The Trunk Jotter

4th Aug 2023

August 03, 2023

There is no doubt Asia is the future. But its ancient cultures have much to teach us today. In a new world where everyone must think different, traditional ways can help us escape the ordinary. Alternative ways of doing things are the otherness that speeds innovation, diversity and wealth. This huge book of vanishing traditions in Asia is a sourcebook of “otherness” for innovators, designers, makers, and anyone who needs to think different. Oh, and it is also a magical journey in a time machine to another planet, now long gone.

I am Kevin Kelly, one of the co-founders of Wired, and a technological optimist. But I have spent 40 years travelling the backroads of Asia documenting the rapid disappearance of its ancient traditions. My project, Vanishing Asia, is the result of these four decades of research and exploration. I visited 35 countries in Asia, on hundreds of trips, over tens of thousands of kilometers. I have witnessed strange and wonderful and intensely beautiful things and events, and now I want to share these with you… Kickstarter

I've had the wildest craving for noodles lately. We have both been making ramen soup and also a tofu noodle recipe from our next book. And last week I had an aubergine left from another job and made this quick dish for lunch. While the aubergine was frying and the noodles were cooking, I had just enough time to stir together the dressing.

The dressing makes the dish, it has a good amount of ginger to give it a fresh punch – and sesame oil, miso and tamari to make it umami rich. It's an excellent quick lunch or dinner with the soft and flavorful aubergine, crunchy broccoli, earthy buckwheat noodles and chili for heat… Green Kitchen Stories

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It is like the thirsty traveller who at first sincerely sought the water of knowledge, but who later, having found it plain perhaps, proceeded to temper his cup with the salt of doubt so that his thirst now becomes insatiable though he drinks incessantly, and that in thus drinking the water that cannot slake his thirst, he has forgotten the original and true purpose for which the water was sought.

Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

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