elephant walk

At work in the elephant graveyard
Digging up a pachyderm on zoo grounds seemed like an interesting project to McGill professor André Costopoulos. However, he and his students encountered more obstacles - and bones - than they expected
BRONWYN CHESTER, Special to the Gazette
Published: 15 hours ago
McGill University anthropology professor André Costopoulos usually conducts his archaeology field studies course in faraway places like James Bay and Finland.

But when Parc Safari zoo near Hemmingford called this summer with a request for help recovering the bones of an elephant buried seven years ago, Costopoulos jumped at the opportunity.

The assignment has turned into a full-blown excavation for Costopoulos and his 17 students, who are free to unearth and articulate as many skeletons as they like from the hundreds of animals buried at the park over the years.


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Font:****"This is a fabulous opportunity for students to learn archaeology close to Montreal," Costopoulos said.

For Parc Safari, the project is a way "to develop our educational facilities," park zoologist Patrice Deneault said. "I saw a giraffe skeleton articulated at the Granby Zoo and I thought it would be great for Parc Safari to have one, too." So, for the past five Friday afternoons, a convoy of three cars has made the 40-minute trip from Montreal south to a corner of what looks like an abandoned field.

Unearthing and reassembling the elephant's bones, however, has turned out to be a lot more complex and messy than it first seemed.

Pulling down the dirt road just beyond the Parc Safari site, on the first Friday of the dig, there was little to indicate to the untrained eye that this was a place of recent burials. The field, delineated by a semicircle of scrub pine, poplar and one young elm, was overgrown with shrubs and tall grasses.

Costopoulos took a walk around, noting the mounds and depressions. Somewhere near this road, according to Deneault, the corpse of Majeska, a three-tonne, four-metre-tall African elephant, had been pushed from a flatbed truck into a hole. The behemoth, better known as Magic, strolled the Parc Safari grounds for 16 years.

"I'd say that this is where they piled the back dirt from where they dug the hole for the elephant," Costopoulos said. "Because of the size of the animal, not all the dirt would have gone back into the hole.

"Over here, there's a depression, which might indicate the burial site," he continued. "Once the organs of the animal degrade, the ribcage collapses, and the ground above it sinks." While Costopoulos cased the grounds, his crew cleared away grass and shrubs with machetes, hatchets and axes.

"Lay a straight line for 30 metres, and we'll dig five test pits at five-metre intervals," he called out.

Then, matters got complicated.

For one thing, the digging quickly turned up plenty of animal bones - but none from the elephant.

At the bottom of one pit, the diggers found a half-metre-long horn poking out of the mud. It belonged to a watusi, a long-horned African cow.

Over the next four weeks, the group unearthed parts of the lower jaw of a young monkey, what looked to be the sternum of a bird, and two vertebrae that are likely from a zebra.

After four afternoons of digging, the team finally struck elephant remains. Rather than bones, however, what they found was fetid, pinkish-white flesh.

Theater Review: 'Just So' is Just Great
By Gail Burns - October 20, 2007


Elephant Family
"Now listen and attend!"

"Before the High and Far-Off Times, O my Best Beloved, came the Time of the Very Beginnings; and that was in the days when the Eldest Magician was getting Things ready. First he got the Earth ready; then he got the Sea ready; and then he told all the Animals that they could come out and play. And the Animals said, 'O Eldest Magician, what shall we play at?'" and he said, "I will show you."

� Rudyard Kipling

Thus begins "Just So," a musical by the British team of George Stiles and Anthony Drewe("Honk!" "Mary Poppins") based on Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories," which is being given a lively and entertaining production by St. John's Players.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), was an Englishman born in Bombay, India. He was a prolific and very popular author of poetry and fiction for both adults and children. In 1907, he became the first English language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, and to this day he remains its youngest-ever recipient. He repeatedly refused the offer of a knighthood.

In January 1892, he married an American and they moved to Vermont, first renting a small cottage on a farm near Brattleboro, where their first child, Josephine, was born just 20 days shy of her parents' first anniversary. Needing larger quarters, Kipling built a house that he christened "Naulakha," which still stands on Kipling Road in Dummerston, and is owned and operated by the British Landmark Trust as a bed and breakfast. There Kipling wrote the beloved "Jungle Books" (1894-95) and there his daughter Elsie was born in 1896. The couple's only son, John (Jack), was born the following year. Only Elsie lived to adulthood.

Political strife between Great Britain and the United States caused the Kiplings to leave America in 1897. The following year, the family commenced their annual travels from Britain to South Africa. On the voyages, Kipling amused his children with fanciful tales not only about the interesting animals they saw on their travels, but also about animals he had known in his native India and on other travels to the antipodes and South America.

Kolokolo Bird and Elephant's Child


During a trip to America in 1899, Josephine died of pneumonia at the age of 7 and, in 1902, Kipling published the "Just So Stories" (Josephine had refused to allow any variations on the originals and always insisted he tell the stories "just so") illustrated with his own woodcuts. There is no doubt that Josephine is the Best Beloved to whom the stories are addressed.

Stiles and Drewe spent the better part of 20 years (1984-2004) polishing "Just So," which weaves five of Kipling's 12 tales into something passing for a plot, to craft it into the show you see at St. John's. Using the Elephant's Child "who was full of 'satiable curiosity" as the protagonist and the Kolokolo Bird as her companion, the show becomes a "road trip" through bits and pieces (some larger than others) of "How the Rhinoceros got Its Skin," "How the Leopard got his Spots," "The Elephant's Child," "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo" and (one of my favorites) "The Crab that Played with the Sea."

"Just So Stories" purists have probably already noticed that I referred to the Elephant's Child as a she in the previous paragraph because in the St. John's Players' production the role is played by a woman (Sarah Plante), as is the Kolokolo Bird (Sarah Simon, who is also the show's director.) This makes for a cheerful Lucy-and-Ethel bantering and bickering camaraderie as they travel from the high veldt to the mouth of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees. It seems that, as he goes in and out of his undersea abode, Pau Amma (Chad Columbus) the crab has been causing tsunami�style floods twice a day that upsets all of the animals.

And now, Gail's First Major Quibble with Stiles'and Drewe's concept: This whole show apparently takes place in Africa, but the stories take place on three continents: Africa, Asia (India) and South America, as well in various neverlands of Kipling's own imagination. The most alarming manifestation of plopping everyone onto the Dark Continent is the teaming up of the Jaguar (Dylan Waterhouse) and the Leopard (Matthew Tucker). Any second-grader in the cast or the audience could tell you that leopards and jaguars don't live on the same continent! Yet here they are, happily tracking the Zebra (Mickey Crews) and Giraffe (Lauren Skiffington, who also provided the lively choreography) together.

Elephant's Child, Rhino, Parsee and Cook-stove


Which leads us to Gail's Second Major Quibble with Stiles' and Drewe's concept: They have taken all the humans out of the stories, with the exception of the Eldest Magician (Mollie Simon) and the Parsee Man (Matthew Tucker again). In "How the Leopard Got His Spots," it is an Ethiopian man who hunts with the leopard. In "The Crab Who Played with the Sea," it is a father and his young daughter who help the Eldest Magician solve the mystery of why the land is flooded daily, and it is that Girl Child who suggests turning the task over to the moon once Pau Amma is defeated. Humans, particularly little girls, are an important part of Kipling's tales, and I missed them. I told one friend that I had been to see a musical based on the "Just So Stories" and he immediately asked "Is Taffy in it?"

That was my first question, too. Where's Taffy? � the heroine of "How the First Letter Was Written" and "How the Alphabet Was Made." I really was excited, during my childhood of androcentric Doctor-Dan-and-Nurse-Nancy storytelling, to read about a young GIRL who created important things like the first letter.

But here we have women directing, choreographing and playing all the leading roles. So even if Taffy (short for Taffimai Metallumai, which means "small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked") is no where to be found, St. John's Players have remained true to Kipling's interest in showing women and girls as active and creative creatures, capable of, literally, changing the world.

Mollie Simon assumes command immediately as the Eldest Magician, dressed in an interesting melange of ethnic clothing topped off by a swirling cape-of-many-colors and a handsome magic staff. Sheri Simon and Terry Viviori are responsible for the costumes, and they did not make an attempt, nor did Stiles and Drewes intend any to be made, to make the actors actually look like the animals they are playing.

If you go to the Stiles and Drewe "Just So" Web site, you can see photos of the creative costuming various professional productions have used. Frankly, I think the St. John's Players, with limited resources, has done a fine and inventive job turning themselves into elephants and rhinos and zebras and giraffes and crocodiles and crabs and cookstoves. Who knew that stuffing balloons in the sides of the thighs of ordinary cotton/Lycra slacks made you look just like a Kangaroo??

Actually, both the best costume (Jillian Marchegiani as the Cookstove, of the kind that you must particularly never touch) and the most perplexing one (Tucker as the Parsee Man) occur in "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin," which is divided into two sections � one in the first act and one in the second, and are definitely highlights of the show. I don't know whether that Cook-stove costume was homemade, rented or purchased, but Marchegiani really looked like she had just strolled over from Central Radio to check out the Open Studios and been promptly recruited by a passing St. John's Player.

Tucker, who has a lusty singing voice and turns in solid and hilarious performances as both the Parsee Man and the Leopard, is inexplicably, but most humorously, dressed as a Rastafarian. It only took one Google search to learn that Parsees are Zoroastrians who fled from Persia to India in the 8th century CE and now live primarily in the former Bombay state, where Kipling was born and raised. He knew what a Parsee man looked like and drew him clearly. He did not have dreadlocks.

Dingo and Eldest Magician


But if you overlook yet another cross-continental faux pas, Tucker and Dave Costa as the Rhinoceros (who had no manners then, and has no manners now, and never will have any manners) make for side-splitting comedy as they team up with the Cook-stove, the Elephant's Child, the Kolokolo Bird, and a chorus of adorable dancing shrimp (many energetic young girls � Kyra Batease, Julia Cellana, Tanelle Ciempa, Laura Corsi, Lexie Federchen, Emma Gregory, Hanna Koczela, Naomi Parsons and Ayla Senecal - in bubblegum pink with little chef's hats) for a trio of lively tunes � "Living on this Island," "Thick Skin" and "The Parsee Cake Cake-Walk" � during Act I, scene III.

I forget how the Elephant's Child and the Kolokolo Bird managed to sail out to the Parsee Man's uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea when they hadn't even found the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees, but never mind. It turned out to be one of their more satisfying adventures.

While I enjoyed Plante and Sarah Simon's performances and the well-played relationship between their characters, I found the roles rather too similar as written. I could have used one or two additional companions for their journey, but that might have made the whole thing too Wizard-of-Oz-y. (By the way, Sarah Simon is my second favorite Cowardly Lion of all time, after Bert Lahr. And next month the Drury Drama Team will be presenting their delightful stage version of the MGM film once again.)

While Tucker (sans dreadlocks) and Waterhouse are adequately predatory predators, Crews and Skiffington are well worth pursuing as their prey. It has been very interesting to watch Skiffington develop as an actress. While I was critical (hey, I'm a critic) of some of her high school performances, she has developed over the past few years into a very attractive and interesting actress.

Now I would gladly plunk down a large sum of money to see her tackle Audrey in "Little Shop of Horrors" once again. Here she is a sinuous and leggy Giraffe, replete with vividly yellow tights and towering high-heeled black patent leather boots. Crews, whom I deem legitimately British (which makes her a ZEB-rah, not a ZEE-bruh) is Skiffington's perfect foil. Short and pleasingly round in all the right places, she keeps up smartly with Skiffington's bubble-headed and flirtatious Giraffe. I also got a big kick out of Ciempa, Francesca Casuscelli, and Gregory and hopeless herd-minded Wildebeests. I wish Stiles and Drewe had given them more to do.

At the end of Act I we finally meet the archenemy, Pau Amma, when he refuses to listen to the Elephant's Child's plea to stop playing with the sea. Remember that in the high and far-off times, Best Beloved, Pau Amma was "Not a common Crab, but a King Crab. One side of his great shell touched the beach at Sarawak; the other touched the beach at Pahang; and he was taller than the smoke of three volcanoes!"

This enormity is cleverly suggested by crab claws so long they take a stagehand a piece to operate them. Unfortunately, Columbus doesn't quite muster that size and power in his line readings. But when he is defeated he melts to nothing more that a head and two hands peeping over the top of the highest platform. With absolutely no fancy costumes, lights or special effects, Pau Amma is reduced to believable little crab who ultimately scuttles off to the sea in shame.

A much reprised song in the show is "Limpopo River." The river runs from just south of the South African capital of Praetoria, northward along that country's boundaries with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, to the Indian Ocean opposite the southern tip of Madagascar. Since I grew up next to the great grey-green greasy East River on the east side of Manhattan, a river I firmly believe is the grey-green greasiest of all, I have always felt an affinity for the Elephant's Child's journey and I thoroughly enjoyed that song.

The major adventure in Act II is a jarring misrendering of "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo." Did Stiles and Drewe not see the word(s) "Sing-Song" in the title? This is a story with rhythm and lilt built right in. But they have stripped that out and replaced it with their own poor effort, which places the focus on the Kangaroo and completely eliminates the wonderful "Still ran Dingo - Yellow-Dog Dingo ..." refrain. None the less, Kaitlyn Lavalley does a noble job of singing and speaking clearly while hopping and hopping and hopping, having balloons inserted and removed from her pants legs with every pass backstage, as Yellow Dog Dingo (Susan Bloom) pursues her. Just as Dingo collapsed of exhaustion, Bloom, from a prone position let loose an amazing singing voice at the conclusion of "Leaps and Bounds." Give that girl a bigger part!

The set, designed and built by Glenn A Rutan, Bill Barlow and producer Sheri Simon (mother to Mollie and Sarah), neatly turns the Upper Room of St. John's Parish House into the jungle while leaving enough space for all the elephants, wildebeests, shrimp and wallabies. Waterhouse and Trevor Flagg have done a fine job creating a number of different effects with their limited lighting resources. Most notably in the Act I number "Jungle Light."

Musical director and keyboardist Lee Warren Rutan leads an able four-piece ensemble consisting of Stephen Sanborn on reeds, Matthew Moulton on various guitars, and Dave Fierro playing the percussion instruments. Assistant musical director Dee Dee Smith leads an adult chorus � Rick Casuscelli, Deborah Federchen, Norma Jean Marchegiani, Sheri Simon, and various older members of the cast when they are not on stage, which sits with the musicians and lends vocal support to every number.

I understand that nowadays parents don't read the "Just So Stories" to their children because they are not politically correct. Darned if I could remember anything unseemly about them, but sure enough, while re-reading "How the Leopard got his Spots" I spotted the N-word. But it was spoken by the Ethiopian in reference to himself, a practice that is still used in various black communities. What I remembered about that story was how much I loved to hear and say the words Ethiopian and Ethiopia, which I still consider among the most mellifluous words ever invented.

Whatever 19th-century racist and imperialist jargon Kipling may have put in, Stiles and Drewe have been thorough in their efforts to make their show as inoffensive as possible. Twenty-first-century families need have no fear of attending this thoroughly kid-friendly show, which, I am happy to say, still retains large chunks of Kipling's wonderful prose.

Despite my quibbles,(remember, my younger son has proclaimed me to be "way over-prepared and a hopeless purist" whenever I enter a theater), this really is a tuneful and engaging show being given an inventive and charming production by this hard-working and ambitious community theater.

Kangaroo


I hope that the children involved and the children who come and see the show ask, nay, force their parents to get the book out of the library or buy it new from Amazon or used from ABE Books (I highly recommend the original with Kipling's own woodcut illustrations, or the 1952 edition illustrated by Nicolas Mordvinoff that I grew up with. It has been reprinted at least twice, so I'm not the only one who likes it.) and READ IT TO THEM!!! An attractive electronic version of the stories with Kipling's woodcuts is available free here. The raw, unillustrated text is also available for free at Project Gutenberg. I bet your child(ren) will be happy to create unique and elaborate illustrations.

If a politically correct parent came to a word they didn't like, and they are few and far between, they can always substitute something they consider suitable. Or, if the child is old enough, they could actually use the reading-aloud time as an opportunity to teach about how attitudes and language have changed over the last century. Learning from the past � what a concept!

The St. John's Players' production of "Just So" premiered last week. You can still catch a performance Saturday night, Oct. 20, at 7 and on Sunday, Oct. 21, at 3 p.m. at St. John's Episcopal Church, 59 Summer St., North Adams. Tickets are $7 adults, $5 seniors and children (family rates available). The show runs two hours and 20 minutes with one intermission and is suitable for the whole family. For reservations and information, call the box office at 413-663-7879 CBS) If you're a regular Early Show viewer, you know that as much as Dave Price likes to travel, he really likes to give away trips to fantastic places.

For instance, over the summer, while on his Great American Vacation, he not only traveled the U.S., he also gave away Caribbean vacations to all sorts of deserving folks.

Now it's the fall, and Dave is at it again -- traveling the country to meet his fans and, at the same time, giving away jaw-dropping trips to the far corners of the globe. And the first recipient of a Dave Price Fall 2007 All-Access Pass was Christine Palladino of Syosset, N.Y., a mother of four, including one son with Down Syndrome. Christine wrote in her application that she was ready for an adventure -- and that's what she got: a whirlwind weekend trip to Thailand.

After an 18-hour Thai Airways flight, she, Dave and his merry crew of travel elves landed in Bangkok, where they stayed at the Four Seasons hotel; Christine was so overwhelmed with her sumptuous suite that she choked up (we're guessing the grueling jet lag might have played a part in that, as well).

After dining on some exotic dishes like green papaya salad picked up at a street market, Christine and Dave went to the Suan Luam Night Bazaar, a night market, where she successfully learned a few lessons about haggling over prices. The next day they visited some local landmarks before heading on to Chiang Mai and a stay at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

After watching some local wood carvers, Christine and Dave had a once-in-a-lifetime experience: a walk through the local fields atop an elephant. Christine was so impressed, she's now thinking of trading in her car for a more energy efficient model that runs on peanuts. Afterward they watched, amazed, as an elephant painted a picture of flowers -- and the word "Thailand."

And while they were on the subject of elephants, there was a visit to the elephant dung factory, where they, um, denature the dung and, through various processes, make it into (odorless) paper. "I'll never look at dung the same way again," joked Christine. "Our work here is dung," replied Dave.

Then it was on to Phuket, an island in the southern province of Thailand, where they checked into the Trisara beachfront resort. Almost completely destroyed in the tsunamis of December, 2004, the Phuket tourist area is back up and running, and Dave and Christine toured the pristine beaches and even went for a jet ski ride in the Andaman Sea.

Then it was time to pack their suitcases and depart for home, their bags stuffed with souvenirs and their minds filled with the sights and sounds and smells of this exotic country.

Next, Dave will be in Charlotte, N.C., where he will award his next All-Access Pass to a deserving person and whisk them away for the trip of a lifetime. Where will they be headed? Watch The Early Show on Friday to find out.


Clarification: Medjet Assist is a private membership for emergency medical evacuation; if a member is ever hurt or sick, they are picked up in a medically equipped plane and flown home to the hospital of their choice. Medjet Assist is giving a free year's membership to every All Access Pass recipient.
A typical suburban road in Ilford, on the outskirts of London. A few scrubby front gardens remain, their lawns dotted with crisp packets and builders' rubble, but most have been paved over and are now occupied by shiny BMWs. Halfway down the street, Shushila Patel's exotic extravaganza of a front garden is an oasis of colour and scent in a grey-paved desert. A river of white Spanish stones winds up to a tiny statue of the elephant-headed god Ganesh; behind him tumbles a vast collection of terracotta pots filled with campanula and pink and purple geraniums. In the adjoining front garden, more stones, interplanted with low-growing sedums and spiky agave, pick out a curling two-tone wave inspired by intricate rangoli � the patterns traditionally laid on the floor in coloured rice flour to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali.

The wrought-iron balcony of Shushila's flat is smothered in climbers, which keep it flowering throughout the year: a scarlet climbing rose, a purple clematis and, right now, a huge and beautiful Solanum jasminoides, covered in starry white flowers. As Shushila picks her way over the stepping stones of the wave, pointing out her choicest plants, passers-by stop to chat. It is clear that everyone in the street knows Shush (as she's universally called). "It's the garden," she says. "Doing it has been a joy and it's brought a lot of the community together. I think everyone in the street is proud of it."

Plants have always been important to Shush, a fortysomething one-time commissioner for the Commission for Racial Equality and board member of the local health authority, who now manages several projects raising awareness of diabetes and coronary heart disease in the Asian community (her mother died of the same condition in 1992). She is potty about plants in the way some people are about cats: even her earrings are in the shape of a miniature trowel and fork. The screen-saver on her computer is a photograph of her garden, as is the wallpaper on her mobile phone.

It's an obsession that stems from her early childhood. Shush was born and brought up in Paranga in rural northern Uganda, where her father was a successful businessman. "At a certain season, the whole village would be covered with cannas," she says. "My father would make sure we grew something in the back garden. I used to spend hours poking around and digging things. In school, we were taught to grow kidney beans and sweetcorn. I remember how exciting that was. That's where my interest comes from."


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In 1971, when she was 12, Shush's childhood was turned upside down when Idi Amin overthrew the Ugandan government in a military coup. The following year he gave the Asian population 90 days to leave the country. "I remember listening to the radio broadcast in which we were told we had to leave," she says, visibly upset. "It was terrible. My dad was born in Uganda, so for us it was our country. We panicked." They had to leave most of their possessions behind, but luckily, for business reasons, her father had a British passport, so the family settled in Walsall, where they had relatives.

"The houses looked like factories; everything was grey," says Shush. "And it was so cold � in those days most houses didn't have central heating." She didn't begin to warm to her new home until spring. "Suddenly, the trees were covered in pink blossom, and crocuses and daffodils were poking through. I'd seen plastic daffodils in Uganda, but these real ones really cheered me up." After school, she worked on transforming the rubbish heap at the back of the house into a rock garden. "Just to see one flower I'd grown would give me joy. A room feels empty to me if it doesn't have some flowers in it."

She bought her Ilford flat in 1991, and the flat next door a few years later. One of the front gardens had been paved over for car parking, while the other was a wild tangle popular with local foxes. Shush did her best with dozens of pots, but chronic endometriosis, from which she has suffered for the past decade, left her at times unable to get out of bed, let alone tend and weed two gardens. So in November 2004 she began work on a design for both spaces that would simultaneously be as dazzling and as low-maintenance as possible. "The ease of this garden is crucial," she says. "You don't have to dig or water too much." She still has a thick file full of pages torn from gardening magazines and her own river and wave designs for the gardens, beautifully executed in watercolour. "I chose a watery theme," she explains, "because water is so healing."

Very swiftly, the gardens became a community project. Shush roped in a neighbour's son, Andrew Brewis, who was then working as a baker for Sainsbury's, but who was so inspired by the project he has now become a professional gardener. A local handyman took away all the crazy paving. Builders working on the house opposite brought the sand she needed for her river and tipped her off that some half-sized bricks, which she needed for edging, were going begging following the rebuilding of a nearby roundabout. Regularly, when she opened her front door in the morning, she would find a pot on the doormat waiting to be added to her collection. "We were blinking spoilt doing the gardens," she recalls cheerfully.

The effect is unashamedly exotic, almost tropical. In the wave garden, sedums in contrasting shades of grey and yellow, white-flowering thyme-leaf sandwort (Arenaria serpyllifolia) and scarlet-edged sempervivums grow lushly between the stones, offset by the architectural spikes of variegated agave (Agave americana 'Variegata'). Around the border, dark purple calla lilies thrust their way through the bright yellow berries of a Pyracantha 'Soleil d'Or'. A mat of purple-leaved ajuga, interplanted with pale sea holly, clusters around the base of a dwarf pomegranate tree, the small red fruit of which clashes startlingly with its bright orange flowers; behind it towers a purple agapanthus (Agapanthus praecox). At the back, a bank of pink and scarlet geraniums is offset by a tall bronze-leaved yucca.

The river garden has a gentler feel, but is equally colourful. It is separated from the wave by a thick tangle of honeysuckle, clematis (armandii and 'Jackmanii'), a purple hibiscus and a magnificent tea-tree (Leptospermum 'Red Damask'), whose pink flowers are the focal point during the summer. Terracotta pots boast a mix of agave and sempervivums, geraniums, lavender, Lithodora diffusa 'Heavenly Blue', campanulas and an olive tree, while the beds are planted with a mix of Saxifraga 'Cloth of Gold', thyme, cranesbill and white Japanese anemones, and dotted with small statues of birds and Buddha heads.

The white pebble river winds gently towards the pavement, irresistible to passing children. "They're always running up here," says Shush. But it's not only children whose lives have been brightened by her skills; they are having an equally strong influence on her adult neighbours. Look closer at the street and Shush's influence is obvious: brightly planted pots dot many a front garden and trees have been allowed to flourish. We walk past one driveway, fringed with great banks of bright purple osteospermum. "I went to see them when they moved in," she says, "and asked them to leave a border on each side. I said, 'There will be plenty of room for your cars.' Doesn't it look lovely? Gardening is therapeutic for the whole community." newest location is every bit as memorable as the stuff that established its Boston and Cambridge sister restaurants as foodie favorites. Poulet à la Citronnelle showcases three of the cuisine's signature flavors--lemongrass, kaffir lime, and galangal--while rouleaux with pork or vegetables puts a South Asian twist on the fried spring roll. The French side of the menu accommodates the more traditional palate with dishes like steak in a red wine-shallot reduction and [the recipe for the following dish was published in Gourmet Magazine in June 2007] a chilled avocado-citrus soup with lime and orange juices, garlic, and button mushrooms." - BOSTON Magazine, August 2007

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OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2007 COOKING CLASSES
Eight cooking classes are on our October - December schedule, beginning with "The Building Blocks of Cambodian Cuisine: Part 1" on October 13th taught by Chef/Author Longteine de Monteiro. Please CLICK HERE for more information.

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UPDATED INFO: THE ELEPHANT WALK COOKBOOK
Many people have asked... Houghton Mifflin, publisher of The Elephant Walk Cookbook has sold out its entire back stock and currently has no plans to reprint at this time. Consequently, we have decided to order an exclusive soft-cover print run which we expect to receive and make available for retail sales sometime during the third week of December 2007. We will post further information here when available. Thank you very much for your patience!

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Here on our website you'll find menus, directions and the opportunity to make reservations online. Information on and the schedule of our upcoming Saturday Cambodian and French Cooking Classes can also be found here, along with the opportunity to register for classes and purchase gift certificates. Oh yes, and for history buffs, there's some background on our restaurants and chefs here as well.

If you have any questions, comments or requests, please e-mail us anytime. We depend a great deal on your feedback to help us as we continue to work to improve your online and especially your dining experience at The Elephant Walk.
ADDRESS
2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140

DINNER HOURS
5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sunday - Wednesday
5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., Thursday - Saturday

TO CONTACT THE RESTAURANT BY TELEPHONE
Dial 617.492-6900 after 3PM daily. If you'd like to call earlier, by all means do so; we do have an answering machine so please leave a message.

ORIENTATION AND PARKING
Click here for a map and directions.

The restaurant is located at 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, just outside Porter Square in the stately Henderson Carriage Building, on the way to Arlington.

Our building has a HUGE (175 space) parking lot in the rear of our building. During dinner hours - after 5PM - our guests are welcome to use any space in the lot (the scary signs refer to normal office hours).

MANAGING THE KITCHEN
Nadsa de Monteiro - Executive Chef/Partner
Gérard Lopez - Chef/Partner
Andrea Hosier - Pastry Chef

Longteine de Monteiro - Consulting Executive Chef/Partner

MANAGING THE DINING ROOM
Al Robinson - General Manager Essentially a story of man versus nature, this film has beautiful cinematography, the lush jungles of Ceylon and the presence of Elizabeth Taylor but a plot that results in a dull and uninteresting movie that should be better than it is. Taylor's Ruth Wiley, a newlywed, finds herself ignored and neglected by her boorish, inattentive husband who seems to prefer the company of his cronies when they visit his plantation for drinking binges and games of polo while riding on bicycles. The plantation is under the spell of Mr. Wiley's late father and his ghost casts a pall over Elephant Walk that becomes a major point of contention between the Wileys. Restless and unhappy, Ruth becomes drawn to the plantation's foreman who desires the beautiful young wife for himself. The elephants are determined to reclaim their traditional path to water that was blocked by Wiley's father when he deliberately built his mansion across their right-of-way, and an ornery bull leads them on a rampage at the end of the film. Taylor and Dana Andrews have some good moments as she struggles to remain a faithful wife in spite of Carver's pursuit of the pretty brunette.