The sweet edgy taste of Ginger....

We all get into our routines. Ginger Tea after red eye flights to Chicago became a routine for me.


I often flew into Chicago late at night. After the trip from O'Hare to the Loop...after the late night conversations with cab drivers from Russia or Jordan or Tijuana...after the check in ritual was finished...I always found myself at a small Asian restaurant just a block from the Marriott on Michigan avenue...both the hotel and the restaurant became homes away from home.

I found the restaurant late one summer evening after many of the locals had gone home. That is the night the photo was taken. I was one of the few people in the restaurant. The waitress suggested Ginger Tea...hesitantly I agreed. I think it became my routine because for that one brief moment...that first taste of the ginger always took me away from the routine to a land and culture far from this Midwesterner's roots. I could forget even if for a brief moment about the ratrace, the stress and disappointments that always seemed to surface.

Along with the tea, I wold take a piece of paper...sometimes no more than a napkin and write down lists of things I wanted to photograph. I would carry the napkin with me and check of the conquests as they happened. Next time to Chicago...I would fill another napkin with my dreams. Head back to the Marriot and start it all over again.

Groundhog Day

Dan