Towards Points West

Baseball caps and hot dogs. Gritty inner-city streets. Suburban lawns. White picket fences. These are among the many images of America that Hollywood has imprinted on the world outside its borders. But perhaps the most evocative one of all is that of a solitary car cruising on a long, empty highway with open country on either side.

So I was absolutely thrilled to set off on my first road trip in the US.

And yesterday was a good day for it. Summer is over, and the trees are starting to wear their autumn colours. I'd seen pictures, of course, but they don't come close to the reality of fall foliage breaking out in the last days of September. It's hard to keep your eyes on the road when on either side of you are vivid swatches of yellows, oranges and scarlet reds. Pretty soon all of New England is going to erupt in a crescendo of colour, and I can't wait to see it in it's full glory.

But after a couple of hours the colour tone of the countryside had changed from burnt orange to cool grey. As the clouds gathered overhead, raindrops fell on the asphalt and were promptly churned up by the traffic around and showered onto the windscreen in front of me. Meanwhile clouds of mist settled on the trees to our left and right like a ghostly quilt.

By nightfall most people had gone to bed. We'd been accompanied by fellow-strangers through Massachusetts and Connecticut, we'd been part of a throng through New York State. But as we reached into western Pennsylvania, it seemed that everyone else had chosen to retire and renew their journey another day.

Not us.

We stopped at a diner to refuel.

People look different in the Midwest. Out on the East coast they move briskly. They talk fast. There's an energy that spills out of them and impregnates the atmosphere. Sometimes it's only nervous energy. But it's there. And it's infectious.

Hundreds of miles away, far from the coast and its temples of commerce and industry, things are different. People slow down. They seem to amble rather than stride. It's as if their energy has seeped out of them and been vacuumed away.

We still had some distance to cover, and I was not keen to soak in more of the air of apathy at that diner. So we got back into our cruiser and hummed on through the night. Our path was lit by sentinels on either side: reflector poles lined the road to our left and right like an army of torch bearers in endless single file.

We sped on over the Ohio border and deeper into farming country. Eventually we pulled into Akron - birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous, one-time rubber capital of the world, and our resting place for the night.

13 hours on the road. 5 states. 1,000 kilometers. The journey had just begun.

To be continued...

Long On Stories, Short On The Sides

Right. This is it. The final heavy-shopping weekend before we declare that our new house is finally settled, 10 weeks after we actually moved in. Most people would have made that declaration right after they had set up the toaster and put their shirts away in the closet. But being the sort of OC nut-job that I am, for me it's not over until every last piece is in place.

One of the biggest milestones for me when I move to a new place is finding a place where I can get a haircut. When I moved from the Philippines to Singapore, for 2 years I would continue to get my haircuts from my regular hairdresser during my then-frequent business trips to Manila. But then Salai disappeared and I had to go through the trauma of starting a new relationship.

Yes, I have just confessed to a disturbing level of vanity. And I am sufficiently un-deluded to recognize that it is misplaced vanity. But as I explained to a colleague while asking her to recommend a salon, going to a bad hairdresser is more risky for me than going to a bad doctor. I can recover a lot faster from the flu than I can grow back my hair from a bad haircut. And I'm going to have a beating heart in my chest a lot longer than I will have hair on my head. It's that curse of the 'Y' chromosome.

It's a well-kept secret, but the reason that men have mistreated women since the dawn of history is not because we are power-mad, insecure or just plain jerky. It's because when we discovered male pattern baldness we decided to throw the mother of all tantrums and we simply did not know when to stop.

So anyway, once the colleague had understood how seriously I was taking the issue of my first haircut in the New World, she canvassed her boyfriend and those of her friends and then directed me to Joel.

I don't get it. Why is it that all male hairdressers act gay even if they are not? Are the genes that are responsible for nimble fingers also the ones that make your voice lilty and lispy? Or is it a sort of career expectation, the way all investment bankers must have sharp sideburns and weak chins, or all boxers must have pock-marked faces unless they are named Miguel? At any rate, right after telling me about his weddding plans, Joel saved me from a faux pas by telling me about his fiancee. (As opposed to his fiance.)

It all turned out well, though. I got a very respectable haircut, Joel had his chat with the nice young man from Asia, and while my wallet left lighter than I expected it would, I know I can compensate by going to a back-alley quack the next time I come down with a virus.

Higher Grounds

Many months ago on this blog I confessed my love for good coffee. Alas, said coffee has proven hard to find in Boston. I was reminded of this in the morning at the one decent cafe near my office. I asked for a latte. They said their Espresso machine was broken. And in that instant I could see the rest of my day going down the tubes.

For a coffee-drinking nation the Americans sure do put up with vast amounts of horrendous coffee. And please don't use the S-word. I've not generally been a fan of Starbucks but I will concede that in most parts of the world they will give you a passable cup of the stuff. Not here, though. I've been unhappily amazed at the consistency with which their baristas manage to burn coffee just enough that it is still barely drinkable while tasting vaguely unpleasant. I think they train them for it.

(It does add to the Starbucks experience in Boston that the baristas are incapable of spelling perfectly ordinary names. I once tried giving them my initials and they even got that wrong. I have a colleague named John who is now reduced to calling himself Joe, just to make things easier for them. It's shameful.)

Most places are no better than Starbucks. Somehow Dunkin Donuts has acquired a reputation as the everyman's cofffee shop. It's not very well deserved. Except in the very literal sense that every man (and woman) seems to be in them. I have never seen such long lines for such an ordinary beverage.

I should be fair, and I should admit that several of the coffee shops, including Starbucks, offer very acceptable flavoured roasts. Hazelnut seems to be a particular favourite, and it does drip quite satisfyingly down the tongue. But a flavour like that is good only for an occasional distraction. It is not a substitute for the good, strong, straight coffee that I like to drink every 3 hours.

So after multiple cafe misadventures I decided to not rely on others to make my coffee for me. It was time to go the Do-It-Yourself way. And so I Did It Myself. I bought an elegant little French press. I went to the supermarket, bought some beans and ground them. And then I brewed my first pot of Javana Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica. The aroma was perfect. Unfortunately aroma was all that the coffee had. It had absolutely no taste at all. For several minutes I experienced extreme sensory dissonance, as my non-plussed tongue tried to work out what my nose was so ecstatic about.

Then I tried brewing a pot of Green Mountain Colombian. This time there was some flavour to the coffee. Which was a pity because I think it would have tasted much better if it had been tasteless.

By this time I was close to despair. I mean, coffee is one of the essential food groups, and I was on the verge of starvation.

And then I found it. The most amazing blend of Indonesian coffee. It's just the kind I like. It has a strong, bold aroma, a sharp almost tangy after-taste, but is not too acidic. It's amazingly drinkable. I know, because the day I brought it home I had 4 cups over breakfast. And the best part is the fragrance of ground coffee that lingers in the air for several seconds after I reseal the bag of grounds.

I am now sated. I have found a coffee that I really enjoy. In fact, I love it so much that I am not at all bothered by the irony of finally finding it in Starbucks. :-)

What's In A Name?

It happened in the supermarket. There, next to the figs and berries, I saw something ugli. No, that was not a typo, and no, I did not make up what's coming next: I had spotted an ugli fruit!

It's a sort of orange the size of a melon. Except that it's not quite an orange, it also resembles a grapefruit. Or a pomelo. Actually, it's really hard to say what it is, except that it is an ugli. And of course with a name like that I simply had to buy it! In fact, it gets better. The fruit comes from Jamaica, where it's name is pronounced "hugly". How adorable is that!?

Life (or at least food) would be more fun if people took the trouble to give interesting names to the things they eat. Take miracle fruit for instance. That is actually very aptly named, because miracle fruit berries confuse your taste buds and make them think that sour foods taste sweet!

But inapt names are even more fun.

The British are pretty good at this game. They created the toad in a hole, in the making of which no amphibians were harmed. They invented the Yorkshire pudding, which is really a pie. And they famously gave us spotted dick, which is a pudding and not, well, you know.

And then closer to home (omigosh, am I calling it home already!?) there are the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Obviously one part of the name has to be inaccurate, either the Rocky Mountains, or the Oysters. As it turns out, this food is not really oysters. Instead it is actually something that in Spain is known as "bulls' eggs". I leave the rest to your imagination.

Another inspired name is the geoduck. Which is not a duck (by now, you knew that was coming). It's really a clam. And it's pronounced "gooey duck". But not because it's gooey, because it isn't. It's name is derived from a word that means "dig deep". If it's any consolation, that actually does make sense, because the geoduck likes to burrow.

But my all-time favourite name is from Japan and belongs to the most refreshing and best tasting sports drink in the whole world. It's just too bad that it's called ...

Pocari Sweat.

Yechh!