Blog Full - Maurice Leavitt | Personal Essays, Travel Writing & Reflections

11 May 2019

A Little Lost … back in Westbrook, Maine

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Love, Personal Growth, Sabbatical, Spiritual, The Human Condition | 0

I applied for a year-long sabbatical in November 2017 and couldn’t do any real planning until I received signed paperwork from my bosses with a denial or approval. In June 2018 I received the final approval and the signatures I needed to make this a “go”. The class I had negotiated taking back in October 2017 for the sabbatical application at The International Institute of Culinary Arts in New Delhi, India had time expired, UGH. #WatToDo ?

The whole idea of this sabbatical was to travel to India and learn about the culture and cuisine for a couple of months. I became curious about the nature of “one-pot” cooking in this part of the world and how it creates a sense of belonging to those who participate in meals’ planning, acquiring, preparation, cooking, eating and let’s not forget the cleaning up part. Other ways I’m looking at how this way of meal preparation creates “belonging” are…

Grounding in our lives to live the most fulfilled and purposeful existence through the support system of where/how food nourishment is prepared
Creating a sense of connection to each other, to god/universe/source and to the earth.
Developing a sense of community and developing relationships thorough a common purpose (cooking, eating, nourishment) to all those participating around the central focus area of the kitchen… farmers, producers, preparation, cooking and eating
Tending to the well-being of each other through a common purpose and goal.
Finding the most life-giving ways to engage with each other, the land and the bounty of the earth.

Phew… O.K.

That was my intention and how I was going to go about a lot of my professional culinary journey for 7 months. Finding the families, home-stays and the people who were willing to let me into their home space and into their personal and family’s lives… with varying degrees of success. The people I was able to connect with on this level, I learned a tremendous amount from. It was up to me to adapt to the unfamiliar cultures because the cultures will never adapt to me, that’s a given. I had to have a good idea of what balance was all about… To have enough drive in me to find a place for me in someone’s home and then once I found something, to be able to surrender to what ever was going to unfold and present themselves after that.

The connections I made through this intention have been rich, intimate, spiritual, reciprocal, full of depth, emotional, loving, conflictual and intense. These kinds of relationships take time to develop, cultivate and nourish. Some people even avoid this kind of intimacy with strangers. Even though I may have been staying 2-3 weeks somewhere, that is still a short amount of time to get to know people, their cultural & culinary traditions, and find a way of fitting me into their already established home unit to help prepare meals.

I was able to spend about half of my time with people learning about their culture and cuisine. The other half of my time I was having my own personal adventures… meditation, yoga, trekking, writing, cooking at home, taking classes, exploring and sightseeing. I was able to build in some down time and not feel pressured to always be on the move Allowing myself permission to be still and not have to “go and do and see” was always challenging for me and I think I did OK in that regard.

After all this time away from home, while in Hanoi, Vietnam, I got food poisoning and I wasn’t feeling so hot and juicy for my next travel move. I took a few extra days to recover and decide what my next move would be. It just so happens that my friend who was staying in my home had purchased a home and had moved out in March and my home was vacant. I was feeling complete with what it was I came to do… and I decide to make my way back home to Maine.

Alright… now what? After months of ongoing daily data input throughout my travels, I get home and wonder what might be next for me. I’ve unpacked the stuff I put in boxes after not needing any of it for about 8 months. I kept asking myself as I was unpacking… “Whose stuff is this anyway?”. I’ve lived out of a 40l backpack and in one room for months. Am I having some reverse culture shock?

I am sitting with the mystery of what might be next for me after this last eighteen months of “sabbatical” … from the day I applied in November 2017 to today. I know it’s not over. I’m continuing to have flashbacks to different people, places and things during my travels and am beginning to think about looking at the 6000+ pictures I took.

I feel a bit lost with a lack of direction and it feels kinda painful at the moment. Not really sure there’s anything to do about it either. I’ve been riding such a high crest of the waves these last 7-8 months… now I get home and I get to figure out how to get back into the life I left months ago, which I don’t think is possible. Or, how to create the life that I want moving forward. It’s never ending… the creation of life and how we want to live it throughout our ever-changing lifespan. Everywhere you go…. there you are… shit! ????

In the meantime, I am enjoying the great air quality, the less congestion and traffic in the streets riding my motorbike, sleeping when I want, making mala necklaces, enjoying my new Korean rice cooker and Indian cooking. I’m almost done settling back into my space and I’m looking forward to the Montreal Jazz Festival, visiting my father for his 80^th birthday and a lovely 2019 summer!

2 May 2019

Finding My Way Back Home – Which is where?

by Maurice | posted in: Sabbatical, The Human Condition | 0

Back in November, I straightened out all of the flights (5) that I booked before leaving the USA, knowing full well I would have to eventually do this, AND at the same time, I finally got the deal on the visa business that have popped up on the internet, I’ve since wondered…

Since all of my plans have been thrown to the wind… and what a wind it’s been… When would I finally make it to Indonesia and then to end back at home? Back last summer, the agreement was two months but, there was no way I was going to go all that way and not see some of these other places. I had to add Angkor Wat, Siam Reap, Cambodia to the list of places to go, then Vietnam.

Back at home? What’s “home” anyway? Home has been overnight in some Asian airport waiting for an early morning flight. Home has been plywood with a piece of foam on top and calling it bed. Home has been trying to sleep with a broken a/c at 104F (40C) outdoors and, home has been waking up with no wood for the stove at 0F (-18C). Home has been a menagerie of www.airbnb.com all through India and S.E. Asia. Now that we got all the physicalities out of the way…

Home … has been knowing that I somehow have a way mapped out to my place of inner peace (call it whatever you want to call it). A place where I can make my way and come back to every time I may be struggling and need to find that place of peace. This was an important part of planning on being away for so long from home and out of what was then, my comfort zone.

I’ve been blessed with having the strength and ability while being away from all of my own creature comforts and to make someone else’s home, mine… just for the plain sake of a place to sleep and for my own peace of mind for when things get a bit tiring and overwhelming. How can that possibly happen anyway? Isn’t it all excitement and adventure and fun? Embracing being human and my humanness by honoring the need for inner peace and a place to lay my head.

Now I am home… as in, Maine

I’ve been back in Maine for about a month. Is it really May 2019? What made me decide it was time to come back to Maine? Basically, I lost my drive and excitement for the next move, the next place, the next adventure. After dealing with some health stuff happening back to back and needing to change plans because I could not travel due to some food poisoning, I was left with a few days to think.

The first thing that came to my mind was DEFEAT. Here it is the end of March and I am not meeting the made-up plan I had in my head that it was to be May. I would be coming home to soon. Wait a minute, had I not originally agreed to only two months and here I am into seven months? This whole defeat thing really doesn’t hold much ground here.

Then I thought of the next few places I was planning on going to like the land of the sinking dragon and more time on the beaches in Bali. I had been contemplating places that I hadn’t planned on and was thinking about going to, like Israel or Peru or back to Thailand. Nothing was getting me excited and juicy. And then I thought that I should give it some time to recover from this yukky food poisoning and come back to this conversation. So, I did…

Was I just hitting another level of travel stuckness and screaming to go home? Hmmm… Didn’t I just write about embracing my humanness which also includes ambivalence which can disgust me? Was defeat getting the best of me? Just work through your illness and then you’ll get your mojo back!

If I choose to go back to Maine… What was I going to do after I get home? I have so much freedom to choose. Portland Headlight then appeared as the random computer chosen desktop pic. OK. It’s time to come home… undefeated.

Since I’ve been home

Things must be easy-going, kind and permissive towards myself as I figure my way into what I’m coming home to. The transition has been easy as far as moving back into a well-kept apartment by my friend which was very nice. While I’ve been back in Maine, I have not had the energy to do much of anything other than sustaining life basics and purchasing a rice cooker and a motorbike. The cold temperatures aren’t helping motorbike riding either.

When I started to unpack I was beginning to look inside of the open boxes that I packed 7-8 months ago. I look at the contents inside the box and wonder who the person is that owns this stuff. I recognize the stuff… but I’m looking at it differently somehow… like it’s not my stuff anymore. After living out of what fit into a 40l backpack for so many months I got used to not having all the “stuff”.

Since I’ve been home, I have been having these wonderful flashbacks in my mind of being somewhere, doing something, meeting this person, eating that food, etc.. There was so much of that kind of thing… new data being input into my brain nearly every day. I realize I will need some time for integration and will allow myself the time that it takes, however it looks.

I’m slowly making my way back into social environments and feel a little self-conscious about what it is that I’m going to say when someone asks about my trip. Because, I have no friggin’ clue what it is I’m supposed to say. I know I could probably sit and talk with the right person for a while if the stars are aligned properly.

Maybe then we already are home?…

24 Apr 2019

A Glimpse Into The Foods Of Vietnam – Hanoi, Vietnam

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Cooking Advice, Sabbatical | 0

After 7 months of traveling and doing research for my sabbatical… “How Culture’s View of Communal Cooking Fosters Rich Human Connection” while I was in India and Thailand, it was time for me to just be with myself and explore Vietnamese food and if opportunity came for me to cook with the families I’m staying with, then great. Of not, then that’s ok too. As I wrote the last two lines I could feel the beautiful lifelong connections I had made with people and the sinking of my tender heart having to say goodbye to them after such deep dives of connection in a short amount of time. It’s amazing the duality of the human experience that can be felt both at the same time.

I decided to stay at this Airbnb here in Hanoi, Vietnam because of their great reviews and because the host loves to cook and has cooked a little bit for their guests. Now that the children are in college and out of the house and she does much less cooking. I found many kitchen electronic toys in the kitchen. Things like, air fryer, slow cooker, pressure cooker and one that has me very intrigued… an Induction Heating, Pressurized Rice Cooker. I tasted the rice cooked in this thing and it was like I’ve never tasted rice before, really incredible. I think I must have one of those things. It germinates brown rice and then cooks it… called GABA.

After spending all this time in Asia, I saw how many different kinds of rice are grown in this area of the world. There are about 20-30 different kinds of rice grown here in Vietnam. Other countries have their own different varieties. So, of course, the best rice cooker would come out of this area in the world.

I got a list of street food I needed to try when I got here. Things like Pho (beef, duck, snail, eel, crab), Banh Mi, Rice Pancakes, sticky rice breakfast, and porridge. My intent is to continue to see cooking as a “simple” practice… even if some things might be time consuming, like making stocks/broths, the process needs to be seen as simple. Some things definitely require skill and practice to make which takes time, determination and effort. But, it’s the cooking process, in the mind, that needs to continually be seen as easy. Or no one will do it. And guess what… COOKING IS EASY!

What the Pho?….

It’s all about the broth… one of the things Vietnam is famous for is a soup called “Pho”. You can find Pho everywhere on the streets and in many flavors. I’ve been fortunate to sample several different flavors (duck, paddy crabs, chicken and beef) of Pho from street vendors who make the same few things to sell every day. I tend to know I’m in the right place because I’m one of the only westerners around, not many people speak English and the restaurant/vendor already has their English translator ready to call over to help.

Your creation is only as good as the quality of the ingredients you choose to use and the time and attention (love) you give to your final product all throughout the process. Yup… still… even when halfway around the world!

Not only in French cuisine do they talk about the process of “clarification” … as in the making of a consommé. In Vietnam they talk about how clear, sweet and umami rich their broths need to be when serving them in Pho. How people will cook their broths for hours through the night under close watch so the liquid never comes to a boil but, only to a gentle, gentle simmer. This way the small food particles don’t get a chance to impart any bitterness and the liquid remains sweet extracting the flavors that NEVER happen with high boiling temperatures.

In addition to varying the meat/seafood flavors of the broth which is typically made from beef bones… there are many variations to what constitutes Pho. The kinds of noodles, preserved vegetables, many different sauces/dressings and the many different varieties of herbs, shrubs and vegetables unique to Vietnamese cooking. The flavor profile possibilities are endless. And people know what good broth is all about here in Hanoi.

Baby Got Back – “Banh Bao” …

Another thing that I’ve always remembered being intrigued by in my life are pastry filled savory items. Things like ravioli, dumplings, perogies, potstickers, kreplach, samosas, momos, dal fara, and stuffed breads. I remember these things called “curry puffs” in Thailand. In Vietnamese cuisine there are chopped meat filled sweet milk stuffed bread things called “Banh Bao”, or steamed buns, and they make for great snacks and appetizers. I thought that since I was here in Hanoi, Vietnam I should at least go out and see about them.

What I found was pretty interesting. There is a lot of street food in Hanoi and there is a trend to bringing home more prepared food and finishing or re-heating at home, like in Thailand. And items such as Pho and Bao that takes a long time to prepare/cook will be the things that stay popularly made on the street.

Banh Bao are one of those items that are sold on the street and typically produced by the family and sold by one of the family elders. I tried a few different kinds, and nothing really stuck out for me as, “this is something fantastic” like I thought I remembered them from the BBQ pork steamed buns back in the states.

Is it called a… Hoagie? Sub? Italian? & The 3-Tastes

One of the influences the French had in Vietnam was in the creation of a single serving sandwich made out of baguette and is called “Banh Mi”.

A bánh mì sandwich typically consists of one or more meats, accompanying vegetables, and condiments. Common fillings include steamed, pan-roasted or oven-roasted seasoned pork belly, Vietnamese sausage, grilled pork, grilled pork patties, spreadable pork liver pâté, pork floss (not a typo, google it), grilled chicken, chicken floss, canned sardines in tomato sauce, soft pork meatballs in tomato sauce (xíu mại), head cheese, mock duck, and tofu. Accompanying vegetables typically include fresh cucumber slices, cilantro (leaves of the coriander plant) and pickled carrots and white radishes in shredded form (đồ chua). Common condiments include spicy chili sauce, sliced chilis, Maggi seasoning sauce, and mayonnaise.

Sticky Rice Breakfast

One of the things popular with the locals is eating “Xôi xéo”, or sticky rice… for breakfast. Sticky rice can take a long time to cook… up to four hours to get it to the right consistency and therefore not very practical to stay at home to make unless you have a special rice cooker. The ingredients to make xôi xéo are the same everywhere: glutinous rice, mung bean, turmeric powder, some liquid fat, fried shallot or pork/chicken floss. And there are a couple variations with corn/hominy as well. Not bad for $0.50US either.

The Ongoing Lesson

Remember the lesson from Thailand? “Sam Rot”? … the three tastes. Sweet, salty and sour combinations and those tastes should be balanced out in the Banh Mi as well. This is a lesson that travels all through South East Asia. This is also a skill that takes practice… to be able to balance the tastes out on the culinary palate.

The best advice I can give to emerging palate developers… “you can always add more, but you cannot take it out once it’s in”. Also, take the time to educate your palate so you can find the balance in the three tastes that I’m describing to you here. Getting the balance between something sweet, sour and salty takes time and practice.

25 Mar 2019

10 days in Hanoi, Vietnam

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure, Love, Sabbatical, The Human Condition | 0

I arrived here in Hanoi, Vietnam after 9 days in Cambodia tropical paradise. I managed to allow myself to come to a complete halt after weeks of being on the go in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh before heading to another busy city like Hanoi. The decision to come to Hanoi was due to the northern geographical location and the weather. After months of dry 95F (35C) temperatures and no rain, I wanted a little bit of relief from the heat. Plus, unlike Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), I was told more Vietnamese culture had been preserved here in Hanoi post wartime (1970’s ish).

After my trip to South Africa and not having done any historical homework of the region, I wanted to make sure that anytime I am traveling to a new unfamiliar country I was going to make sure I did my homework to learn about the country’s history. A lot of us already know a little bit of something about the Vietnam War. When I was taking history classes in Chicago Public Schools I don’t remember going over anything about the Vietnam War, could just be my adolescent lifestyle that prevents me from remembering.

Fortunately, we live in an age where information is close by and at our fingertips when we need it. I was walking through Phnom Penh and came across a store that sold DVD copies of just about anything you could possibly want. USA copyright laws non-existent. I bought the 10DVD (20+ hours) version of The Vietnam War by Ken Burns, and watched The Post with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. From those productions I learned a lot from the perspective of the United States and knew there was more for me to learn prior to the 1950’s.

Did you know….

In the Vietnam war the United States used 29 kinds of destruction bombs, 13 kinds of anti-personnel bombs, 25 kinds of mechanic detonators and 10 kinds of electronic detonators.

Between 1965 and 1972 the United States dropped about 5,382,000 tons of different types of bombs on the North and South of Vietnam. By the end of the war, 7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II. The U.S. Bombardments in Vietnam killed more than 80,000 people and injured more then 200,000 others.

Between 1965 and 1973, the U.S. dropped 2.7 million tons of explosives — more than the Allies dropped in the entirety of World War II — on Cambodia, whose population was then smaller than New York City’s. Estimates of the number of people killed begin in the low hundreds of thousands and range up from there, but the truth is that no one has any idea.

William Shawcross, in 1979’s Sideshow: Kissenger. Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, was the first to advance the theory that the meteoric rise of the Khmer Rouge was not in spite of the U.S. bombing campaign but because of it. “The impact of this bombing… is clearer than ever,” they write. “Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’etat in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide.”

I learned the Vietnamese fought and struggled for their country’s independence and their own identity for a long time. Since the Mid-1800’s where China, France and Japan both had an interest in what they called “Indochina” during that time. The unification of what we know as Vietnam today has only been in existence since the mid 1970’s and Ho Chi Minh was a pivotal player in making that happen. You can do your own historical research.

During this week I made my way to the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum, The Vietnam Military History Museum, Hanoi Street Food Tour, cooking with my host family and lots of walking around the Old Quarter of Hanoi. I’m headed to ĐÁO XUÂN Festival on Saturday/Sunday and looking forward to some live music.

The political climate that the United States is in now has been created by the people because we have fought for the democratic freedoms that are still fairly new for the Vietnamese people. I have learned to appreciate the freedoms that come along with living in the USA that are still being developed in some of the countries in S.E. Asia that I have visited. You won’t find a family of 4 all riding on a motor scooter transporting a freezer down the sidewalk while the driver is texting in the USA but, you will find equal opportunity (mostly) for all citizens. I realize that statement is open for question and debate.

I am incredibly privileged to have the freedom and been given the chance to travel like this. From being granted a sabbatical from my academic place of employment, having managed my finances properly to be able to afford it and having a brother stepping up to the plate to help care for my father who is dealing with many health issues and dementia.

I met someone who told me they couldn’t read some of my writing because I was complaining about one or some of my experiences. My intention is to write about my well rounded experiences that include my disappointments and my return to joy. It’s hard to hear that kind of feedback from someone that doesn’t really know me. I sure hope that I’m not writing and complaining about everything and missing all the joys in life and all the gratitude I feel for being able to live this life.

My landing into Hanoi has been slow and with intention. After a couple weeks of dealing with a cold/cough in Cambodia, I decided to see someone about it and was given some antibiotics for a bacterial lung infection which is common in this part of the world. My cough went away and a few days later while my body was building back antibodies post antibiotics, I came down with the flu the day before I was scheduled to travel to Vietnam. UGH. Then after a couple days of rest, I tweaked my back not doing a thing. I’m doing everything I can to keep a positive outlook and take care of my health and my body. I’m resting a lot, walking to keep my body moving and eating good yummy food.

Time will tell what is in store for me, I’m still planning on going to Ha Long Bay next week, Da Nang the following week and winding all of this up in Indonesia – Denpasar, Bali, to be home in May after all the snow has melted and see about going to the Montreal Jazz Festival the end of June.

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