ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

A Florida swamp: Turkey Creek near Melbourne Baked Crabs at Ozzys' near Palm Bay The Desert Inn at Yeehaw Junction Baby Backribs, Palm Bay Airboat ride on the Saint John River Saturday night at the County Line Saloon Fruit and nut stands on the way to Saint Augustine The Skyway bridge near Tampa and Clearwater A Southern mansion in Mount Doro Sunday afternoon country music jam in Malabar Though it was written in 1981, Joel Garreau's book The Nine Nations of North America is, in my opinion, still valid. In it, Garreau suggests that North America can be divided into nine regions, or "nations", which have distinctive economic and cultural features. He also argues that conventional national and state borders are largely artificial and irrelevant, and that his "nations" provide a more accurate way of understanding the true nature of North American society. [Taken from Wikipedia: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America ] Florid...

Lok Kai Yik: An almost extinct Peranakan dish Close-up pf Lok Kai Yik in all its glory Sambal Belachan: A fiery hot chili dip with fermented shrimp paste When I heard that Charlie's Peranakan* Restaurant in Singapore's Katong district was closing down, I cancelled a trip to photograph newly discovered African catfish species at Qian Hu fishfarm. *For more about Peranakans see http://www.fu-lu-shou.net/2009/02/my-peranakan-heritage-discovering.html Peranakan food is already an endangered cuisine. Lok Kai Yik is even more a highly endangered dish within Peranakan cuisine. The elaborate preparations, the labor-intensive activities and the huge assortment of ingredients that go into making a Peranakan dish make it a less commercially viable cuisine. But the main reason for Charlie's closing down was not for lack of clientele. It was because the Singapore government had just raised the levy for the foreign workers which many Singapore restaurants depended on as the locals are ...

The magnificent-looking Chief of the Swamp Aborigines Welcome sign to the Village: "Charcoal Junction Village" The jetty at our yard bordering the swamp Big Stork standing on roof of house Just caught: A Civet Cat Mangrove wood for making charcoal Aborigine children eating their meal An Aborigine child Bitter Gourd stuffed with fish and shrimp meat Making charcoal from Mangrove wood Mother and Baby Idyllic vilage scene Wild jungle flower Wild Boar Soup with White Peppercorns Wild Boar Trotters in Black Vinegar and Soya Sauce Woman collecting mangrove wood The oil rig yard we are constructing in Johor, Malayisa is near a mangrove swamp. The swamp is well-preserved and teeming with wild-life. A community of Aborigines belonging to the Seletar tribe of sea aborigines live in a village called Kampong Simpang Arang or Charcoal Junction Village . The tribe earn their living by making charcoal from the hard Bakau or mangrove tree wood, and by catching Crabs, Fish Sh...

Old folks in Chinatown San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco-similar to many Chinatowns all over the wolrd A Dim Sum Restaurant in San Francisco Whether its Philadelphia, San Francisco, downtown Manhattan, Flushing, Queens in NYC or Orlando, Florida-Chinatowns in American cities are enclaves with an environment totally different from the rest of the district they are located in. With their food, noise, smells, medicinal herbs, Chinese signage, ethnic Chinese bus drivers and policemen, even their own newspapers, Chinese in America can, (if they choose to) live a life steeped in their own culture, only having to learn very basic English to communicate with the outside world. A casual visitor will have a general impression that these are thriving enclaves, with the Chinese acumen for business fueling all manner of enterprise serving both the inhabitants of Chinatown as well as the world outside. Governments all over the world deal with the problem of enclaves of minority communities n...

1. Freshly brewed Kopi Luwak 2. In the packaging of the kopi luwak, the story of its origin 3. The certificate, and serial number of the 10g kopi luwak satchel 4. Rawon dish: salted egg, chili paste, shrimp cracker, cucumber, and bean sprouts 5. The rich consomme of beef and buah keluak the poisonous seed To my many American friends who find their breakfast coffee as unexciting as their Budweiser Light, I recommend a cup of Kopi Luwak coffee. The Luwak, a species of Civet Cat ( Paradoxurus hermaphroditus ) that lives in the coffee plantations of Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi islands of Indonesia has a nose for selecting only the best (in terms of ripeness and nutrition)coffee berries. In the process it deposits the undigested beans on the jungle floor where they are eagerly picked up by the locals. Somehow the stomach acids and enzymes of the Luwak turns these beans into arguably the best tasting coffee in the world. And definitely the rarest. A cup of certified-authentic kopi luwak c...

'72 Fender Telecaster Thinline G&L Tribute ASAT Classic Bluesboy Made in USA guitars are increasingly becoming beyond the reach of ordinary working jazz guitar players. With Gibson jazz archtops priced between US$6000-US$15000, its time to ask if we are paying a premium just for the brand name and the image that goes with it. In fact its time to re-look whether a jazz archtop is de rigueur for playing jazz. It is possible to get that fat mellow tone which is the characteristic of jazz guitar music without using a big hollow-body guitar. A favorite of many jazz guitar players has been the Fender Telecaster, a solid body guitar that is usually associated with Country music. When played with the neck pickup, using flatwound strings and good technique, a Tele with Rosewoord fingerboard can sound pretty jazzy. Ed Bickert, Joe Pass, Lenny Breau and many others have used Teles for their music. Perhaps its that string-through body, that sweet neck pick-up, the brass saddles, or mayb...

1. Stir-fried Mud Crab 2. Beer maid serving Thai Singha beer 3. A hearty fish stew 4. Pictorial Menu Singapore has a reputation as a country where everything works, the streets are safe and clean, and everything has been carefully planned. But there are a few areas in Singapore where the more colorful, unplanned and chaotic side of society can be seen. The enclave of Geylang, once notorious for its Triad gangs, prostitution and gambling has been sanitized, but not totally. Red-light areas have been designated (only permitted on even-numbered roads) and the girls who ply the trade have their hygiene enforced. But the new face of Geylang is as a place where the Mainland Chinese workers and immigrants gather. The large numbers of mainland Chinese come from all regions of China from Jilin in the North, to Central provinces like Hunan and Hubei, Western provinces like Sichuan, and the coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong. Dozens of restaurants and food stalls have sprung up to ca...