I Miss Olive Oil

Well, I'm at the tail end of my trip. Today is my last day in Bangkok before flying out at Midnight for a lovely eight hour layover in Tokyo.

No great revelations today, just simply I think my body is finally rebelling against all the new bacteria that I've introduced into my system over the last three weeks. This is of course due to the ungodly hot (yet very delicious) Thai Food that I've been eating. Suffice to say, I've gotten a little sick -- I'll spare you the details -- if you've ever traveled abroad, then I think you can relate. My Mom's theory is that I ate too much pepper. It's a definite possibility, but I'm sticking with my bacteria theory.

Anyway, despite the problem of the small scale war being waged inside my digestive tract, I find myself craving grape leaves -- the stuffed rice variety found in a Greek or Lebanese deli. I think my body misses the olive oil. When I have regular access to a kitchen, I consume vast qualities of it.

In other news, I hear California just banned trans fats in all locally produced food, restaurants, and bakeries. However, packaged food still has an exception, since that would be too hard to enforce. The changes are set to go into effect between 2009 and 2010 depending on the type of food establishment. That's great! Looks like I picked a great time to move to California. One possible downside is that this may force food prices up a bit, but then again you always pay more for quality.

Speaking of quality, I had an interesting conversation about the way modern houses are built with one of my travelling companions the other day. They originally grew up outside the mainland U.S. in the Caribbean, but have lived in the US for most of their life. It's always interesting to find out what other people consider common sense. Well, they were shocked to discover that we, Americans, don't position our houses based on where the sunlight falls or to take advantage of the breeze. They said it's common sense, why can't the builders do it here? I tried to explain the whole quality vs. quantity dilemma that is currently dominating much of Western American society (everything from the way our clothes are made to the food we eat...), but ultimately it comes down to lost knowledge. On the whole our culture has forgotten all the energy saving tricks (not to mention cost and general resource saving tricks) our grand and great grand parents practiced. Sure modern building companies could construct our houses so that they could take full advantage all the elements, but you end up paying a heck of premium doing that. That's why you mostly only hear of movie stars being able to afford it.

The alternative would be to do it yourself or even as a community, but I fear our largely service based economy combined with consumer culture has beat most of the can-do spirit out of us. I'm speaking very broadly here. Of course a environmentally and community minded people are trying to change all that, but I'm wondering if I'll live to see a time when people once again are grounded enough in their locales to be able to asks their neighbors for help/advice on the best ways to take advantage of the rainfall, water conservation in their gardens in building and in maintaining our homes as a matter of course.

On a similar note, some old Thai friends of my mom asked us what why we build our houses so weak. Apparently they've seen news stories of tornadoes and hurricanes blowing away houses back in the States. Why use wood, they wonder, when concrete is so much stronger? And why aren't we using storm windows? Quality vs. Quantity again. As in American it's easy to get caught up in all the we-have-and-have-it-the-best mentality, but do we really?

I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's not only a matter of lost knowledge, but lost community that is the problem. I've still have a lot learn on my journey, yet occasionally I encounter people living the solution to these problems. Hopefully, I'll encounter a lot more as I grow older -- I could use a bit of inspiration at the moment.

That's all for now; see you back in the States.