Roads & Kingdoms

Last day of spirits-school at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic....

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:43:11 -0400

Last day of spirits-school at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. This lesson: mezcal from Oaxaca. Mixes of cultivated and wild agave cooked with Huanache, oak, or mesquite. The names: Union, Espiritu Lauro, Koch, Yuu Baal, Los Siege Misterios, Real Minero, Pierde Almas, El Jolgorio, Banhez. Time to study up.

Roads & Kingdoms associate editor Pauline Eiferman is in...

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:01:25 -0400

Roads & Kingdoms associate editor Pauline Eiferman is in Seoul this week. First picture from her: the chill-out lounge (of sorts) at a celebration marking Buddha’s birthday on May 17.

Happy (belated) birthday, Buddha.

paulafroelich: My favorite video from the Chuds… Weng Weng. I...

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:16:13 -0400

paulafroelich:

My favorite video from the Chuds… Weng Weng. I watch this every Sunday while eating Cheetos

We are drawn by the pulsing famo beat, drawn from our rondavel...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:41:53 -0400

We are drawn by the pulsing famo beat, drawn from our rondavel in dark of night, down past the turn in the river and the semi-deserted hospital, down toward the grounds of the vacant hotel and into the gutted adjacent building—some defunct abattoir—where all hog-butchering has been laid aside to give the band some space to play. The building is a dusty cinderblock warehouse, windows painted over, walls shedding plaster, the whole place haunted and forbidding.

And there is an honest-to-God famo band napalming the stage—actually, there’s no stage, defunct abattoirs don’t have stages—but the singer is raging and the drummer is raging and the dancers are raging, though not the accordionist or the bassist, because those two stonefaced motherfuckers are motionless, wearing sunglasses, chain-smoking, sitting with their backs to the crowd, and laying down an absolutely dirty line of accordion-bass polyphony.

But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, because I don’t want to skip over the man with the machine gun, and because I want to make sure, first of all, that we know what famo is.

Besotho Dance Party: Dirty basslines, funky dance moves and a doorman with a machine gun

This, somehow, is work today. At the Manhattan Cocktail Classic...

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:16:39 -0400

This, somehow, is work today. At the Manhattan Cocktail Classic with Atsby Vermouth and a cheese described by Murray’s Cheese as “a nutty stinker with a supple, savory creamline and a mild, milky core.” The many troubles of the world are getting blurrier by the minute in here.

Half guts, all glory: Azerbaijan’s khash stew.

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:00:54 -0400

Half guts, all glory: Azerbaijan’s khash stew.

This was not just any border, but one whose creation in 1947 had...

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:51:53 -0400

This was not just any border, but one whose creation in 1947 had led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, one of the largest mass migrations in human history, and more than six-decades of highly militarized contempt between what today are two nuclear powers. Since 1959, the India-Pakistan crossing at the Punjabi village of Wagah, were I was headed, has also been one of spectacle, famous for a daily ceremony known as Beating the Retreat—a show of inane yet belligerent antics in which goose-stepping Indian and Pakistani border guards, donning fan-shaped tufted hats, spend 45 minutes trying to out-kick, out-stomp, and generally out-perform the others, before lowering their respective flags and closing the border for the evening.

These theatrics have made Wagah a border crossing unlike any other since Checkpoint Charlie: the vast majority of visitors arrive not to stamp passports but to gawk at the line in the sand and its guards. For both countries, it is a 365-day-a-year national ritual, held at what is the only open road crossing along the 1,800-mile border between the two states. Although I had come in part for the entertainment, I also hoped these stomping men in silly hats might teach me something about the long-intractable India-Pakistan conflict.

Line Dancing, a story of border politics, India-Pakistan beefs and guys in funny hats.

chrismohney: It’s going to be a beautiful day out there folks!

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:17:10 -0400

chrismohney:

It’s going to be a beautiful day out there folks!

thetuqay: By Thyrza Segal & Chris McMahon: adding monsters...

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:55:21 -0400

thetuqay:

By Thyrza Segal & Chris McMahon: adding monsters to crappy landscape paintings.

Lena and Katya, Juvenile Prison for Girls, Ukraine 2010 From our...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:24:46 -0400

Lena and Katya, Juvenile Prison for Girls, Ukraine 2010

From our Q&A with photographer Michal Chelbin

Buy her book of intimate juvenile prisoner portraits from Twin Palms Publishing

“I never asked them about their crime before the...

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:46:01 -0400

“I never asked them about their crime before the shoot”. Our Q&A with photographer Michal Chelbin about her work inside Russian and Ukrainian juvenile prisons.

The Ahmadi sect of Islam will end up the big loser in today’s...

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:46:04 -0400

The Ahmadi sect of Islam will end up the big loser in today’s vote in Pakistan—all parties agreed with restrictions that would make it illegal for them to vote unless they renounce their God. Seriously.

There are 3-4 million Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, but they’ve made a big mark overseas as well, through their missionary work. These photos, from the early Ghanaian hajjis to a handshake between the Ahmadi leader and the then-president of Ghana, Fl. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, are from a yearbook celebrating their long history in Ghana.

Read Sonya Rehman’s take on the Ahmadi and their famous mango drink and why today’s elections in Pakistan are just another disappointment in a long and bloody history.

Mangoes of Wrath: why one juice drink explains everything...

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:26:31 -0400

Mangoes of Wrath: why one juice drink explains everything that’s wrong with Pakistani politics

Murder, pogroms, heretics, and sweet sweet Shezan All Pure Mango Juice. By Sonya Rehman

When we launched Roads & Kingdoms last year, we didn’t...

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:17:00 -0400

When we launched Roads & Kingdoms last year, we didn’t know how stories from Africa would fit into our plans. It was the place we had personally spent least time in, either as journalists or just, you know, people.

But it soon became clear that Africa was in fact a perfect home for R&K: it is exactly the kind of supernova where culture, food and politics collide daily. Plus, it’s home to some of the best journalists on the planet, both African and outsider. From Daniel Howden and Nastasya Tay’s Mission Ice Cream in Mogadishu to Sophia Baraket’s Life in Choucha Camps to Wayne Conradie’s Coffee in the Townships, we’ve worked with some great ones.

So we’re kinda thrilled to be the only US-based publication besides Reuters to be named a finalist in the 2013 Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards. It’s in the category of best Agribusiness/Environment feature, for Jon Rosen’s incredible environmental travelogue Of Men, Okapi, and Rebels. It’s our second award finalist from Africa in as many months, after Matt Goulding’s IACP finalist piece about the Solms-Delta Winery. Thank you judges, thank you Diageo. We’ll see you in London in July.

runningmule: 1927 London They apparently made some pretty...

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:45:30 -0400

runningmule:

1927 London

They apparently made some pretty dreamy electronica in pre-war London too

Former NY Times Frugal Traveler Matt Gross has a new book out....

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:30:47 -0400

Former NY Times Frugal Traveler Matt Gross has a new book out. It’s all about living on the road, and it’s a great read. Check out our excerpt on Roads & Kingdoms, but more importantly, order it here.

The Uninvited Fellow Traveler: former NY Times Frugal Traveler...

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:11:58 -0400

The Uninvited Fellow Traveler: former NY Times Frugal Traveler Matt Gross on his wildberry-fueled trek through the Harz Mountains

A Dream of Soviet Ape-Men: In 1927, a Parisian newspaper first...

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:08:16 -0400

A Dream of Soviet Ape-Men:

In 1927, a Parisian newspaper first reported on Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanov’s attempts to inseminate women with chimpanzee sperm. The Primate Research Institute he founded is still active in the forgotten land of Abkhazia. Writer Pawel Wargan and photographer Mari Bastashevski went inside. Today on Roads & Kingdoms.

ahetherington: It’s James Beard award time. If you don’t know...

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:36:49 -0400

ahetherington:

It’s James Beard award time. If you don’t know the James Beard awards are like the Oscars of the culinary industry. Super excited that Matt Goulding won in the Journalism section this past Friday in the Cooking, Recipes or Instruction category for our ‘Southern Food Rises Again’ story for Mens Health mag.

The other member of our Southern Supersonic wrecking crew Sean Brock is nominated for the premier prize Outstanding Chef in the Restaurant and Chef Awards that take place tonight. Fingers crossed he gets a bronze medallion too.

I have to say that this gig is one of my all time favorite photo/life adventures. We started our 5 day road trip in Charleston before taking in Athens, Atlanta, Birmingham and New Orleans, eating high end and low end all along the way. See a portfolio of the project here.

Thats Matt on the left and Sean on the right above enjoying a low calorie lunch at our final stop Cochon in New Orleans. Without a doubt one of the tastiest meals ever. Great times …

From Andrew Hetherington, badass photographer and valued R&K contributor. Great seeing him and Sean Brock at the R&K Happy Hour-and-a-Half last night in the East Village.

Isaac Burns Murphy, an African-American rider widely considered...

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:50:17 -0400

Isaac Burns Murphy, an African-American rider widely considered one of the greatest jockeys in the history of horse racing, won three Kentucky Derbies in the late 1800’s.

More from Michael Lindenberger’s ode to the Derby and its complicated racial history:

When Meriwether Lewis Clark’s year-old track hosted the first Kentucky Derby in 1875, in front of some 10,000 fans, thirteen of 14 starters in the Derby were ridden by black jockeys, including the winning rider aboard Aristides. Black jockeys won many of the first 25 Derbies, but have long since dropped out. There hasn’t been a black winner since 1902.

[But] this year, against all hope, one of the leading contenders for the Derby is a horse named Goldencents that will be ridden by Kevin Krigger, a 110-pound jockey who is the first black rider in the Derby since 2000.