Although I was born in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), I have spent less than a quarter of my life on the island so each time I visit I try and explore from the perspective of a foreigner. This is easier than you’d think because my Sinhalese is sufficiently weak that I hesitate to use it in public. Sri Lanka is a small Island, but it has an an elevation range from sea level along the coast to just over…
(Gova Mallung) Growing up in Sri Lanka in the 1960’s & 1970’s we rarely ate raw greens. Lettuce was uncommon – at least partly because (at the time) uncooked greens were considered a health risk for food-borne diseases such as salmonella, listeria and cyclospora. When lettuce was served my mom would first get it soaked and washed in an anti-bacterial dip! Food-borne pathogens can still be a problem, even in the US, as evidenced by several recent food poisoning outbreaks….
If this is the first you are hearing about global climate change, I will assume that you, like Rip Van Winkle, have been in a deep sleep for the past 20 years. It is one of the major topics of discussion worldwide (climate change that is, not RVW) – when people are not talking about Covid-19 or all the bogus “cures” or the equally bogus fears about getting vaccinated. I will address Covid-19 in another post – for now it’s all…
The moral of this post is: beware of where you get your information from and be careful how you use it. If a life-form from another planet were to land on earth today they would likely be surprised (and dismayed?) at the division among the dominant species on the planet. Religion, language, ethnicity, politics … so many reasons to divide ourselves even though our similarities outweigh our differences. Somehow, humans find it easier to see why we are different, rather than…
Ala Kiri Hodhi Sri Lankan cuisine has a reputation for being spicy and chilie-hot. The reality is that there are spicy/hot dishes and there are also many dishes that are not spicy and with little or no chilie-heat. When eating Lankan food we mix bits of spicy and non-spicy with the carbohydrate (usually rice, string hoppers, etc.) and pop it in our mouth. By serving individual dishes with their own unique flavors, for example potatoes in one dish, lentils in…
The mulligatawny I remember from childhood was a watery but heavily pepper-spiced broth that was used to moisten the main starch component of dinner – rice or string hoppers (indiappa). It had the effect of wetting the rice and whetting the appetite. It also made me cough and sputter when the black pepper seared the back of my throat as the first spoonful went down. Later, as a grad student in England, I discovered a recipe for a mulligatawny that…
It is still difficult to think of traveling, what with the Covid-19 virus mutating into even more easily transmissible forms. The continued reluctance of some to taking even simple precautions to curtail the spread of the virus is dragging out the pandemic-related restrictions way beyond what should have been its lifespan. So, to remind myself of happier times, I’m dredging up memories from past travels. This time revisiting Italy – specifically the Eternal City, Rome. The story of Romulus and…
The first dish I learned to make was, strangely enough, Lasagna. Sri Lanka (or Ceylon as it was known then) in the late 1960’s early 70’s was under the yoke of the near-communist regime of Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the first elected female leader of a nation worldwide). Imports were banned, and food was rationed so we Ceylonese had to be creative in how we used the resources available. When we could get cheese it was the canned variety, tomato sauces and…
A popular English proverb states: You can’t have your cake and eat it too. At this time it looks like most of the worlds people are trying to prove the proverb to be false. I stick by the proverb, I am certain we can’t keep the cake and eat it – but by the time the majority of the earths population figures this out, it may be too late. Take the case of Washington State in the US. A staunchly…
Like it or not, the world changed in 2020/21. Lots of little changes – smart phones with cameras connected to social media in everyone’s hands, changing global climate, civil unrest, drought, floods,…and other changes gathering for several years and in 2020 Covid 19 finally pushed us over the edge. It has happened before and it will happen again, perhaps with different causes. Living through this step-change also showed us the variety of response to change. From acceptance and embracing change…