Discover | Global Table Adventure

When World Art and Food collide

Over spring break Ava took an amazing art class with local artist Annie Ferris. An Unexpected Friendship Annie and I first connected back when I was on Rick Steve’s radio show on NPR. She had the radio on while running errands and almost screeched to a halt when she realized I was cooking the world from Tulsa – the same city she lived in. Annie logged on to this web site, emailed me, and – long story short – invited me to speak to her middle school Global Gardens class. We soon discovered we had daughters the same age and many similar beliefs regarding peace, appreciating other cultures, and the important role of food in bringing the world together. Annie’s friendship – and our daughters’ – are two of the happiest things to come from starting this blog. Two Worlds Unite When Annie suggested we collaborate on an Around the World Art Class over spring break I didn’t hesitate. For 5 days Annie taught the kids art from Russia, India, Australia, Rwanda, and the Navajo Nation… …

Oh my gosh, the things I’ve been doing…

For the last two months I’ve been writing (and rewriting) my memoir. I’ve been going into work early. Resuming work after Ava’s bedtime. And I loved it. I especilly loved the letters L,M, and N. I loved the solitude of deep thought that comes with getting so buried in how to describe something that I cannot hear anything around me. I loved going through the manuscript and marking things “BORING,” and then coming back to those passages and trying to think of better commentary, fresher description, or new perspective. I loved crying through the tough bits, and laughing through the happy bits. Because that is human nature. That is my story. It felt good to embrace it – recognize it. Finally. I loved drinking too many “1 shot, decaf lattes,” right up until bedtime – and I loved that the bartenders at The Pheonix not only knew my order, they’ve dubbed their coffee shop/bar/restaurant/library my “second and third place” (according the Cheers, everyone needs a home, a place to work, and a third place). I also loved recipe testing. …

I have a mother

In celebration of “Tell the Truth Day”, I want to tell you about something that happened to me a few minutes ago. I was looking at a photo of a little girl sleeping in the outline she drew of her “mother,” tears streaming down my cheeks. Maybe you saw it, maybe you didn’t. For those whose hearts were also broken today by the photo, thinking this small child was an orphan, please read this statement by the photographer Bahareh Bisheh : “This little girl is my cousin and she actually fell asleep on the asphalt just outside my house. She must have played for some time and just lied to rest and fell asleep. im used a chair to stand on in order to take this shot. There is no orphanage involved and no tragic story behind this. i took this opportunity to be creative. It is a style of photography.” Now, Tell the Truth Day is not until July 4, but when I read this reveal, I thought there’s no reason to wait for a holiday. …

Martin Luther King’s Radical Notion: Extreme Peace

Thanks to this blog many well-meaning, genuinely curious people ask me: “Do you really think peace is possible?” They say “really” with those drawn out vowels that mean they think I’m either a) ignorant or b) naive. When I sit and think about it, I realize they’re right, on both counts. I am ignorant. When I was in eighth grade, my class went on a trip to Greece. One night while we were there, an explosion shook the very foundation of our hotel. In the midst of the chaos, the rumor-mill started. Someone decided we were at war with a nearby country. The truth was far more innocuous: a gas station had a minor explosion a few miles away. But it taught me one simple lesson: ignorance starts wars. Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to work as a big shot in international affairs – knowing about the threats, the danger, the seething anger that threatens to boil over at any given moment. It is the job of those big shots to not be …

5 Secrets to Springtime in January, thanks to the Hindu Harvest Festival

You know that old saying, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere”? Well the same can be said of springtime. Even while ice and and snow pummel the northern hemisphere and hot days sizzle in the southern, there are plenty of people celebrating springtime in India and other South Asian countries… Yes, in January. After the wild hair seventy degree day we had a couple of days ago, Ava and I were ready to say goodbye to winter, too. So how do we get there? This January 14 marks Makar Sankranti, the Hindu Harvest Festival. While Makar Sankranti is intended to celebrate the winter solstice and last year’s good harvest, it also celebrates the arrival of spring. This is one of those “looking forward” to warmth, while looking back with appreciation. To Hindus, the Sun stands for knowledge, spiritual light and wisdom. Makara Sankranti signifies that we should turn away from the darkness of delusion in which we live, and begin to enjoy a new life with bright light within us to shine brighter and brighter. We should gradually begin to …

Lessons from Peace Pilgrim, the woman who walked for 28 years

Nearly four years ago, when I set out to cook a meal for every country in the world, I didn’t know I was embarking on a pilgrimage. I just had a bout of wanderlust. A picky husband. A baby I wanted to raise with an appreciation for the world’s inherent beauty. I wanted her to love the world (and I wanted her world to love her!). I cooked, cooked, cooked. I took thousands upon thousands of photos. My husband, Keith, filmed Ava, week after week. I was so focused on checking countries off my list, I didn’t notice the hole in my own spirit. What the real adventure was all about. From the time I was a little girl, all the way into my twenties, I struggled with separation, loss, death. There were foster homes. There was estrangement. Again and again, I had to relearn what family meant. I had to figure out where I belonged. How to love and be loved. Unconditionally. When life is filled with one challenge after another, it has a …

Monday Meal Review: Zimbabwe

The marathon is complete. We did it. We ate every country in the world. (Breathe in, breathe out) The first thing Ava said about completing our challenge? “Can we start cooking the world all over again?“ And, later: “When are we going to start another Global Table Adventure, mama?” This child was barely seven months old when we started. Here she is with Afghanistan… (sigh) I can’t look at this photo without tears coming to my eyes. I just… can’t. It symbolizes how much happens in four years. How much changes. I had the strangest sensation as I was taking my last bite of candy cake for Zimbabwe. Every time I blinked my eyes, I’d open them expecting to find my seven month baby nestled in my arms. All over again. That’s probably not what Ava meant when she suggested we start over. But every time I opened my eyes… there Ava was… all grown up, four and a half years old, talking about staying “hwydrated.” I kept blinking. I kept hoping for a moment of …

About the food of Zimbabwe

Yesterday, I mentioned my fear of crossing “the chasm”, towards the final post of this Adventure. And yet, here we are. Time stalls for none. This is the first step over Victoria Falls from Zambia to Zimbabwe. There are a few restaurants near the falls, like the Rainforest Cafe, where you can get a Crocodile Tail Wrap with wasabi. Talk about fusion! As one travels further into the heart of this southern African country, more traditional foods appear, like pumpkin greens (bowara) cooked with peanut butter, peanut butter stews, and even pumpkin and peanut butter. (Here are three recipes for pumpkin and squash enjoyed in Zimbabwe) Not enough peanut butter for you? Next time you boil up rice (white or brown), stir in a few spoonfuls of peanut butter – just enough so that you can shape the rice into balls. This is called Mupunga une dovi. Serve your meal with anything from the tradtional sadza (a maize-based, stiff porridge), to the cities’ sweet buns made with yeast and sugar. Many foods you might recognize from …

Monday Meal Review: Zambia

Between Zambia and Zimbabwe lies the stunning chasm of mist and water called Victoria Falls. The water flows through both countries like some stealthy border walker, never fixed to one particular country. Never tied down. In this poetic space, where rapids, danger, and sparkling, spraying joy all tumble together, I see meaning for our own little cooking adventure. I’m on one side of the end, metaphorically sitting in Zambia, looking at Zimbabwe. Wondering what comes next. I’m so close to reaching my goal of eating every country in the world. So. Close. And yet, the “end” feels so, so, so far away. Almost unattainable. By this, I don’t really mean the cooking . Cooking one more country will be easy. I know how to research recipes. I know how to cook them. Sure, I make mistakes from time to time, but after four years, the process feels like breathing. No. It’s something else that feels far away, that feels unattainable. Perhaps it’s that I don’t know how to reach a goal of this magnitude. Not …

About the food of Zambia

While you’ll find caterpillars and grasshoppers on the menu on the tropical plateaus of Zambia, maize (a.k.a. sweet corn) is far more common. This southern African nation will enjoy maize as a stiff porridge called nshima, in a beer called chibuku, and in sweet loafs (similar to our cornbread, but made with fresh corn [Recipe]). Like many African countries, the groundnut (a.k.a. peanut) is beloved, especially when stirred into stewed greens. Peanut oil is also preferred by many Zambian families, as for when they fry up a batch of sliced plantains. There’s also the peanut sausage. According to the World Cookbook for Students: A vegetarian “sausage” named after the wild orchid tubers called chinaka or chikanda (depending on the ethic group) used to gel them. Amazing. Fishing has a big influence on the diet of Zambians who live near the many lakes, and it is often salted and dried for preservation or travel over long distances. The salted fish is later used in stews and soups, perhaps with a few onions and tomatoes [Recipe]. Much of the population …

Monday Meal Review: Yemen

“Oh yeah…” Keith says, chewing thoughtfully. “These are good!” I look at him a moment, scanning his eyes, wondering if he is being truthful. Then I look down at the plate to check if he’d eaten the right thing. Sesame coated, almond stuffed dates. Yup. Could he really think the Stuffed Date Balls are good? To be fair, he had no idea what they were when he ate them, except I did warn him that the crunchy thing inside was an almond. Still, these date balls seem more challenging to me than sushi, more challenging that the raw beef soup for Laos, more challenging than the frankincense ice cream. More challenging for me, at least. We all have our difficulties when it comes to certain textures and flavors. And dates have always been mine. Could it be that we project our fears onto our friends and families, expecting them to react the same way we will? If so, no one has a chance. The favorites have been decided before anyone takes a bite. The funny thing? …

About the food of Yemen

“Work like an ant and you’ll eat sugar.” Yemeni Proverb I can’t decide if the country of Yemen looks like a check mark or a bow tie. It depends on the map. Still, every time I thought about how to begin this post, I kept coming back to that check mark – the kind you get when you do a good job on your homework. Probably because Yemen is the third to last country on our list of countries. Check, check, check. I can’t. believe. it! But there is, indeed, more to Yemen than her shape. This mountainous country is situated on the Persian Gulf, across from Africa. The Yemeni people enjoy ful medames, the breakfast bean dip we sampled for Egypt [recipe], kebab, lentil soups, and lahooh, the leavened “pancake” like bread we enjoyed for Djibouti [recipe]. Shakshouka [Recipe] is another beloved breakfast item in Yemen, which is popular throughout the gulf and north Africa. I noticed a lot of yogurt when researching recipes, too, which can be used in drinks or dips. One interesting recipe …