Travel

When you board an airplane and walk past the first-class passengers settling into their double-wide seats, it’s difficult to avoid feeling like a second-class citizen. The issue isn’t only personal space. As the curtain closes behind the lucky few, you know the crew is preparing a nonstop feast for those with plenty of disposable income.

You can almost see the French cheeses and crackers on a tray with glasses of bubbly Champagne, an opulent first course meant to stimulate the appetite before a gourmet entree — chateaubriand, perhaps, or line-caught salmon with roasted asparagus. If you listen closely, you can hear the flight attendant whispering to leave room for the hot fudge sundae with fresh whipped cream and toasted almonds.

In coach, nothing is free. Sure, for now the sodas, water, and coffee are still complimentary, but if you’re hungry, have your credit card ready. Alaska Airline’s cheeseburger with chips is a relative bargain at $6, but Delta charges $9.49 for their hamburger and $10.99 for one of their wraps, and a vending-machine-type sandwich or salad is $9.99 on American Airlines.

You’ll do a lot better if you brown bag it and pretend you’re on a picnic.

We couldn’t have picked a better day to immerse ourselves in Korean tea shops than a day filled with brisk temperatures and a slight chilly rain. It made our check ins of tea houses much more cozy even though we were on a seriously ambitious mission to sip and sit in a combination of traditional and modern establishments.

We started at Miss Lee, a colorful and playful tea house washed in bright colors and natural woods. If I was looking for a quiet austere place for tea this sure wasn’t it! We arrived for an early lunch of bento boxes with a variety of teas. There’s something to know about the world of Korean tea:  it’s not necessarily always based on traditional tea plants and their leaves. It’s a world that encompasses fruits, seeds, twigs, roots and leaves, not to mention some grains and barley and rice.

The flavors of a rainbow are all here, from sour and astringent to candy-like and sweet. One of my favorites was Omijacha, made from the dried berries of the Schisandra chinensis and called the Five Flavors tea because it has sweet, salty, bitter, sour and pungent notes. Served either hot or cold, Korean teas are consumed for health and vitality but to me some are just plain fun: give me a cup of Yujacha (citron) any day for dessert and I’d be a happy man.

We were going to take a cab to Damascus for dinner, but we couldn’t get our visas, so we headed south.  I was in Jordan, the Middle Eastern Sundance Lab had ended.  The aspiring filmmakers and their mentors were dispersing back home to Cairo, Beruit, Ramallah and Casablanca.

With time on our hands – the writer’s strike had been called 24 hours before – a fellow mentor and I headed south with our guide, Mohammad Gabaah, to the desert of the Wadi Rum (The Valley of the Mountains, in southern Jordan.)  You’ve all seen it –  yes, you have – even though you don’t realize  it.   It’s the last leg of the journey T.E. Lawrence took, when he crossed on camel to get to Aqaba, 45 miles west.  (The guns are no longer facing the wrong direction.)   And where David Lean spent nine months shooting his hagiographic biopic.

Well, the first thought I had driving through the streets of Edinburgh (and then later by train on the Royal Scotsman) is that the most impressive thing about Scotland is the great big hairy-chested men that roam about - similar perhaps to the “We like great big hairy- chested men – we are the senior class” which we used to sing about so wistfully at Marlborough. Now I know about which I sang! Seeing these critters who do indeed roam the streets in thin tee shirts and shorts when the rest of the world around them are dressed in sweaters and jackets, only remind me that they toss trees (the Caber Toss) in contest at the Highland Games and that in Clan Fightin’ Days of Yore, they would tear off their kilts to go into battle - running naked through the heather and the thistles. Into Thistles? Naked? Who would dare pick a fight with these manly men?

So what do manly men eat? Well apparently they love dainty frothy deserts like Cranachan (a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey, fresh raspberries with toasted oatmeal soaked overnight in – what else - whiskey), Bread and Butter Pudding, and Edinburgh Fog with Sponge Fingers - whilst consuming a great deal of Whisky and Vanilla Fudge… together!

Sounds good to me! Also sounds kinda like Southern Cookin’ (see earlier recipe on Mary K’s Pig Pickin’ Cake). Surely if Texans (Scots Irish to the bone) like their bacon baked in brown sugar until crisp) we can down our whisky with vanilla fudge. (Interesting factoid, the most delicately tinted whisky is distilled in used Tennessee Bourbon kegs)