"City to city, airport to airport, time zone to time zone, country to country, this it appears is my life. Least I could do is see the world with open eyes - this life's glorious mosaic. But travel isn't always pretty. You go away, you learn, you get scarred and changed in the process - it even breaks your heart." (Anthony Bourdain)
I traveled to Taiwan (ca. 2016) deliberately with two goals in mind: the hot springs in Bai Yen, and the captivating night market with bustling food stalls cooking on the spot local fare. I read in the Times Magazine about this hidden oasis on the mountaintop that only a few internationals had seen, the writer of the article was one them, and his writing immediately intrigued me because the description was unlike any other. It was an all-natural pool under a forest canopy, and its confluence was “slightly” engineered by the local villagers (who were diehard protectors of the “spring from heaven”) by manipulating the flow of both the waterfalls and the volcanic geothermal effluence existing side by side in that unique ecology, thereby mixing cold and hot springs through stone dikes-path riverine which beautifully like a zen garden collected into the perfect living pond, downstream at the serene riparian canyon. And the writing of this article emphasized this subtle human touch, giving me the appreciation of the ingenuity of the Taiwanese people, as already reputed of them, developing their nature only to enhance itself. It was hours hike from the only small hotel in the village, but it was worth it. The reality of the oasis was more beautiful than the words imagined hitherto; perhaps those words in their final divination took upon me the unfolding for lasting memory.
(I am interrupting this story for a double boiler alert! I was melting baking chocolate in unsweetened cashew milk while writing this blog, and I almost forgot about it. Whisking the concoction is important constantly, breaking out the chunks, and whisking more and more to emulsify to molten but pourable viscosity was my food project this Sunday afternoon on the double boiler, notwithstanding the time to write, to make my favorite cold beverage: poured iced cafe mocha. It's a 3pm pick-me-up drink. It's been raining all day on Maui, and it's warm and humid. It is perfect.)
On his scooter, a local friend I had met in Taiwan (a former monk turned vegan cafe chef/owner) took me to the Wunshan District market past midnight, which in that time zone was just about the start of the weekend, and I was in for the gastronomic delight of my life - albeit scared to death on the freeway at high speed and holding on tight. Locals, especially those with culinary sensitivities, are originals when when it came down to their food choices, minding only what works and what they like with street food that's time-and-recipe-tested (their intention was not so much to impress, but to eat what they eat best, and drink what drinks to go nicely with what, and that's the way how I had wanted to be showed around). Do Hua is a tofu custard dessert (very traditional in China) that's mix in shaved ice and garnished with boiled peanuts and sweetened by ginger syrup. That was served after the pipping hot soup of watercress, lotus roots and glass noodles from the next stall over. That afternoon I had helped my friend in his kitchen prepping vegetables for dinner service, we were across from each other at the table picking spinach leaves, and he had noticed the tears in my eyes I was trying to hide. He had asked kindly what was wrong... It was a long story that held out the best of us until our night market run, the monk knew the heart as much as he knew food, the heart and the stomach are on top of each other like a double boiler, (his metaphor), and for the heart's sake, you will never burn it.
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