OVER HIS NAKED right shoulder, an enormous gold Buddha. Sol Mang waves me over like he is hailing a cab, but can’t find it in him to make the proper emphatic New York gesture. He waves the way you’d expect a Cambodian rice farmer turned Khmer Rouge slave turned monk turned New Yorker to wave.I grew up a few blocks from here, but I have never been further from home in my life.

Make this 2009 the year you start eating better, leaving behind processed foods and beverages for these healthy alternatives.1. AcaiHAILING FROM THE AMAZON RAINFOREST, Acai berries are so rich in antioxidants you’d need to drink 20 times as much wine to match a single serving. They contain high levels of Omega fatty acids and amino acids.

Lisa Jose is ready for the inevitable, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have questions.THE PHOTOGRAPH IS black and white. That is not surprising since it was taken 61 years ago. The edges are torn. The dark haired girl sits on a chair looking at the camera, unsmiling. Next to her, a tall man stands erect with his hands awkwardly clutching the back of the chair.

LOOKING FOR WILD FOOD is a primordial form of travel. Even if the area where you’re searching is just a couple blocks of urban or suburban park or hillside, the search can take on the feel of something almost pre-language, a vestige of some earlier time.I first started learning about edible plants when I was seven or eight.

An inked finger is evidence that this woman has voted. Photos courtesy of author.Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president, is finishing her term, which means Chile’s election season is about to get underway. Bachelet will not run for re-election, as Chilean law prevents presidents from campaigning for a consecutive term after their first four year term has lapsed.

Robert Hirshfield wishes he were watching someone chop vegetables.EVERYONE WAS CLAPPING THEIR HANDS and singing like it was a wedding. “Wait!” I wanted to shout. “Tone it down! Think of the eight-day-old baby and his doomed foreskin.”Jerusalem holds any number of spiritual events each day. Most don’t involve bloodletting.