomegranate and Original as well. I'll also have to look into selling at the Summit Hotel in Patan on Sundays. 

In order to make enough to sell at both locations and also in order to save my hand from future blisters and my body from 15 hour days of salsa making I'll have to take my earnings from today and invest in a food processor. I'll also have to start looking into making tortillas and tortilla chips to sell alongside, because the chips in this city are very expensive, mostly because I think only expats eat them. So thanks to Shobha at 1905 for not only putting together the market, but also for letting me sell there. Had a great first run and look forward to continuing to provide salsa to Kathmandu.