Last night I met up with a Bhutanese friend who’s headed back home for about a year before he matriculates into a doc program here in NYC next winter. He came up to where I was last night and brought his wife and some other Bhut friends and… containers of unbelievably delicious homemade food.

And a huge bottle of rice wine.

Bhutanese food seems similar to most southeast asian food, with lots of big meat dishes and everything laced with ultra-spicy pepper seeds. The beef dish last night was extraordinary, keeping us warm on what became one of the first mildy chilly nights of fall. It was laced with ginger and pepper seeds and the chunks of meat were very large and it reminded me very much of the food I was given at the house of my childhood best friend who was from Cambodia.

I have said this about so many things I’ve experienced: “This reminds me of that thing at my Cambodian friend’s house when I was six.”

It applies to smells, tastes and sounds, mostly.

We ate and drank undisturbed outside on a patio near where I work until it was very late and the bottle (which we kept in a bag) was empty. They gave me a traditional Bhutanese satchel and some ingenuous food containers that were handmade out of woven bamboo strips. Gorgeous and fantastic.

After our hugs goodbye I walked home alone, full, feeling thankful for knowing those guys, such good people. I’ll be seeing them all again in a couple of months, over there, in the mountains, and I can’t wait.

Can’t wait.