The Six Greatest Meals of My Life
6. 2005 - Last night with Meg- Rishikesh, India - Cheese tomato toast, sweet corn egg drop soup, veggie burger, farfalle pasta with tofu, mushroom, spinach, capers and cheese, lemon cake and a chocolate coconut donutball. After six weeks of dal (lentils) and rice, we reveled in our Chinese-Italian-German-American fusion meal in a place called the New Bandhari Swiss Cottage. Globalization, I love thee. Total cost (for two)- $4.
5. 2001 - New York City - My buddy Zanja always demonstrated remarkable patience with me when I'd visit him at his apartment near Columbia and demanded that every meal consist exclusively of bagels and pizza. But on one sublime Sunday morning in September, we woke up from a late night of partying, went to Koronet Pizza (110th/Broadway) to get the biggest slice of pizza you've ever seen, dripping with oil and mozzarella, ate it, ordered another massive slice each, ate it, then walked down to Absolute Bagels (108th/Broadway), got an everything bagel fresh out of the oven, loaded it up with cream cheese and a slice of tomato, ate it, and then in a burst of pure genius, returned to Koronet and ate another huge, perfect slice. I then took a siesta till sunset. Total cost - $6.50.
4. 2000 - Coroico, Bolivia - After a day of mountain biking from a 15,000 foot pass in the Andes to a 3000 foot-high rainforest in the Amazon (sooooo gringo, but so fun), I hiked 2 miles to a random French expat's house, where we talked for 3 hours and drank red wine while he made a four-course meal - french onion soup, a three-cheese souffle, a salad with pears and roquefort and chocolate crepes. The thing is: I hate French food, don't really eat salad, it was too hot to be drinking soup, and I firmly believe that souffle is for wussies. But hey, it worked. Maybe it was the wine. Total cost - $3.
3. 1989 - Paramus, NJ - My first Cinnabon in the Paramus Park Mall. Hotter than I expected. Sweeter than I could possibly have imagined. Like losing my virginity, but messier. Total cost - $1.65 (w/extra icing).
2. 1996 - Fort Yukon, Alaska - The last day of a five-week backpacking trip off-trail above the Arctic Circle finally brought us to "civilization", a fifty-person Inuit village. Two guys took me to their fish wheel and let me choose a two-foot salmon to eat for dinner that they had caught about ten minutes earlier. We scaled it, seared it, squeezed lemon on it, and ate it straight off the bone. As we were finishing, around midnight, the August Alaskan sun was starting to finally drift towards the horizon, and the two guys pulled out four Reese's peanut butter cups for me. Ah, the Inuit - not only do they have 100 words for snow, but they also know about Reese's. I was so happy that I gave the two guys many Eskimo kisses in return (note to Dad: just kidding, it's a metaphor, I'm straight, really). Total cost - $3.
1. 1997 - Florence, Italy - The granddaddy of them all. In the middle of a month of post-graduation boozing around Europe with my boys from Stanford, we ended up in a little family restaurant on the outskirts of town with two women from Oregon that we had met in Prague. We were there for four hours, but I've forgotten everything that we ate. All I can remember is that the waiter kept making the same joke over and over again with his three words of English, we each finished two two-liter bottles of red wine, and I kept thinking to myself - "this is the best meal of my entire life." I was so inspired by the food (and, perhaps, the wine) that after we finished eating around midnight, I became convinced that I had discovered the answer to all of the secrets of the entire universe. I scaled the steps of the local cathedral and decided to preach my transcendent wisdom to my friends (who were either too polite or too drunk to stop me, probably the latter). For twenty minutes, I truly believed that I could make lightning shoot out of my fingertips and that I had achieved complete and total enlightenment. Then I ran into an alley and puked my guts out onto the cobblestone streets. Lost all the food. Lost all the wine. And by the next morning, I had lost all of the enlightenment too. Total cost - $60 for 6 people, Total cost to my pride, after realizing the next morning how totally full of crap I was: priceless.
---rahul
5. 2001 - New York City - My buddy Zanja always demonstrated remarkable patience with me when I'd visit him at his apartment near Columbia and demanded that every meal consist exclusively of bagels and pizza. But on one sublime Sunday morning in September, we woke up from a late night of partying, went to Koronet Pizza (110th/Broadway) to get the biggest slice of pizza you've ever seen, dripping with oil and mozzarella, ate it, ordered another massive slice each, ate it, then walked down to Absolute Bagels (108th/Broadway), got an everything bagel fresh out of the oven, loaded it up with cream cheese and a slice of tomato, ate it, and then in a burst of pure genius, returned to Koronet and ate another huge, perfect slice. I then took a siesta till sunset. Total cost - $6.50.
4. 2000 - Coroico, Bolivia - After a day of mountain biking from a 15,000 foot pass in the Andes to a 3000 foot-high rainforest in the Amazon (sooooo gringo, but so fun), I hiked 2 miles to a random French expat's house, where we talked for 3 hours and drank red wine while he made a four-course meal - french onion soup, a three-cheese souffle, a salad with pears and roquefort and chocolate crepes. The thing is: I hate French food, don't really eat salad, it was too hot to be drinking soup, and I firmly believe that souffle is for wussies. But hey, it worked. Maybe it was the wine. Total cost - $3.
3. 1989 - Paramus, NJ - My first Cinnabon in the Paramus Park Mall. Hotter than I expected. Sweeter than I could possibly have imagined. Like losing my virginity, but messier. Total cost - $1.65 (w/extra icing).
2. 1996 - Fort Yukon, Alaska - The last day of a five-week backpacking trip off-trail above the Arctic Circle finally brought us to "civilization", a fifty-person Inuit village. Two guys took me to their fish wheel and let me choose a two-foot salmon to eat for dinner that they had caught about ten minutes earlier. We scaled it, seared it, squeezed lemon on it, and ate it straight off the bone. As we were finishing, around midnight, the August Alaskan sun was starting to finally drift towards the horizon, and the two guys pulled out four Reese's peanut butter cups for me. Ah, the Inuit - not only do they have 100 words for snow, but they also know about Reese's. I was so happy that I gave the two guys many Eskimo kisses in return (note to Dad: just kidding, it's a metaphor, I'm straight, really). Total cost - $3.
1. 1997 - Florence, Italy - The granddaddy of them all. In the middle of a month of post-graduation boozing around Europe with my boys from Stanford, we ended up in a little family restaurant on the outskirts of town with two women from Oregon that we had met in Prague. We were there for four hours, but I've forgotten everything that we ate. All I can remember is that the waiter kept making the same joke over and over again with his three words of English, we each finished two two-liter bottles of red wine, and I kept thinking to myself - "this is the best meal of my entire life." I was so inspired by the food (and, perhaps, the wine) that after we finished eating around midnight, I became convinced that I had discovered the answer to all of the secrets of the entire universe. I scaled the steps of the local cathedral and decided to preach my transcendent wisdom to my friends (who were either too polite or too drunk to stop me, probably the latter). For twenty minutes, I truly believed that I could make lightning shoot out of my fingertips and that I had achieved complete and total enlightenment. Then I ran into an alley and puked my guts out onto the cobblestone streets. Lost all the food. Lost all the wine. And by the next morning, I had lost all of the enlightenment too. Total cost - $60 for 6 people, Total cost to my pride, after realizing the next morning how totally full of crap I was: priceless.
---rahul
posted by Meghul at 1:46 AM
3 Comments:
omg, the tales of you two filling what is empty and then emptying what is full must continue. it is great reading.
this is the greatest website ever.
Wonderful reading - you both paint a very (umm)...interesting picture of India. Somehow I feel much more connected than any Bollywood film or Lonely Planet description, and I thank you for that. I've enjoyed living vicariouly through you lives via the blog spot (though I still need to see the Volcano movie again - hated it the first time).
As a complete contrast, Kae and I just got back from a trip to New Zealand. Amazing - the water is so clean you can drink it straight from creeks (which we did with no GI dysfunctions). Further, we rented a car and went throughout the entire south island without seeing any roads bigger than 2 lanes. Unspoilt, untouched, amazing.
Finally: I just donated some cash to your cause - bike hard for me, and be safe!
Hi meg and rahul , great post. I really like what you have to say where do you get your ideas from? I have my own website all about backstreet boy karaoke take a look if you like.
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