By Nicole Solis  July 21st, 2010 8:00 am  |  Comments (0)

Nasi Kandar from Line Clear in George Town, Penang.

Joe Sidek, the Resident in our September/October 2010 issue, is a huge booster of his hometown, George Town, Penang, Malaysia. A true Renaissance man, Joe not only works as a managing director of a company and runs the Community Works non-profit (as well as its shop, Sentuhan). He has also owned a club, run a modeling agency, and designed costumes for an opera. He recently directed One Harmony, One Heritage, One Hope, an event celebrating the first anniversary of George Town’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

As with many of our Residents, there were far more places he wanted to send our readers to than we had space to run in the magazine. So, here are more of Joe’s excellent picks to help you plan where to go–and especially where to eat–during your next trip to George Town.

In George Town

Hai Nan Town
“This restaurant is right on the seafront and has really nice Peranakan food. The Peranakans are the Chinese people who came here and adopted Malay culture. It’s food the way the Malays cook, so there is a lot of tamarind, herbs, and chiles, but it’s the Chinese version. It’s very fragrant.”
Tanjung City Marina, Pengkalan Weld
604/263-8633

Liyaqat Ali
“This is a really famous stall that serves nasi kandar, an Indian dish, which literally means ‘rice on a balance’ because there used to be a guy who would carry on his shoulder a long pole with a basket on each end with rice and a mixture of curries. This stall is open until the wee hours of the morning.”
98 Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling

Mamak mee stall
“Mamak mee is an Indian fried noodle dish served with egg and lamb or chicken. This guy’s father used to have a stall nicknamed Mee Agong, which means ‘King’s Mee,’ because the mee was so good it was said to be the favorite of visiting kings.”
Corner of Jalan Hutton and Jalan Penang

Beach Blanket Babylon
“This is a small café/restaurant on the seafront, named after the Beach Blanket Babylon in San Francisco. It’s also owned by the people who own 32. They have a really nice crab laksa, which is a version of the national dish but with crab and a fish broth.”
32 Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah
604/261-0289

Beyond George Town

Bagan
“Bagan is a jazz bar in a beautiful old house that feels like the house in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; it was owned by an old man who looks and behaves like Quentin Crisp. Now it’s been converted into a transvestite bar by the same owners of 32, but I like the music and it has fabulous Peranakan food.”
18 Jalan Bergan Jamal
604/226-4977

Bellevue
“Go here in the evening and have a drink. You can see all of George Town. I love being up the hill when it’s dark, looking out at the lights in the city.”
Bukit Bendera, Penang Hill
604/829-9500

The Spice Garden
“You hear about cinnamon and you hear about clove, but you never imagine what the plants and the flowers look like. You can see them here. The Spice Garden is a really beautiful, landscaped little space where you can go and chill out, and it’s very peaceful.”
Lone Crag Villa, Lot 595 Mukim 2,
Jalan Teluk Bahang
604/881-1797

Reporting by Dave Zuckerman. Nasi kandor photo by scaredy_kat. (CC 2.0)

By Nicole Solis  May 26th, 2010 9:56 am  |  Comments (16)

Newspapers are almost as ubiquitous as coffee at Vienna's coffeehouses.

Vienna’s coffeehouses are more of a cultural institution than merely the precursor to Starbucks. In these cafes, customers are invited, and even expected, to linger for hours over a single cup of coffee and the newspaper. This highly civilized tradition developed in the 19th century when Viennese would leave their unheated homes to socialize, read, or just think in their second living room, the cafe. Though the waitstaff are notoriously aloof, their lack of attention is designed to let you relax without unnecessary intrusions. Be patient, and someone will eventually take your order, then return efficiently with your coffee, always served with a glass of cold water on the side.

The coffee itself is an experience. My friend Heather recently told me about her first taste of Viennese coffee, more than 10 years earlier:

I workshopped in Vienna for a month while playing with a college orchestra — and had my first cup of Viennese coffee on a cold January day while walking back from our rehearsal hall to the hotel. It was decadent. I’m still trying to replicate the exact mix of espresso, milk, cinnamon, clove, etc. So yummy …

Despite what General Foods might want you to believe, there are many variations on Viennese coffee, each with its own name and particular combination of coffee, milk, chocolate, and spices. A quick Google search will turn up many lists to help you navigate the choices. This one is fairly comprehensive; this one has a nice design.

If you’re in New York City between June 2 and June 10, you can try some of these coffees yourself. Austrian Airlines Cafe-to-Go truck will stop at several locations in Manhattan and serve a different style of Viennese coffee each day. A donation of $1 is encouraged, and all donations go to the Learning Afar Foundation. Follow twitter.com/AustrianAirUSA or facebook.com/austrianusa to get the truck’s daily schedule and coffee of the day.

If you’d rather get the full coffeehouse experience, these articles will help you plan your visit:

• Telegraph’s Top 10 coffeehouses in Vienna
• Spotted by Locals’ guide to Vienna’s coffee culture

Photo of Vienna’s Cafe Hawelka by Cha gia Jose (CC 2.0).

By Nicole Solis  May 19th, 2010 2:48 pm  |  Comments (4)

Calabaza en Tacha

We had hoped to run this recipe for one of the delicious traditional Mexican dishes in our May/June 2010 issue, along with the cover story, “Mexico’s Soul Food.” We had so many wonderful photos that we ran out of space in the magazine, so we decided to publish the recipe online.

Calabaza en Tacha
(Winter squash cooked in syrup)

Serves 16

This sweet, syrupy squash is often served with warmed milk for breakfast or dinner (comida, the midday meal, is the biggest meal of the day). In Michoacán, the dish is often made with locally grown calabazas de castilla. Cristina Potters, who supplied this recipe and writes about Mexican food at Mexico Cooks!, says that to break through the extremely hard shell, cooks often resort to using a machete or throwing the squash against a concrete floor.

The ingredients: squash, piloncillos, white sugar, cinnamon, and spices.

INGREDIENTS

6 cups water
14 2-oz. cones of dark piloncillo (coarse brown sugar) or a mixture of 3 ½ cups dark brown sugar and 3 tbsp molasses
2 cups granulated sugar
4 sticks Mexican cinnamon, each about 2.5″ long
1 tbsp anise seed
1 tsp whole cloves
1 medium-size calabaza de castilla or other winter squash (about 3 lbs.), cut into wedges and seeded
Whole milk, for serving (optional)

MAKE IT
1. In a large pot, combine the water, piloncillo (or brown sugar and molasses), granulated sugar, and cinnamon sticks. Place the anise seed and cloves on a cheesecloth square and tie closed. Add the spice bundle to the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer until the liquid is thick and syrupy, approximately three hours.

2. Add the squash pieces to the syrup and simmer until the squash is soft and turns a deep brown color.

3. Remove the pot from the heat and let cool for 15 minutes. Place one or two pieces of squash in each bowl. Ladle syrup into the bowl, and pour hot milk, if desired, on top.

Cook’s notes: I made this in the spring, with an heirloom squash from Farmer John’s Pumpkin Patch, in Half Moon Bay, California. Sadly, I forget which variety it was, but happily, a 10-inch chef’s knife did a fine job of cutting it into slices. No machete required.

I found piloncillos at a local Mexican grocery store, in the bulk section. The store had two sizes of piloncillos, but I used the smaller, roughly 2-oz. cones and weighed them until I had 28 oz.

Though Calabaza en Tachs takes a fair amount of time on the stove, it releases one of the most amazing scents I have ever smelled in my life: spicy, sweet, and perfect for warming up the house on a chilly day.

The dish itself is delicious, but exceedingly sweet, as least to my taste buds. As a breakfast, it would be excellent as an alternative to French toast (especially for someone who is gluten intolerant). As a dessert, it’s rather filling. You may consider cutting the wedges in half for more manageable portions. Be prepared to either halve the recipe or feed a large crowd.

By Nicole Solis  April 1st, 2010 11:36 am  |  Comments (5)

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers play a game of soccer in Qarghuli, Iraq

Somehow in the United States today, ice hockey—which not only requires a fair bit of equipment (pads, helmet, stick, goal, puck) but also proximity to an ice rink—is currently considered more working-class than the “elitist”sport of soccer, which, as best as I can tell, requires merely a ball, shoes that are semi-conducive to running, and a patch of grass. This is generally the opposite of how the sport is perceived in the rest of the world.

(For more on soccer, read “The geopolitics of winning the World Cup,” the behind-the-data look at our infographic “How to Win the World Cup” in the May/June 2010 issue of Afar.)

Here are two explanations as to why large swaths of Americans have been reluctant to embrace the sport.

1. It’s root, root, root for the home team.

Dave Eggers believes that Americans prefer homegrown sports like baseball to imported ones. Also, Eggers concedes that many Americans may take soccer players’ penchant for fakery, in the form of flopping and dramatically feigned injuries, as an insult to our American work ethic and, perhaps, to our intelligence.

2. Soccer’s longer plays leave too little room for commercial breaks.

In John Cleese’s “soccer v. football” rant from The Art of Football from A to Z (which, Cleese would probably insist on pronouncing “zed”), the Minister of Silly Walks praises soccer’s creativity and long plays, which he says get in the way of the frequent commercial breaks found in televised sporting events in the United States. According to Cleese, these commercial breaks showcase the truest manifestation of American creativity: the beer commercial.

Photo by the U.S. Army, CC 2.0.

By Nicole Solis  March 31st, 2010 1:31 pm  |  Comments (5)

South Africa's Soccer City

With the 2010 World Cup merely months away, soccer fever is spreading around the globe faster than H1N1. Not even data wonks, sports economists, and infographic editors at travel magazines are immune.

Most number crunchers focus on actual performance. Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight and Baseball Prospectus, developed the sabermetrically delicious Soccer Power Index on ESPN.com. Taking a different angle on performance, Deloitte releases its Annual Review of Football Finance, examining player salaries, profitability, and which teams in the European football federation get the most butts in stadium seats.

None of these approaches felt quite right for Afar. For the Curious Planet department in our May/June 2010 issue, we wanted to look at how the culture of a country helps or hinders its chances at winning the World Cup. But who studies that?

Michael A. Leeds and Eva Marikova Leeds, that’s who. A husband-and-wife economist team, the Professors Leeds cowrote “International Soccer Success and National Institutions,” published in March 2007, a fascinating and thorough paper that examined how 28 factors—including GDP, income, whether a country had hosted a World Cup, oil exports, and colonial heritage—affected a national soccer team’s performance (as measured by its FIFA points).

Michael Leeds, a labor economist by trade who literally wrote the book The Economics of Sports, was kind enough to rerun the calculations in their model, based on updated data that we supplied, just for our piece.

A quick disclaimer: We took some editorial liberties with their data. Most obviously, we narrowed their 28 factors and 189 countries down to 5 factors and 8 countries for our infographic, presenting only a snapshot of their impressive research. Also, although we present the information in a cheeky “these factors will help you win the World Cup” approach (implying causation), the Leeds’ paper was far more academically rigorous.

Their findings were pretty amazing. In this post, I’m going to give more detail on the five factors we included in the infographic, using the results they found in 2007. If you geek out on this stuff, or if you want to see what effect other factors had, I highly recommend reading the whole paper.

1. Wealthy democracies do better in soccer.

In Franklin Foer’s article “How Governments Nurture Soccer,” The New Republic editor and soccer enthusiast asserts that social democracies are the World Cup-winningest type of government (“fascism beats communism; military junta beats fascism; social democracy beats military junta”).

For the Leeds paper, OECD member status was used as a proxy for “social democracies.” Here were their findings:

• OECD member status increases a team’s FIFA points by 22 percent (Here, as with all the comparisons, the increase is compared to a hypothetical country that is otherwise equal in the other factors)
• A Communist government increases a national team’s points by 16 percent
• Formerly communist countries, such as Slovakia, that are now OECD members enjoy the benefits of both

Source: OECD member nations.

2. Countries with fewer civil liberties and more limited political freedom perform better in international soccer competitions.

To take a closer look at the effect of political regime on soccer performance, the Leeds paper also used Freedom House’s combined average rating (CAR), based on its Freedom of the World survey. According to the site: “The survey measures freedom—the opportunity to act spontaneously in a variety of fields outside the control of the government and other centers of potential domination—according to two broad categories: political rights and civil liberties.”

Here’s what the Leeds paper found:

• An additional point on the CAR scale raises a country’s FIFA points by 1 percent. (Note: Countries with higher CAR scores have fewer political rights and civil liberties, or as we described it in the infographic, they are more oppressive.)

We’re not sure why this is, but as Foer wrote, explaining why fascist countries are better in futbol, “Who wants to disappoint a leader who might break your legs and imprison your grandmother?” Fear is a powerful motivator.

Source: Freedom House Combined Average Rating.

3. A country’s colonial heritage can have a big effect—either positive or negative—on soccer performance.

Did colonizing powers pass on their love of soccer to their colonies? To test this, Professors Leeds looked at countries that gained their independence after 1900. Why that year? In the 1800s, soccer was played mostly in the British Isles: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland. But around 1900, other countries began taking up the sport. Their theory is that if a country—such as most of those in Latin America—obtained independence before 1900, they can take full credit for their achievements on the pitch. The former colonial power has nothing to do with it.

Still, Spanish and French colonies benefit the most, soccer-wise, from their heritage:

• Spanish heritage raises points by 43 percent
• French heritage raises points by 22 percent
• British heritage raises points by 7 percent
• Portguese heritage lowers points by 61 percent
• Netherlands heritage lowers points by 72 percent

4. Oil-producing nations tend to do better than their non-oil-producing peers in soccer.

No oil-producing nation has ever won the World Cup. Foer hypothesizes that these countries are cursed by the “paradox of plenty,” in which a country gets used to the inflow of wealth and gets lazy. “On the pitch,” Foer writes, “these countries lack a winning temperament and an innovative mindset.”

However, the Leeds paper found that, just because no oil-rich country has won a World Cup, countries that earn 10 percent or more of GDP from oil exports do perform better than other, similar countries.

• Oil-exporting raises points by 25 percent

As an aside, OPEC member Qatar applied the “guest laborer” concept that works so well in construction and other industries to soccer and brought in foreign players to staff the Qatari national soccer team. FIFA responded by tightening the rules about nationality.

Source: Ross, Michael L., “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?” World Politics.

5. Have club teams that compete in your federation’s quarterfinals.

Club teams are basically league teams. Loosely speaking, what the Pittsburgh Penguins are to hockey, Real Madrid is to soccer. Club teams play against other club teams within national or continental leagues. Just as the Penguins might play against the Philadelphia Flyers, Detroit Red Wings, and other teams in the NHL, Real Madrid plays against Barcelona F.C., Villareal, and other Spanish teams in La Liga.

It seems obvious that a successful club team would make for a strong national team, but often, the best club teams’ rosters are made up of international players. For example, Real Madrid employed both English striker and former team captain David Beckham, as well as French midfielder and headbutter Zinedine Zidane, who helped France get to the 2006 World Cup finals. (Not unlike how Penguin Sidney Crosby helped his homeland of Canada bring home Olympic ice hockey gold this year in Vancouver.)

A country can therefore export its best players to more competitive leagues, allowing them to hone their skills on someone else’s dime (and pitch) then using those skills to nab a World Cup for their home country’s national team. But the Leeds research found that the country’s passion for the sport and soccer infrastructure might be a bigger factor than the skills of individual players: “Countries with stronger club teams have the desire and resources to create a strong national team as well.”

The effect, however, varies by federation. For each team that qualifies for its federation’s quarterfinals, the mational team’s points increase by the following amounts:

• Europe (UEFA): 13.43 percent
• Africa (CAF): 45.75 percent
• Asia (AFC): 28.26 percent
• Oceania (OFC): 91.07 percent
• North America (CONCACAF): 24.77 percent
• South America (CONMEBOL): 17.81 percent

Source: FIFA.

Many thanks to Michael Leeds for his patient explanations, willingness to rerun all his calculations, and enthusiasm for and support of our project. Also thanks to both Leeds and Eva Marikova Leeds for coming up with the brilliant idea for the paper in the first place.

If you’d like to geek out even more, I recommend these for further reading:

• Foer, Franklin, “How Governments Nurture Soccer,” The New Republic online (tnr.com), posted June 13, 2006.
• Foer, Franklin, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization.
• The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup.

Photo of Soccer City by Shine 2010. CC 2.0.

By Nicole Solis  March 19th, 2010 12:29 pm  |  Comments (4)

We’d like your help. Our web team is hard at work creating a new kind of social network, one that helps travelers go out and do what we write about in Afar magazine: connect with a place and its people. We want to make it easier (and more fun) to venture off the beaten track—no matter where you are.

We’re recruiting passionate travelers, well-informed locals, and businesses to participate in the closed beta of our site later this year. Please take a minute to fill out our application, here: private.afar.com.

We have only a limited number of beta accounts to give out and will send out the invitations to the first round of testers soon. But don’t worry, even if you aren’t in our beta group, we’ll send you an email when the site launches so you can join us then.

By Nicole Solis  February 19th, 2010 3:29 pm  |  Comments (1)

Today, Afar’s cofounder, Joe Diaz, appeared on a travel-themed episode of The Martha Stewart Show. In addition to being the doyenne of beautiful living, Martha is also an exceptionally well-traveled lady. She chose Afar as one of her daily Finds for “its focus on travel as a way to explore and connect with other cultures.”

Joe and Martha chatted about their favorite trips—China and the Galapagos for Martha, India (the birthplace of Afar) and Argentina for Joe—and of course, one of the best ways to truly get inside a culture: its food.

The other guests joining Joe and Martha were best-selling author and Afar contributor Susan Orlean, environmental advocate Alexandra Cousteau, and Flight 001 cofounder Brad John.

By Nicole Solis  January 5th, 2010 9:45 am  |  Comments (14)

Bonnier's Mag+ protoype shows some of the possibilities of a digital magazine.

The tech and publishing media are working themselves into a frenzy about the possible launch of Apple’s much-anticipated tablet computer later this month. If that is the new product they’re revealing, then the company has once again proved its ability to tap into the zeitgeist.

Just a few weeks ago, this demo video of an interactive Sports Illustrated started making the rounds, tantalizing faithful print readers as well as those of us who work in publishing with the possibilities of our digital future. Bonnier, publisher of Popular Science and many other magazines, is even working on its own platform.

In his column in last Sunday’s New York Times, David Carr took all this one step further, saying that the iSlate (or whatever it may be called) and an iTunes-like model for magazine or other content subscriptions could save publishing.

So, my question to Afar readers is what would you like to see in a digital version of our magazine? Personally, I’d love to see links to translation and location-specific GPS smartphone apps or maybe RSS feeds with the most recent content from blogs written by locals. Most important to me, I want to be able to easily access the content from my home and work computers and my iPhone. I hate it when I get on the train in the morning and realize I’ve forgotten to bring something to read.

What else? What content would you like to see? What features would you want it to have? What frustrates you about reading onscreen now? What frustrates you about print now? What aspects of print would you like to keep? Let us know!

[Post updated by author at 11:20 am with Mag+ image.]

Mag+ image courtesy of Bonnier.

By Nicole Solis  January 4th, 2010 9:51 am  |  Comments (3)

The Afar staff returned back from our holiday break to find this fun item from Boston.com about New Year’s traditions around the world. The only recurring theme I noticed was fire and explosions–everything from sparklers to fireworks to carbide-shooting. Everyone seems to like to start the new year (or end the old one) with a bang.

If you spent New Year’s (or any other recent holidays) abroad, what traditions did you see or experience?

By Nicole Solis  December 14th, 2009 8:23 am  |  Comments (2)

Lost in translation.

In our December/January 2010 issue, Tim Moynihan reviews three iPhone phrasebook apps that can help you talk like a local in the places you visit. But what if you want to learn more than just the basics? There’s an almost intimidating quantity of books, CDs, podcasts, websites, and, yes, smartphone apps that can try to teach you a language. Here are a few resources to start with, as you look for the right method.

• The Telegraph’s round-up of various French instruction CDs. Cassandra Jardine organizes her favorite instructional CDs into helpful categories like Best Quick-Fix and Most Comphrehensive, so you can choose the method that fits your interest and, let’s be honest, degree of procrastination. Many of these companies offer the same method in a variety of languages, so choose the approach that suits you best, then see if your language is available.
• iTunes podcasts. In addition to the apps we reviewed, the iTunes store has a wide variety of free instructional podcasts in many different languages and for many different levels. In the iTunes store, go to Podcasts, Education, and then Language Course. Two good ones to try are Daily FrenchPod (or French for Beginners, if you don’t already speak French) or PukkaGerman. (Note: These links will take you to the iTunes store.)
  Read through the reviews to see if the podcast is right for your learning style and language level.
  
• BBC Languages. The Beeb’s extensive online language section has 12-week beginning language online courses, audio and video instruction, phrases of the day, articles on cultural traditions in various countries, and other resources. If you want to put your newfound language skills to use, follow the links to foreign-language television and online video.

Photo by eatatmarks, CC 2.0.