The Taste of Travel: Sausages in Nuremberg

It was by accident that I found what claims to be the oldest sausage restaurant in the world.

Wandering through the old section of Nuremberg with my family a few days before Christmas, 2008, we were arguing over where a restaurant we had seen the night before was actually located. After asking several locals, we got as many different sets of directions.

My mom wanted someplace "cute," and I just wanted to eat, so when I saw a quaint-looking building around the corner, I pointed it out and said, "We're eating there."

That building happened to be the Zum Gulden Stern, a sausage restaurant established in 1419.

We looked at the menu, decided the price was quite reasonable and went inside to be seated at a long communal table next to a kind, elderly German man.

We ordered half-liters of Tucher weissbier, and I asked the older German man what is good in my poorly accented German.

Fortunately, he was more than willing to tell us all what his menu favorites were, bang glasses in a toast (teaching us that the thick bottom of a pilsner glass is where they should actually be hit - useful information for any wannabe beer snob), explain the history of the building and talk to us about life in general.

I wish I could have understood three words of it. He sure was nice, though.

We all ended up ordering the same thing - plates of eight sausages and potato salad. The sausages, as small as one of my fingers, are a Nuremburg specialty, and they are absolutely delicious. I've never had another sausage that tasted quite the same, and nothing I've had in the States even compares.

As for the potato salad, it wasn't the creamy, cold, onion-infused picnic food we have in the United States, but chopped potatoes with a vinegary sauce that complemented the sausages very well.

The sausages - available in orders ranging from six to 12 - were not very expensive, with six coming in at about 7 euros and 12 costing slightly more than 12 euros. You can also get them in eight- and 10-piece orders. By the way, "stuck" means "piece" and "beilage" means "potato salad."

For more information about the restaurant, visit the website. (You'll have to be able to read German, but the address is listed on the home page).

The Taste of Travel: French Champagne

France considers its wine a national treasure, and the crown jewel of that treasure is champagne. The houses - Bollinger, Krug, Pommery, Taittinger, Veuve Cliquot - are well known to aficionados and many welcome visitors for a look behind the mystique.

By law, only champagne created in the Champagne region of France can bear the name - everything else is merely sparkling wine, and no matter how good, lacks the prestige of the iconic French bubbly. Though you can travel to myriad small champagne vineyards throughout the region, the most accessible place to enjoy a glass of authentic bubbly is in Reims, capital of the Champagne province and a short 45-minute TGV train ride from Paris.

Rich in history and home of the cathedral where France's kings were crowned, Reims has a lot to offer, but for a touch of life in the lap of luxury, two cellar tours top the list. Domaine Pommery and G.H. Mumm are both walking distance from the city center, and the cellar tours give visitors an excellent overview of the process of making world-class champagne along with the history of champagne and the individual companies. Keep in mind, tours of the champagne caves should be booked in advance to ensure a spot in an English-language tour. Each lasts about an hour, with a tasting at the end.

Madame Louise Pommery built the Domaine Pommery Estate ten years after taking over her late husband's champagne business, and she was responsible for creating brut (dry) champagne in 1874. Before that time, champagne was a very sweet drink, generally consumed with dessert. Brut is also lighter and fruitier than the original.

In addition to playing a key role in the history of champagne, Madame Pommery was also a great supporter of the arts, and as you follow your guide down the stairs into the caves, which were originally carved out of the chalk earth 2,000 years ago by Roman slaves, you will see numerous pieces of art spanning a variety of genres.

The caves at the G.H. Mumm Estate, created by Georges Hermann de Mumm, a short distance away are newer, but fill the same function of keeping the 20 - 25 million bottles at a constant 10 to 12 degrees Celsius and 85 percent humidity. Similar in size, both Pommery and G.H. Mumm produce about 5 million bottles each year.

Following your guide through each tour, you will have the process of making champagne explained in depth, from the planting and harvesting of the grapes to the aging process, riddling and removal of sediments and, finally, opening the bottles. Each tour travels past stack after stack of bottles, walls in their own right, frequently pausing at points of interest to talk. Pommery's caves still have labels on the walls of various cities throughout the world - reminiscent of the time when champagne was prepared differently according to a particular region's tastes. Now, however, it follows the same recipe.

Champagnes are blends of wines, and the cellar masters have the ultimate say in which wines will be selected for that year's vintage, giving the champagne its final style. At Pommery, up to 150 different wines are involved in the process.

After blending, the champagne is fermented with yeast and sugar. This is the second fermentation in the champagne process, as the blended wines are each previously fermented. The second fermentation must be aged at least 15 months, but both Pommery and G.H. Mumm age all of their bottles a minimum of 30 months.

The second fermentation leaves sediment of dead yeast, and that must be removed before the bottle is eventually sold. To get the sediment to the neck of the bottle, it subjected to riddling, the careful twisting of the bottle at different angles during the fermentation to allow sediments to collect at the neck of the bottle.

In the past, the sediments were removed by quickly opening the bottle and allowing the pressure to shoot them out before re-corking. That had to be done with skill, to prevent losing too much of the champagne, but still allowing the removal of the sediment. Today, the necks of the bottles are frozen, so the sediment is trapped in a block of ice. The bottles are opened, the frozen sediment is expelled under pressure, and the bottle is re-corked.

At G.H. Mumm, there is a small museum featuring some of the antique tools and devices used in the champagne-making process in the past. Pommery's caves are adorned with objets d'art throughout, but both take tours past their most precious bottles - safely behind protective bars.

On display at Pommery is a bottle of the first vintage of brut and every vintage since. G.H. Mumm has a similar display, with bottles from the current vintage all the way back to the 1800s.

At the end of each tour, there is a tasting. The basic tours include one glass for about €10 per person. Additional glasses of champagne will add to the cost and the experience. Bottles, t-shirts and a number of other souvenirs are available in gift shops at each estate.

Practical Info

Reims can be done as a day trip from Paris if your only goal is to tour champagne caves, but even then, it is best to stay at least one night in the city.

Getting There: The best way to get to Reims is on a direct, highspeed TGV train leaving from Paris Est station. Prices start as low as $20 one way if booked online in advance (http://www.raileurope.co.uk/). A tram is being built in Reims to make transportation within the city even easier, though construction is ongoing.

Reims Info: Online Guide to Reims

Champagne Houses

Domaine Pommery
5 Place General Gourand, +33 (0) 26 61 62 55
E-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Website

Tours start at €10

Hours: Easter to mid-November 10am - 5pm daily

G.H. Mumm
34 Rue du Champ de Mars, +33 (0 )326-49-6967
Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Website

Tours start at €10

Hours: Daily March 1 to October 31, 9am - 11am and 2 - 5pm; other times weekend and holiday afternoons

Taittinger
9 Place Saint Nicaise, Reims Cedex, +33 (0) 326-85-4535, Website

Hours: mid-March to mid-November Daily 9:30am - 1pm, 2pm - 5:30pm; other times Monday - Friday only.

Veuve Clicquot
12 rue du Temple, Reims Cedex, +33 (0) 326-89-5440
Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Website

Visits by appointment only

Note: This article was originally published on The Savvy Explorer

The Taste of Travel: French Cuisine

I stared at the menu, trying to decide if I should go for it.

It was dinnertime on what will probably remain the oddest Christmas of my life.

The morning had started in Paris with a breakfast of croissants, baguette and comte Noel cheese in my hotel room on Rue Cler with my family. Following that was a trip to the Arc de Triomphe and a walk down the Champs Elyseés, with stops at the only stores open that day - Peugeot and Mercedes dealerships (which were oddly crowded). A trip to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery followed that, and I had just come from the Sacre Coeur church in Montmartre.

I laughed as I thought about how going to the red light district - our next stop for the evening - would somehow fit in with the mix of things we'd done that day.

I wasn't sure, however, what I should do about dinner. I was holding the tourist menu - a set price for a selection of food that isn't always a deal - and deciding what I would have. The main course was easy. I was going to savor a steak au poivre with French fries. I thought ice cream sounded good for dessert, and a carafe of red wine would accompany the meat well.

It was the starter that was holding me up. I didn't really want a crepe, and French onion soup is...eh. I thought the salad would be good, but it seemed like something I would get at home, and therefore had no appeal to me (something had to make the meal memorable).

I was vaguely aware of the server taking my family's orders, and when he came to me, I ordered the steak, the ice cream and...the escargot.

"Ah, he is the French one!" the server said.

My sister curled her lip, my dad laughed and my mom looked at me with disbelief.

At home, I can be somewhat picky. I really do hate tomatoes if they aren't mashed into oblivion as part of a pizza sauce or diluted by the broth of minestrone soup, I'm mildly allergic to cantaloupe and I typically stay away from bell peppers, ketchup and mustard.

Part of travel, as far as I'm concerned, is trying the foods of other cultures. When I went to India, I had almost no idea what I was eating most of the time, but I ate it all. On a trip to Italy, I tried tripe (before I saw a rather disgusting video on how cow intestines are processed to make that particular dish). Most recently, in Reims, I'd eaten homemade foie gras - despite that I'd sworn I'd never eat a liver, since it's inherently stupid to eat something that filters out all the bad stuff we ingest.

By the time I was starting to have second thoughts, it was too late. Our server set down a pan full of six snails - sans shells - in a garlic, olive oil and pesto sauce.

"Aren't they usually served in their shells?" I asked.

"Oui, but we have a lot of tourists, and they don't always know how to use the fork to get the snail out, and it's bad when they get thrown across the room," the server replied.

It seemed sensible, albeit much less fun.

The server left, I picked up my fork and stared at the slimy little things I'd stepped on so many times in my life. I wondered if I could really bring myself to eat them, but knowing my whole family was watching me, I speared one of them on my fork. The skin gave a little resistance, then the fork slid in easily, the same way it feels when stabbing a sausage.

I rolled the little blob around in the sauce, hoping this would be one of those foods that has no real taste except for what it's dipped in, and brought it to my mouth.

Initially, I wanted to gag, but as I pulled it off the fork, I forced myself not to think about what I was eating. It almost worked. The taste was fine - it was the texture that induced the choking sensation I felt as I swallowed.

I looked over at my mom, told her it didn't taste bad and suggested she try one. The rapid head shaking told me that wasn't going to happen, and my sister looked like she wanted to be somewhere else, so I popped another one in my mouth.

When I swallowed my third snail, I offered one of the three remaining to my dad, who decided he'd give it a go. That made one less that I had to eat, and I secretly wished he'd ask for another, but he didn't, so I ate the last two.

I was left with a pot of olive oil, pesto and garlic, which is perfect for dipping bread in, but when I offered my mom a piece of bread with the sauce on it - something she would never turn down at home - she refused because snails had been in the same pot. My sister was in the same boat, so I ended up eating it all.

The steak au poivre was fantastic, the French fries were what you'd expect, and the ice cream was also delicious. In sticking with the odd theme for the day, the power in the restaurant went out three times during our dinner, and the server told us it was a warning because they hadn't paid their bill. I'm not really inclined to believe him, but he said it so seriously that I thought it just might be true.

In any case, he wasn't the stereotypical rude Parisian waiter (I actually haven't found one). His English was excellent, and he enjoyed poking fun at us in a friendly way. When my mom asked if something on the menu was good, he replied, "No, that one we have had on the shelf for three months, and we're hoping someone buys it."

Having worked in restaurants for seven years, I thought that was a fair answer.

The restaurant, Au Pichet du Tertre, was very good, and is just off the main artists' square in Montmartre. Despite its location, prices were decent, with the tourist menu including a starter, main course and dessert for 12 euros. (The address is 10 Rue Norvins).

The Taste of Travel: Belgian Waffles and French Fries

I've always loved waffles, and Belgian waffles in particular. On the day I was in Brussels, the thing at the top of my list to do was eating waffles. Second on that list was eating French fries.

I realize the two foods don't really go together (except on a list of foods that might not be very healthy), but I'd read somewhere that the Belgians invented French fries, and that they fried them twice, making them extra crispy.

After a bus tour through the city, my family and I stopped for French fries. Little stands selling them and waffles are all over the place, so it only took a few minutes to find one. Waiting in line, I eagerly anticipated sinking my teeth into the authentic version of one of my favorite foods. I watched the oil in the fryer bubble as a fresh batch of already-fried fries was dunked, and salivated when I saw them pulled out and stuffed into a conical paper wrapping for the couple in front of me.

Then I was horrified when a giant glob of mayonnaise landed on top of them, and two miniature forks were thrust into the top of that.

I was sure the couple would loudly protest and order a new batch, but instead, they dug into their fatty feast with relish, blobs of mayo sliding down the sides of greased fries as they stuffed them into their mouths as fast as they could.

With trepidation, I approached the smiling stall owner and ordered my fries sans mayonnaise. The cheerful, plump man nodded knowingly and respected my New-World tastes. He handed me a little trough of ketchup to go with them, and a pair of those tiny forks.

Not wanting to look like a barbarian, I used the fork and ate my fries.

They were delicious.

I don't know the calorie count, nor do I care. Double-frying the fries is an excellent idea, and one that we should adopt in the States. They still tasted like good French fries I could find at any number of places in America, but the twice-fried texture put them over the top.

After digesting the fries for about 10 minutes, I had to stop at a waffle stand. I saw two locals heading away, waffles in hand, and caught a glimpse of a creamy white substance smeared on top. I really, really hoped it wasn't more mayonnaise.

Fortunately, it was whipped cream. I applaud the addition of whipped cream to nearly every food, but for my waffle, I went with a traditional topping of powdered sugar and vanilla bean ice cream. My sister went the healthy route and added strawberries to hers, then topped it with whipped cream.

As with the French fries, the Belgians handed out an innovative tool with which to better consume the waffles. It looked like a fork, but one of the outer tines was serrated, so the thin plastic could easily cut the waffle into manageable bites. (yes, I know that's a spoon in the photo. I was holding the fork).

I thought it was an excellent idea until I sliced the side of my mouth when I pulled the fork out. I swore and numbed the sudden pain with some of the ice cream, and advised my sister to be careful.

Far from accepting the advice of an older sibling in the spirit I gave it, she looked at me with a "well, duh" expression.

In spite of my minor injury (which was nothing ice cream and a few beers couldn't cure), I loved the whole eating experience in Brussels. The waffles tasted the same as they do over here, but I figured being able to say I'd had them in Belgium would be a good point in any future game of one-upmanship (which I inherently loathe but sometimes feel compelled to participate in).

The Taste of Travel: Bratwurst Roslein

Though Nuremberg is famous for its small sausages (of which I ate many), there are times when you need to sit down and have something more substantial. The city has its share of restaurants, but eating at the Bratwurst Roslein, near the main square in the old town, gives you the chance to eat in a typical German fashion.

From the outside, it didn't look like much. Stepping through the door, however, I stopped and looked at row upon row of long tables heavily laden with beer, meat and potatoes. Unlike most European restaurants I've been to, the place was huge and packed with people.

A hostess led us to a table with four empty seats. We sat down as the local occupants scooted over to make way for us. The man to my right fortunately spoke English, and being in town on business, he wanted someone to talk to. Unlike the United States, where dining is typically a very private experience and speaking to anyone else eating in the restaurant is a rare occasion, the typical Hofbrau Haus-type atmosphere of many German restaurants encourages diners to sit next to complete strangers and get to know each other.

Not wanting another sausage, I asked the man next to me, Joachim, what he was having. He recommended sliced pork with potato dumplings, and it sounded good, so I ordered it. Ordering can sometimes be a problem if the menus aren't in English, but the Bratwurst Roslein has tourist menus with English and French translations as well as the German ones.

My food arrived with the half liter of hefeweizen I'd ordered. Tucher is the local brew, and it's as good as any. Being a German restaurant, the beer list included something for everyone, with lighter beers (in color, not calories. If you want an American-style light beer, you won't find it), ambers, wheat beers and others as dark as coffee.

I cut into the tender pork, which swam in a juicy sauce, and took a bite. It was very tender, and fell apart in my mouth. Joachim looked at me expectantly, hoping I liked his recommendation. I nodded approval, and he insisted I try some of the sauerkraut he had on the side.

The sauerkraut was a dark red color, and had a vinegary flavor that complemented the meat extremely well. I resisted the urge to eat all of his sauerkraut, as the meat was delicious by itself, but the next time I have the chance, I'll order the sauerkraut with it.

The potato dumpling wasn't what I'd expected. It looked good, but it was somewhat rubbery in texture, and even though it tasted fine, I left a little more than half of it on the plate. There were other potato options I could have had, and would try next time.

All in all, I had a great time at the Bratwurst Roslein. It was good to sit down at one of the communal tables and talk with the locals. A group of guys farther down the table laughed a bit when I took a picture of the food, and when I looked up, one of them smiled, spread his hands as if mimicking a label, and said, "German food." We talked with them a bit, and they were happy that we knew Nuremberg, technically in Bavaria, is really in Franconia (which ceased to exist after Napoleon had a hand in making it all Bavaria in 1806). The Nurembergers still consider themselves Franconian, and we all raised our glasses as they joked at Bavaria's expense - to the chagrin of their friend, who lives in Munich (the heart of Bavaria).

Getting the chance to talk with the locals and share a meal gives insight into a country that you don't get from visiting museums and reading brochures. Fortunately, most younger Germans and many older ones speak English, as it is the business language and taught in schools. Even if they don't, they're typically friendly and will sometimes chat with you for the entire meal, even though you don't know more than five words of each other's languages.

If you go to Nuremberg and want something of a traditional dining experience with excellent food, the Bratwurst Roslein is a great place. The prices aren't too steep (My meal was about 12 euro), and your tablemates can help make it a memorable experience. The restaurant is located by the town hall, on Rathausplatz 6, and is open every day from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.

The Taste of Travel: Crepes in Paris

At the intersection of Rue Bonaparte and Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris is one of the most famous cafes in the city - Les Deux Magots. It also happens to be the site of my favorite crepe stand.

When closed, the stand looks like an oversized transformer housing, its green walls giving no clue as to what’s inside. When it opens, however, the walls become shelves and sun shades, and the aroma of cooking crepes mingles with the scent of popcorn to announce its presence.

The first thing I ever ate in Paris was a crepe from that particular stand after a Eurostar ride from London. I remember being tired and hungry on the way to see Notre Dame on the nearby Ile de la Cité and stopping there.

These days, many places hawking crepes, especially to tourists, are just nuking a few they pulled out of a box that had recently been in the local grocery store. This man working this stand, however, made them fresh.

I chose a Nutella crepe, and the friendly Parisian went to work. First, he poured a pancake-sized puddle of batter on a crepe pan, a flat, black surface heated electrically, and then spread it around with a wooden tool as thin as a ruler with a dowel serving as a handle. After only a few seconds, he flipped it over, and topped it with Nutella, a chocolaty hazelnut spread.

By the time the Nutella was spread, the crepe was done cooking, and he rolled it up and wrapped it in wax paper before handing it to me.

I took my first bite, and it was fantastic. The golden brown hue of the crepe evidenced its perfect cooking, and the warm Nutella oozed out as I ate it. It was almost too sweet, as the crepe was like a thin pancake with too much sugar and the Nutella was like a Hershey bar, but it was still great.

When I’d finished it, my mouth was coated with Nutella, and I needed something to drink. Water just wasn’t going to cut it, so I went to buy one of the sodas the man was selling…and he gave it to me.

A free soda might not sound like a big deal, but it was my first time in France, and I was expecting someone to be rude. Coupled with the fact that sodas are ridiculously expensive over there (I want to say €3 for a can is about average in the touristy areas), I couldn’t believe it.

On that first trip, all myths of the French being rude were debunked as far as I was concerned. The people were friendly to a fault, and being in such a perfect setting, the French capital quickly became my favorite city in the world.

Two years later, I was fortunate enough to return to Paris, and I made sure to pick up another crepe across the street from Les Deux Magots. I found other places, especially in the Rue Cler area, where I could get a crepe made in front of me, but the ones made in the green stand at the intersection of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue Bonaparte are still the best.

The Taste of Travel: Hawaiian Delight

Tucked away in a quiet corner of Honolulu, Leonard’s Bakery is the home to a food that has enjoyed a culinary version of the American Dream.

Not unlike donuts, malasadas are deep-fried pastry puffs coated in cinnamon and sugar or stuffed with tasty fillings. Originally part of the traditional Portuguese celebration of Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday), malasadas immigrated to Hawaii in the early 1950s, when Leonard DoRego opened his bakery, and were an instant success.

It took me seven trips to Hawaii before a local turned me on to the small establishment off the beaten tourist path. I’m not much for breakfast – usually preferring more sleep – but he convinced me over ahi tuna steaks and margaritas that it was something I simply couldn’t miss.

When I walked up to the front of the innocuous building the following morning, it had the look and feel of a local favorite. The workers greeted me and my family with an enthusiastic “Aloha” and let us look over the selection. They had the whole pastry spectrum covered, from Danish tea cakes to run-of-the-mill glazed donuts, but I was there for malasadas.

I don’t remember exactly how much they were, but it was something like 40 cents each. I went for the standard sugar-coated one and one with a cream filling. My parents and sister each got a couple, and we decided to eat them in the car on the way to climb Diamond Head.

I picked up one of the fresh-baked malasadas, feeling the warmth in my hand as we passed palm trees and beaches with Diamond Head looming in the distance. I took my first bite, and was instantly hooked. The plain one wasn’t too heavy, with a nice airy taste to it as it melted in my mouth. The cream-filled one was also excellent, but the original one was better. They were, in a word, delicious. They rival even the best French croissant.

After returning home, malasadas joined the sandy beaches and pristine big-sky feel of Hawaii in the corridors of memory. I had never seen them on the mainland, and didn’t expect to. It was, therefore, a surprise earlier this week when I was eating at an L&L Hawaiian Barbecue restaurant to hear that I could order them less than a quarter of a mile from home.

From a Portuguese tradition to a Hawaiian favorite, malasadas now grace the mainland, and I couldn’t be happier.

The Taste of Travel: Apple Strudel

I wasn’t very excited to take a tour to the places featured in The Sound of Music, but it turned out to be a very nice visit to the Lake District around Salzburg, Austria.

As charming as Salzburg is, the beauty of the surrounding area beckons for a side trip. The tour I was on, aside from three Texan ladies who couldn’t stop repeating the same questions time and again, was enjoyable, with our guide offering information not only about the movie, but the history of the countryside in general.

One of the tour’s highlights, for me, was when we stopped in Mondsee. The stop was intended for visiting a church in which the wedding scene takes place, but thanks to my guidebook, I knew what the real draw was.

Diagonally across the street from the church were a trio of restaurants. A local answered a few of my questions to make sure I got the right place, and I sat down at an outdoor table with my family.

We ordered four Cokes, which were brought in glass bottles, and then we gave our server our order. “Feer apfelstrudel, bitte.” He smiled knowingly and returned several minutes later with our apple strudel.

The pastries sat in the center of the plates, steaming hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Garnishing the strudel were two petite scoops of smooth vanilla ice cream on one side, and a rich vanilla sauce on the other.

Our server took our picture, and as he framed it, the sweet scent of the sauce combining with the smell of warm apples was driving me crazy. When the shutter finally clicked, I snatched up my fork and dug in, mixing the strudel, ice cream and sauce together in every bite.

The taste alone would have made the food unforgettable, but the fact that we were in such fantastic surroundings, with the Austrian Alps towering in the distance and being reflected in the lake in front of us made it something special.

As we paid our bill, our tour guide trudged up to the van from the church, the three Texans chattering behind him. I’d been in probably 12 churches so far on this trip, and I realized I hadn’t eaten nearly enough apfelstrudel.

The Taste of Travel: Cooked in the Parking Lot

With a little over an hour to kill in New Delhi, India, we couldn't go see the Red Fort, shop in one of the emporiums or see much of anything. Instead, Feroz Baktoo, who had secured transportation for Deon and me to Jaipur, invited us to eat lunch with him and his staff above his small office.

We jumped at the chance to eat with the five men. A 21-year-old worker we'd befriended and had introduced himself as Mr. Arshad led us up a narrow staircase in the office to the second story, where a blanket was spread over most of the floor. Following Arshad's lead, we took our shoes off and sat cross-legged (dare I say Indian Style?) in a small circle with the others, to whom we were introduced.

Feroz showed up a few seconds later with several stainless steel containers of food his wife had cooked for him earlier that day. He disappeared again and returned with a cardboard box full of chicken fresh-cooked over a fire in the parking lot. The other fare consisted of rice, potatoes and more chicken.

Arshad sitting down for lunch:

Small pie tins and paper plates were passed around, and we all served ourselves with our hands. Since these were Muslims, we weren't constrained from using our left hands to eat, which most Indians consider the "dirty" hand. This was good news for Deon, who was finally able to eat with his dominant hand.

The food was excellent and filling, and we were able to discuss all sorts of things with our hosts. Even though we were almost as far as we could get, geographically, from home, we found that talking to them was not much different than talking to anyone else in America. The fact that they were Muslim Indians and we were Christian Americans never even came up. Feroz told us about his business, and we offered tips on how he could attract more Americans. Deon and I answered his questions about Hawaii and convinced him that he needs to go there sometime.

There were some cultural differences, chief among which was the way our respective societies treat women. Deon and I tried to explain the concept of a double standard, but our arguments fell on deaf ears. Though India is scraping its way into modernity, there are still long strides to be taken in both human and women's rights.

When we got into the car to head to Jaipur, Arshad passed us his business card and said that if we ever traveled to Kashmir, his home, we were to come stay with him. This was indicative of the hospitality we found throughout the subcontinent, from metropolitan Mumbai to sleepy Old Goa.