Vegetarian vs. Meat Dishes in Indian Restaurants

A friend of mine sent me his thoughts on why he, although not vegetarian, chooses to eat vegetarian food at Indian restaurants. He claims that the vegetable dishes are usually tastier and more intricate in flavor than meat dishes. This surprised me a bit, considering that most Indian restaurants in America are owned and operated by Punjabis, a non-vegetarian ethnic group in India. Punjabis, who live in Northwest India in the state of Punjab, cook a rich cuisine full of but certainly not limited to dishes based on tomatoes, potatoes, more wheat instead of rice (as opposed to South and Central India), and dairy (cream/cream-inspired sauces and daals and the like - the temperature is cooler up north, good for dairy farms). This is, I think, what most Americans think Indian food is like; a cuisine that is made up of foods that aren't so foreign from the ones that we're familiar with in the New World, since many of these ingredients are, in fact, New World ingredients that were probably introduced to that part of India via trade (I could be wrong, I am not an expert). This cuisine comprises probably 1/100th of what a person could eat in India. Seriously. 

Anyhow, Punjabis (Sikhs in particular) are meat eaters, and therefore, I'd think that meat dishes would be really well-made in such restaurants. So it surprises me that even at those sorts of places, the Veggie Thali has won out nevertheless. I think that most Americans/Europeans don't know how to order in Indian restaurants simply because their food sensibilities haven't been shaped by Indian practices, but by their respective European/Western ones. Since I've been living in Germany, I've come to realize that I've only experienced a teeny tiny bit of European cuisine due to my food restrictions, and that I am in fact probably missing out. Meat in Europe IS traditionally the big wowzer during a meal. People carry this mentality over to Indian food, too, because that's how they're used to thinking. Due to the ingredients that I described above, people also continue to think that these are the standard ingredients in the definitive Indian kitchen, when in fact, there's a whole lot more to even Punjabi cooking than just these few dishes. 

Solution: we need are a bunch of non-Punjabis (nothing against Punjabis, I love your food, too) to open restaurants around the world with a full guide included in menus on how to properly order. We Indians need to broadly and properly educate our 'audience'. Otherwise, this whole thing will end up the way Mexican food in the U.S. has: a Mexican-American mishmash that doesn't retain a lot of its authentic Mexican flavor. Perhaps that's not a bad thing, though. I mean, I really like a good taco.  

But hey, it's not like Indians themselves are expert restaurant foodies. I mean, nearly every time my father orders something in a non-Indian/Asian/South Asian restaurant (hell, it could be Crepe Suzette), he calls after the waiter once the order's been placed and he/she is going to the kitchen: "Make it a little spicy, please." Zubin Mehta is supposedly known to carry his own silver case of home-grown red chilies with him everywhere, and sprinkles a bit on top of every dish he eats, regardless of the origins of the cuisine. 

We are what we (usually) eat, I guess. 

Sound Opinions is worth a listen

I just wanted to put in a plug for the podcast/Chicago Public Radio show "Sound Opinions"(http://www.soundopinions.org/). It's been around since the early 90s, but I discovered it only recently. The hosts, Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, are seasoned rock critics and writers, and are eloquent, well-informed, and have interesting and diverse musical tastes. I don't always appreciate some of their selections as much as they personally do, but I always end up learning something from the show that sparks my own creativity. Jim and Greg discuss the music industry from both business and artistic perspectives, review old and new artists' current releases, invite guest artists to perform and give interviews, and also provide listeners with informative rock history lessons. They discuss bands that came way before my time but pioneered sounds and movements to which I can nevertheless relate. Does anyone know of a good show or podcast like this for classical contemporary/new music?  

Occupy and Reclaim

I'm in the middle of a truly riveting book, Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus. It chronicles the rise and eventual unintentional disbandment of a social revolution that was started by girls in various parts of the United States during the late 80s. As punk rock arrived on the scene and flourished in the Pacific Northwest and DC (the parts of the U.S. that are most specifically discussed in the book), more and more women and girls found themselves excluded from the forefront of the movement, and sought out a presence to make themselves heard and supported. Forming bands, writing zines, and playing music served as an effective and powerful tool in communicating stronger support for organizations like Planned Parenthood and rape crisis centers, and also for a society that would no longer tolerate abuse against women and girls. The book is beautifully written, with smart lyricism that speaks to anyone who was alive during the 90s. 

During the past few weeks, a fire that burned inside me for many years has been relit. I grew up in a strict Jain Marwari family, where observing obstinate traditions and playing specific and limited gender roles (for both men and women) were the accepted norms. My paternal grandmother was brilliant but misunderstood, with an IQ that was supposedly off the charts. My maternal grandmother was a hard worker and possessed a great deal of wisdom, but was belittled for her sometimes odd idiosyncrasies and struggled to earn respect from the men in her family. My own mother and other women of her generation subsequently did not have access to continuing education, and were placed in traditional familial roles, despite their courage, intellect, and enthusiasm for learning and absorbing. Due to these preventative circumstances, my mother encouraged my sister and me to fully develop and not be afraid to step up to bat. As I look at my life up to now, I really do wonder if I have done all of these women enough justice. 

My older sister spent much of her childhood contemplating and challenging some of the social rules that we girls and young women were expected to follow ("Why should I sit that way? I like sitting this way." "Why can't guys look at my face when I speak? I have breasts, DEAL WITH IT."). After realizing what possibilities existed in the world of college grassroots organizations, she quickly became involved with the feminist majority on her campus, and eventually become a top leader in the organization. She also studied abroad in India, and worked in women's clinics and with battered women. I idolized my sister (still do in many ways) and followed in her footsteps, championing my own passionate causes in high school, including sexual orientation by co-leading my high school's Gay-Straight Alliance. These activist pangs continued through out college in liberal Boston, where Bush had recently declared war on Afghanistan and Iraq, and the protests to be attended were of no small number. It seemed as though so many communities and people needed voices, and I wanted to help in some way. 

I moved to Germany, and somehow, everything sort of shut off. I became engrossed in music, and threw myself into understanding and exploring European culture and its musical roots. Gone were the days of passionate protesting, although I continue to sign petitions for various causes every single day. Also, the arts were enough of a cause to occupy my mind for a long time. As bankers made billions, the arts lost billions in funding. It seemed as though the only ways to survive in today's hostile world were to become a doctor (preferably specializing in something like dermatology so that you could rake in a good salary), use your intellect to sell out to Wall Street and Corporate America, or to marry a rich asshole. 

But beyond the whole 'how the hell do I survive' thing, I find myself also questioning the arts, and specifically, classical music. What are we trying to achieve with it? Are we relevant today? Is sitting in an orchestra and playing for a very specific and limited class of people the best that I can possibly do? 

In 2011, nearly twenty years after the Riot Grrrl Revolution that occurred when I was just seven years old, it seems as though many of the same problems are coming back in full swing. Just last year, we had to forge a battle to save Planned Parenthood yet again. Female politicians and leaders are still critiqued and observed foremost from a sexual/physical standpoint. It's hard to believe, but we are in fact still at war. I'm just not sure about what to think of President Obama anymore. And closer to home, the Vienna Philharmonic only just appointed its first female concertmaster, Albena Danailova, in 2010 (side note: I don't even know what to call the position: female concertmaster, concertmastress, concertmistress? No one on the internet seems to know, either, because we haven't had this situation occur often enough, it seems), and everyone is thrilled about this. 2010? Really, guys? 

Weren't these issues supposed to have been resolved in the 90s? Why do people have to protest on Wall Street (again)? And why are we gloating about women in orchestras in 2011 when women have been revolutionizing rock and roll for literally decades? Why is classical music seemingly behind the social times? Or are women in rock music purely another money-making facade accessory? In which type of industry (besides sex trafficking) have women truly flourished? What is it going to take to create truly sustainable change, and what is my role in all of it? What can I do? 

Vienna: Day 2

I started off this entry in my journal as follows: "I'm sitting in a Beisl, an old Viennese pub, and have realized that I can actually understand some of the Wiener dialect of German if I really listen attentively...(a few minutes later)..oh, wait, haha. No, I can't." I think that dialects of German in Vienna range from not too far off from a light-something similar to what one might hear in Bavaria to completely incomprehensible. I remember trying to learn how to pronounce Dutch words with a Dutch friend, and she remarked that I could accomplish "speaking Dutch" by simply speaking German with the absolute laziest mouth movements possible. This type of languidness in speech is what I hear in many Viennese dialects, and, like all dialects/twists on the standard style of speaking a language, it can actually be sort of sweet sounding if it isn't too extreme.

This Beisl entry was written on Day 3 of Vienna, and it was more or less a summary of Day 2, which I'll relate now. I started off by leaving early in the morning in search of the Naschmarkt, or Vienna's main fruit & veggie market. It is south of Joshua's apartment, but I somehow made a wrong turn and ended up northeast of his place, in the 16th district of Vienna - a mostly foreign, working-class residential sort of district. I realized that I wasn't going to find the Naschmarkt here, and cut my walk short by cheating - I hopped on the subway in order to quickly find a café to satisfy my grumbling stomach. After arriving at the Naschmarkt, I walked through various stalls until I came to a canopied café and took a seat. I ordered a standard breakfast - 2 Semmel, or flat bread rolls, accompanied by butter and jam, a hard-boiled egg, and a drink of my choice, which, in this case, was a melange, or a coffee with foamed milk, similar to an Italian cappuccino. It hit the spot. Coffee in Vienna tastes full and strong, but not too overpowering. Drinking it is a great way to start one's day.

I wandered through the colorful market and picked up my gift for Joshua (purchased from a small Indian shop - a 'starter kit' to cook Indian food, consisting of moong daal, Basmati rice, and three spices: haldi (tumeric), laal mirchi (red cayenne pepper), and dhana (coriander powder). I decided to continue on to the Musikverein, Vienna's most famous concert hall. I had been advised to definitely listen to a concert there due to the unrivaled acoustics and sumptuous interior, and remembered that Leonidas Kavakos, one of my favorite living violinists, was to play a concerto with the Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony Orchestra) on the following night. I inquired about standing room tickets, which are only 5 € a piece. After finding out that they'd probably most certainly have them if I arrived one hour before the concert, I hopped on the subway to get to the Zentralfriedhof, or the main cemetery in Vienna.

I have had multiple experiences of randomly seeing people from my past at two different locations - Union Square in Manhattan, and Harvard Square in Cambridge. Never did I think that Wien Mitte would be another place where that would happened. Some months back, I played a completely disastrous gig in Augsburg in October with a small group of musicians in a church, where we performed Mendelssohn's oratrio Paulus (St. Paul). The conductor was a real incompetent mess, and we rehearsed hours on end miserably, with no end in sight. Flash back to Vienna, March 29th, 2011. I sat on the train towards the Zentralfriedhof, and when we got to the stop Wien Mitte, the cellist from the awful gig boarded my subway wagon and took a seat right next to me. She didn't look up at first, absorbed in her own thoughts, but then saw me, and was utterly surprised. I knew that she studied in Vienna, but I couldn't even remember her name, and would have never thought that in a city of 2 million people, she would plop down next to me on the subway! We both recognized each other, and conversed for about 30 seconds before she had to get off at the next stop. I still don't know her name, seeing as we were both stunned to see one another and had hardly any time to exchange any information except for where we were both headed. Unbelievable!

The Zentralfriedhof is quite extensive, with more than 2 million grave sites available for the whole city (more than enough). The famous composers are buried here: Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Glück, Schönberg, the entire Johann Strauss family, and many others (look here if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentralfriedhof). The cemetery also holds many tombs of soldiers who died during the wars, and of the many Jews who also perished. I would have enjoyed my time there more had I entered through the correct gate, the main entrance at Gate 2 (Tor 2). I entered from Tor 11 and spent well over an hour wandering around in search of the dead composers with my heavy bag, and under the sun, which was quite strong by that point. I had no map because I hadn't entered from Tor 2, and the board maps on the actual cemetery grounds aren't terribly helpful if you have no idea how the cemetery is indeed laid out. The composers' graves are found on honorary plots (Ehrengräber) which I finally located after going in circles. I was happy to leave the cemetery. I actually really enjoy walking through cemeteries (I used to jog through one, high up in the mountains, when I spent a few summers in Aspen, Colorado), and while beautiful, this particular one is too big for my taste, if a person can have taste in cemetery layouts..

I decided to go to Schloss Schönbrunn afterwards. I mentioned the Schloss in an earlier blog entry as the summer residence of the royal Habsburg family, and it also served as the permanent residence of Empress Maria Theresia and her large family. Mozart made his royal Viennese debut for the Empress at this palace, and apparently jumped into her lap and kissed her after he played (according to letters from his father). I would have liked to see that scene! The palace is really beautiful, elegantly and meticulously decorated but not too over-the-top like Versailles. We were able to view about 40 from perhaps 1,000 rooms in the palace. The main draw, though, are the gorgeous gardens surrounding the palace, which are extensive. Unfortunately in early spring, not much is in bloom, so the trees resembled brown sticks with paper-bag-like appendages where dead brown leaves were still attached, but the weather was perfect, and so I took the opportunity to curl up on a bench and take a nap. There are various fountains (the Neptune Fountain is the most famous) and, and the garden includes a maze where members of court met for clandestine meetings, various botanic gardens, a Japanese Garden, a Palm House with palm tree exhibits, a desert house with desert vegetation exhibits, the world's oldest zoo, and the cherry on the already enormous sundae - the Gloriette, a pavilion-styled building atop a hill, overlooking the gardens, palace, and a lot of Vienna. Joggers zig-zagged through out the gardens and nearby wooded area, and families with rambunctious kids, punky looking teens, and even a group of Orthodox Jewish rabbis wandered through the lawns, enjoying the weather.

On my way back to Joshua's apartment via subway, I impulsively exited the train at Gumpendorfer Strasse and took a bus to a famous Viennese coffeehouse, Café Sperl. Located on the corner of a small square and the busy street of Gumpendorfer Strasse, it is decked out with billiard tables, old and dark wood panelling on the walls, a high ceiling, antique chandeliers, old carpeting, and furniture with upholstery that appears to have been smoked on quite a bit. It's a wonderful place to just sit and relax. I really like that the Viennese take so much time to just sit and do nothing but drink a coffee and stare into open space, or read the newspaper, or whatever one wants to do in order to lower blood pressure. Why don't we do that in the U.S.? I read later that Adolf Hitler used to frequent Sperl and get into heated political conversation with fellow coffee-drinkers. He once said that his six years in Vienna inspired the greatest transfiguration in his being because he arrived a weak person and left as a strong anti-Semite. I suppose that Sperl had something to do with his personal development in that it provided a place for him to be intellectually stimulated through intense conversation with other Viennese men about who ultimately gets to rule the world. I ordered a mocca, which I thought would be a hot chocolate of sorts, but ended up being something like an espresso doppio, and a slice of Sperl Torte, a delicious almondy-chocolatey cake.

I hurried back to Joshua's apartment and we headed out to meet up with his Polish-Canadian violinist friend, Karol. We went to Santo Spirito, an exquisite classical music-playing restaurant/bar. The menu was great (with vegetarian options!! I ordered a saffron risotto, along with a good Weizen beer, which is hard to come by in light-beer-drinking Vienna), and the classical music selections are definitely from someone who has a great ear for good recordings of masterpieces, not just the normal kitschy classical music selections that one often hears in restaurants. Basically, it's a great bar for a classical musician. We had a wonderful time, and headed back home where we immediately fell into our beds, quite exhausted but content from the full day.

Vienna: Day 1

After my recent trip to Vienna, I realized that I should pick up from where this blog left off in 2009 and start writing once again. I jotted down enough notes in my pen-and-paper journal in order to write a concise entry about Vienna, so I hope that I can write something interesting here. This first entry is about my first day in Vienna - March 28th, 2011.

Vienna. Such a city! It's not hard to believe that it was one of the centers, and at one point, the center, of the Western world until World War II. The city itself has an air about it that is unbothered and not willing to impress, although it knows that it certainly does. It feels more relaxed in Vienna than in Munich, for example, although I'd say that the Bavarians are perhaps the most laid-back (generally speaking) of all Germans. My impressions of relaxedness perhaps coincide with the arrival of spring, which is the instant cure to opening up any exasperatedly fed-up person getting over the sheer darkness and misery of winter. After hours of delays, I arrived at Wien Westbahnhof midday, and my friend Joshua met me on the train platform. I must have looked like death, having slept very little the night before, and after a long train journey. We walked to his apartment, in the Neubau district of the city (the 7th district out of 23 total), and enjoyed a cup of tea and fruit. Upon feeling refreshed, we headed out for a stroll in the Innere Stadt, which is the heart of the city, encircled by the Ringstrasse, or Ring Road. We walked passed the Museumsquartier, or a collection of museums which include the Modern Art Museum (MUMOK), the Leopold Museum, the Museum of Architecture, and the Tanzquartier (Dance Quarter), where a new modern dance group is now based. We also passed through the Hofburg, the enormous palace complex and home of Vienna's former royalty which included (and was pretty much contained to) the Habsburg family for centuries. Although it's quite impressive, I knew that I was more interested in visiting Schloss Schönbrunn, the summer palace of the Habsburgs, and the permanent residence of Empress Maria Theresia among others. Hofburg is now full of various royal-themed museums, such as the Albertina (a massive art museum), the Spanish Riders' School (a horse show put on by famous stallions), the royal apartments of Sisi, or Elisabeth, the empress wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and other important buildings. We continued along one of the main thoroughfares of the Innere Stadt, which is Maria-Hilfe-Strasse, and it lead to the Graben, or a sunken ditch dug into the middle of the city, built to protect the Innere Stadt from invaders ("Graben" in German also means moat, but I don't believe that this particular Graben was full of water/dragons that keep watch). Stephansdom, or St. Stephen's Cathedral, is a beautifully soaring cathedral that is comprised of Gothic and Romanesque architectural elements, and sits directly in the center of the city. It is enormous, and has a beautiful organ in the back, along with numerous columns, altars, paintings, and everything else that a fancy-schmancy major European cathedral normally has. Joshua and I tried to scout out flying buttresses while encircling the cathedral, but this was to no avail. We tried to figure out how the cathedral handles its weight, or rather, how it is distributed, but alas, we are in the end but violinists, and not engineers.

Joshua and I went to a wonderful Israeli falafel joint called Maschu Maschu, and although our waiter wasn't extremely friendly, he wasn't nearly as bad as friends have described Vienna's service to be. The food was great, in any case. Joshua departed for his violin/music conservatory/practice session, and I was left on my own to wander through the Innere Stadt. I somehow found myself on Annagasse, a street full of instrument luthiers, and continued on the Ringstrasse. Joshua had told me that the southeastern part of the Ring was a bit boring, and it would be better to just head to the northwestern part of the Ring near the Rathaus (City Hall - it looks like Cinderella's castle or something else out of a fairy tale). Of course, I ended up in the southeastern corner. Sigh. Leave it to me to find the boring part of a district. Back-pedaling brought me to the Staatsoper, the home of the Vienna State Opera, where on Friday, April 1st, the conductor I formerly played under in Essen, Stefan Stoltesz, was set to conduct a performance of Madame Butterfly, which will be premiered later in this month in Essen. I suppose it would have been sort of funny to run into him, although he would have had no idea of who I am. The Staatsoper is a wide and voluminous building, with a "I'm here to stay and dominate forever" sort of massiveness. It is beautiful, though, and I would have liked to listen to a performance there. Next time.

I also sauntered by the Parlament (Parliament) Building and its surrounding gardens, the Volkstheater (for straight theater productions), a Mozart memorial/monument statue in the Burg Garden, along with a Goethe statue near the garden's entrance, and snaked my way back to Joshua's apartment through Neubau's funky and modern nightlife.

Vienna isn't an especially clean city, at least in comparison to most German cities that I've visited. The Viennese are supposedly famous for not cleaning up after the poop of their millions of dogs. I have an American friend who was utterly disgusted with Vienna for this reason - among many, but this was a prime one - and finally threw in his hat, moving back to the U.S. I didn't notice such a massive problem with poop of any sort during my visit, but I suppose it's because fines for not cleaning up have become steeper since my friend left the city. However, the dirtiness of a city rarely bothers me. I spent a lot of my childhood in Indian cities, which are, well, far from clean. It's as my old professor, Frau Mathé, put it, while describing why Swiss cheeses and chocolates taste (sometimes) better than what one gets in the super-regulated and food-law oriented EU: "Ein bisschen Dreck ist doch gut. (A bit of dirt is indeed good.)"