Sri Lanka

The Quizzical Origins of the Thai Curry Puff

A Thai curry puff as served at Thai Market. You've encountered it in Thai restaurants before, a small braided pastry filled with chicken and potatoes called the curry puff. It's unlike any of the other apps on the menu, which run to papaya salads, tart sausages, steamed dumplings, fish cakes, and ... More >>

Read All About It: Glowing Cats, Prince, and This Week's 5 Book Events

Kristopher Jansma PowerHouse Arena Thursday, 8 p.m., free Jansma, a New Jersey native and first-time novelist, seems to have constructed his debut around a pretty familiar and eye-twitchingly postmodern concept: namely, the curious propensity of writers to devote a whole lot more time to identifying ... More >>

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards Review: How to Become a Person

What happens when F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson? Welcome to Kristopher Jansma's debut novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, a literary fun house that follows an unreliable narrator on his quest to write the next Great American Novel. The opening lines warn "I've lost every book I've ev ... More >>

Pedaling for Roberta's Anaconda Pizza

[See More Gears 'n' Grub: Journey to the Goat Soup of Your Dreams | A Taste of Sri Lanka on Staten Island] On the way to Roberta's in Bushwick, it's worth taking a little time to bike around the neighborhood and see the street art (you'll probably run into even more when you're looking for a free s ... More >>

Journey to the Goat Soup of Your Dreams

[See More Gears 'n' Grub: A Taste of Sri Lanka on Staten Island | A Ride to the Roll 'n' Roaster in Sheepshead Bay] Cinco de Mayo's goat soup is the soup of my dreams. Thin, but deep in flavor. The tomato-based broth has chunks of goat on the bone and nuggets of hominy. I usually add in a healthy s ... More >>

Weekend Recipe: Sri Lankan Crab Curry

Skiz Fernando is a musician, journalist, and cook who spent a year in Sri Lanka studying regional cooking for his book Rice and Curry, Sri Lankan Home Cooking. It's a refreshingly low-key collection of stories and recipes, and it includes this one for fiery crab curry that I am particularly looking ... More >>

Top Hops' Ted Kenny on Growlers

After years of working as a bartender and a marketing guy for Anheuser-Busch, Ted Kenny decided to test out his beer chops by opening up a store of his own on the Lower East Side, Top Hops Beer Shop (94 Orchard St., 212-254-4677), where you can grab a pint to stay or a growler to take home. Of cours ... More >>

Holiday Guide: Heat-Seeking Victuals

A five-borough tour of winter warm-up meals

BREAKING GROUND

Celebrating new films from South Asia

Satellite Probably Crashed Into Southeast Asia, Scientists Shrug

​ROSAT, the decommissioned German satellite that fell to Earth yesterday, broke up upon entering the atmosphere and probably scattered debris over Southeast Asia. We say, "probably," because no one really knows where the dang thing is. The Washington Post reports ROSAT entered the atmosphere b ... More >>

Belly Up to Taiwanese Specialties

Fish bellies, that is, at a restaurant in Elmhurst

Chelsea's Banana Leaf Sails to the Island of Strange Starches

A new Sri Lankan restaurant slings hoppers, woodapples, and pittu

Free Will Astrology: May 25-31, 2011

Wretches & Jabberers: An Info Packet on Autism

UK UFO Files Released

"Doughnut" over Sri Lanka​The British National Archives just released about 8,500 pages of UFO reports that date back to the 1950s. What do these long-classified files tell us? Was Stonehenge planted by extraterrestrials? Is Dr. Who based on real events? Is Kate Middleton a Species-like creatu ... More >>

No. 1: Appam With Egg at Bownie

​The lacy parabolic flatbread is beautiful, but what's that egg doing in the bottom? It is said that a feast of 100 dishes must begin with a single bite, and today we get that bite as we inaugurate a new feature. In 100 Days/100 Dishes, Fork in the Road traverses the culinary landscape of th ... More >>

Between Two Worlds Wanders a Haunted Sri Lanka Unresolved

Confirmed: Happy People Are Nicer; Australians Are the Happiest and Nicest

If this was a regular sighting, you'd probably be happy too.​Charities Aid Foundation has taken a look at countries doing charitable things -- giving money, helping a stranger, or volunteering time -- and guess where the U.S.A. ranked? Number five. Which is not horrible, but also maybe not as ... More >>

In Defense of M.I.A., Circa April 26, 2010

She released an incoherent polemic of a video featuring nudity (NSFW!) and some truly distasteful violence (child murder! landmines!). For some reason, Pitchfork handed her the keys to their Twitter feed; she's spent the day spewing out streams of "go egosurfing DRINK A SHOT OF TEQUILLA spamouflag ... More >>

M.I.A.: "Fuck the New York Times" For Saying Sri Lanka is 2010's #1 Tourist Destination

​Pretty sure M.I.A. has a legitimate point here. The New York Times's "The 31 Places to Go in 2010" article from the other day leads with an encomium to the possibilities of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination. Perhaps you'd heard something about a civil war going on over there, though? Don't w ... More >>

Hillary Clinton Breaks Elbow; Internet Reacts

Hillary Clinton fell on her way to the White House and broke her elbow yesterday, and will require surgery. Condolences pour in from all over the internet. "It must be a vast right-wing conspiracy" -- Holy Coast. "Was she confused and disoriented?" -- Ann Althouse. "When reached for comment by Bu ... More >>

Week in Review: Swine Flu False Alarm Total Panic Edition

In the week that we thought maybe we had swine flu, ran frightened from our offices, wandered the East Village for hours looking for wireless or a good doctor, and eventually received an email with the subject line "It's NOT Swine Flu," we sheepishly came back to our desks, only to find an army of c ... More >>

M.I.A. to Michelle Obama, Oprah: "STOP THE BOMBING OF THE TAMILS IN SRI LANKA"

This amazing photo brought to you by M.I.A.The weird Time 100 fairy tale gets even weirder for M.I.A.. On Tuesday, she was invited to, and then attended--as this amazing picture to the left clearly shows--a gala at Lincoln Center in celebration of the most influential people list the mag just releas ... More >>

M.I.A. Officially More Influential Than Prince, Lil Wayne, or Kanye West

Congratulations to M.I.A. for making Time's list of the 100 most influential people in 2009, two years after her last record, and three months after being nominated for her first Grammy. Spike Jonze, in his adulatory but perceptive ("She reacts to whatever's in front of her: 'Those are booming India ... More >>

The Sri Lankan Government's War with M.I.A. Continues

Now that the majority Sinhalese government has nearly finished off a long-running civil war, confining the Tamil Tiger opposition to an ever shrinking parcel of land rife with a citizen population who've been dying in huge, indiscriminate numbers alongside militarized Tiger forces, Sri Lanka's gover ... More >>

Sri Lankan Government Responds to Alleged M.I.A. Slur: "It's Best That She Stay With What's She's Good At"

Yesterday the Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary, Dr. Palitha Kohona, appeared on the Tavis Smiley show to refute what were allegedly "misinformed" remarks made by M.I.A. on Smiley's show in January. "Being the only Tamil in the Western media," she said then, "I have a really great opportunity to bring ... More >>

M.I.A. May or May Not Be A Terrorist Apologist, Says New York Times

My lord this is a badly informed piece in the Times this morning. The lede: To many Americans, Maya Arulpragasam, known as M.I.A., is the very pregnant rapper who gyrated across the stage at Sunday's Grammy Awards. Tet in Sri Lanka, where she spent her childhood years, M.I.A. remains virtually u ... More >>

Living Ain't Easy at MOMA's Documentary Fortnight

Nor is it exactly a barrel of laughs

A New Crop of Dosas

Staten Island gets its first South Indian spot

Faith-Based Curry

Starches steal the spotlight at Gramercy Sri Lankan

Runway to Nowhere: Ford Supermodel of the World Competition and Make Me a Supermodel

A global model competition that wobbles. Plus, the latest example of displaying shell-shocked beauties.

The Vendy Awards: Dosa Man Rules, Finally

Fat Chance

Do your friends make you chubby? Or is it that McFlurry in your hand?

Aping Monkeys

EST's "First Light" science fare

Horoscope

Elemental Indian Trilogy Saves the Best for Last

5 Streams of Consciousness

Ibrahim Quraishi immerses us in his wisdom

Santa's Top 10 Cookbooks

Recipe Collections That Don't Suck—And a Few That Do

Whodunit: The British Consulate Bomb

Burning Bright

Let's think for just a moment about how much M.I.A. actually supports the Tamil Tigers

Sea Change

In Sri Lanka, mothers' breasts ache for phantom children. What will it take to rebuild?

Raw Deals

The Voice's James Ridgeway reveals who controls what

Horoscope

War and Remembrance: Children Draw the Battle Zone

Festival M.I.A.'s

In Between Days

The Realm of the Senses

Black Curry Sour

The Birds Are on Fire

How Should Theater Respond to September 11?

The Conference that Wasn’t

The Fight Over Zionism-Equals-Racism Pushed Aside Many Issues