Ever since I started raiding the breath freshener (and carminative) trays at Indian restaurants, I’ve been curious about cardamom. Whereas my usual reason for diving into those trays was for the candy-coated fennel seeds, the inimitable aggressive and unique flavor of cardamom always stood out. When else could I find the expensive pods in my […]
Asia (Non-Middle East)
The Neptunus Group Building, Shenzhen (China)
Recently, I came across an article from two months ago that mentioned how Chinese Leader Jinping Xi issued a decree limiting the construction of buildings >250 meters (~821 feet) tall, disallowing buildings > 500 meters (~1641 feet), and prohibiting copycat behavior – in architecture. That article made me reflect on the architectural scene in China, […]
Some People Like Banh Mi, Some Like…Thuoc Lao
Within the Solanaceae family of plants are some of my favorite foods; tomatoes, eggplant, and potatoes are the three that come to mind. However, there’s one particularly nasty member of the family that not only counts as addicts hundreds of millions of people, but also doubles as an effective pesticide… Tobacco. Yet, there’s the tobacco […]
