Canadian author Naomi Duguid introduces herself on her website as being “curious about the world, an insatiable asker of questions…writer, photographer, storyteller, traveller“. Well, it takes a special gift to be able to meld those qualities and talents in the way she does, unfailingly engaging readers time and again.

Like so many readers (and cooks) around the world, I’ve been travelling vicariously with Naomi for many years now, going back to the day I came upon “Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas” in a Vancouver bookstore. (That was the first of  her six award-winning cookbooks*, co-authored with Jeffery Alford). And ever since, I’ve been straggling along in the wake of her passage through countries as far flung and unfamiliar as Senegal, Azerbaijan and Mongolia, and some as near and familiar as India!

Through a medley of recipes, beautiful photographs, and evocative vignettes of places and peoples, Naomi lets you see and share more than just the food and foodways of those she meets on her travels. Her books read like the diaries of someone in love with the world. And that passion is infectious!

So, naturally, I was thrilled to meet Naomi in person when she visited  Vancouver last November, on a book tour for her newest work, “Burma: Rivers of Flavor”.

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Spring cleaning my  kitchen stores, and the evidence lies before me – I am besotted with chillis. Aleppo, Byadgi, Cayenne, Dundicut, Kashmiri, Naga, Turkish, Hungarian, Spanish, they come tumbling out. And I haven’t even got to the Mexican ones yet!

Each variety has a distinct place in the cuisine of distant and not so distant lands. Of all the foods that travelled from the New World in the Columbian Exchange, there can be little doubt that chillis dramatically changed the way we eat. Today, it’s hard to imagine a time without the rich spectrum of chilli cultivars that have worked their way into virtually every culinary nook and corner of the world.

With that world of chillis at my tingling fingertips, there’s one variety that holds a special place in my heart, and that’s the little Kanthari, a cultivar of Capsicum frutescens that’s commonly grown in Kerala and Coorg. In the Kodava language, it’s known as parangi malu*.

There are always little shrubs to be found growing in the kitchen garden, or wild in the countryside, springing up from seeds deposited by a satisfied bird. It’s also one of the small, pungent varieties referred to as “birds eye” because of their shape, but I like to think it’s a reference to how much the birds seem to like them. And birds really love those chillis – if you want any, you”ll have to fight for them!

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It’s a long way from Colombia to British Columbia, and that’s how far the little tubs of cape gooseberries I bought recently have travelled to the local supermarket shelves.

Native to South America, Physalis peruviana has travelled much further afield, over the centuries, acquiring new names and admirers along the way. A stopover on the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa, is apparently responsible for their commonly being referred to as “cape” gooseberries. Whatever route they took to make their way into Coorg, where they were christened goomatté pann in the Kodava language, these luscious berries have played a starring role in many a childhood adventure.

Just ask someone who grew up in Coorg. Chances are, their face will light up at the mention of goomatté, and you will be treated to rapturous accounts of how eagerly they sought out these golden treasures as children. In time-honoured fashion, the best finds were to be made when loitering on the way to or from school. Berry hunters had to be alert to competitors – from fellow “bench mates” at school, to beady eyed birds. They would map the location and fruit-worthiness of the rambling shrubs, and keep an eye out for signs that someone else might be checking on them too.

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When is coffee not coffee? (Let me answer that before the pet peeves about bad coffee come spilling forth!)

When it’s coffee tea. And no, this isn’t the old joke about establishments that serve atrocious brews of tea and coffee that are indistinguishable from one another. 🙂

Earlier this year, in January, when coffee harvesting was in full swing in Coorg, I read a curious report doing the rounds in the news about “coffee leaf tea”. That’s right, a tea made from coffee leaves!

“The researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, and the Joint Research Unit for Crop Diversity, Adaptation and Development in Montpellier, believe coffee leaves could provide a new, healthy drink to rival coffee and traditional green or black tea.”

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Having slipped away from the clutches of Vancouver’s winter wetness, I’ve spent the last few weeks making the most of the reliable days of sunshine one tends to take for granted in India. At home in Mercara, watching the house mutt baking herself in the late morning sun, heaving her drowsy self over with a satisfied grunt every now and then, I was very tempted to join her on the grass!

The winter months in Coorg are simply gorgeous. Azure skies, cool breezes and mellow sunshine. Did I say mellow? Actually, it’s easy to forget that at that elevation (4,000 ft above sea level) the sun can get very intense. If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself light headed and dizzy, with a pounding headache from a little too much sun. Dress sensibly and wear a hat, and you can get your vitamin D fix without giving yourself sunstroke.

Speaking of vitamins, the markets were full of nellikai (Indian gooseberry), that wonder fruit, packed with more vitamins and virtue than you can shake a can of V8 at.

Like most grandmothers in Coorg, back in the day, my grandma made pickles with nellikai. Come gooseberry season, and large ceramic jars (baranis) full of brined fruit would be set out in the sun every morning. Naturally these were raided in the course of the day by gangs of grandchildren, looking for a handy thirst buster on the run! The real refresher though, was the juice my grandmother made from nellikai.

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Sitting in Hong Kong’s international airport in late December, I had one of those – what I think of as – “twilight zone moments”, when nothing seems quite right. The hour was indeterminate, the past weeks of frenzied activity – entertaining, tramping through endless malls, packing for the long journey to India, and the long journey itself – was catching up, and I found myself staring balefully at the plate of dim sum in front of me.

Normally this is one of the attractions of this stopover in Hong Kong, snacking on the delicious foods available at the airport. Not this time. To add to my general sense of weariness, there was little chance of luxuriating in long, holiday sleep-ins anytime soon.

A niece’s wedding was scheduled to take place soon after our arrival. Never mind the jet lag, we’d have to hit the social whirl running. At that moment, the prospect of having to dress up in wedding finery and head straight into festivities soon after arriving in India was enough to make me want to head for the hills.

Little did I realize, our niece had had precisely the same idea – heading for the hills, that is!

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