Sweet Holdeman
Bio
I do not ask the heavens to be pleased with my beauty, but I hope that I will always be at liberty to do so.
Stories (25/0)
Ghost Killer
Jennifer, the number one assassin in the jungle, is unique in her approach to trading in addition to her strong martial arts skills. Other killers are generally organized, not also through intermediaries trading, a very few people also have to trade through themselves. But never that killer, like Jennifer in the graveyard deal.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Fiction
The return of Aztec floating farms
It was early on a Sunday morning, and I was in the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco, 28km south of Mexico City's historical centre. The endless maze of canals and waterways was already filling up with colourful trajineras (flat-bottomed boats) packed with day trippers from the Mexican capital. Vendors were selling grilled elotes (corn on the cob) and michelada cocktails, while a band filled the air with festive Mariachi music.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Wander
The Bahamas' queen of Junkanoo
For two winter days in The Bahamas each year, the main street of the country's capital is transformed into a river of sound and colour. Drums, horns and cow bells permeate the Caribbean air as thousands in elaborately decorated costumes dance down the pavement.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Wander
The forgotten first people of Singapore
Visits to Asnida Daud's late grand-aunt's flat always promised a mouth-watering spread, with the family sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating with their hands in the customary way. Years after her grand-aunt had been resettled into a one-bedroom flat in Clementi, a residential estate in the south-western part of mainland Singapore that's a far cry from the stilted village on the shores of Pulau Sudong island where she used to live, she continued to make food the only way she knew, evoking a nostalgic longing for the island's white sandy beach and carefree way of life.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Wander
England's 'nose-twisting' superfood salad
It was a sunny July day and I felt as though I was standing in a 19th-Century film set. The whistle of the steam train sounded as I waited on the perfectly preserved Victorian platform at Alresford station in Hampshire. The pale yellow and green station palette, barley twist lamp posts and original signage was virtually the same scene as 100 years ago, and colourful blooms amplified the serene setting. The historical hissing sound marked the beginning of my journey back in time to when the county's famed watercress began to spread nationwide.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast
Chhurpi: The world's hardest cheese?
Enveloped in a thick veil of grey mist, Nepal's remote Himalayan village of Parvathy Kund was nearly deserted. One of the few people in sight was an old woman sitting in the doorway of a wooden house, who flashed a welcoming, toothless smile at my friend and I. "Would you like to eat some chhurpi?" my friend asked the woman, having just bought a few kilograms of the local cheese from a factory opposite her home.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast
Where it's forbidden to serve meat
Inhabited since at least 1800 BC, Varanasi is well known for being among the oldest living cities on Earth, and one of the holiest for the world's estimated 1.2 billion Hindus. Every day, as the sound of ringing temple bells echo overhead, tens of thousands of devotees descend the city's 88 stone ghat steps and dip themselves into the Ganges river to wash away their sins. Bereaved relatives flock to Varanasi's two cremation grounds where funeral pyres burn around the clock, believing that Shiva himself whispers the Tarak mantra (chant of liberation) into the ears of all those cremated here, granting them instant moksha or salvation.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast
Teh tarik: Malaysia's frothy 'national drink'
An arc of piping-hot tea streamed high above my head as the waiter poured the frothy concoction from one tin cup to another, increasing the distance with each pass. In an act that seemingly defied physics, he angled the stream further over my table and channelled the miniature waterfall flawlessly into my glass.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast
Bokit: The fried food that defines an island
In the sun-scorched streets of Pointe-a Pitre, Guadeloupe, buzzy energy bubbled up from the narrow lanes and the scent of spices and frying dough mingled with the sea breeze. The first time I arrived on the archipelago, I was struck by the chaotic mix of old world and new: crayon-coloured 18th-Century buildings next to storefront mannequins dressed in patterned leggings and tanks; a graffiti artist spray painting a crumbling 19th-Century warehouse.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast
Trieste: Italy's surprising capital of coffee
In every Italian city, the day's rhythm begins at the cafe. But in Trieste, a city on Italy's north-east coast, that rhythm comes with a twist. Wander into any cafe here and, in addition to the familiar clinks of cups and hissing of steaming milk, you'll hear people ordering "capo in b": a mini cappuccino served in a glass that's a favourite of Triestini.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast
Bsissa: North Africa's ancient convenience food
Along the curving bay of Tunisia's southern Gulf of Hammamet is the pretty village of Lamta, marked by its ornate blue and white doorways, eclectic architecture and shops selling bsissa, a nutritious food that has been loved and eaten by Tunisians and Libyans for millennia.
By Sweet Holdeman2 years ago in Feast