I shot three pigs in the head this month.  One friend noted that kind of makes me the big bad wolf.  I identified with that.  We didn’t feed the pigs breakfast on the first day so when we offered Pig 1 some fresh grain and produce just outside the pen, he walked right out.  I wasn’t going to fuck this part up.  “Imagine an X between the ears and the eyes” I was told.  I held the .22 Magnum Long Rifle about 6 inches from his skull and pulled the trigger.

He went straight down and started convulsing.  Someone went straight in with a boning knife and cut the jugular on one side.  A crew jumped on top of the pig and started pumping the legs, trying to force as much blood as possible out.  Someone else was there catching the blood in a stainless steel bowl, stirring constantly to prevent coagulation.

Once most of the blood was out and the pig was still, we dragged it to our hoist rig next to the fifty-five gallon drum of 145 degree water.  We hoisted him up, dunked him halfway for five minutes, scraped all the hair off, and then did the same thing to the other side.  Next we cut his head off.  Then someone cut around the asshole, tied it off with some twine, and proceeded to open up the belly.  The guts came out fairly easily and were buried, minus the heart and liver.

At this point two guys began sawing the pig in half, so I headed back out to take care of Pig 2.  Pig 2 was way more of a bear getting out of the pen.  After a fair bit of prodding and bribing he came out completely on edge.  He smelled the site of where Pig 1 met his fate.  He wouldn’t stop moving.  Finally a piece of corn got him to keep his head in one place long enough to fire off a clean shot.  Down he went and met the same process as the former.

We hauled these 4 half pigs to a local commissary kitchen and hung them from a baker’s rack overnight in a walk-in cooler.  The next afternoon we broke the pigs down.  Once we started cutting and sawing it became clear to me all of the choices I had to make.  What types of cuts and what kinds of meals did I want to come out of my share of a half pig.

One helper in our slaughter group had recently returned from Hungary and made for us a type of Hungarian pasta that kind of resembled orzo but had the texture of cheese curds.  On top of this was made a meat sauce derived from pig heart, liver, and some of the small flank steaks extracted from early on in the butcher process.  Add a little apple cider vinegar, pig blood, white wine, and a few chef’s secrets and it was incredible, minus the texture of the liver.

All pig bellies were salted, peppered, stacked, and stored in a cooler.   The slabs of bacon were drained and flipped every day for a little over a week.  The result is a very salty bacon hanging a slab still in my mud room.  I just brought the ham home last night too after about a month chilling in a salt, sugar, and cider brine.  I now need to cook up some of the lard to seal the exposed meat surfaces.  It too hangs in my mud room.

Pig 3 was offed by professionals three weeks later.  They shot it quick, let it flop, hooked it in the mouth, and dragged it over to their processing truck.  Within about 5 minutes they had the thing almost two thirds skinned.  I had my two daughters in the truck so I left the pig to be processed on her own.  Blood was dripping out of a side door of the big silver meat processing truck.  There were already 4 half cows hanging inside.

Pig 4, aka Final Pig, was scheduled for the very next day.  I was late arriving because I had to accompany my wife in fulfilling our duties as members of a goat milking cooperative.  When I arrived the crew was all there, and the water was hot.  I walked in the house, grabbed the gun and headed back outside.  I was a little wired due to being late.  I said something to the effect of “Let’s do this” and entered the outer pen where Final Pig was already roaming around.  This pig knew something was up.  There was already someone else in the pen but the pig kind of charged at me, trying to bite my leg a little.  I smacked it and pushed back on her.  Another guy bribed her with a hamburger bun and I took my shot when it was there.

Down she went.  She was processed without issue and spent the night hanging from our hoist with no head cut in half.  The next day she too was processed and half of her now resides in my freezer in the garage.

I picked up the pigs from a farm in the county with my eldest daughter who was almost 4 at the time.  There were probably 15 piglets, roughly 50 pounds each.  A farmer friend who had picked up the pigs for me helped catch them.  Tricking them with food or the possibility of food he would grab a pig by the back leg while it would kick and scream bloody murder.  Aila was standing outside of the fence with her hands over her ears.  I held open the coffee bag while the pig was dropped in head first.  The bag was tied and placed in the back of my truck.  Once all 4 pigs were bagged and in the truck, we drove down and hosed them off as it was a hot day and I had a half hour drive back to our urban pig farm.

I will do it again.  We cooked up one of the pork chop roasts a week ago with the inch thick back fat still on.  It was incredible.

I kind of miss the pigs.  I can’t believe I killed 3 of them.  I still don’t understand life and death.

CC Elder

12/6/11

This fall we all raised pigs on the farm where we live near Gainesville, Florida. On November 7, Brandon Sheard of Farmstead Meatsmith came and spent three days teaching us how to slaughter and butcher the animals. Below are notes from my journal and photographs from the slaughter.

11/7 – The day before

In preparation for the slaughter, listen to Cotton by the Mountain Goats on repeat:

this song is for the soil
that’s toxic clear down to the bedrock
where no thing of consequence can grow
drop your seeds there
let them go, let them all go…

the butcher is here
life takes life
we must rejoice

11/8 – Before we begin

I wake up every hour, hot and achy. Thought it would be cold, but it isn’t.
You feel like you’ve been in an oven, Nic says when I hug her good morning, sleep still in my face.

Wake up to the sound of knives being sharpened: metal sliding over wet stone. The butcher is standing in the kitchen in his socks and t-shirt, lanky with hairy forearms. The butcher wears a wedding band and has fingernails like nuts or spoons. Smooth ovals I think about eating, pressing to the roof of my mouth, like a Pablo Neruda poem.
I want to watch people do things with their hands forever.
(this is not an occupation)

As soon as I met him I felt better. Dread dissipates when you can give it up to a professional: someone else will hold the gun. He is so nice and makes us feel like we’ve done a good job. That our pigs are: Very friendly. Good size. Nice pigs.

The night before the slaughter I have a sex dream. I have a dream about going back to my grade school. In the dream I lean my face against a girl’s soft belly. Do that again, she says, or maybe she sends me a text message.

11/9 – Morning

Where did he go, Maureen asks, after the first pig is shot. We drag the limp body.

Scurf is the layer of hair, dirt, and outermost skin. scald for five minutes at 145°F and then scrape off. You need a chain hoist, a 55 gallon drum with the top cut out, and a large propane burner, Brandon’s wife had written in her email to us, telling us how to get ready. Suburban girls try to walk tough, look like they know stuff, when they go to Home Depot. Cable sling, cable sling, I repeat over and over in my head, until I find it.

We eat liver in the barn, standing around the cast iron skillet. Tastes like it came out of a body, pasty and rich. The tiny slices of hanger steak and skirt steak, thin soft muscle with a puff of white fat. We eat the trotters: bony and greasy. Slippery tails with tiny tiny bones inside. Ears which crisp to bubbly skin on either side of a sheet of white cartilage. We are hungry and filthy, animals eating animals.

Before dinner I read the hog killing scene from Little House in the Big Woods:

“It doesn’t hurt him, Laura,” Pa said. “We do it so quickly.” . . .  It was such a busy day, with so much to see and do. Uncle Henry and Pa were jolly, and there would be spare-ribs for dinner, and Pa had promised Laura and Mary the bladder and the pig’s tail.

11/9 – Evening

Brandon is the midwife of death, Jasmine whispers to me as we hold each other
Brandon is the midwife of death, Jasmine says to the side of my face, as Brandon crosses himself and kneels on our dead pig, still convulsing, to bleed it out.
Helping the heart. Its last beats.

11/10 – After

I will never write about the slaughter. I will never write about the slaughter. I will never finish writing about the slaughter. When we eat the meat, I have to tell myself: This is the body of our pigs. The debt that can never be repaid.

After, we parse out the details, we make a story:
Pigs aren’t afraid of dying the way we are. Even after they hear one shot they aren’t afraid of the rifle, or the next shot. They do not mourn their fallen brothers.
They are not afraid of the same things we are: Dying or missing our loved ones.

The pigs are dead. We killed them, strung them up by the strong tendons in their trotters, scalded in a barrel and scraped all their hair off, and the outside layer of dirty skin.

waiting for the first shot/waiting for the last shot
waiting for the first shot/waiting for the last shot

::

For a closer look at the butchering process, as well a little history, take a moment to watch On the Anatomy of Thrift, a beautiful instructional film done by Farmstead Meatsmith (the butcher who Kristen mentions in this article), and Farmrun, an agricultural media company based in the Pacific Northwest.

Message Body: ”Game over,” she said. Actually, she typed it. Lazily, the fingers of her left hand dancing over the keyboard, nails electric green & badly chipped.  Absentminded. It took no effort.  Two words. Nine keystrokes. No punctuation even. She turned back to her carrot, the task at hand. Plunging it into the hummus, bringing it up dripping in the stuff. Carefully licking off the dip before sticking it in again. A vehicle, that’s all. Just a way to get hummus from bowl to mouth. But she didn’t think about this. Not outright. Didn’t regard the carrot as some meaningful indicator of her lifestyle, generally.

He screen buzzed with activity. She turned away. It was true that she used people, like the carrot. How many ex-boyfriends had accused her of being heartless, cold? Four. Probably five now. How many friends had cited irreconcilable differences? At least half dozen. She could break people apart. Not literally. She just saw what she needed in people and extracted it. Of course all games grow dull after a time. But she wasn’t thinking about this. Couldn’t articulate this about herself. No, her mind traced the crack up the wall, it met the ceiling, splintering off like a badly broken windshield. She grinned.

She turned back to face her laptop, brows together. The swat was unnecessarily forceful, the screen snapped closed. She thought of the first time he kissed her. Too much tongue, like drowning. She made a mental note not to forget this. If a boy couldn’t even kiss a girl properly there wasn’t need to discover all the other things he couldn’t do to one. She licked hummus from the corner of her mouth.

-

This mail was sent via the anonymous tip form on High Contrast Review http://highcontrastreview.com/anonymous

Photo: Albertas Agejevas

Response:  Hummus is the arabic word for Chickpea.  Next time you need to dump somebody over the internet, be sure you have a bowl of this delicious snack on hand.

Cold & Heartless Hummus Recipe:

• 2 cups cooked chickpeas (Also called garbanzo beans- the Spanish name for chickpeas)
• Cook dried chickpeas yourself, or buy two 8 oz cans of prepared- but be sure to rinse and drain them!
• 2-4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (I don’t measure, I just splash some in when I am feeling heartless)
• 2-4 garlic cloves, mashed (Depending on taste, and how cold you want to act)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 Tbsp. tahini
• Salt to taste

Place ingredients in blender or food processor. Or use a mortar and pestle for added effect. Blend until desired texture is achieved. Some people prefer chunky hummus, others want creamy smooth hummus.

Serve with fresh vegetables, warmed pita bread, toast, burgers, scrambled eggs, apple slices, on a sandwich….  Carrots are nice.

*Optional ingredients you can add to the blender or simply use to garnish your hummus (Use two or three if you’re feeling particularly heartless): Parsley, paprika, lemon zest, roasted red peppers, crushed red pepper, tapenade/olives, any chopped nuts, cumin, sun-dried tomatoes, greek yogurt, eggplant, sauteed spinach or any greens, ginger.

- Caroline McCarty

Jamie Oliver place in Clapham. - Nick Craig

2012 is getting closer, and nobody knows what will happen.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe a dramatic shift in consciousness and global awareness. Who knows.  Aliens.  But with these three historical battle foods, as well as some limes, you should be mostly fine.

1. Hard Tack – Civil war soldiers and calvarymen gnawed on this basic wheat cracker.  Here’s a couple historical recipes.  If you have hard tack with all three meals, carbohydrates will give you positive energy for success.  Served best soaked in Rum or Whiskey, though the authentic method is to use plain old water.
2. Salt Pork – Good in camp or at sea, you can make this fatty staple yourself if you have a cool cellar to hang it in while it cures.  Here’s a basic recipe for old German salt pork.  Take special note of the Nitritpökelsalz.  A diet richin salt pork will give you lasting energy to resist or initiate sieges, and builds character.
3. Scotch – Sufficient to fortify scotsmen for charging into battle, Scotch does the trick when you want a reliable drink between the action.  Any spirit will do, however, so here’s ways you can make corn whiskey, rye whiskey or plain old moonshine at home!

Also known as cotton candy, spun sugar, candy floss, and to many young children- old lady hair. This confection was simply strings of melted sugar, until recently. Now it’s playing an integral role in the development of artificial organs.

Note the ankle bandanas worn by the people who make cotton candy in Mexico City in the park of Chapultepec. The park features a castle built by the Spanish beside a lake, paddle boat rental, and a butterfly garden. In other words, pretty much everything.

Scientist Leon Bellan of Cornell’s Nanobiotechnology Center, along with others,  is working on a way to create a transplantable circulatory system, which would be a breakthrough in artificial organ development, as each and every organ requires blood circulation. One of the main obstacles of creating a microvascular system has been mimicking the size of capillaries. Cotton candy is similar to the human capillary system in size and structure. By creating a mold of cotton candy’s structure system, scientists are able to create an intricate network of channels, much like the channels in our complicated circulatory systems.

Next, they need to find a way to replicate this network with a tissue that the body would accept. After that, there will be the hurdle of connecting the synthetic tissue with the rest of a human’s circulatory system.

::

It would probably be very difficult to make a mold of cotton candy in your kitchen, since cotton candy is s fragile. And I’m not sure why anyone would want to make a mold of cotton candy in their kitchen, so instead, here’s a method for the first part involved in making a mold- making cotton candy.

There are three ways to make cotton candy. Buy a machine, build a machine, or make it the old-fashioned way (properly know as spun candy).

SPUN CANDY (Courtesy of WikiHow.com)

TIPS

Put newspaper or some sort of cover on the floor. This might get messy. And sticky.

Set up your work space before you heat the sugar. It’s cools off fast. You’ll have 10 min at the most once the sugar is taken off the stove.

It might be more time effective to use a whisk- cut the end of it off so you have pokey tines instead of a rounded end.

You can add food coloring or flavoring (vanilla extract, essential oils) during step 1. A little goes a long way.

Try this without kids, first.

You’ll need a candy thermometer.

Be careful not to burn yourself!

PROCEDURE

1) Heat 2 cups of granulated sugar, 1/2 cup of water, and 1/2 teaspoon of light corn syrup over medium-low heat in a saucepan equipped with a candy thermometer.

2) Stir until sugar is dissolved, and then raise burner temperature to high.

3) Watch pot carefully, heating until the mixture reaches 310 degrees Fahrenheit (the “hard-crack” candy stage).

4) Remove pot from heat immediately and let sit for a moment, so the syrup starts to become more viscous.

5) Use a fork (or modified whisk!) to dip into the syrup and then drizzle it quickly onto a surface that has been coated with some non-stick cooking spray. Try making shapes, patterns, and 3 dimensional forms by drizzling over bowls and such.

6) Once you have the process mastered, it is also possible to drizzle over an oiled metal rod that is suspended above the floor (i.e. a metal spoon that is hung off of the counter with a heavy pan as a counterweight), and then quickly gather the threads with your gloved, oiled hands and long sleeve covered arms before they completely harden, making a more free form ball or nest of cotton candy.

Let me know how this goes, if you try it.

Photo by Sam Kulla

Have you ever wondered about the history of your favorite meal? Depending on which country that dish comes from, the answer to that question can have a great deal of variation that goes beyond culture and social class. The mentality of resourcefulness can be transformed into elegance if the technique and ingredients are executed properly. Take for example, bouillabaisse: a peasant fish stew originating in southern France by fisherman who wanted to create a meal when they returned to port based around the fresh catch of the day. Since rockfish and shellfish were too bony to sell at market level to the upper-class, they kept the ones that got tangled in the nets and made a delicate fish broth, called fumet, out of seafood that had great aromatic flavor which was overlooked by the wealthy- a true secret that was cherished by the fisherman.

However, the momentum of a great idea has a force that can’t be stopped and it never remains a secret for too long. Once chefs got knowledge of what these fisherman were doing they began adding nicer ingredients to their mirepoix & bouquet garni like fennel, leeks and saffron. After a short while the humble notoriety of bouillabaisse found it’s way to Paris and the rest of the world. Brazil has muqueca, Italian fisherman who settled in California created their own version called cioppino consisting of a tomato, garlic & white wine broth. The cultural diffusion of food alone is fascinating, it is tough to tell which ideas are shared and which are innately developed with geography. Describing all the variations of bouillabaisse is like telling a myth that changes as you move through countries, the foundation will always be there but the details will change in parallel fashion to the environment. So Beyond the fisherman in Marseille, the reader may ask, “How far back does the history of this dish go?”

6000 B.C., more or less when the Phocaeans founded Marseille. I enjoy pondering ideas that are this old because you know the shared innovation was slower but more direct. Indirect diffusion is exponentially growing at a fast rate in the 21st century. An idea in earlier civilization may have taken a century to reach the whole world, now ideas and the media can be transparent on the world wide web and accessible in a matter of days to minutes.

Just over a century ago, concepts and trans-cultural diffusion were carried in the minds of men & women on ships bringing innovation (sometimes good, sometimes evil) to a new part of the world. Tradition can be lost through inferiority and sometimes two cultures can each take something which is ordinary, put them together and make something extraordinary. No better tale explains this than the Bahn Mi, which tells the story of French Colonialism in Vietnam all wrapped up into one sandwich. When you take the baguette and tradition of charcuterie you get two important components of French cuisine. Mix with the tropical ingredients of Indochina like cilantro, cucumbers, jalapenos, pickled carrots (daikon) and even bean sprouts to create the perfect accompaniment for the best sandwich on the face of the planet…or at least in the top three.

So what (the reader may ask) is the most amazing detail about it? No cheese! Sure, cheese is a big part of French culture but any type of cheese would not do well in the sweltering heat of that country. This sandwich is undoubtedly Vietnamese.

Every signature dish has the history of people behind it. Gary Kerr calls this the Anthropology of food. Whenever I travel somewhere new I seem to discover the cultural highlights in the cuisine that is more blue collar and overlooked. For example, anyone who has been to “real Mexico” (beyond Cancun & Mazatlan) will tell you that the best tacos are eaten while standing because they come from a street vendor. This is why food blogs have become so popular; cooking equals cultural preservation. It is easy for things to become homogenized in a globalized world. The realization has set in that the source of where something comes from can’t be replaced by the digital age of computers. We simply share our experiences with others hoping they will discover the authenticity of a place by actually going there. I can re-create a bouillabaisse but will I have the patience of a French fisherman who is hungry after a long day out at sea? Everything will be slightly different from the seafood down to the butter I use. I can make pretty good corn tortilla double wrap tacos, but my hands don’t have the 20 plus years experience of a Mexican woman I adore named Emilia: she has lived in Patzcuaro her whole life. The food we make tells the story of our lives: the success and failures, the ingredients we have and the friends who were there for the experience.

photo by Silvio Padron

Eating your favorite food has a theatrical quality similar to sex (this is no secret, hence the endless metaphors throughout time), it’s visceral with sensation & brings you somewhere in the present moment that is also linked to your memory of the past. I challenge everyone to come forward & tell the story of their favorite food. At least it’s not as tawdry as talking about your sex life.

Adam Zuehlke sent this report from the Mysterium in Northeast Minneapolis.

In northern Italy lies quite an impressive practice, and that’s the frequent consumption of carné cruda (raw meat). I wasn’t necessarily shocked; I eat tartar and sushi, but here it feels different; it’s everywhere and everyone eats it. The casual consumption was what got me. From school cafeteria to auto grill; big chain grocer to artisan butcher has the stuff. Almost every menu I’ve come across in this region has some form of carné cruda.

The first encounter I had was Salsiccia di Bra (sausage of Bra), Bra is the name of a small town in Piedmont and the international home of Slow Food. This is a local delicacy, it’s minced Piedmontese veal shoulder with pork fat, stuffed in lamb’s intestine, mildly seasoned and consumed raw. Bovine sausage is not traditionally produced in this region but due to a Jewish community in the nearby town of Cherasco there was a demand for non-pork sausage. Originally it was lean and without the pork fat. I’m not sure when but along the way they obviously couldn’t resist and started adding fat.

The meter or more long ropes of sausage has quite a visual impact. Red ropes looped like a cowboys lasso hung on a hook or piled high, fly out of these butcher shops, these guys have weights memorized by the number of loops around their hands, and are proudly handing it off to old and young.

The skin doesn’t snap as your teeth pinch off a mouthful. The taste is mineral/metallic, fresh, bright, slightly tart, smooth and heavy on white pepper. The texture of the skin was something different but not difficult to overcome. It is served at almost every café during aperitivo. But above all was when my 3 year old daughter just jumped in and went straight for the bright cork sized piece and gobbled it up by the handful as her body just gravitated towards what it wanted.

Another typical dish is hand chopped veal served with olive oil, black pepper and shaved cheese. This is stuff is fantastic, you find a pleasant difference in coarseness and fat ratios from person to person, the hand chopping lends a lighter body than ground meat and gives you that random big chunk that gets passed over.

In a slaughterhouse near the French border we were breaking down veal, and as the Butcher was carving he sliced a thin piece off the shoulder and popped it in his mouth, savored it with glossy eyes, looked to the ceiling in contemplation, nodded his head and went back to work.

Most people in the west have seemed to develop a distaste for raw meat. It’s even seen as frightening or disgusting, or at least unhealthy. When I was a child I saw some movie about a kid who’s parents turned out to be aliens. One of the signs his mother was an alien was when she stood in the kitchen eating raw hamburger from the yellow Styrofoam tray. The scene was scary, and disgusting.

We tend to be forgetful people, always looking to the future and shedding the past. The simple pleasures of eating raw meat are a testament to a rugged and intimate engagement with our food.

Caleb McBee is the food and drink editor for High Con, as well as an accomplished chef and traveler from the Pacific Northwest.

Isn’t is amazing what you can buy on the Internet these days?

In 2009 about 29 new compounds hit the streets and nobody is quite sure where they originated. Labs in China sell it by the kilo, they say. The big one in the UK & Ireland right now is mephadrone, also known as blow, snow, shit coke or ‘meow meow.’  The ‘Head Shops’ sell at 30 euro a gram but all you need is a postal address and a credit card to undercut them.  In bulk, it’s just over one euro a gram and the effective dose is a fraction of even that.

If some drugs are illegal because they are effective the this makes a mockery of the whole thing.  It seems to derive from an African plant but the crystalline substance seems highly manufactured.  ‘At least it’s pure’ they say. Pure what?

Criminals are responding by burning down head shops.  The fact that their business is being robbed is a reason to approve but this whole thing is underscored by a very nasty little fact – it’s addictive, really addictive.

Some people get into drugs. They are dangerous and a lot of users tell you that it goes with the territory. Non-users stay away for this reason but one ‘seasoned’ user told me that he reckoned the ‘legal’ aspect is tricking people into doing rakes of the stuff, people who would probably never stray past the odd puff of a joint. I didn’t want to believe this because of my grand liberal theory about drugs in society – the people who do them know what they are getting into. They have to if they’re sourcing the stuff from criminals and paying through the nose for it.

People used to go to great lengths to get high like this but now all has changed. I’m not talking about smoking a joint here. People who would never otherwise be into this kind of thing are spending weekends without sleeping. They are doing this every weekend but just because they don’t buy it down a back alley doesn’t mean they’re not a swiftly all becoming drug addicts.

In Ireland, it becomes a class B drug in June. The UK has already banned mephadrone but the race to the bottom has already begun – a new, cheaper compound is out and governments will have to legislate all over again. It’s hard to see where it will end but you can imagine T-shirts in ten years time ‘I survived the legal highs wave of 2010.’  A nasty start to the decade, I would say.

Like many travelers to south East Asia, I was first introduced to SangSom on Koh San Road in Bangkok, before I was to be shipped out to the ‘dive scene’ of Koh Tao.  My wife and I were hanging with a local from Bangkok, Trang a jovial young Thai who was the point man for i-to-i, which is a middle-man company in the overseas volunteer industry, a total sham but I digress.

The first night we met Trang, he drove us around Bangkok to a night market as his three year-old daughter Sha La La (named after a stripper) ran laps around the Toyota SUV. After countless Changs, Tigers, and spicy Thai food I don’t recall how we wound up at home but I am sure Trang went off to party with a Pommy ex-pat who was lurking at the market… in hindsight she might be the reason we drove halfway around Bangkok to eat at this non-descript night-market. I felt a bit of guilt when his Japanese born wife naively asked me the next morning if we had stayed with Trang that night and partied.

“No,” I answered as I looked away in shame.

Night 2 Came, and I now realized that Trang liked Western Girls and he liked to party, so I took note when his friend, whom we randomly managed to pick-up on our way to dinner plopped down a fifth of what appeared to be an indiginous inebriator, several small glass bottles of Chang Soda Water and 2 tall glasses filled with circular ice cubes that have a hole through the middle of them. The hole in the ice is quite important to Westerners…the affirming notion that the water is indeed filtered and safe to drink.

Wanting to experience some Thai culture I quickly asked what Trang and his friend were imbibing.

“Thai whiskey”, was the response.

“How do you drink it?” I asked.

“With Soda Water and ice,” giggled Trang.

Hmm soda water, ice, and whiskey seems refreshing I think, as the ever present humidity of Bangkok result in copious amounts of eternal duck butter.

Fashioning myself as some sort of American I felt it as my duty to try some ‘Thai Whiskey.’ They poured me a glass and giggle as I drink giggling more when I confirm that I like it. I am not sure why they are giggling but I will realize a few weeks down the road. It tastes a bit to sweet to be whiskey (I later learn it is actually Rum) but mixed with the soda water there is a refreshing bite to it that balances out the sweetness. I drink a few more after all I am facing an overnight bus ride into the unknown Thai countryside.

SangSom 1 Me 0

The SangSom does the trick, I sleep relatively well waking a few times as I toss and turn on the rocking bus waking in a sleepy port town to catch the boat to Koh Tao. Haley and I decide to escape the doldrums of the dock packed with fellow travelers and take a walk around town. Not much was going on at dusk besides a few drunks and families opening their fruit stalls for the expected morning rush. We do however happen to find a man selling fried dough for 10 Baht, we quickly take the man up on his offering…delicious – this will tide us over for the boat ride until we arrive in Koh Tao.

In Thailand eating and drinking on the run are part of the everyday culture. It is not uncommon to see 12 year olds and adults alike roll up to a food stand on a moped and shortly after speed off with a plastic bag full of ice, soda and a straw. In backpacker-centric Koh Tao this manifests itself in the form of ‘buckets,’ plastic bags full of ice, soda and you guessed it, SangSom. It is with this novel and cheap invention that several thousand youth are getting lifted on Thai beaches every year.

Facing the frugality and possibility of facing 8 more months on the road I could’nt bring myself to purchase a watered down bucket for 500 Baht when I could buy a fifth at the 7eleven for 250 Baht. This plan of thought keeps me safe for a couple of weeks until Haley and I buy some SangSom and decide to check out the Lotus Bar.

For some reason which I still do not understand the Lotus Bar was and probably still is the bar of choice in Sairee. Nothing more than pillows on the beach and firedancers that seem to indulge in the locals as much as vise versa. There are many more pubs & clubs one could visit that have more character. Nonetheless the backpackers flock there nightly like lemmings running over a cliff.

The night starts quiet and simple. We start with our first bottle drinking at our apartment then we poach a bean bag at a random bar on the beach. We start to feel the effects of the first bottle and decide we need more, so we step into one of the ever present 7Elevens…ahh air conditioninng. Before we know it we are floating on air waltzing into the Lotus Bar taunting the bartender with the fact that we brought our own booze and will not be purchasing any buckets. I am still amazed how we did not end up at the mercy of Thai mafia that night. stupidly, I am throwing cigarettes butts on the beach, the same beach which I pick up over 300 butts daily when I walk the length of Sairee on trash patrol. To say I am beligerent is an understatment. The night ends as fast as it started Haley and I lose 300 Baht the keys to our apartment and end up mad at each other as we slog back to Ban Mae Haad.

SangSom 2 Me 0

As usual the next morning I swear I will never touch SangSom let alone drink again. Hangovers in 70% humidity are tough. This holds true for about ten days until Trang and his wife visit the island to see how the conservation project is going. They gratiously invite us and the other volunteers to dinner at Au Luk bay.

We sit above the Bay on a patio enjoying the tropical sunset and welcoming the cool breeze that dusk creates. I try to pace myself and be good but free food and booze are hard to come by when traveling, I feel myself treading on a slippery slope. I start to wash down the many spicy Thai dishes with that good ol Thai standby. Before I know it Trang is ready to party the night away and invites us to go with him to the White Bar, which is owned by an old friend from school. Like a swift kick from a Muay Thai boxer I am wandering the alley connecting Ban Mae Haad and Sairee and the next morning I awake with the not so pleasant taste of menthol cigarettess in my mouth.

SangSom 3 Me 0

The author with some SangSom

Free strawberry water at YogurtLand - for customers only, of course - seems like a great idea until you realize the strawberries have not been changed for so long that they probably have more cultures in them than the yogurt. But it's pretty to look at. Photo by SK

Three hundred and sixty days of sunshine is one aspect of living in Santa Barbara that would make anyone want to dive into a giant tub of frozen yogurt and berry goodness. But where to get such a thing? State street offers several in a three block radius: YogurtLand, PinkBerry & Rockin’ Yogurt.  Too many to choose from on one trip to Santa Barbara.  So I personally froze my brain trying each one to get you the frosty details from within these operations. (In order of the tasting)

1.  YogurtLand

Well before this review, Yogurtland promised to be my favorite out of them all. Cheap, Huge selection of yogurt flavors and toppings. This preconception is why I headed to Yogurtland first. It’s cheaper, less trendy and quite busy, often with a line out the door. For $0.39 an ounce you can easily walk away with more than enough yogurt accompanied by a vast array of nuts, berries and cheese cake bites, just to name a few toppings.

2.  Rockin’ Yogurt

Smaller, locally owned and operated with a smaller selection of yogurt. What got to me wasn’t the small amount or flavors but how the yogurt tasted, like real yogurt. I got the Green tea yogurt with no toppings cause that was a $1.50 extra. Tart at first but delicious. This unique taste I wasn’t familiar with got me ready for what was to come.

Rockin' Yogurt's sweet instructional art by the owner's daughter is a plasure to view while sipping a $1 bottle of arrowhead water. Nothing for free here. Photo by Jack McCarty

3.  PinkBerry

A lot like YogurtLand, with a very modern look inside, friendly smiles greeting you on your entrance, whereas at YogurtLand the lone clerk is usually too slammed to even notice you’re there. Same toppings but with fewer yogurt flavors. At first glance, and full from the last two places, I did not want any more yogurt, nor impressed on pricing. Unlimited toppings cost $1.35 extra.

After a twenty minute talk and two cups of frozen yogurt later – (mostly free samples from the manager, eager to please me) – I agreed never to go into YogurtLand again. PinkBerry’s commitment to tasty yogurt with over billions of live cultures had me convinced that it wasn’t all about the toppings and mass flavors, but the quality of the frozen yogurt itself. I actually enjoyed most of the yogurts without any toppings, whereas at YogurtLand the yogurt is all basically different colors of the same thing until you add toppings. It seems they hide the high sugar and bare minimum live culture yogurt with more sugary delights.

Free water at Pinkberry is no big deal, and comes with samples of yogurt that look a lot like their sweet lamps. Photo by SK

My expectations of YogurtLand to be the best without actually ever trying any others was like filling my cup to full with preconceived ideals and ignorance of fine frozen yogurt. The amazing service, eagerness to help and amazing tasty tub of Pinkberry’s finely churned recipe received my vote of tastiest frozen treat on State Street.