The Trouble with Penises

Going through and editing my photos, I noticed something.

Rhinos have huge penises.

Bear with me. In South Africa I wrote about the recent spike in rhino poaching in South Africa. Now that post has gone missing along with the Western Black Rhino subspecies now declared extinct. 

This makes me sick.

Back in the day, people looked at that rhino giant penis and said, "Wow, if I eat that horn, maybe I'll have a giant penis too." It's not folklore anymore, it's just a big rape cartel. And everyone is part of the problem: park rangers, park managers, governments, TCM manufacturers, TCM marketers, and the hoards of TCM consumers all who should just die a slow bleeding death after their tiny penises are cut off as if they were rhino horns. 

Bacon Dahl…A new flavor in the East-Meets-West saga

As he is wont to do, Josh brought home bacon. He bought it from the local meat shop, owned or at least staffed by Fijian Indians. Without asking for advice, Josh was given some anyway, from the friendly lady who said (conspiratorially?), “It tastes very good in dahl.”

Why an Indian lady would volunteer this information to a guy that looks like Josh is a mystery, but she might have intuited that Josh’s domestic partner is half Indian and has to Josh’s chagrin stocked our temporary kitchen in Savusavu, Fiji with two types of dahl—yellow and black.

Although she isn’t an avid cook, my mom cooks dahl occasionally. When she does, she fries mustard seeds and cumin seeds in the pan first, and then fries onion, chili, and ginger/garlic (which she claims is one word). Then she introduces the lentils and thrice their volume in water, puts on the lid, and simmers until it looks done, usually in less than an hour. Give or take, this is pretty much the way I make dahl. I’ve never made a non-vegetarian dahl.

When Josh came home with this tidbit about how to cook bacon dahl, I thought it sounded like a way to break up the monotony of yellow dahl, which, as you all know, can only get so exciting. Given the poor food diversity in Fiji and lack of other options for home cooking, we were sick of dahl but bacon saved the day and rekindled interest in lentils. If you want to make it yourself, just render the bacon first, and then proceed with adding the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, etc and proceed as usual.

As expected, the result no longer tastes like Indian dahl but more like an Eastern European pea soup. Josh compared it with Quebequois pea soup. Regardless, only thing I would have done differently would have been to add a few sprigs of fresh cilantro on top, but sadly there is no cilantro available in the local markets here. If you decide to make it, please do add cilantro or a fresh herb of your choice—it needs the color and freshness. Then it will be truly dal-icious.

Poisson Cru--Raw Fish

The Polynesian diet is very limited because there is hardly anything that grows here other than fruit. We eat about 1 kilo of raw tuna per week on average. Sometimes we eat even more, like on islands where there were no grocery stores. Most of the time, we prepare raw tuna dishes ourselves in the local style. It's called "poisson cru au lait coco," which means raw fish with coconut milk. 

There is a lot of misinformation about poisson cru online. Most online recipes have you marinate the tuna in citrus juice as with ceviche. That's not really true. The meat is soaked in heavily salted water (sea water) before preparing--something that most online recipes neglect to mention. The brine is critical to bringing out the flavor of succulent raw tuna. Citrus comes later, for flavor and slight tenderization. But the meat remains succulent and you don't want it to change color or texture from the citric acid.

Finally, not all "poisson cru" has coconut milk. Poisson cru just means raw fish and there are a lot of different ways to prepare it. Au lait coco is one of the best.

I've been making poisson cru au lait coco often enough that I have my own recipe now. It can be made with any kind of fresh tuna (red/thon rouge is best) and is usually served with a side of rice.

The only problem is that I do not know how to make my own coconut milk, which is the only way Polynesian people do it. You'll rarely see a Polynesian person sneer, but mention canned coconut milk and that beautiful smile turns upside down. I get the sense canned coconut milk is probably for Polynesians what Budweiser is for beer geeks-- a joke at best. 

Sunshine's Best Poisson Cru

Fresh Tuna, about 250g per person

Fresh Coconut Milk (or, 1/2 can of milk--be sure not to use coconut cream because it is too heavy)

Shallot (green onion could work well too)

Ginger (thin-skinned is best)

Garlic (just a clove or two because it will be raw)

Carrot

Tomato 

Cucumber

1-2 limes (the small round ones are best)

Salt

Method: Prepare a bowl of brine. Place 1-2 heaping tablespoons in a pint of water and adjust for taste. It should taste like sea water.

Chop the tuna into bite-sized cubes or slices, following the natural grooves on the meat. The shape of the pieces will depend on the cut of tuna.

Soak the pieces in the brine for at least 10-15 minutes. 

In the meantime, prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Chop shallot, ginger garlic. You can do them razor-thin or coarse, it doesn't really matter. Use about 1 shallot, 1 garlic clove, and 1 thumb of ginger for every pound of tuna. Squeeze the juice of one lime over the ginger-onion-garlic.

Shave the carrots, slice the cucumber, chop the tomato and set aside together.

Drain the tuna and toss it all together, waiting just a minute or two before adding the coconut milk. The trick is to pour the coconut milk just before the fish changes color from the citric acid.

Another method is, before you drain the brine, squeeze the juice of one lime on the tuna. Let it marinate until you start to see the color change, less than 5 minutes. Then drain the tuna again before tossing all the ingredients together and adding coconut milk. 

You can also play around with adding other ingredients like fish sauce and thai basil. Or you can make different dishes altogether, like:

Poisson Cru "a la Maupiti Grecque"

We learned this from our hosts in Maupiti, who made a scrumptious poisson cru dish we never saw anywhere else. The raw tuna is tossed with sweet soya sauce, lots of ginger, garlic, shallot, and oil (olive or sesame are good). There is probably a quick squeeze of lime for balance but not enough to be detected. This is an unctuous dish.

Poisson Cru "Chinoise"

Is my least favorite poisson cru dish, but it's very popular in Polynesia. The sauce is a sweet-sour (often skewed to the sweet) base of lime and sugar, and there is a greater proportion of veggies (carrot, cucumber, tomato) than with a poisson cru au lait coco.

Variable availability of poor quality vegetables means that we often have to omit veggies from the poisson cru dish. It's better with a little textural variety, but even without, it's a wonderful, healthy, and addictive kind of meal.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Antarctica

As a kid growing up in the 80s, I hadn't associated the Falkland Islands with anything other than the war between the British and the Argentinians. But there is so much more to the Falkland Islands than this conflict. Although the politics provide an integral context to any visit, it is really the scenery, the wildlife, and the way of life of the people that live here that make the Falklands special.

To visit the Falklands even now, it appears the conflict has ended in a fragile stalemate. The territory is still in an ongoing dispute. Our ship captain lied to the Argentinian officials in Buenos Aires, asserting that the Falklands were not an officially scheduled stop on our itinerary. He probably called them as the Argentinians prefer, Las Malvinas.

In fact, the Falklands were not a scheduled stop when we booked the cruise. It was a pure surprise that we went at all. The day after the ship pulled away from Buenos Aires, we found a memo under our door saying something about the weather permitting us to dock in Port Stanley and would we like to see some penguins?

Ah, penguins. Delightfully quirky, smelly little creatures.

I developed a bit of a penguin fetish after meeting my first little waddlers down in South Africa. I crave seeing them now. But before we get to the penguins, I see lots of Union Jacks and this sticker a few times.

Most of the residents on the Falklands are of British descent and have been living there for generations. They work the unforgiving, infertile land by raising sheep and cattle. Falklanders are among the most self-sufficient people I have ever encountered, and cultivate barely any connection to the outside world. If you want to be off the grid, you can do a lot worse.

But you have to like small-town living. Everyone knows everyone else's business, and they'll know yours, too, by the time you leave. I learned a few things myself. Such as, the day after our arrival was the annual sheep-shearing contest, which is a really big deal.

There is barely any tourism on the islands, which are a fairly large archipelago of windswept, boggy, treeless terrain reminiscent of Scotland. I fell in love instantly, even before we anchored.

The weather is harsh. It was summertime, but it alternated between cold and rainy, and just cold. Luckily we had no real wind that day. Occasionally the clouds cleared, giving us the most amazing polarized light.

Visitors ambitious enough to travel to the Falklands are generally there to see some wildlife, the best of which is the many different types of penguins that breed at different spots around the island.

The nerve of the penguins! Almost all of the breeding grounds are on private land. The owners of the farm therefore double as tour guides and drive their personal 4x4s across the mud to see the penguins. The jeep rides are long and for some, grueling. It's all off-road. You get stuck in the mud. It's like getting two trips in one--an ATV adventure plus an encounter with one of nature's most special species.

Gentoo parent and chick

On the Falkland Islands, I went to two different penguin breeding grounds. The first one was on a pretty little beach called Bluff Cove, which is a temporary home to several different types of penguin, including the Gentoo. He's the guy in the foreground with the orange beak.

There were mostly Gentoo at Bluff Cove, but also some Magellanic penguin and about 8 of the majestic King penguins, which are more exotic than the rest. In the above photo, the kings are the elegant fellows in the background with the yellow trim.

Penguins spend most of their time at sea, and are only on land when they are breeding or molting. Males and females share the childcare duties. One spouse takes care of the chicks, while the other is swimming for food.

Parents eat at sea, and then regurgitate their meal to feed the young...And you thought your mom was a good cook.

Bluff Cove was not enough. So I went on a second penguin adventure. This one was much more difficult to get to, but was worth it because the reward is a rare type of penguin that does not like to breed near other types of penguin. These Rockhopper penguins are really neat looking.

They are distinguished by that yellow tuft of ear feather.

 Plus, the rockhopper beach was really rugged and nice to look at.

The breeding ground was located on the ten thousand acres that was owned by a small family. The family house and barn was extremely rustic, and I can only imagine what it was like on the inside after seeing their corrugated tin roofs and their lack of modern amenities. But the Falklands is an expensive place to live--apparently the cheapest small dwelling is £250,000. It seems like a tough life, and that the people work extremely hard.

Land might be pricy but in true British fashion, the prices of beer in the local pubs is kept cheap, around £3 a pint for English microbrew. This is in keeping with the notion that beer is food for the British and to most Falklanders, the islands are a part of the United Kingdom. To suggest anything else is a call to arms!

And to be in one of the Falklands pubs (sorry, the camera did not come out during my drinking session), one could easily be forgiven for forgetting that we are not on the British Isles in some tiny provincial hamlet. All the heads in the room turn, their eyes scrutinizing the strangers when we walk in. They're all friendly though. Once the ice is broken, conversations flow as everyone is as curious about us as we are of them. We met an oil rig worker, and soon gathered that offshore drilling is a likely undercurrent of the ongoing conflict over the territories--something the media has suspiciously failed to expose.

Unfortunately, the local brewer did not have any of his beer ready for consumption. His strong brews are supposed to be good, according to one of my drivers. This brewer apparently was set to exhibit at the sheep-shearing festival we were missing out on.

So I think this fact warrants a return visit. I certainly want to go back. The Falkland Islands were one of the highlights of our whole cruise, for me second only to Antarctica.

Cape of Good Coffee

Cape Town has almost exclusively "third wave" coffee, which is the barista art as well as the art of micro-roasting. What makes Cape Town different is that all the main roasters also have coffee shops. So each place has its own character, identity, and coffee. The three big ones in Cape Town are Origin Roasters; Deluxe Coffeeworks, and Truth Coffee. The quality is about even, with Origin edging out the other two by a slight margin because of their greater variety of coffee varietals.

Also, at Origin you can do siphon coffee and other methods of extraction. I believe Truth and Deluxe are espresso-based only.

Of the three, we went to Deluxe the most often, because it was very close. However, I lost my photos of Deluxe :(

My favorite shop of all was Origin. The vibe inside is super. 

Origin

The thing to order at Origin, Deluxe, and Truth is the "flat white." If you haven't had a flat white, it's basically a double shot with less pulled milk than cappuccino and no foam. So basically a strong latte. It's one of the best "inventions" of third wave coffee and apparently has origin in New Zealand, where we will be going soon :-)

Flat white at Origin.

Flat White at Truth

Truth's head roaster

 And what would be third wave coffee without hipsters? Or in Josh's case, hopsters? Josh was sporting his Movember stash, and was quite the hit with the guys at the coffeeworks. The roaster at Truth even wanted to take his picture.

Have Your Cape, and Eat it Too!

Cape Town--all of South Africa, really--is filled with fresh food. You won't find much in the way of imported produce or processed foods because the country is too far removed from the rest of the world, and too well-endowed with yielding lands to bother messing with what already works.

One of the highlights of Cape Town is The Old Biscuit Mill market every Saturday morning.

Mushroom skewers 

I normally do not like chorizo but these I like, so that is saying something.

 Every Thursday there was a fresh market right near our downtown apartment. It attracts a lot of office workers on their lunch break.

We went to the Langa township, which is an old apartheid suburb of Cape Town. There was not much food in Langa, except for the goat heads and these stall selling low-grade fast food.

On the Garden Route, towards Eastern Cape, we ate really well! There is a special foodie joint that one must visit--a cheese maker who prepares a fresh cheese-only lunch feast. But you must call ahead of time! There is no website or anything. It is for die-hards only.

The name of the place is Fynboshoek Cheese. An Eat Out entry is here if you want the number. It is well worth a visit if in the Garden Route. Probably a must if you are a cheese head or a foodie, or love the romance of driving on a dirt road to a cheese farm where a Tuscan/Provencal-type farmhouse warmly welcomes you with huge platters of both goat and cow cheeses. There were a total of 10 different cheeses! We had two types of chevre (one served warm as appetizer, and one below in the middle with pepper on top. best chevre i've had in a long time! fluffy texture). There were two intense, aged goat cheeses. We had a large salad with hard shaved goat pecorino type. There was fresh mozzarella made that morning served as Caprese salad, and a fresh ricotta made from the same base served with honey for dessert. Also there was a memorably good smoked provolone, as well as two cow's milk farmer cheeses, one in cheddar style. The rosemary foccacia was made in house too, and I wanted more but was too full.

The restaurant scene in Cape Town is very unpretentious overall, which is great. Our last dinner was at the reputable Myoga restaurant. They have a 7-course taster menu for only 265 rands (less than $30). 

Beyond the Big Five

Leo

Oliphant

Until just a few months ago, a safari seemed like a dream deferred. It was the thing to do when I turned 60.

jackal

When we happened upon the inexpensive Emirates flight to South Africa, suddenly a safari seemed immanent--and it was affordable, too. I would soon find out that one does not need to "go on a safari," as if with some organized group in a jeep. You can rent a car and do it all yourself. The national park system in South Africa makes it very easy to do so, and there are lots of ways one can independently organize a trip, as I like to do. You can stay in any type of lodging you like from camping and self-catering cottage to luxury bush resort. It is safe, easy, and affordable. We visited several different national parks, each with unique beauty and ecosystem.

baby hippo

One of the things I wanted to see most was a mom and baby giraffe and I got my wish, more than once.

We saw some creatures we did not know existed, such as the Bush Baby. It's not a pygmy marmoset  but it is similar. It is one of the smallest primates in the world. Only nocturnal, bush babies are one of the cutest creatures I have ever seen. Now this was something that would have been hard to see on our own. We spent 4 nights in Toro Yaka and they knew how to spot and lure the bush babies with fruit. It was very hard to get a photo. They move fast, and we did not use a flash. We only depended on our host's flashlight skills.

Bush Baby

We found that one can easily self-drive through the parks, offering maximum time and independence.

Kruger National Park was the best for wildlife. You barely had to try, there were so many animals. The Saint Lucia NP near Durban was equally as yielding of flora and fauna and has a spectacular beach to boot. All in all, Saint Lucia might have been my favorite place for wildlife viewing because I like the ecosystem there in general. The first African animal I saw in the wild was this zebra. It was completely unexpected, as we had no idea there were zebras in the St. Lucia wetlands area. I will never forget this moment.

There are opportunities to see wildlife outside of the national parks, too. Whales can be seen off of the southern Cape--especially the town of Hermanus in November (peak whale season).

Southern Right Whale

African Penguins with babies

Did you know there were penguins in South Africa? I didn't--I thought they were only in Antarctica. So these colonies were a treat to see. The one at Betty's Bay was very nice and natural. The more popular place to visit is Boulder Beach. Boulder Beach is pretty but the penguin sanctuary is touristy.

mature African Penguin

Baboons are common throughout South Africa, they almost seem ordinary.

Baboon mom and baby--very common to see baboon

In Cape Town is the gorgeous Kirstenbosch Gardens. We were lucky enough to be there when the baby spotted eagle owl left the nest and sat on the ground letting people watch and take pictures of him.

baby spotted eagle owl--huge baby (already almost the size of mom but with only down feathers)

I was lucky enough to catch him mid-yawn, and it looks like he is screaming at me. But he wasn't. Mom looked like she wanted to scream at me for getting close to baby, but she was cool. I got some great photos of the mom.

I also got a picture of a tiny little owl, which was about the size of a man's hand. He did not seem to mind people, either.

We saw all the "big five" (lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhino). The "big five" designation is a pointless classification, but it offers a sort of "check list" when looking for animals. The only one of the five that I could not photo was leopard, because we only saw him briefly, he was in shade, and far away. What's even more amazing is all the other animals we saw, too--lots of hippos, at least five different types of antelope, and many many beautiful birds including ibises and sunbirds.

Cape Buffalo--saw a lot of these, always in herds

Black rhino--very rare, but we saw several. Always alone. 

Even for non-nature lovers, animals are a highlight of South Africa. I'm going to miss them, just like I am going to miss a lot of things about this country.

ostrich in the wild--they always appear curious and look right at you.

I am also aware that there is too little being done about poaching, rhinos especially. They are really incredible creatures. When you see one, it is like staring back into time. They and ostriches seem like the prehistoric creatures or living fossils.

I think it is atrocious that some tourists want to stay on one of the lame game ranches that buy the "big five" just so tourists can come and shoot them as trophies. There is actually a market for that kind of tourism. I call it small penis tourism, because it says a lot about the character of those consumers.
If anyone wants some tips on safari or anything else related to traveling in South Africa please let me know and I will try to help.