Perry Garfinkel2013-05-24T07:08:27-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=perry-garfinkelCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Perry GarfinkelGood old fashioned elbow grease.Documentary Envisions What the Blind Can Teach the Sighted About Truly Seeingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25637462013-01-29T13:00:41-05:002013-03-31T05:12:01-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart." -- Helen Keller
After making a darkly moving documentary about a military mercenary training camp, Navy vet turned filmmaker Garrett Zevgetis wanted to focus his unblinking lens on something positive for his next project. Exploring the subject of beauty, he stumbled upon the above quote from the woman who has come to symbolize the human capacity to overcome life's most challenging "disabilities" and "disadvantages" -- whether they be blindness or one's own internalized limitations.
As it so happened, Zevgetis lives very near the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, whose most famous pupil was Helen Keller. After volunteering at the school for several months, he met a young woman around whom he felt a dramatic narrative could be built to tell a story about something more than beauty -- something about facing fear, facing down fear and finally of overcoming whatever obstacles life hurls at us.
The work in progress, Three Days to See turns out to be a film about that kind of beauty, he says. As he and his production team seek the funding to complete editing, through a Kickstarter campaign that ends February 3, the film's unlikely heroine, 20-year-old Michelle Smith, is taking her upcoming star turn in stride and with pride as well. Mainly because, as she says in one promotional video clip: "It's not about blindness -- it's about a girl who happens to be blind and happens to have Asperger syndrome. The movie has some good lessons, the main one being that you shouldn't judge people by the way they look. It's also about being passionate about the things you like."
As she told Maine's state newspaper, the Bangor Daily News in her hometown, "Whoever you are, you should always be yourself. The only thing more dangerous than lying to others is lying to yourself."
The coming-of-age film follows her as she's about to graduate from the relative womb of Perkins and take her first precarious steps into an independent life, dealing with her troubled past, confronting her innermost fears and eventually recognizing her own inner strength. As of now, she is living in Bangor at home with Mom and considering a future in writing or publishing after college. That alone is a huge step for a legally blind person who, statistics suggest, could have a blank screen for her future; up to 75 percent of legally blind Americans are unemployed, according to the American Federation of the Blind.
Director Zevgetis traces the origins of his own metamorphosis from military man to moviemaker to a chance listen to a Miles Davis track on NPR radio. The instrumental was from the jazz trumpeter's 1959 album "Kind of Blue," regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz album of all time and Davis's masterpiece. Sitting in his car, Zevgetis was suddenly overwhelmed by such emotion that this former crusty squid shed a tear.
It was his bolt.
"If music without words can speak so deeply to a guy like me, then all the arts can inspire everyone to feel something very strong and do something greater and beyond themselves," he vividly recalls thinking.
The direction of his life changed: Now he wanted to join the brigade of activists working for civil rights by showing what we all have in common rather than what separates us. He gravitated to the documentary film form interning at the Boston PBS station's Frontline, where the show creator David Fanning gave him the credo by which he works: "Narrative journalism is the high calling."
The film project has garnered the enthusiastic support of the American Foundation for the Blind, the Asperger Women's Association and the National Braille Press, the last of which sponsored rewards for Kickstarter backers. Braille Design, of Jonesboro, Arkansas, donated custom bracelets for backers who donate $250. For those who contribute $2,000 to the campaign, the Charles Hotel, a AAA Four Diamond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, contributed three one-night stays, including dinner for two at Henrietta's Table and cocktails served by director Zevgetis himself, who happens to hold down a job there as a bartender.
Their generosity is being matched by others in perhaps smaller financial ways but with large shares of heart. Like from the mother who lost her seven-year-old son, who with four other moms facing family health challenges or loss sent a pledge with this note: "Thank you for the opportunity from all of us who make a pledge that celebrates meaning in our lives."
The film title comes from an essay Keller wrote for the Atlantic Monthly in 1933, "Three Days to See." In it she imagines what she would want to see if she had sight for just three days. She invites people with sight to imagine themselves in the same situation and concludes, "Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you." She suggests if everyone could maintain that level of appreciation to every moment of life, what a wonderful world this would indeed be.
This sentiment was poignantly echoed in an English gentleman's note to Garrett's Facebook page: "Hi Garrett, you don't know me but I saw your appeal and donated what I could. I lost my sight two years ago and I really feel for those who have never had the privilege of sight and those who have sight but don't see."
For more by Perry Garfinkel, click here.]]>Michael Mina Runs the Gamut of Savory Bitestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24169882013-01-07T15:37:00-05:002013-03-09T05:12:01-05:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
But Chef Michael Mina gives it a new gustatory meaning with a 20-course presentation he calls The Gamut, so far served only at his eponymous San Francisco restaurant, where he made a big name for himself as chef under its previous incarnation as Aqua.
The Gamut runs the full gamut of tastes chef deems savory to the palate. It runs the full gamut of the Michael Mina menu as well. And it also may run the full gamut of your monthly eating-out budget: the current price is $245 per person, wine pairings are an additional $150. That may seem high -- well, it is high -- but when you break it down, to about $12 per course, it's not that tough to swallow, so to speak.
Each course is tiny, elegantly showcased on artful plates in the style of Japanese kaiseki, the multi-course extravaganza that derives from ancient Zen temple meals. Tiny though they are, rich they are more so, so one definitely needs to pace oneself over the course of what will inevitably become a three-hour evening of entertainment-slash-eating.
To undertake such a culinary marathon, I brought along two men who know their way around a plate: Stan Bromley, the semi-retired but still legendary former Four Seasons Hotels general manager who had worked his way up through hotel food and beverage divisions; and Chris Barnett, a veteran journalist and bar writer who has never seen a recipe or a drink upon which he did not feel he could improve.
Bromley, who has known Mina and Aqua for quite some time, was particularly "curious to experience the newest version of what has been considered one of the city's hottest restaurant spots in the last decade or two," he said as we set our napkins in our laps and did some deep breathing in preparation for the night of indulgence. "When Michael teamed up with Ron Siegel [executive chef at Michael Mina since last summer, and before that worked at Aqua, the French Laundry, Charles Nob Hill and the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton], it was anyone's guess whose signature would be on the cuisine, and how good it would be."
The menu changes to reflect the seasons so what we sampled may not be offered when you dine -- because (is it obvious to say in San Francisco elite culinary company?) everything is as seasonal and as local as possible. Nonetheless, all Mina offerings follow his basic philosophy: to produce full flavor in every bite and to balance acidity, sweetness, spice and fat -- as he puts it, to design "food that keeps you interested throughout the whole course."
Bromley's final verdict: "From my point of view, the substance matched the promise. The style and presentation didn't overshadow the technique and preparation of the cuisine. Yes, it was a very precious and touchy and ambitious menu -- some plates had a dozen touches in just the presentation -- but they pulled it off."
We three share in sending kudos to the waitstaff for putting up with us, as well for knowledgeably explaining what they were placing on the table and sensitively pacing the flow of plates.
Here's what we ate -- and we still can't believe we ate the whole thing -- with some notes included...
Served as a trio to start:
• Kumamoto oysters with pickled ramp (wild leeks) mignonette. We felt the vinegary pickled leeks overpowered the delicate taste of the oysters.
• Michael's Caviar Parfait, with Russian osetra, sieved egg, smoked salmon and potato shallot cake. A signature also served at some of the 19 restaurants in the Mina Group, Mina came up with it when on his honeymoon he wanted to create a special breakfast for his new bride that featured all her favorite foods. He had room service send hash browns, egg salad, smoked salmon, whipped lemon crème fraîche and caviar to their room. Mina uses hash browns as a base for a caviar tower creation. Delish, we agreed; the salty salmon was balanced by the fat of the cream.
• Sturgeon croquette with compressed green apple and hackleback caviar. Hackleback, or shovelnose sturgeon, is the smallest species of freshwater sturgeon native to the U.S. Its creamy texture combined nicely with the tart apple.
• Duo of shellfish, with geoduck-kyoho and Dungeness crab-hibiscus. Geoduck, one of the largest saltwater clams in the world is indigenous to Washington State and British Columbia. The juicy kyoho grape, with high sugar content and mild acidity, was again a splendid balance.
• Kona Kampachi sashimi with yuzu gel, ponzu, crispy rice and aged soy salt. Yuzu, the aromatic East Asian citrus, was powerful enough to offset the saltiness of everything else. And the crispy rice added just enough crunch to the other smooth textures.
• Ahi tuna tartare with ancho chile, sesame oil, pine nuts and mint. Simple tuna tartare, one notch up, thanks to the poblano, a mild chile originating in the state of Puebla, Mexico.
• Monterey Bay abalone with Tokyo turnips, shiitake mushrooms, mirin-scented rice and miso broth. Abalone, with a mild flavor most analogous to squid, was infused with the strong smokiness of the shiitake in this one. The sweet mirin and its alcohol cut through that smoke.
• Squid ink Conchigle with Maine lobster, roasted beets and curry essence. This was perhaps the most intensely flavored item on the menu, too salty for members of my eating circle. As a former Martha's Vineyard islander, I found the usually sweet Maine lobster drowned in too much of everything else.
• Jidori hen egg with Perigord truffle, cauliflower and toasted brioche. Jidori (a Japanese term most simply translated to "chicken of...") is a mixed-breed bird originally imported for its robust flavor. The egg retains some of that. The truffles, from the former French province of Perigord, considered the crown jewel of the fungi family, held their headdress high in this dish, adding their subtle aroma and an earthy flavor reminiscent of a rich chocolate here.
• Black angus prime beef ribeye, with maitake, sancho pepper, misome and potato. With his several Bourbon Steakhouses, you expect Mina to shine here, and he does. Maitake ("dancing mushroom" in Japanese) is known to the Japanese as the "king of mushrooms" for its size. Its intense woodsy, smoky flavor blended well into the butter tender meat.
• Garlic-thyme lamb tenderloin, with red onion jam, fennel, butter beans, pimento peppers. He had me at lamb. The butter beans, known to low brows as lima beans, usually bland in taste, softened the blow of spicy pimento and the subtle licorice influence of fennel.
• Dessert was a combo of Tiramisu in white (with mascarpone, coffee sponge, chicory and Benedictine), peppermint bombe (with chocolate sablé, peppermint ice cream and liquid chocolate) and chocolate lozenges (with honey crisp and cocoa crumbles). What comment can do justice to such sweetness? And after eating so well, who had energy to comment?
Michael Mina: 252 California St., near Battery; (415) 397-9222. Website]]>San Francisco's Top 5 Asian Restaurants Doing New Spins On Traditional Dishestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18511142012-09-05T07:00:00-04:002012-11-05T05:12:01-05:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/http://www.sanfrancisco.travel), the city's destination marketing branch.
These days those Asian visitors leave more than their hearts in the City by the Bay. They also leave a little bit (or is it a little bite?) of their palate at a number of restaurants serving up innovative spins on traditional Asian dishes. Many of the eateries are concentrated in the city's Mission District, a once seedy neighborhood that was the stronghold of the city's large Latino community, now slowly but surely being overtaken by trendy shops and all variety of ethnic dining options. Many also tout their California inspirations: namely fresh, organic, local, seasonal and sustainable produce.
Here are snapshot appetizers from the best of the best, IMHO, featuring the cuisine of India, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and Korea.
Indian: DOSA
Dosa, named after the crepe-like South India specialty made from rice and lentils and stuffed with all kinds of goodies is the brainchild of Anjan and Emily Mitra (he from Bombay, she an upstate New Yorker). Their Valencia Street restaurant, the city's first South Indian restaurant when it opened in 2005, is small but energetic.
Three years later they opened a second Dosa, on Fillmore Street in the Upper Pacific Heights neighborhood, which is bigger and bouncier, designed in a more grandiose manner Indians will immediately recognize. "From the start," says Anjan, "we wanted customers to experience a variety of authentic dishes they could only experience in people's homes or from street vendors in the southern states of India."
That usually means hotter and earthier but those spices do not overpower modern adaptations on such familiar dishes as kale dosa, masala-spiced potatoes with kale chutney, poppy seed prawns or chicken and eggplant bharta.
There are also choices of uttapam, slightly thicker crepes than dosa.
Those who enjoy spirits with their spices will appreciate the locally distilled gin, the drink of choice in South India, in cocktails featuring Spice Route pinches of cardamom, cinnamon and coconut milk. Perfect to wash down those hotter spices.
Japanese: NOMBE
The word literally means "sitting in a sake shop" in Japanese. Tucked into a small establishment on Mission Street, Nombe is all that -- and more.
To start, you have to love how they've turned multicolored sake bottles into wall art. General manage Gil Payne, a sake sommelier, will guide you through sipping from among 90 brands, paired with the main attraction: tastes from its extensive izakaya menu, Japan's version of small plates, a la Spanish tapas.
The standards are here: yakimono (grilled skewers of various ingredients), tsukemono (Japanese pickles), agedashi-dofu (fried tofu with tempura dipping sauce) and that global superstar: steamed edamame. But you can also delve into some delectable hybrids.
Also available is this reviewer's favorite, kaiseki, derived from ancient Zen temple rituals. You can pay a ton of yen in Kyoto for the authentic multi-course meal consisting of small bites of various fishes and vegetables, each served on exquisite ceramic ware. Here a 7-course kaiseki costs $39.95.
If you speak ramen, Nombe speaks your language: tonkotsu with pork belly, mushrooms, ginger, scallions and bean sprouts; tantan-men, with spicy ground pork, bokchoy, scallions and bean sprouts; and a simple vegetable ramen with cabbage, mizua and scallions.
Vietnamese: SLANTED DOOR
Chef Charles Phan has created a small empire of Asian eateries throughout the Bay Area, with the original Slanted Door opening in 1995 on Valencia Street. He also now masterminds the Out the Door chain (three locations) specializing in Vietnamese street food; Wo Hing in the Mission serving innovative Chinese food (http://wohinggeneralstore.com; 584 Valencia St., 415.552.2510); and his Slanted Door offering cutting edge Vietnamese at the Ferry Building in the city's Embarcadero area. But his culinary vision has remained the same: to blend traditional cooking techniques with locally sourced ingredients.
The new Slanted Door is set in a cavernously large space, with the city's bright and beautiful downtown workers mixing with business and leisure travelers, making it a fascinating social cross-section of San Franciscans.
As for the food, it's also a mix of East and West. You'll find your basics of Vietnamese, like soft spring rolls, but then Chef Phan will throw together a jasmine tea pork belly with fuji apples, green mango, arugula and smoked salt that evokes several continents.
The organic chicken claypot with caramel sauce has the intensity and subtlety for which Vietnam's cuisine is known. A banana leaf-wrapped braised branzino puts the latest fish du jour in a class (and a country) by itself.
Thai: LERS ROS
In a city where every block seems to have a Thai restaurant, finding one that's authentic to the country's style of cooking is not so easy. But these days Lers Ros (ancient Sanskrit words meaning "excellent taste of the food") is "getting all the love," as one foodie PR exec put it. Chef/owner Tom Silargorn, a shy but friendly man, designs dishes that aren't scaled back heat-wise nor are they over-sweetened for the American palate.
The first location is an unassuming storefront in the city's Tenderloin District several blocks from Union Square. The newer venue, in the City Hall Civic Center area, is flashier, with a sleek modern ambience of shiny metal table and matching seats.
He presents the classics in their original style, such as chicken satay, pad Thai and fish cake (tod mun pla). Or you can chose from the house specials: grilled sliced pork shoulder, fried garlic quail, whole trout with mango sauce, duck larb or stir fried eggplant with tofu or alligator with young peppercorn, still hanging on their stem.
http://www.lersros.com; 730 Larkin St., 415.931.6917 or 415.440.5690; 307 Hayes St.; 415.415.874.9661 or 415.525.3256.
Korean: NAMU GAJI
A humble storefront opens up into a rustic and simply designed space inspired by the elements. The name itself makes the same statement: it means tree branch in Korean, in honor of the cypress tree salvaged from Golden Gate Park that now serves as the bar top.
The Lees, three Korean American brothers, founded Namu Gaji to showcase what so far is the least popular of Asian foods in the U.S.
"We focus on humble but innovative traditional Korean cuisine," says chef Dennis Lee. He works with an intense focus and an almost visible respect for the ingredients and even the knives he uses.
The menu takes from a variety of traditions, in fact, as seen in the raw oysters with yuzu ponzu, wasabi (both Japanese) and chojang (Korean sweet and sour sauce); or the medley of mushrooms that derive from Japan, China and Korea. Under the "comfort" category on the menu, ramyun is another example: handmade noodles, bits of hot dog, panko crusted egg, housemade kimchee and mung beans.
With Chef Lee & Brothers at the forefront, Korean cuisine will soon be moving up the ranks stateside.
Perry Garfinkel, a New York Times contributor since 1986 and Huffington Post blogger since 2007, is the author of "Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness and the Man Who Found Them All" http://www.PerryGarfinkel.com]]>The W Connection: Support for Widows by Widowstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15071652012-05-14T18:50:59-04:002012-07-14T05:12:04-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/11 million widows in America today. There will be 1 million more by the end of 2012. Their average age is 55. She is one of 374,000 American widows under 45 years old.
As Dawn exemplifies, widowhood has no respect for age. Any wife at any age can become a widow, sometimes without warning, sometimes over long periods of time in the case of protracted illness.
It is true, though, that after age 55 the numbers increase dramatically. Thanks to that ever-influential baby boomer phenomenon, the projections for the future are pretty sad, since there are currently 26 million married women in the U.S. between the ages of 45 and 65.
For this generation -- for whom the term "women's issues" had meant equal opportunity to employment, education, health care, reproductive rights and other basic needs that might have been threatened simply by the fact of their gender -- now widowhood will be added to this list.
When she lost her husband, Dawn herself was at a loss. Who to turn to? Who would understand? Who would help her through the maze of questions she had, from the deeply personal to the very practical? As it turned out, she found very few social service agencies that could help; and what information she did find was dispersed among several resources. It was this frustrating experience that motivated her and Ellen Kamp, a former colleague at Morgan Stanley, where Dawn is an IT vice president, to establish the W Connection. The W Connection calls itself "a one-stop Internet-based resource center and a national network of community-based organizations run by widows." It "recruits widows who are passionate about helping other widows with the healing process and provides them with the training and tools to form local chapters."
With the economy still not recovered, federally funded social service agencies and hospital and hospice-based bereavement groups for widows are becoming an endangered species. So it behooves individuals and charitable grant-giving organizations to support the W Connection and others trying to fill in the gap as best they can. Without such funding, the W Connection itself may die and that would be unfortunate indeed.
I interviewed Dawn for a "Preoccupations" column that appeared in the New York Times on April 29, 2012. Here is what she said:
I've always handled stress well. Any job would bore me if it didn't have an element of stress. Part of my coping secret is I compartmentalize. So when I'm at work, I'm 100 percent at work. When I'm mothering, I'm 100 percent Mommy.
In my line of work, this comes in handy. As an IT vice president, I oversee key technology systems development in the human resources department at the Manhattan headquarters of Morgan Stanley, one of the world's largest diversified financial services firms.
What I like about technology is that if a glitch develops, I can identify the problem and fix it. Even if it's 1 in the morning, I get up -- because there are people literally on the other side of the world waiting for me -- and fix it. Then they're back online, and I go back to sleep.
When my husband Norman Ferren was diagnosed with cancer in January 2008, my first thought was, 'We'll fix it, then we'll be back online in a blink.' At the time our son William, who had been born two months prematurely, was a month old.
Two months later Norm lost his battle with cancer. Suddenly an only parent, I was left to live a life for two that had been meant for three. And I still had a very demanding job.
Missing him will never go away, but by compartmentalizing and designing my own life operating system, I am adjusting -- thriving at work and being a good mommy, but not without the help of my parents, some old and some newfound friends, and my employer.
Morgan Stanley offered a hand in a few ways to help me jump-start my adjustment to widowhood. Through its Employee Assistance Program, I had three free counseling sessions with a mental health therapist approved by the firm. I used its back-up care program, which made emergency childcare available for a small co-payment. Employees can log in remotely from anywhere; for me that means I can work from my desk at home before William wakes up and after he goes to sleep.
Through Norm's short illness and death, my co-workers were especially sympathetic to my situation. My boss at the time was very generous in extending my pregnancy leave into a mourning period.
For many months, I moved through life in a fog. But because I would arrive at the office in that 100 percent worker mode, people would say, 'You seem to be doing so well.' I'd think, 'They don't know how devastated I am.' I was angry all the time -- mostly at the Universe for taking my husband. I probably was not the most convivial colleague.
I was moved by how many work friends came to Norm's funeral. One of them was Ellen Kamp, whose husband had died a year earlier. She had been a work mentor; now she became a mentor in how to be a widow, though she would likely say we teach each other.
Over the months our work relationship evolved into a mutually supportive friendship. We recognized that while friends, family and colleagues try to be empathic, only women who have lost a husband truly understand what you're going through.
That was the impetus behind the W Connection, a nonprofit organization Ellen and I co-founded in 2009. Now the W Connection has branches in Manhattan and on Long Island; our newly updated website is a one-stop resource center for widows. Morgan Stanley gave us $2,500 last year through an incentive program that grants funds to volunteer programs with which employees are involved.
Ellen has since retired from Morgan Stanley, and while the W Connection takes up a chunk of my off-work time, I find that helping other women navigate widowhood's emotional roller coaster gives the loss of Norman some purpose and meaning to me.
There are two great loves that have helped me stand on my own. One is William. He has no idea what a stabilizing force he is, a reason to get on with it. The other is Canyon, the big yellow handsome mutt that Norm and I adored. Every day Canyon, William and I now stop by a Central Park memorial bench with a plague in Norm's name that friends and family sponsored.
You're told not to make big changes for at least a year after your spouse dies. In my work cubicle I keep the same photo of Norm, Canyon and me that I've had there for six years. We look happy hiking in western Connecticut. I do get sad when I look at it, but in the middle of another stressful day it reminds me I can cope with any glitch work, or life, throw at me. Then I look at a photo beside it of William and I'm emotionally back online.
]]>What's the Buzz About at Atlanta's Park 75 Restaurant?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12892472012-02-22T16:46:08-05:002012-04-23T05:12:01-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
Billions of bees have disappeared in the last decade and, even more alarmingly, scientists have no idea why.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the name given to the latest, and what seems to be the most serious, die-off of honeybee colonies.
The trickle down effect is devastating. Approximately one third of all the food Americans eat is directly or indirectly derived from honeybee pollination, according to the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF).
There's a reason behind the expression "busy as a bee." The winged little fellas have to go through about a million blossoms to make one ounce of honey.
While scientists scratch their collective heads, it's groups like the ABF, individual beekeepers, the White House bees and guys like Robert Gerstenecker who try to put a little bee in the bonnet of the rest of us as to why it's important to ever care about these insects... even if it stings (ok, enough puns, I promise).
For Gerstenecker's part, he has deduced that the quickest way to draw attention is by educating our palates. So, as executive chef at the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta, he has launched an awareness campaign by setting up two beehives on the hotel's fifth floor terrace, beside several enormous planters where he grows herbs and vegetables and a variety of edible flowers -- all of which end up in some form or another on diners' plates at the Four Seasons' Park 75 Restaurant.
Chef Gerstenecker, a Canadian who grew up on a farm outside Toronto, moved to the U.S. in 1995 and was appalled that even some of the kitchen staff had never planted anything that grew into something they could eat. As for honey, he quickly discovered, they knew even less. In fact even I, who has been contributing to the New York Times for some 20 years about food, health and other trends, was embarrassed to learn:
Seasonality. Honey harvested in spring is lighter in color and has a sweet taste. Fall honey is darker, and pungent to the palate. This is because the variety of the plant blooming in each season produces different nectars.
Regionality. Honey from downtown Atlanta will taste different from honey in Buckhead, only a few miles away. This also has to do with the soils and microclimates that produce different types of flowering vegetation.
Why the brands taste boring. Brands like Sue Bee manipulate honey to make its taste the same from season to season, from region to region, year after year. The masses like their lives consistent. They brands blend honey from the U.S., Argentina, the Ukraine -- wherever they can get the best deal.
Health implications. The natural liquid from bees contains B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid and certain amino acids and minerals. It has a healthy Glycemic Index, meaning that its sugars can be gradually absorbed into the bloodstream, rather than the infamous spike effect of processed sugar. Honey contains natural antioxidants. It's a great natural source of carbohydrates. Its natural fruit sugars, fructose and glucose play an important role in preventing fatigue and it's cholesterol-free.
Don't buy it if the label says "organic." Why? Because it's a lie, unless beekeepers can guarantee the bees extract their nectar from pesticide-free plants, which they can't unless they contain the bees in some fenced-over well planted space, as birds are kept in aviaries.
Under chef's watchful eyes and very rarely stung hands, two queen bees and more than 100,000 gentle Italian honey bees live atop the hotel, contributing nearly 200 pounds of wildflower honey that he uses in entrees at the Park 75. The delicate tempura-fried squash blossoms (which come from his home garden and is only available seasonally) are filled with goat cheese and crowned with cherry tomatoes from the hotel's garden, as well as baby zucchini and nasturtium blossoms. It's drizzled with a vinaigrette made with honey and vinegar. It's also used for the salted honey caramels, and on a cheese and house-made Charcuterie plate.
So, yes, buzz on over on rapidly flapping wings.
]]>Puck Goes Back to His (Ginger) Rootstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12531972012-02-03T17:15:53-05:002012-04-04T05:12:01-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
When he moved to Los Angeles in 1975 to take over the kitchen at a French restaurant named Ma Maison, giving French traditional a modern California spin, it did not take long for Hollywood's elite to give the bistro a lot of buzz. Then, in '82, he opened Spago in BevHills, now synonymous with California cuisine. But it wasn't until 1983, with Chinois on Main, in Santa Monica, that he delved into Asian cuisine, pioneering what became the "fusion" food phenomenon.
The rest is modern day culinary history. Today, a plethora of ventures falls under the Puck corporate umbrella: restaurants, a catering business and bistro franchises, plus books, TV shows and even a line of cookware. In all, industry experts estimate that his epicurean empire brings in about $350 million in annual revenue.
With his most recent openings this past fall behind him -- Wolfgang Puck at the Hotel Bel-Air in Beverly Hills, his 20th fine dining restaurant, and CUT at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, the third in his steakhouse chain, the Austrian sat still, if only briefly, last month with me in the al fresco section of his flagship Spago to access which way the east-west winds are blowing at Puck Inc.
What was your introduction to the East's style of cooking?
Interestingly, I only remember a few cheap Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in Paris. But in L.A. in the late '70s, on my Sundays off I used to go down to the tiny Asian section and sample foods from Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Thai Town and Koreatown. I loved tasting what to me were new spices and trying to figure out their methods of cooking.
When I opened Spago, I put tuna sashimi on the menu. In '82 you never saw that in restaurants serving American or European food. Or course I had to make it reflect both East and West. So instead of just soy sauce I made a little salad: tuna with avocado, Maui onions, and a sprinkle of caviar on top. My vinaigrette was soy sauce, lime juice, olive oil and little chili flakes. That was my very first foray into combining Asian, Californian and French.
Spago was so successful when it opened. Why did you depart from that formula and open Chinois on Main, which some say was the first American fusion of Eastern and Western cuisine?
First of all, I don't buy into all these something-slash-Asian phrases -- Pan Asian, Cal Asian, Pan Pacific. As soon as it's named, it becomes a "trend" that everyone can jump on and imitate, rather than innovate. It's not as simple as adding ginger and soy sauce -- and voila, Asian fusion.
We opened the second Spago in Tokyo and the more I went there, the more I became influenced by the simplicity of the East. When a restaurant space became open in Santa Monica, the lucrative thing would have been to open another Spago, but I always followed my palate, not my pocketbook. Though chinois actually comes from the French adjective for Chinese, I did not intent this to be a Chinese restaurant in the same way most people thought then -- spring rolls, chow mien, spare ribs, shrimp with lobster sauce.
People didn't understand it at first -- they called it French Chinese. Of course I got negative responses from traditional American Chinese restaurant owners -- "How dare you cook Chinese food -- you're not even Chinese." But I believe authenticity is about evolution, not repeating your grandmother's recipe. Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors -- it's how you combine them that sets you apart.
You were among the chefs who helped popularize the phenomenon we now call "celebrity chef," along with all the cooking and reality chef TV shows that have followed. Do you regret being at the forefront of that?
The title of celebrity chef is sort of bogus. Do we have celebrity shoemakers, celebrity butchers? The good news about showcasing chefs and the TV shows is they've attracted a lot more smart kids to the profession than 30 years ago. On the down side, though, these young chefs all say they want their own restaurant and their own TV show. Very few say "I want to have the best restaurant in town." Yet all this exposure has made people think and talk more about food. That makes diners more sophisticated, more discerning, which in turn challenges chefs to stay on top of their game.
Some would say it's counter-intuitive to open an upscale steak joint in Singapore, where almost 50 percent of the population is Buddhist and Taoist, vegetarians by religious decree. What were you thinking?
It's a myth that generally Asians are more vegetarians. The Japanese are the kings of red meat, but it's expensive. The Chinese and Vietnamese love their pork. Many Indians, especially the Muslims, can't live without their lamb. But, for example, the Chinese can't get good steak so they fry it in cornstarch to make it more tender. But once they discover the taste of great beef, they're sold.
Another important difference: our steaks are cooked over charcoal and wood. A broiler doesn't do anything to enhance the taste. Quite the contrary.
The other hurdle is a matter of education; the Chinese are just learning the art of fine European dining traditions. They like all the food at once in the center of the table, so they can pick from plates with their chopsticks. I've watched when we'd send out the first course, a salad, and they'd ask the waiter, "This is it? Where's the rest?"
What has been the biggest obstacle for you to overcome personally on the road to success?
My shyness, without a doubt. Maybe it was because my mother was shy. I know when my father would yell criticism at me from the sidelines of the soccer field I wanted to just disappear. In my old school pictures I'm never looking into the camera. Even when I was 27 I was the shyest guy. The first cable TV cooking show I was on -- I still couldn't look into the camera.
I rarely went into the dining room to say hello to guests. I would go see only people I knew. Unfortunately, those people happened to be famous, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Billy Wilder, Orson Well, and Gene Kelly, my tennis partner. So I got the reputation for being snobby; people would write letters: "Oh, he goes over to Arnold and Orson, but I'm not important enough?"
Here I was in the hospitality business and people perceived me as being inhospitable. I got the message fast. Now I make it a point every night to go to every table and greet them. People love it. I think it's not so much about meeting the "celebrity chef" as it is about making a personal connection between what's on their plate and a real live human being who was responsible for it. And, by the way, it breeds loyalty. Wouldn't it be great if airline pilots came around and greeted every passenger? I bet it would result in more frequent fliers.
What can we look for next coming out from under your chef's hat?
I am definitely moving more toward simplicity. When I was 27 if I didn't put 15 things in one dish I wasn't happy. It had to be as many as possible and I was so proud of myself. Now I am the opposite. I put in a couple of four things and let the flavors and textures be the stars. Today I'm more into gastronomy, which is literally the art and appreciation of preparing and eating good food. It's as much for the eyes as for the mouth.
That's why I have been drawn back to the Japanese style. So we're completely redoing the Spago menu and its décor this winter, with much more Japanese influence. They are the purest, most aesthetic and most spiritual about their food and the presentation. They'll place an edible flower just so perfectly off center on the plate. They start with the best produce they can find. This is just like my philosophy, which I always put this way: "We buy the best ingredients and then we try not to f--- them up."
Perry Garfinkel, who writes frequently about Asia, is the author of "Buddha or Bust" (http://www.perrygarfinkel.com).
]]>A Chef Searches For The Soul Of Indian Cuisinetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11131662011-11-29T08:00:00-05:002012-01-29T05:12:01-05:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
When it came time to start his own eatery, though, he returned to India, where, in 1999, he opened Indigo, Mumbai's most successful stand-alone restaurant (meaning not off a hotel lobby) serving Mediterranean-influenced cuisine. Located in a converted Victorian house a block behind the Taj Palace Hotel in the Colaba district of South Mumbai, Indigo drew raves and a cult-like following. It remains a Mecca to lovers of contemporary continental. He later launched Indigo Deli a few blocks away as a cozy and casual homage to the delis of New York.
Rahul Akerkar, co-owner and chef in front of Mumbai's Indigo, arguably India's best stand-alone restaurant serving Mediterranean-inspired cuisine
Two years ago he and his wife/partner Malini, under their DeGustibus parent company, which includes their Movable Feast catering business, opened their most ambitious spot, converting historic Royal Western Turf Club beside the Mahalaxmi Racecourse into Tote at the Turf, a 25,000-square-foot restaurant and bar with a menu that elaborates creatively on Indigo's cuisine. That venue immediately became the see-and-be-seen scene, frequent backdrop for Indian newspapers' gossipy Page 3 fodder.
Then last year, he did an unexpected culinary about-turn. Tote's restaurant reincarnated as Neel, featuring nuanced Nawabi festival food, platters of kakori kebabs, baskets of buttery naans and lesser-known recipes like chilgoza (pine nut) shorba and a tangy Kashmiri subzi made with apples. Akerkar proved again that he categorically remains without category.
In New York recently on an eating foray, Chef Akerkar, who looks like a cross between Yul Brynner and the Laughing Buddha, met me at Recette (http://recettenyc.com), a trendy crowded bistro in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. While young and beautiful New Yorkers nibbled at petite plates, Chef ate his way through roasted foie gras, cured kingfish with a crème fraiche, seared scallops with a caviar Beurre blanc and more, talking above the din about his East-meets-West culinary influences.
You were born in India, you live in India, you own restaurants in India. So why did you turn your back on Indian food with Indigo, your famous Mumbai restaurant?
RA: First of all, there is no such thing as "Indian food." It's a fabrication of the West. Each state has its own regional cuisines: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bengal. Even the states have subcategories - there's coastal Maharashtrian, inland Maharashtrian, Muslim-influenced, etc. Sadly, what most of the world knows today as Indian food is bastardized, trivialized - tandoori chicken, black dal, everything deep-fried. And it's just a shame that many Americans will only experience it in some buffet line in New Jersey.
Plus everything is overspiced and overcooked. I understand the history of why - in a hot country with poor refrigeration and sanitation, it was a safeguard against spoilage and contamination - but come on, we have refrigeration now. Plus, to me, cuisine should be allowed to change and grow. I don't see that being done successfully in India.
PG: Fair enough. So is there anything you like about Indian cuisine?
RA: I like its strong flavors. I like the balance of sweet and sour, like other Asian traditions such as Thai and Chinese cuisine. It's rich and complex. I am drawn to that inherently. It's the ground zero of my palate, my version of comfort food. I like that waiters at most Indian restaurants serve family style, from serving plate to your plate; it gives a personal touch and a feeling of plentitude. How often do you get "seconds" at Western restaurants? And then there's the almost primal relationship with the food eating with your hands.
PG: Who do you consider your cooking mentors?
RA: Well, I never went to culinary school. I learned "on the job," in the kitchens of New York, working for a series of chefs who taught me the basics. I learned everything from Mexican to French to classic American dishes like chicken pot pies, roast beef and popovers. They also taught me the lifestyle, which you can read about in that great book, "Kitchen Confidential," not a healthy lifestyle that I would suggest as a steady diet.
But -- and I know it's a corny cliché -- my grandmother was my biggest early food influence. She was a most phenomenal cook. My grandparents lived outside Bombay, on two acres with every kind of fruit tree, sugar cane - you name it. She had a wood-burning stove and there was always something smelling great on the burners. Everything was homemade, the butter whipped from scratch, all the condiments and pickled stuff. Her raison d'etre was to be in the kitchen making things. She'd come find me in the garden, bearing something fresh and hot: "Kha, kha" - eat, eat.
PG: Is there something culinary traditions of the East can learn from the West?
RA: Subtlety. Less truly can be more in the kitchen. Why cover up the real taste of fish or lamb or delicate greens? It's a young chef's insecurity that makes him or her try to do too much with a recipe. That's what I see the emerging modern Indian cuisine suffers from. The Americans really can be credited with spearheading local, fresh and seasonal, starting with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. My grandmother came from that same tradition. Modern Indian chefs, particularly those at big hotel chains, seem to have forgotten these roots.
PG: Right now your eateries are in Mumbai only. Any chance of us seeing you go global, or at least all-India?
RA: Mumbai is my home. My wife and kids are here. I would hate to be an on-the-road chef, hopping from one city to the next. I don't think I want to be a Wolfgang Puck. That said, yes our delis have become a bit of a chain, with several throughout Mumbai and we're eyeing spots in Delhi and elsewhere. But my cuisine is too particular, too handcrafted, and I would worry that the quality would be compromised if I went -- as you say -- global.
Perry Garfinkel is the author of "Buddha or Bust," who often writes about Asia.
]]>Men in Grief Seek Others Who Mourn as They Dotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9124462011-07-28T16:48:00-04:002011-09-27T05:12:01-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/cancer. She died a year later.
The Feldmans had been married 53 years, and Mr. Feldman's grief was palpable to friends who knew him as a buoyant, resilient personality.
"There was a huge hole in my life that no amount of activity could replace," said Mr. Feldman, now 82. "And except for my two daughters, there was no one I could turn to for solace."
There was a local bereavement group for spouses, but Mr. Feldman opted out when he learned it consisted only of women.
"I just didn't think women would relate to my pain," he said. "And, frankly, I come from a generation that feels uncomfortable exposing our sadness and vulnerability to the opposite sex."
The loss of a loved one is a profoundly heartbreaking experience, but it is not the same for everyone. Research increasingly suggests that men and women experience grief in different ways, and the realization has bolstered a nascent movement of bereavement groups geared to men throughout the country. Many of them are affiliated with hospitals and hospice centers.
Concern about reaching men in grief has gained new urgency with shifting demographics. The number of men age 65 and older increased by 21 percent from 2000 to 2010, nearly double the 11.2 percent growth rate for women in that age group, according to census figures. As the gender gap in life span narrows, experts suggest that more men will be facing the loss of loved ones, particularly spouses.
Many will be not be prepared for the experience. The loss of a spouse often is crushing for men physically as well as psychologically. In a 2001 paper published in The Review of General Psychology, psychologists at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands confirmed earlier data showing widowers have a higher incidence of mental and physical illness, disabilities, death and suicide than widows do. While women who lose their husbands often speak of feeling abandoned or deserted, widowers tend to experience the loss "as one of dismemberment, as if they had lost something that kept them organized and whole," Michael Caserta, chairman of the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Utah, said by e-mail.
The Harvard Bereavement Study, a landmark late 1960s investigation of spousal loss, found that widowers experienced the death of a wife as a multifaceted tragedy, a loss of protection, support and comfort that left many at sea. The men in the study relied heavily on their wives to manage their domestic lives, from household chores to raising their children, the researchers noted.
The grief of men is compounded, Dr. Caserta added, by the fact that so many have been reluctant to directly address real feelings of deep sadness; until recently, men were expected to be emotionally controlled and inexpressive. Simply persuading grief-stricken men to attend a bereavement group is still no small challenge.
"While there's strong indication that grief therapy helps men, historically men generally don't join groups," Phyllis Silverman, a grief researcher and an author of Widower: When Men Are Left Alone, said in a telephone interview.
There are also differences in the length of time men grieve, compared with women, and how long it takes to move on. An old axiom that "women mourn, men replace" turns out to be untrue.
"It used to be thought that men grieve acutely and heal more quickly, and that women grieve chronically over a longer time period," said George A. Bonanno, a clinical psychology professor at Columbia University in New York.
But now, Dr. Bonanno said, many researchers believe that grief follows a more complex pattern in both men and women.
"No matter what sex, we oscillate between positive and negative emotions, between waves of sadness about the loss and hope for the future," he said in a telephone interview. "This can be frustrating for men, who often seek the 'quick-fix' approach."
Sherry Schachter, director of bereavement services at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx and a grief specialist for 25 years, said in a telephone interview: "While women grieve intuitively, open to expressing their feelings, men are 'instrumental' grievers. They're not comfortable with talking about their feelings, and they prefer to do things to cope."
In a men's group she has run for the last few years, she said, "I never ask, 'How do you feel?' Rather, I ask, 'What did you do?' "
In some cases, what men are doing is taking grief counseling into their own hands. Mr. Feldman started a biweekly bereavement group for widowers on Martha's Vineyard, and two years ago spearheaded the Men's Bereavement Network, a nonprofit organization seeking to establish and support grief groups for men nationwide. The network is helping to establish bereavement groups for men in places as diverse as DePere, Wis.; Clearwater, Fla.; and Danvers, Mass.
At a recent peer-led gathering of the Martha's Vineyard group begun by Mr. Feldman, eight men in their late 40s to late 80s sat around the dining room table at the home of the session leader, Foster Greene. Dr. George Cohn, a local psychiatrist, sat alongside, for the most part a silent observer.
A retired fisherman, at 85 one of the older members of the group, spoke in a low voice, looking mostly into his coffee cup. His wife of 54 years died in 2010.
"I don't know about you guys," he said, quickly glancing around the table of men, "but for me it gets harder, not easier." The other men nodded.
Later Dr. Cohn said, "Sometimes that's all a man wants or needs -- a sympathetic ear."
Originally published in The New York Times]]>A Hind-Jew in Indiatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7417092010-09-28T12:06:48-04:002011-05-25T17:50:22-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
This was my fourth trip in three decades to Benares (a.k.a. Varanasi), the holy city where the Varuna and the sacred Ganges Rivers join, gaining spiritual momentum as their currents rush to meet their destiny in the Bay of Bengal. I was excited to meet the family of the tabla master (India's classical drums) who more than 30 years ago taught me that my march to the beat of a different drummer was also my destiny.
But how was I to spend Yom Kippur, a solemn day of atonement and fasting at the 5-star Nadesar Palace, a 10-room boutique property the Taj Hotels has restored to more luxury than it even had as the guest house for the local Maharajas? I was already feeling that most Jewish emotion: guilt. Can one observe abstinence and opulence simultaneously?
Ah, me of little faith! In fact, it turned out to be one of the most spiritual 24 hours I can remember. It began with aarti ("toward virtue" in Sanskrit), the Hindu sunset worship, at the very small Nandeshwari Temple on the grounds of the hotel. Nandeshwari is the consort of Lord Shiva, Hinduism's all-powerful god of creation and destruction. I could not be in better multi-denominational hands.
After lighting candles whose wicks are soaked in purified butter, the priests chant and blow a conch shell; the sounds are said to emulate the creation of the earth from the ocean depths and meant to scare off demons. This coincided with Kol Nidre, which begins 24 hours of fasting when Jews ask God's forgiveness for the preceding year's sins and other meanderings off the path of righteousness - which forgiveness He readily bequeaths to those who simply ask. There's also a blowing of the shofar, the ram's horn, which commemorates the beginning of creation. It's believed that when the shofar is sounded, Satan will be completely disoriented. The similarities between the two rituals were uncanny.
The next morning, instead of a day of praising the Lord and beating my chest in a Jewish synagogue, I arose at 5 a.m. and joined hundreds of other tourists in small wooden boats floating down the Ganges alongside the ghats (steps) where Hindus dunk and bathe in the waters. They also bring deceased relatives to be immolated, then strew their ashes into the river to assure them an auspicious reincarnation. I could not think of a Jewish analogy except that I would rather have been in synagogue than smelling bodies burning.
By late morning I was off to visit a very small colony where the Taj Hotels has commissioned master weavers to make gorgeous staff uniforms and saris sold in Khazana boutiques currently at eight Taj hotels throughout India. One example of the Taj's corporate social responsibility programs, this one has kept many families employed during tough economic times that have hit down to the lowest levels in India. I was both humbled and inspired to meet these weavers.
By early afternoon, I headed down a back alley of Benares to meet the famous Mishra family of musicians whose elder, Panchu Maharaj Mishra, had been my tabla teacher in the mid '70s. I lived in his house in that neighborhood for a while with a handful of family members, most of them studying dance or an instrument. I was not surprised he'd passed away but I was surprised to find his nephews did remember me as "the American guy who had natural rhythm."
Indian musicians are almost like holy people, such is the place of honor music holds in Hinduism. All music, they believe, tunes into the universal note, called Om. After singers, tabla players are considered among the holiest of all since they keep the beat of the universe, without which time would stop. I myself had experienced a rhythmic synchronicity in Benares 30 years before that set my personal metronome to a new beat.
Returning to the Nadesar Palace, I was ready for the next phase of my Hind-Jew soul cleansing -- at the Taj Jiva Spa.
I got the signature treatment called Abhisheka, a ritual bathing ceremony. I stepped into a small tiled pool in the treatment room. The practitioner first doused Ganges water over my head, then milk. Then she scrubbed a mixture of five oils (panchamruta) into my skin. After I rinsed off and sat in a steam bath, the practitioner gave me a deep tissue massage, backed by the soundtrack of Hindu chanting praising the seven sacred rivers of India. I could swear her strokes were in rhythm with the chanting.
To break the 24-hour fast, I chose from several set menus at the Nadesar based on a sattvic diet, which is organic vegetarian food designed to bring clarity and equanimity of mind. It's recommended you chew slowly and eat modest portions. I chose the culinary selections from the Benares "aristocratic families" -- after all, I'm a prince, albeit a Jewish prince, and mine are the "chosen people."
After dinner, I sat on the hotel terrace, overlooking 40 acres of finely manicured gardens, smelling air sweeter than what you get used to in India. Serenaded by an Indian playing a wooden bansuri flute, I felt as pure as I ever have. It was the perfect time to dive back into sin: I ordered a really fine shot of 18-year-old Glenlivet single malt scotch, sipping it with great clarity and equanimity of mind. What better way to get right back on the wheel of eternal reincarnation, known to Hindus as samsara and to Jews as guilt?
Amen and namaste.
]]>Can India Meet France in a San Francisco Kitchen?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5960102010-06-04T12:36:32-04:002011-05-25T16:40:24-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/Taj Hotels to serve great Indian food, right?
Not necessarily, it turns out. Or, to be more precise, not only. To be quite clear, eateries at the majority of the Taj hotels (even those increasingly found beyond the Indian subcontinent) serve biryani, tandoori, curried everything and other specialties of India that are as good as they get.
However, though it may seem counter-intuitive speaking from a cultural/culinary perspective, a number of the Taj's hotels also showcase other countries' styles with equal aplomb. As I travel this summer predominantly in India, I'll blog from time to time about many of them in my search for the roots of one of civilization's oldest hospitality traditions -- namely India's. Naturally, food plays a pivotal role in how Indians demonstrate their welcoming spirit -- even when it's not their own cooking tradition. I'll have terrific Vietnamese food in Bangalore, fabulous Thai dishes in Mumbai, the freshest Japanese sushi in New Delhi, as well as Chinese, Middle Eastern, Italian, classic Continental, among others -- all at select hotels of the Taj. I'll also hopefully savor sumptuous non-Indian cuisine at Taj Hotels in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, London, Boston, New York ... and San Francisco, where this blog series officially begins:
You assume a guy named Srijith Gopinathan makes a mean murg (chicken in its many culinary incarnations). You don't assume his menu will include Artisanal foie gras, with slow-cooked quail breast, date black raisin compote and pickled ramps. And you may assume even less that it will taste so smooth and succulent as to rival many Michelin-starred restaurant.
Srijith Gopinathan, executive chef, the Taj Campton Place in San Francisco.
But the 31-year-old executive chef at the Taj Campton Place Restaurant, in the heart of San Francisco's Union Square, is full of surprises.
"Whatever everyone else was doing, I wanted to do something else," says the boyish-looking native of Trivandrum, capital of Kerala, South India's lush west coast state that has been dubbed "God's own country." While others of his generation wanted to grow up to become "technocrats," young Srijith was inspired in a different direction, watching his grandmother work her alchemy, plucking ripe coconuts from the family's backyard tree and simmering local fresh shrimp in steaming coconut juice. "It was magic the way she transformed these living things into delicious dishes, and I wanted to master the magic too," he nearly gushes.
At the University of Bangalore's hotel and catering management department, while his classmates were mastering how to mix up to 150 spices into masalas that are the staple of any self-respecting Indian kitchen, he became fascinated with how the French could do so much with so little, and with such precision.
"I suffer naturally from the disease of quality obsession," he confesses. The disease spread working under the tutelage of Chefs Raymond Blanc and Gary Jones at the two-Michelin starred Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saison in Oxfordshire, England.
Indian and French cuisine could not be further apart. The French are minimalists with regard to herbs and spices, allowing ingredients' natural flavors to come through. They decorate a plate as though it were a palette, designed to titillate your palate. Indian food is usually thick and rich in ghee (clarified butter), and it's usually heaped onto your plate by a waiter in portions, family-style. To my eye, the predominant color of most Indian food is brown. In India, more is more -- with regard to almost everything, from gods to spices. I did a blind tasting once of three versions of the same dish, each using lamb, chicken or fish. I could not distinguish one from the other, such was the overwhelming effect of the curries.
For an Indian to learn French cooking, therefore, requires a complete shift in paradigm. On top of that, for Chef Gopinathan to accomplish this successfully at the Campton Place dining room would require following some fairly large footsteps. For those who don't follow "The Lives of Great American Chefs" as closely as they follow American Idol, the Campton Place has been the launch pad for nationally acclaimed chefs Bradley Ogden, Laurent Manrique, and Todd Humphries.
I could tell from the first bite of a 10-course sampling menu Chef Gopinathan put together for me (excellently matched with wines selected by master sommelier Richard Dean) that this was no imitation of "fine French food," as the cliché goes. Turns out the French and the Indians (or this Indian anyway) have one thing in common: the disease of perfectionism.
His fish dishes are especially noteworthy -- not surprising since he grew up in a coastal region and probably watched his grandmother use it more than meat or chicken. This was especially heartening since, to my mind, Indians generally do fish a disservice by annihilating the scaly guys' delicate taste with too much spice.
The Dungeness crab with cucumbers, citrus, lentil crumbs and mint balanced sweet and sour to perfection without overpowering the crab. Tasmanian trout, poached in olive oil, with little neck clams, fava beans, and trompette noire and clam vinaigrette was reminiscent of a dish I'd once had in Provence. I worried when the menu said the Maine lobster would be served in a coconut curry, with hearts of palm and cilantro, thinking the curry would bury the lobster flavor. It turned out to be the pièce de résistance; to resist a second serving would have been very difficult had it been served Indian-style with multiple helpings.
A roast rib-eye with Masami wagyu beef -- that rarefied cattle from Japan said to never eat, touch, or even look at added hormones in their lifetimes -- with cipollini, Yukon mousse, black truffles and hazelnut was butter-soft and marinated in juices that would make even the holy cows of India salivate.
My one criticism: one hopes Chef transcends his enamor with the new trend of foam, which he used in a few too many dishes. It's cute at first but grows old on the palate very quickly.
It stands to reason that Chef Gopinathan's idol is Thomas Keller, the legendary chef at the French Laundry in Napa Valley's Yountville, an hour drive north of San Francisco, to which the Indian chef has made several pilgrimages. Keller, along with Chefs Ogden, Manrique and Humphries, should drop by the Campton Place and pay obeisance to their next incarnation.
The Taj Campton Place San Francisco, is at 340 Stockton St.,
San Francisco; 415.781.5555. For more about the restaurant, go here. For hotel reservations, go here.
Perry Garfinkel began contributing to the New York Times in 1986, first writing for the then Living Section, now called Dining & Wining.
]]>How to Release Your Inner Monettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5635652010-05-04T19:58:52-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
I can testify personally. In second grade, I ran eye-first into a playground monkey bar during lunch break. With one eye patched for six weeks, I was forced to stay in the classroom at recess. For a rambunctious kid, this was nearly impossible. But my teacher, in her infinite wisdom, gave me coloring paper and crayons and turned on some classical music, suggesting I draw pictures to the music - whatever came to my impressionable little mind. Apparently my artistic output was so impressive she told my parents I was "a left-brained creative type," a veritable nascent Monet, and that they should nurture that side of my brain. Not surprisingly, I became a writer and a drummer - but not a painter. Go figure, huh? Maybe I associated painting with the trauma of my smashed eye.
Yet, I'm often told I write imagistically (which word, for those who will comment, isn't a word at all). When I write about a guy waving to someone, I often "see" that person waving, even duplicating the motion myself, like a painter who looks in the mirror to sketch a face.
Though that may be true, I nonetheless have avoided canvases, easels, references to acrylics, oils and anything else reminiscent of painting, convinced my creativity resided only in words and music.
So it was with great trepidation that I attended an outdoor art class (plein air, if you want to be fancy and Frenchy about it, is simply when you paint outside) as part of an "art-cation" package offered at the Boca Raton Resort & Club (http://www.bocaresort.com), one of Florida's toniest enclaves.
A concept I had not heard of before, artcations (artistic vacations) will become, I now predict, the hottest niche travel trend, the wanna-be creative person's version of voluntourism or spiritual tourism. Why? Because even people like me - "creative types" - get pigeonholed into stereotypes, and therefore are deprived of opportunities to express themselves in ways that expand their horizons, literally and figuratively. We know this but don't know how to break the mold. We don't give ourselves the time or a safe nonjudgmental space to experiment.
That hotels are picking up on this is fascinating - and logical - to me. Hotels are often pigeonholed themselves: as either havens for business travelers and conferences, or dens of indulgence catering to decadence and pampering, spas and hot sex. In either case, they're always a place apart from one's "real life." What happens in hotels, to adapt the saying, stays in hotels. So where better than a 5-star to explore another side of one's self...or the other side of one's brain?
The Boca Resort's two-night package includes a tour of the art and sculpture collection showcased throughout the property (most of it for sale through the new branch of Boca's Elaine Baker Gallery (http://www.elainebakergallery.com/html/home.asp) in the hotel lobby); plus complimentary tickets to local art and history museums, discounts on tennis court time, spa treatments and a few other freebies. And that painting class.
Gallery owners Elaine Baker and daughter Deborah Sponder
with Boaz Vaadia's "The Family" in front of the Boca Resort.
The teacher, Lynn Travis Stender, (http://www.watercolourgreetings.com/workshop.htm), artist-in-residence at the Boca Resort, created such a forgiving environment, the perfect blend of instruction and whatever-you-do-is-right, that I took brush to palette and let my second-grade Monet fly across the canvas - once again.
I amazed myself at what freedom of expression I felt in another medium, as well as how fairly acceptable the resulting painting turned out. And who cares if you agree or not?
There is one problem I am discovering, however. Now that I have gotten back in touch with my inner Monet, my revenue-producing outer Hemingway has up and walked out on me in protest. Writing never was a day at the beach, and now that I can imagine painting at the beach, my will to write is drying up.
Stand by while I take a treatment at the Boca's Spa Palazzo, indulge in the fine coastal cuisine at its 28-floor Cielo Restaurant, and see if I can seduce left and right to find love and harmony in the same brain. That's an image worth framing.
]]>The Raja's Rules: Timeless Continuity Tips from the World's Oldest Family Businesstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.4993932010-03-15T16:51:17-04:002011-05-25T15:50:25-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
Photo courtesy Eternal Mewar, City Palace Complex, Udaipur
Two of the world's most distinguished professors of family business last week gave a periscope view of an ongoing study examining the Mewars of Udaipur, Rajasthan.
What, you never heard of the House of Mewar? Never heard of their product? If you're not from India or an Indo-phile, you're probably not alone. Neither have Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, Peter Drucker or Ken Blanchard. In fact, had Blanchard heard of the Mewars, he might have recast his book "The One-Minute Manager" as the "The One-and-a-Half-Millennium Manager." Doing so, he probably would have sold more than the measly 13 million copies he did peddle.
Even Professor John Ward, co-director for the Center for Family Enterprises at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, was impressed when Professor K. Ramachandran, colleague on the other side of the globe specializing in Family Business and Wealth Management at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, suggested studying the Mewars. After all, Dr. Ward had already looked at family businesses he thought were very old - businesses that went back only to 1526 and 1299!
As I blogged last summer, the House of Mewar, now operating under the umbrella of Eternal Mewar, was founded in 734 A.D. The Mewars were one of 565 princely (or rajput) states headed by maharanas, maharajas, nawabs and others for a few thousand years up until India achieved independence in 1947. They are the world's oldest family business, unbroken for 76 generations. And counting.
This is the first-ever serious academic exercise examining the management styles of India's erstwhile royals, which in itself is surprising considering the longevity of many rajput family rules. It's additionally enlightening in view of the just released Forbes list of the 10 richest men in the world. Two of them are Indians (only the U.S. had more representation, with three); both Indians are heads of family businesses. Something is going on inside the Indian family business from which their Western counterparts should steal a page or two for their own employee manual.
The Mewars' simple mission statement, as it might be called now, was issued by the founding chief executive's guru: serve your community, your guru and your God; protect and grow your community; then pass on the same responsibility to the next generation. Never own anything; serve only as custodians, holding whatever you accumulate in trust, as a treasured heirloom is passed down from generation to generation.
One cannot argue with 1,400 years of success, when success is measured by continuous years in business, accumulated customer loyalty and respect, and future prospects for growth. The Mewars have successfully held off more mergers and acquisitions, put down more (at times bloody) hostile takeover attempts, outlasted more competitors, withstood more economic downturns, overcome more less-than-brilliant leadership regimes and orchestrated more complicated succession strategies than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.
Their product, one could argue, is identical with their goals and objectives. By giving to, defending and supporting their community, their community gave to and supported them. It may have been the first win-win corporate model in the world.
What they sell now, aside from heritage travel experiences at their dozen HRH Hotels throughout Rajasthan, is not so much brick and mortar. But it is tangible and it's one of the most desired commodities in the business world today: a step-by-step instructional manual for corporate continuity, based on an ethical code beyond reproach. That manual is easily readable to anyone who tours their City Palace Museum, Udaipur, a living monument down a long courtyard from the current Mewar family residence.
Their product line has changed in step with the times, but not much. Once upon a time, it was protection from enemy encroachment. Later it became protecting their assets from the new laws of the land in post-independence India. Now it is protection and preservation of a piece of history, and the promulgation of a steadfast, savvy and (in these days perhaps most importantly) sustainable business wisdom tradition. Eternal Mewar recently launched an initiative that offers those inspired by the Mewar value-based ethos an opportunity to become a Joint Custodian - whether it's supporting a Getty Foundation matching-grant restoration of the Mewars' 17th century City Palace as a world-class museum, or a variety of human needs under the umbrella of the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation. In effect, it's an invitation to become a Mewar in the most significant sense; that is, by aligning and identifying with the Mewar model of sustainable business, you, your company, your organization or foundation demonstrates a spirit of selflessness that itself permeates your personal and corporate culture. For, if the axiom "guilt by association" has validity, then its corollary is equally true: greatness by affiliation.
Professor Ramachandran gave only a tip of the very large iceberg in his presentation last week to a group of 200 gathered in Durbar Hall, where maharanas and maharajas once met for major pow-wows and which is now part of HRH's century-old Fateh Prakash Palace Hotel beside Lake Pichola in Udaipur.
These were but three of the lessons I myself found most relevant to today's business environment, whether yours is a millennium-old family business in India or a month-old start-up in a Palo Alto garage:
• Nurture Contextual Leaders
Each period of Mewar history has brought its own set of problems, each its own opportunity for creative solutions. Each regime has required its leader to exhibit different qualities, abilities and skill sets. Each father, if successful in preparing for succession, recognized his son's strengths and weaknesses, built on the former, offset latter. A long view of Mewar history and a short view of immediate needs taught Bhagwat Singh Mewar, the 75th maharana, to prepare the next generation for the tumultuous times he foresaw when the Republic of India abolished raj privileges and titles.
When Arvind Singh Mewar stepped up in 1984, the scenario was especially complicated. This was the era of a young democracy fraught with growing pains, not yet the India of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. Arvind, who many call Shriji, was not fully prepared for the role, as he was the second son. But early on, his father had seen and nurtured his talents and skills, namely natural leadership qualities, a quick and focused mind that saw both the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously, and the ability to absorb, assess, assimilate and act decisively. To enhance his global vision, his father sent Shriji to London for practical work training, then to work in the hotel industry in Chicago as a trainee. There he had to work his way up, without the advantage of royal trappings, as he later would have to do in his own country.
• Find Your Niche, Staunchly Guard It, Patiently Grow It
The Mewars quite possibly may be the first entrepreneurs to understand niche marketing. While the operating paradigm throughout history has been expansionist (from Alexander the Great to Wal-Mart's Sam Walton), the Mewars stayed close to home. They moved once, in 1559 from the city of Chittor to their current headquarters in Udaipur, and have remained there since. Over the next 450 years, the radius of the Mewar marketplace never exceeded 150 kilometers (about 90 miles). Unlike most other princely states, the Mewars never initiated an attack for the sake of adding territory; they only defended what was historically theirs. And unlike many other erstwhile rajes, today the Mewars remain a vibrant force, connected to the world economically, politically and socially.
Likewise, while HRH Hotels perennially has won awards in the heritage category since its launch in 1989, it could have easily expanded its brand architecture to embrace the burgeoning five-star and domestic business hotel niches in India. It also could have spread geographically outside Rajasthan. It has done neither, and as a result is the most successful heritage hotel chain in India. Shriji, who earned a coveted Lifetime Achievement Award from Indian tourism professionals last year, is credited with turning Udaipur into a tourism magnet, culminating in its being named "best city" by Travel & Leisure readers in 2009.
• Gift Your Enemy
Jesus said, "Love your enemy," in Matthew 5:44 of the New Testament. Sun Tzu, in the Art of War, wrote, "Know your enemy." In 1437, in the illustrious rein of Maharana Kumbha, the Muslim King of Malwa attacked the Mewar fortress but was defeated and taken prisoner. Rather than punish, torture or kill him, Kumbha treated the Muslim as a guest and sent him home six months later laden with gifts. There followed nearly a century of peace.
In his time, Shriji's new enemy might have been hotel chains developing around Lake Pichola - had he thought in such terms. But he had the audacious and ultimately more productive viewpoint that he had no competition, not out of arrogance but out of the recognition that new products entering the marketplace bring only more interest to that place and all those products therein. Most recently when the Leela Kempinski group of hotels announced they were building along the lake shore, Shriji gave his blessing and welcomed them with open arms, his form of a gift. He well knew no one owns a 100 percent share of any market. In fact, he noticed the would-be enemies actually foot the bill of added destination marketing and promotion, which benefited Shriji's museums, hotels, restaurants and other tourism-related profit-making ventures. "Your competition is your best ally," he now says. And the Leela Udaipur, in turn, now showcases an almost life size portrait of Shriji that greets guests as they enter the hotel lobby.
]]>The 7 Laws Of Inconspicuous Consumptiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3819542009-12-07T16:54:08-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
Far be it for me to put a damper on spending when the economy clearly needs some good old-fashioned consumer consumption - the more conspicuous, the better.
Yet, speaking personally as a professional in a field (namely, print journalism) that was disappearing before our very laptops even before the meltdown, I am sure I am not alone in confessing the most creative writing I do these days is balancing my own checkbook.
But I have found a way to have my consumer cake and eat my holiday fruitcake too. When I first heard the phrase "inconspicuous consumption," it sounded like an oxymoron, especially coming from a California-based luxury hotel CEO I hold in high regard. By all logic, he should have been promoting "exorbitant expendituring," but there is something of the Buddha in this gentleman. And when I got to thinking about it, I realized that he was onto something that makes very good sense from a Buddhist perspective. Inconspicuous consumption - I.C. for short - is more of a Zen attitudinal adjustment than budgetary. Indeed, I.C. may be the new P.C.
I.C. is not about spending less or wearing a fake mustache when you run to the mall. It's about spending wisely, spending for the right reasons, spending not to feed your face but to feed your soul - and others' souls.
Herewith, then, a guide to spiritual spending that is not likely to be proposed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
#1: Buy to enlighten, not to impress.
Things that have worth inform, motivate, inspire and teach you something that shifts your paradigm, and can mean something personally. Gucci and all other brand names have no intrinsic value or meaning other than that which we assign them. We usually buy them just to keep up with the Joneses, the Schwartzes or the Patels. Some enlightening gift ideas might come from this website: Educational Games.
#2: Buy quality over quantity.
Good stuff lasts longer, to put it most simply. Yes, you pay a little more but amortized over the time it ably serves you, you come out the smart buyer. Compare the lifespan of K-Mart tube socks, $12 for a dozen, against the $30 pair of Mephisto socks I bought in 2004 (that can practically walk by themselves by now). Yes, Mephisto is a brand but brand schmand: this was about quality, not hype.
#3: Make anonymous gifts.
I love the "Curb" episode ("The Anonymous Donor," season six, episode 52) when Larry David and Ted Danson both make generous gifts to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Then Larry finds out Ted made his gift "anonymous," making Larry look like a royal celebrity egoist. Larry justifiably boils over, though, when he learns Ted outed himself to several people as the "anonymous donor." "It's faux anonymity," Larry fumes. Why does it feel so right to give anonymously? Because then the motivation is guaranteed to be literally selfless.
#4: Buy things that leave a small carbon footprint.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus who knows from green. And if your Santa does not have a green clause, you can elucidate (and illuminate) him with energy-saving light bulbs. Or with some surfing before he boards his sled. For starters, Wiki now has a green page dedicated to techniques for reducing carbon usage that "cost nothing, zero, zilch, zip," as the page enthuses. To measure exactly how much damage you already are causing to the planet, the Nature Conservancy can help you calculate. And for those dreaming of a green Christmas, click here.
#5: Buy local products and produce.
One more way you can deplete the environment a little less. Veggies and manufactured products that don't have to travel 2,000 miles save gas and therefore the environment, as does not having to drive to some suburban mall to buy them. You'll save even more ordering online, though someone else will still have to drive the merchandise to your home. Lots of towns and communities have launched their own "buy local" campaign. BigBoxToolkit.com provides a PDF file on how to start your own Buy Local Campaign.
#6: Buy small.
Recycled E.F. Schumacher? Probably. The British economist, who argued as early as 1970 that a modern industrialized bigger-is-better economy is unsustainable, would love being considered a recyclable. "Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful," he wrote in his book of essays, subtitled "Economics As If People Mattered." The E.F. Schumacher Society can explain it better than me but at the level I understand it, buying bulk brown rice looks cheaper at the checkout counter, but it will take up shelf space and probably become a science experiment before I get down to the last grains. On a larger scale, imagine the costs of that brown rice sitting in a warehouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
#7: Buy, buy.
There may be a tendency to scrimp and save this holiday season, understandable since this is still a time of great economic uncertainty. So Law #7 may seem counter-intuitive. But I believe we as individuals can generate our own micro-economic stimulus plan, and let it expand outward from there, especially if we follow the 6 previous laws. Look, conspicuous consumption got us into this mess; I truly believe inconspicuous consumption can get us out.
]]>Saving the Lakes of Udaipur, "World's Best City"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3415572009-11-05T15:56:31-05:002011-05-25T14:30:27-04:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
Now more than the view -- the lake itself -- could join the cheetah and other species on India's endangered or extinct list unless he and others can spearhead a reversal of the lake's misfortunes.
A view of the shoreline of Lake Pichola, a magnet to anyone who visits Udaipur, Rajasthan.
As current head of the Maharana clan that founded the Rajasthani city in 1568 and soon after developed what geographers have identified as the world's first man-made micro-system of river diversion, linkage and watershed management, Mewar is among the major local stakeholders concerned with protecting the string of lakes from increasing pollution and depletion.
While over the last 15 years some 14 local environmental groups have attempted to preserve the waters, some even filing lawsuits against local and state governing boards, lake conservation has been slow to nonexistent to backward.
"There's too much political finger-pointing and not enough problem solving," said Mewar, who owns HRH Hotels, a collection of 12 Rajasthan properties converted from family palaces and hunting lodges, including five in Udaipur. "Like my forefathers, I feel it's my responsibility to bring us together to take action quickly or lose our greatest asset, both environmentally and economically."
Now, tourism-generated revenue may be the incentive that turns the tide. The series of lakes are a major magnet to the city. Last year 1.2 million tourists visited the city nicknamed it "Venice of the East."
But when water levels drop so low that you can drive a jeep to the island wedding venue, Jagmandir, or to the Mewar-owned Lake Palace Hotel, so does the destination's appeal.
That's one reason Mewar offered Durbar Hall -- where Indian royals once convened -- at HRH's Fateh Prakash Hotel to co-sponsor a one-day conference this past summer exploring approaches to integrated lake basin management.
For once, global warming and climate change were not to blame, said keynote speaker Masahisa Nakamura, director of the Center for Sustainability and Environment at Shiga University in Otsu, Japan, and chairman of the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation's scientific committee.
Rather, he ticked off a number of human factors, among them deforestation and silting, construction along lakeshore, human and other waste dumping, poor governance and bribes.
He was particularly critical of regional marble cutting industries that dump white sludge, a contaminant waste that penetrates soil and water systems. Adding to the negative impact, large tracts of the white powder act as sun reflectors, creating their own micro-climatic warming effect.
All these have contributed to the scarcity and degradation of the lake waters, he said.
He advised governing bodies to impose tighter regulatory laws, better policing and fewer pay-offs to government officials. He also promoted environmental impact education programs, not only for politicians and influential private sector citizens but also the general population of the city (population 5.5 million).
"There is an x-factor I call heart-ware," he said. "As the confluence of many factors has caused the problem, so too must the solution be approached holistically. We need to also involve people body and soul, heart and mind."
At the age of 63, Udaipur surgeon Tej Razdan is old enough to remember Lake Pichola before it was overdeveloped. "With so many ghats (steps) and temples lining the lake, it was more beautiful than along the Ganges in Benares," he said. "To see it now, I am weeping. That is the pain in me."
A physician by profession, Dr. Razdan is a passionate environmentalist who heads Udaipur's Lake Conservation Society, which helped organize the August conference here.
While he laments the lake and basin degradation, he acknowledges some progress has been made in the last 20 years. "Previously there were 100 latrines hanging directly over the lakes," he said. Twenty-five tons of solid waste and six million liters of raw sewage were dumped into the lakes on a daily basis. Now, he said, those numbers are down by 60 percent. A drainage system now diverts sewage downstream, though a treatment plant has yet to be installed.
Meanwhile, wholesale development too close to the lakeshore has accelerated the lake's slippery slide. The opening of Oberoi's Udaivilas luxury hotel in 2000 and the Leela Palace this past April, both less than a few feet from Lake Pichola, opened the door for other shoreline hotel and residential development, said Dr. Razdan.
"The big guys essentially bought their way past lakeshore encroachment laws," said Dr. Razdan. "That created a domino effect. Smaller entrepreneurs with money muscle and political connections asked, 'Why not us too?'"
Many here believe Mewar can use his political muscle and to keep lake cleanup efforts afloat.
"Water is not the property of any political party -- it belongs to ordinary people," he said. "It's our collective right and responsibility to act as its custodian. We have a lake conservation plan but if there is no water, what is there to plan?"
]]>Another India Innovation: The Joy of Giving Weektag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2984972009-09-25T12:16:55-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Perry Garfinkelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-garfinkel/
A fascinating cultural phenomenon will take place in India from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.
This one will not involve an out-of-body experience or levitation. No Bollywood crossover star-turn. No Bangla-meets-hip-hop CD release. No spontaneous third-eye opening. Not even a humungous garland-laden wedding celebration on Jagmandir Island in the middle of Udaipur's Lake Pichola.
This one will simply be the joy of giving. Or more precisely, The Joy of Giving Week (http://www.joyofgivingweek.org), a program co-hosted in an egalitarian manner by 1000-plus schools, colleges and NGOs all over India, plus Rotary Clubs, corporations and many others. A bunch of volunteers are coordinating the event and it's all loosely held together by an India-based NGO, GiveIndia.org (http://www.giveindia.org).
It's not that generosity and acts of charity are unheard of in India. One can find examples from the time of the Vedas -- at least. And for sure people give gifts small and large to their Hindu temples; they lend ample support to their gurus. They celebrate a wonderful holiday called Raksha Bandhan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raksha_Bandhan), when brothers honor their sisters with gifts.
But then, as GiveIndia CEO Ujwal Thakar explains it, cow dung happens, to paraphrase him. What happened in India was the corrosion of confidence, which led to the inability to give back to society and others in need. In short, Indians fell victim to genocide -- the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. In their case, it took the form of wave after wave of dominance by oppressor after oppressor, including what is considered the worst genocide in history during the Islamic invasion beginning in 11th century, when more than 80 million Hindus and Buddhists were killed over 700 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide).
In effect, the British did the same but even more efficiently -- almost 100 years of rule from 1858 and 1947 -- to eat away at Indians' self confidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rule_in_india) by bureaucratizing to near strangulation a civilization that was quite happily feudal.
"Over centuries we were led to believe we were poor and powerless, and so we became poor and powerless," he explains. "We were mental slaves. Someone can chip away at your ego until you feel you have nothing to give. This breeds a culture of non-giving."
But the good news is that now Indians are winning -- in the capitalist era truly "earning" -- back their self worth by finding their place as a country in the flat world of global economics. On a personal level at home, there's an emerging middle class -- an estimated 150 million (out of a total population of 1.1 billion) -- finally with a tiny bit of disposable income and the confidence to give again.
This new generation of proud Indians has been inspired by the great Mahatma Gandhi's mantra, "Be the change you want to see in the world." It encouraged Venkat Krishnan, a would-be entrepreneur were it not for a huge heart and a penchant for helping those less fortunate, to found GiveIndia.
Last year GiveIndia raised $6 million from 55,000 donors; the NGO has been growing at a rate of 50 percent a year. Among the obstacles he had to overcome was to convince Indians that this NGO was credible, that the money went to the beneficiaries, that giving could be very convenient. All of which he has done. The website enables a donor to make a contribution to a specific cause or individual recipient. GiveIndia assures donors that all the participating NGO recipients guarantee that at least 50 percent of direct beneficiaries are at the poverty level.
With the Joy of Giving Week, it's even simpler and the scope is even broader, seeking to embrace the entire world. To further the notion of giving, the NGO suggests that any act of generosity is in the spirit for this week. Do some simple acts of kindness like helping an old person cross the road; or donate a toy to the next child you see on the street. Or take the example of a girl named Sara Tendulkar, who had a birthday party but instead of having her friends buys her gifts, she requested they make a donation to Apnalaya, her favorite charity. It's that simple.
Companies can reach out to their customers, distributors, vendors and suppliers, employees, shareholders and the community to create a novel "giving supply chain" during the Week.
The website offers a ton of creative options and it's not too late to jump on the giving bandwagon.
Why should Indians get to have all the spiritual benefits that giving brings?
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