Charmed - a travel journal (Part 2)

Day two. Sunny day but a bit chilly. And a bit of a rough start for me as we didn’t have time for breakfast before we hopped on a trolley tour of Savannah. My foggy mind was slowly waking up to the sights and sounds of the city. But when Forrest Gump showed up unexpectedly at one of our stops with a box of chocolates, looking for Lieutenant Taylor, I perked up. The tour guide pointed out the landmarks and the layout of the city around 21 squares. He also was my first introduction to the southern drawl. The easy pace of the place reflected in his manner of speech. What he narrated in 90 minutes I could have rattled off in 15 minutes flat. But wouldn’t be nearly as interesting, now would it?

Once the tour ended, we didn’t waste any time looking for a place to eat. 'B Matthews' was another one of those popular, well-recommended restaurants. Busy and a bit hip, the food was excellent. They had vegan friendly items on the menu and for once, it was nice to have a choice. Their black eyed pea cake sandwich tasted good and was filling. That and three cups of coffee and a nice long chat revived me.

After lunch, we took a tour of the ‘Owens-Thomas House’. It's an old Regency style mansion built in the early nineteenth century by an English whiz-kid architect, William Jay, for one of the wealthy residents of Savannah. The docent walked us through the house and explained the history, the structure, the architecture and interesting tidbits about the many residents of the house interspersed by reminders to not lean in or touch anything. Photography was not allowed inside the building, so we had to take it all in and rely on our memory to reminisce. What impressed me most was the huge rainwater cisterns built into the building that provided water for the indoor plumbing. This was about two hundred years ago. Wow!!  The Greek symbols, the eye-pleasing symmetry, faux finishes (none of us could understand why), the large dining room with amber colored glass skylights and the beautiful shades of green, beige and pink in the women’s parlour were the highlights of the house. But the most we talked about after the tour was the ‘haint paint’ in the slave quarters - a shade of blue paint to ward off evil spirits.

Strolling around the many squares, we stepped into SCAD’s art store to browse. The paintings, handmade jewelry and knick-knacks were all a little too abstract and daring, not to mention expensive, for our inartistic eyes. So we walked out the store empty handed. G was on a quest to capture every interesting door we came across for a collage she is working on. Almost every house had them - doors of course, but interesting ones at that. We admired the houses, the iron gates and railings and small gardens in quaint little enclosed alleyways. Walking by the famous Mercer-Williams house, we could picture some of the events that happened there from The Book but none of us felt compelled to take a tour of the interiors. We were content to just walk around and observe everything that caught our eye.

Working our way to Forsyth Park we couldn’t help but appreciate the sunshine and the mild weather. The fountain at the park was spouting off water that was colored green in preparation for the city’s famous St.Patrick’s day celebrations the following weekend. The wide path leading up to the fountain was lined with live oaks and flowering bushes. Azaleas were in bloom everywhere. We did some people-watching from a park bench for a while - tourists clicking pictures, a couple doing yoga in the park, a newly married couple still in their wedding garb and a bunch of scallywags (as E called them) lounging around.



Time for our evening cuppa. We landed at a one-of-a-kind store called ‘The Salt’ that sourced tea from all over the world and sold an unusual product, Himalayan salt. The store owner was doing the rounds answering questions about the tea and the Himalayan-salt cutting boards. An ingenious idea for a cutting board! Talk about an eco-friendly product. I made a mental note to buy myself one in the near future. All quenched and feeling a wee-bit educated about the million flavours of tea, salt and spices, we meandered our way back to our hotel.

E had booked a table for us at 'The Olde Pink House' to celebrate N’s birthday. The restaurant was in an old Georgian mansion with a pink stucco exterior (hence the name) and tables set in rooms and in multiple floors, all still intact. Each room was done in a different color. We were seated in the purple room. A huge portrait of the ex-Lady of the house, Mrs.Habersham, was mounted on one of the walls, her eyes staring down at us. Despite the elegance, the place had somewhat of an eerie air to it. Maybe the spooky feeling came from listening to all those stories about the haunted bathrooms in the mansion. But it was easy to distract ourselves by indulging on the menu.

The birthday girl chose Malbec for a birthday toast. I had a delicious arugula salad with pecans, walnuts and strawberries with sweet potatoes and grilled mushrooms with balsamic sauce. G’s flounder warranted a mini ‘how-to’ from the waitress. E gave her pan seared salmon ‘the best salmon I had ever had’ award. And N chose a chicken dish. Dessert was rightfully decadent. My cup of fresh, succulent, hand-picked (or so it seemed) berries, wasn’t decadent but I devoured it nevertheless and washed it all down with some excellent coffee.

We rushed to the Savannah theatre just in time to watch ‘Jukebox journey’. The show was a nostalgic musical journey from the 1940s through the 60s. It was not a packed theatre but the audience was engaged and visibly enjoyed the music. Most of the songs were familiar but I could not place some of them. Despite that, I couldn't resist joining the audience in cheering and clapping to the music. It was very entertaining to watch these talented musicians perform on stage. There was a little skit in the show where this young, shy and nerdy couple seated in a restaurant are looking over the menu. The girl, with humongous glasses and a goofy snorty laugh says she is going to have the ‘filet mignon’ pronouncing every letter in those words. The guy, wearing glasses mended with white tape right smack on the bridge of his nose, corrects her, leaving out the ‘t’ in 'filet' but still pronouncing every letter in ‘mignon’. And so the girl, with a dismissive wave of her hand smiles and exclaims ‘Oawhh.. Spanish!’ It served as fodder for humour during our subsequent meals:-) 

When the show ended, we took our time walking back through the lighted squares stopping for a brief pow-wow at Tomochichi’s grave. Focus lights shining on the monument reached up to the trees and made them seem surreal. If only the trees could talk... 

We stopped for a nightcap at the Moon River Brewing company, a haunted (or so the guide books said) micro brewery that was right across from our hotel. The coriander flavored beer was good but an utter waste on me - would they find it ridiculous if I asked for the beer in a shot glass, you know just so I can sample it? I didn't find out. It was some time before we called it a day. And when everyone was in deep slumber and it was all dark and quiet, I was wired and spooked out from all those ghostly stories I'd heard through the course of the day. Now why didn’t they think of using haint paint on these walls?

Charmed - a travel journal (Part 1)

As any bookworm would attest to, books have the magic of transporting us to different worlds. This time though it transpired to be a bit more actual than imaginary. It started with my friend E’s recommendation that I read John Berendt’s  ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ (from here on referred to as ‘The Book’). She had skimmed past Savannah, GA during one of her travels and wanted to explore the city and the book happened to piqued her interest even more. She started hatching a plan for a girls-only trip to Savannah.

By the time our cozy group of four had read the book, we were all curious and eager to visit the place and see for ourselves what the book so beautifully described. A non-judgemental narrative about an actual murder trial that took place in the 1980s in downtown Savannah and the colorful characters who lived there at that time. To spin the happenings of a community and weave the characters and their lives as if it were a work of fiction I felt, required great talent. It captured what I understand to be the essence of Savannah - charming, friendly, intriguing, colorful and loaded with history. And so it came about - a trip to Savannah with friends E,G and N.  

And now, a little about my travelling companions:
E : Our trip planner. An energetic, thoughtful person and a travel buff who is my inspiration to get off my rear end and do instead of just dream. In preparation for our journey, she hosted a classy southern style dinner and a movie (based on The Book) at her place a couple of weeks before the trip. She took the time to research and draft a general itinerary.
G : Our funny bone. Her art commentary during museum visits is sidesplitting and will make you appear like a giggly teenager to museum guards. She has an uncanny knack for observing people and their quirks or should I say, spotting quirky people. And don’t let her cute gelasin fool you, I have heard she can have you in a headlock before you can say Jack Robinson.
N: Our navigator. She traveled the world since she was a student, actually experiencing the places in person when I was barely learning about them in books. Her calm and reassuring presence along with her efficient iPhone steered us well and saved us from getting lost whenever I read the map wrong or did not find the sun strategically positioned to orient me.  

It was getting closer to our vacation and though I was very excited about it, I could not shake off the feeling of guilt I had about taking time off from work and family for the trip with friends. But everyone at home was fine with me being away for four days and so I decided I will enjoy myself, learn a thing or two from my travel savvy friends and soak in some Savannah culture.

Day one. Our journey to Savannah was painless even with a two hour delay due to a ‘hydraulic leak’ when switching planes after a layover. Sounded ominous but mattered little as we were asked to hop on a hydraulically sealed one:-) The airport angst I usually feel when traveling was nearly non-existent. Must be the company.

It was still sunny when we landed in Savannah. The airport’s taxi stand with its brick facade, palm trees and a fountain framed with colorful pansies was a refreshing sight to our foliage starved Ohio eyes. A graceful sculpture of an angel in the centre holding a globe with tiny airplanes orbiting around it seemed fitting. Our taxi driver doubled as an introductory guide to Savannah, talking a mile-a-minute about the place, The Book and the people. Except me, everyone else knew how to engage a local in conversation. I was in awe. Note to adult self - it’s okay to talk to strangers. Soon after we dropped our bags in the hotel, we were out the door all fired up to explore the city and scout for a good restaurant for dinner.

The first thing that captured my attention were the trees that lined the streets - live oaks with spanish moss (which as one tour guide put it, is neither spanish nor moss) hanging on them. To actually see these trees with big gnarly branches that lent Savannah so much of its character in The Book was like going back in time. N navigated us to ‘Vic’s on the river’, a restaurant suggested by a local writer whom E had reached out to for recommendations. We spent the 40 minute wait for our table by strolling down the cobbled ballast stone ramps to the riverwalk nearby. Remnants of a bustling port city now refurbished to house elegant riverfront restaurants, shops and hotels. Didn’t realize until after our city tour the next day that we had walked through old facilities were cotton was loaded, unloaded and graded. What was obvious to us though were the riverboats gliding down the Savannah river, the Talmadge bridge and the lights from Hutchinson Island, from across the river.

We spent about three hours enjoying the food, the ambiance and our open, honest and sometimes hilarious conversations. Even the loud stomping from a wedding party upstairs added to the atmosphere of fun elegance, if there indeed is such a thing. In the soft lights and candlelit tables, every dish on the menu looked appetizing. E, our connoisseur, chose the wine, a cabernet sauvignon that we didn’t have to pay a month’s salary for. Fried green tomatoes with goat cheese and tomato chutney seemed to be a southern staple and a must-try. Hmmm... now what’s this haricot vert? Sounds french. When the waitress explained that it was a fancy word for thin green beans, we decided to skip it, french allure notwithstanding. 

The seafood was fresh off of Savannah’s waters, except of course G’s salmon. It found it’s way to her plate all the way from Chile, if I remember right. My cooked salad greens with fingerling sweet potatoes tasted delicious. E and N’s delectable grouper left no room for dessert, however tempting the choices were. I, on the other hand was glad I did not have a choice. I can always make room for dessert. While we lingered over dinner, the crowd thinned towards closing time. The noise level died down and we could now actually hear the live music well enough to appreciate it. The dinner set the tone for our trip - great camaraderie in a wonderful southern setting.

Critical Mass

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

Most of us have issues we would like to work on when we are not all caught up in getting through the day and convenience is king. We put them in a back burner to address it some day in the future. Some day when we find the time and energy to craft good solutions for it. Unfortunately, the number of burners in my back row is growing and none of them ever really move up to the front. But sometimes, as it happens with such things, once in a while, one of those issues reaches critical mass and then ...your focus shifts. You are pounded with a barrage of information that serves as reminders wherever you turn - a news segment, a sound byte, an essay, a conversation over dinner....

What surfaced up from the deep dark recesses of my mind is not something I am proud of. It is to do with how wasteful I am with produce in the kitchen. Perfectly good produce. I load up on vegetables, fruits and dairy for the week. And some weeks, it is all good when most of these get used up right away. But as I am writing this post, there are two bags of grapes, six plums, a couple of apples, oranges, a pear, two packets of herbs, slabs of cheese, a packet of baby carrots and a carton of milk that have been festering as fodder for a petri dish.

I buy these with the best of intentions. I stock up on fruits so I don’t ever run out of them. But for some reason or another, they never make it to the table. This despite all of us being fruit lovers in the family. So I must be buying more than we need or maybe we are not eating enough of them. Whatever it is, it ends up in the compost bin.

There are so many ways that food is wasted in this country and elsewhere. It happens every day and in huge amounts. Not to shift the blame onto someone else, but it seems that supermarkets and restaurants are two of the biggest transgressors. There was a story in the news about how one of the restaurants had hired a consulting company to evaluate how much waste they produce. But the whole exercise was viewed as an encumbrance. It was interrupting the kitchen’s workflow and the already overworked employees could not find the time for it. As it affected only about 2% of the cost, reducing food waste is not really a priority for restaurants.

So how about supermarkets and grocery stores? I assumed that they would have gotten better at planning and stocking to reduce the produce that ends up in the dumpster everyday. After all it is a percentage of their cost that they can do away with. But it doesn't appear to be so. It was an eyeopener for me to find out that there are people who have, for years, salvaged perfectly good produce that supermarkets throw in the dumpster. There are even freegan (I know, I had never heard of it either) websites that tell you where to go dumpster diving to get the best stuff.

Then there is wastefulness buried in regulation and bureaucracy. It is mind boggling to read how complicated it is to store and distribute food in this global market. And the most sacrilegious of all is to use food as a means of protest, and I am not talking about hunger strikes here. The European farmers protest in Brussels might be a valid fight for the farmers, but the way they went about it is, in my opinion, irresponsible. All this wastefulness is even more horrifying when considering the number of people who go hungry.

Of course there are people and organizations that try to tackle the problem. We are all reminded to be mindful consumers. Businesses are encouraged to donate leftover food to charity. There are tonnes of resources to educate ourselves on the imbalance of abundance and scarcity in the world.

To me, all of this information brings into focus the glaring ways I am wasteful at home. I don’t have any grand ideas for solving world hunger. Neither do I have any intelligent arguments on how to weave through the complexities of the global food crisis. But I do know that I should be grateful for the abundance around me. And to be conscious of the fact that what I throw away could have nourished someone starving.