Discover | Global Table Adventure

About the food in Mongolia

After the hot, sweaty day I had yesterday, a little stove top travel to the central Asian country called Mongolia is a welcome retreat. Even though the Gobi desert sprawls through southern Mongolia, she is best known for her long, cold winters (especially in the the mountainous north and on the dry, grassy steppes, where temperatures can dip way into – 40 F). Very little grows in dry, chilly Mongolia, but that’s okay. Instead, people rely on an intensely meaty diet. And for good reason – 30% of Mongolia’s population breed livestock (the same number who live a nomadic life). With a lifestyle constantly on the go, the food has to fit in when it can. There’s no slowing down. Nomads move about 5 times a year, generally with the changing seasons. Just about any meat is fair game – the fattier, the better. After all, a diet rich in fat helps keep the body warm in freezing temperatures. Andrew Zimmern pointed out tons of grisly, fatty meats enjoyed in all manner of brothy soups, …

Monday Meal Review: Monaco

THE SCENE We have this crazy obsession, this culture of ours, with recording our memories. You’ve seen it before: a waiter delivers a beautiful meal to the table and, instantly, four cellphones fly up to “capture the moment.” A minute later the photos are uploaded to Facebook. Suddenly, no one is paying attention to their beautiful dinner anymore – instead they’re busy checking for likes and comments on Facebook. It’s as if our experiences are somehow not valid if we don’t snap a quick picture to immortalize them. It’s as if we can no longer sit in the present and simply enjoy “being.” I’m as guilty of this as the next person. This week my good friend Chad came for a visit. We’ve been friends for the better part of a decade – from way back in my pre-Okie life. We weren’t expecting his company but, then again, no one ever expects Chad. He blows in like the wind. We had three days notice – he was just driving through from one big city to …

About the food of Monaco

Monaco sparkles. Built right up on the scrubby, rocky, Mediterranean coastline, she’s bustling with luxurious yachts, zipping Ferrari, and more Formula 1 fan-wear than anyone can sport in a lifetime. This is a place where you can pay $40 for a beer and $1,200 for vodka (just head over to Jimmy’s Bar, according to Stepping the World). Incredible. It’s hard to believe that all this flashiness can be built into a teeny tiny country like Monaco. She’s the second smallest country in the world, measuring in at just 0.76 square miles. In this compact bit of land, there lives almost 36,000 people. I’m no math whiz, but this seems like a lot of people such a microscopic parcel of land. I’m wondering if perhaps some of the people live out of sight – perhaps in a maze of underground hideouts for superheroes? In any case the food matches the glitzy lifestyle. It’s as if you took French food and Italian food and dusted it with diamonds or, better yet, gold. Literally. (Just look at the giant …

Monday Meal Review: Moldova

THE SCENE Two days before I cooked Moldova I was invited to Tulsa’s local United Nations annual meeting. While there I listened to very intelligent people talk about things which are generally beyond the scope of my daily duties – being a good mother, working hard, and playing harder. Let’s just say they talked about how to solve problems on a global scale. And it was amazing. Still, even as cheerleader to the world, I felt out of place. Not because I’m not interested, but simply because I feel that I don’t know enough to contribute intelligently. For the topic at hand, an almost 200 year of history had to be summarized before the discussion could even begin. There’s no way I know that much history about anything (except for my rogue obsession with Arthurian legend). But then it hit me. As I watched serious people explore serious issues in the world, I realized that my feeling of isolation in the discussion was probably not unique. I believe there are millions of people like me who are …

About the food in Moldova

If you’re looking for wine, Moldova is waiting for you. For the last 25 million years (give or take a few), grapes have been growing in the region, ripe for the juicing. There’s even evidence that, if you were to travel back in time about 5,ooo years ago, you could meander through vineyards sipping wine from cultivated grapes. Not out of glass, perhaps, but you’d be sippin’-happy all the same. Thankfully, you don’t have to travel back 5,000 years to enjoy a good selection of Moldovan wine. Simply amble over to “Mileştii Mici,” the world’s largest wine cellar located in central Moldova. Trust me, one bottle won’t be missed. Spread over hundreds of miles of cellars you’ll find approximately five million bottles. What would you fill 5 million bottles with? Wine is so integrated into the Moldovan culture, many people make table wine in their very own kitchens. They serve it up with an array of food that is unique with bits of Russian, Turkish, Greek, and German influence. For starters, there’s all manner of stuffed …

Monday Meal Review: Micronesia

THE SCENE Ava’s at a funny age. Literally. Everything is all giggles and “that’s so funny, mama.” It adds a breath of fresh air to my reality of taxes, tornadoes, and keeping the car clean. All equally impossible to deal with. This week Ava chuckled when she saw the silly straw in her Pineapple Papaya Coco Smoothie. And she loved the fact that there were oranges in our Micronesian Orange Coconut Cake. She laughed and laughed about that one. And, of course, I laughed watching her laugh. (Although I must admit I’m still not sure what exactly was so funny). But the point is, it didn’t matter. We were laughing. We were happy. Oh, if the world could just… stay this simple. If everyone could laugh more. Share smiles over good food. Giggle from the heart over nothing at all. Since Ava was feeling so silly, the Orange Coconut Cake gave me the perfect opportunity to teach Ava her very first joke. “Knock knock” “Who’s there?” “Orange” “Orange who?” “Orange you glad to see me?!?!” I should …

About the food of Micronesia

Micronesia and her gaggle of islands amaze me. She is a dream – half a world away. There is not a lot of information to be found about her thousands of islands because many of them are, at best, sparsely settled. In an effort to delve deeper into the cuisine of this sprawling federation, I used one of my more recent tactics to educate myself on the cuisine: contacting a local. I love this technique. Emailing with someone halfway around the world makes me happy. While I’ve done it here and there throughout the blog, it really took off with Maldives and my successful recipe hunt for Lomi Lomi on twitter. The banter is friendly. People are excited to talk about food from their homelands and it makes me feel like I’m a part of a neighborly world. A small world. A happy world. This week my pen pal was Katrina from Kosrae – a landmass not even 10 miles wide – a tiny island within the Caroline Islands. As I read Katrina’ s suggestions on what to try, I …

Monday Meal Review: Mexico

THE SCENE: I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “Why is it 92 degrees in March?” I ask the cat. Malky draws his back up into a leisurely stretch, pads lightly onto the floor, and lets out a startlingly abrasive meow. Apparently he doesn’t care. He is ready to go outside. I crack open the door enough to smell the humidity and watch his tail flick out into the sunshine. I shake my head and get back to work. The blender cranks into high gear as I buzz together the homemade rice and almond drink, called horchata. This summertime sipper will chill all afternoon in the refrigerator, along with a bundle of fresh strawberries, cinnamon and vanilla. And the joyful purpose of this drink is fulfilled in Ava’s happy slurp. Pure delight. In the afternoon I’d wind the blender up again to blast the mole into smooth submission. In mere minutes, 24 million ingredients would become one – a symphony of flavor so complex I’d have no way of understanding it. I simply would have to listen to …

About the food of Mexico

My first time to Mexico was all “rainbows and puppy dogs.” In fact, the only reason I got to go was because a co-worker broke up with his girlfriend and his two free tickets were simply passed down the line to me. A totally free vacation! In all my 27 years I had never won anything like this. The scene was set for perfection. There was just one catch: I found out on a Tuesday. The flight took off on a Thursday. There wasn’t much time to plan. Keith (a.k.a. Mr Picky) – who had been my boyfriend of a just a few months – would be my companion. He had never left the country. He didn’t even have a passport. Thankfully, this was in the days before passports were required to enter Mexico. He simply had to track down his birth certificate. This first trip to Mexico would be his initiation (at age 36) into the world “out there,” beyond the border. Let’s just say I’d be watching for signs of an open mind …

Monday Meal Review: Mauritius

THE SCENE: Photography Teaches I step up onto the soft seat cushion and bend my head under the low ceiling. Time to snap some pictures. I hold my breath, teetering over the banana tart, willing myself not to fall. That’s when Keith pops in the room (he’s home to help care for our sick, feverish daughter) and snaps a picture of me (see above). As I swivel my head to see what he’s doing I almost fall over, right onto the lattice work grid. But before I can turn my head, he’s gone. Finding myself in such a precarious situation gets me thinking about the lessons I’ve learned from photography. Over the last few years I’ve learned that taking interesting photos is a lot like living a good life. Every once in a while we must get new perspective – see the world through fresh eyes. We must let the “light” in. We have to care enough to try (again and again), even when things aren’t going the way we want them to. For example: I recently had a …

About the food of Mauritius

Just when you feel isolated, remote, and alone – like no one can possibly understand the way you are feeling, geography comes to the rescue. Way out in the Indian ocean lives Mauritius – an African country even more remote than Madagascar and totally teeny, tiny. If you study this “dot” amidst the crashing waves, you’ll find crags and cliffs, turquoise water and rusty rainbow soil. For all her solitude, she is so beautiful. So intricate. How can we feel alone when this exists? It’s like the earth herself is giggling… While I thought I would have trouble finding information on Mauritius, I could not have been more wrong. I learned on Food Safari that there is a healthy group of Australians who love and enjoy Mauritian food. In fact, there are entire restaurants there devoted to the food of Mauritius. So what is so magnetic about this food that it has crossed an entire ocean and firmly implanted itself into the hearts of complete strangers? An amalgamation of flavors. A delectable melting pot. Take …

Monday Meal Review: Mauritania

I was talking with someone the other day about what this Adventure is all about. She wanted to know if I really thought I could change the world by cooking a meal from every country. “It just doesn’t seem realistic” she said. I considered my answer, gazing at the puffy clouds dotted throughout the blue sky. I immediately thought of our latest Global Table meal – Mauritania, in northern Africa. The week was all about food cooked more than once: Stuffing simmered before roasting. Couscous steamed twice before spooning. Tea boiled four times before sipping. While each dish was easy enough, there was a lot of waiting around. Of listening to the ticking clock. Of watching the birds sing and swoop just outside our window. Of talking and dreaming and talking some more. Of taking the time to really see and hear each other. After all, what else is there to do while cooking and recooking all that food? “Maybe changing the world is as simple as slowing down enough to experience it,” I finally said, “to appreciate …