Peter Green

I should’ve titled this blog Bring it on home, as this tour is pointing out to me that I need some counselling on my shopping habits when I’m abroad…..alright, Yoonhi’s pointing it out to me, or has been for some time. At this point, I’ve come in from the cold. We’ll do the pantry, and that’s it for today’s tours. You had the teaser shot of the pantry yesterday, so we might as well go full frontal. Bamboo worms. The kids love them. These are getting a little old now, but I find that a quick refry crisps them up again. Better than nachos, say I. Along with Thai curries, we’re also addicted to Korean curries (I’ll let the Japanophiles take umbrage with that). Those bricks of Glico, and S&B, are good enough to eat like chocolate bars. Yoonhi’ll have words if she catches me, however, and the yellow cuticles always gives me away the next day. The McVitties we use in baking, and the Choco-Pie is just a Korean thing. Taste a lot like Wagon Wheels, which, as I recall, are chocolate coated wafers of cardboard. On the right is some more candied tamarind, and there’s some candied shrimp beside the coconut chips (which I’m quite content with as a snack, although a little sweet). some cheap balsamic (the good stuff is in the shelves by the sink), condiments, backup hoi sin sauce, and our dwindling supply of corn flour (we’ve been eating a lot more polenta this year). You can never have too much coconut milk around the place. We do run dry regularly. And no self-respecting Anglo like me is going to be caught out without a backup jar of Helmann’s mayonaise. The stuff in the zip loc is fun. Semi-dry candied seaweed with sesame. There’s another jar of pu’er Here’s the rest of the pu’er tea collection. The really good stuff is almost gone. There’s just a bit left in the zip, but it goes a long way. The other cakes are just so-so, but still good, and the suppositories are very good. It’s just the way they look. Of all the teas, I probably like pu’er the best. I don’t know if I hold with the slimming element, seeing as I’m not getting any smaller, but I love that dark, full flavour, but without any bitterness. More chocolates, and some dried beef. Plus there’s that odd medicinal mix of seahorses, bugs, snakes, starfish and berries we picked up in Guilin (there’s a description of it back in the China thread). I collect dried mushrooms, okay? Is that a problem? We’ll use these up fast enough. Shin ramyun is our brand of choice here. It’s available on an irregular basis, so we load up when we can. And I love this stuff. It’s a river weed that you find in the tributaries of the Mekong around Luang Prabang. I talked about it in the Lao thread. This has been dried with sesame and garlic, so all you need to do is cut it into bite sized squares, and give it a quick wash in hot oil. It’s a little greasy on the fingers, but it’s good. Oddly, I like this with a vodka martini. and, of course, there’ll be rice. Calrose and sticky here. Red and more glutinous rice…. There’s some basmati for pilafs, and I know there’s a sack of Thai jasmine around here somewhere. I found a source for cheap salt, so I’m using the stuff in the sack with the blue squiggles for doing birds and fish. And this is the secret ingredient for gnocchi, which Yoonhi loves beyond all else. A German potato dumpling mix, we can stock up on this in the Vancouver specialty stores. Pickled garlic. You always need this. I think there’s a body in there…. nope, Korean stuff. Toraji and kosari (bracken fern) from Vancouver. We need this for bibimbap nights. And this is where she keeps the dried kelp for miyokguk (a seaweed soup). There’s more stuff I’ve missed. I know I’ve got some other odd things from Laos around, like that spicey wood. Now, this all may seem a little over the top, but I put it down to the expat lifestyle. You get in the habit overseas of never taking things for granted. What’s on the shelves this week may never be seen again, so you tend to stock up, to horde like dwarves in their caverns. Even the indiginous stuff was more of a target of opportunity. In Egypt there were things like snow peas that we would see once, and then never again. The Egyptians have a wonderful saying (the Egyptians have a lot of wonderful sayings, actually, they’re a lot of fun) “ma fish mishmish” – “there are no tangerines”. These would be on the shelves literally for only one day of the year (but they were good when they were there). Okay, I’m exhausted. I’m going to go back to writing about what we’re eating and have eaten.

Thanks, Doddie! Hey, when's the Icheon Rice Festival? I just read about it in a 2004 Korea guide, so I hope it's on again this year. Cheers, peter

You have a quiince bush? You lucky devil! Paul Wilson from the Botanical in Melbourne did quinces for dessert. The link for the cooking class is here

Livin’ In The Fridge – part 2 The drinks fridge I can deal with. I work out of it a lot, and things kind of make sense. The main fridge is another matter. Now we’re on a voyage of discovery. The cold compartment isn’t really too bad. The family was gone since the start of August, so I was able to eat things down a bit. Hopefully we’re not going to stumble on too many science experiments. Everyone here (except for me) has grown really fond of strawberry labna, which is what’s in the white containers on the right. It’s a good hot weather drink (and the containers are good for freezing small quantities of stock). The pink stuff is just pickled gingeer. I take it back about the science experiments. Somebody stored the unused whipped cream in here awhile ago. I’d better check on the age. The ziploc has my Chengdu chili paste that I need for mapu tofu (and other stuff). The only foie gras I have in stock right now is this. I need to get on our local grocery about bringing in some proper foie again. If we turn our attention to the door, it’s not too bad either. Lots of mayonaise (The White Man’s Gochujang), some truffle juice I really should use up… Serena’s chocolate sauce in the “drain” position, various condiments, hoi sin sauce in squeeze bottles, and some teas way down below. some watermelon. One thing that is really, really tasty over here is watermelon. When I try some back in Canada, it’s just flat. The melons here and in Egypt are just packed with sugar and flavour. I should do a sherbert! There are some olives int the white container (again, very good over here), more gochujang, and there’s something grated in the plastic container in the front. Ikea mkes these containers. They come with metal grates, so you grate directly into the tub. Much tidier. The cheese tray is pretty subdued, as we’ve been away. Some parmesan and chedder, fish protein sheets down below, and some tortillas for breakfasts. and there’s the lower tray. You can never have enough spring onion on hand. I won’t bother with the Thai stuff, as we went over it the other day. Now the freezeer. Starting at the top, we have what you’d normally expect. Ice cream, Serena’s popsicles (that I messed up last night when I was putting things away), and some brown chicken stock. I’ve been wondering what chicken stock popsicles would taste like…..but Serena still hasn’t forgiven me for serving here vanilla and cheese ice cream, so maybe I’ll wait a bit. You’ll have to turn your head for this one. Trust me, you’ll feel better. This is where things get rough. Stuff just sort of gets crammed in here, and then it’s a free for all trying to dig things out. This is also the final resting place of fresh Thai ingredients that I don’t get around to using. Much of it will work well frozen for taste, but you lose the texture. I take no responsibility for the bananas, however. That was someone else. This stuff is going to have to be pulled out. Here’s some pesto. Whenever they have fresh basil at the shop, we make pesto. We used to have bushes in front of our house, but the spider mites got to them in the second year, and that was the end of that. There’s some shredded banboo, and I think those are crab sticks udner the pesto. Here’s some of the lemon grass and other stuff. What’s that orange stuff? When did we get this? I am definitely going to have to make veal stock. These are neat. Dessert truffles. We’ve talked about these in this thread . If the weather is good, we’ll get these fresh around October or November. They’re like a potato in size, before you start cleaning them of sand. Excellent in risotto, or just pan fried with butter and garlic. This would be the carnivores’ level, I suspect. It’s good to see there’s still some of this left. Marinated uni (Korean style). This, some dried seaweed sheets (gim) and rice and you have a meal. Found the cranberries! We’re ready for Canadian Thanksgiving on the 8th. Cranberry stuffing is our favourite for the dead Turkey meal. This is a Thai meatloaf. I’m going to use this to do Susur Lee’s prawns with sai eua soon. This is getting used, too, before the end of the year. And here’s some sai eua, my favourite Chiang Mai sausage. That’s it. There’s more stuff in there, but I think I’ve reached my limit. Plus, I’m beginning to feel like Kurt Russel in John Carpenter’s The Thing. I think I heard something moving back in there……

Serena has suddenly decided that she needs to make a sourcream pound cake. Where did this come from? Okay, I got an answer. It’s for Girl Scouts – her “sign of the sun” badge, earned by serving the community. Serena figures if she serves the Filipino lifeguards cake for their iftar (sundown meal in Ramadan), that that’ll do it. Filipino lifeguards eat a lot of sour cream pound cakes? Meanwhile, we’ve done up a real quick lunch. Fried rice with chinese sausage. First, the sausage. Then some quickly chopped veg. And then the leftover rice from last night. portion it out on the plates, and we’re good for another couple of hours. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen….the other fridge waits……

Livin’ In The Fridge – part 1 I promised this, and now I’ve lived to regret it. We’ll do this in three parts. The “drinks” fridge, first. I don’t swear as much when I go through it. This is the original fridge that the company provides with the house. Obviously it wasn’t going to do the job on its own, so we bought fridge #2, which we’ll get to later. this parts pretty much in control; mixers, soft drinks, juices, and a bit of backlog on the right. There’s the mandatory gochujang some suspicious looking kmichi. That stuffs been in there plotting since July. It’s got me thinking about making some chigge. If I pull out the gochujang we can see the daen jang paste collection, and some Malagassy peppercorns in brine. What’s this doing in there? More important, how long has it been there? And the door isn’t too bad, either. Boy, things look better in pictures than in real life! Our usual selection of soys, yellow bean sauces, ketsups, maple syrup, masking tape, dried mushrooms (how’d they get there?), shrimp paste, crisco, and there’s even a can of the coconut water I like for ceviches (the green can). The lower shelves, where the veg and fruit would normally go, are stuffed with dried stuff. Dried dates from Korea, dried lily flower, bonito flakes, fungus… I should be doing something with this. Hey, this is where my Valrhona chocolate nibs got to! This is my carefully guarded horde of Szechuan peppercorns from Chengdu. I figure if I keep them sealed and chilled, the potency will last longer. You can always find a use for M&M’s The cheese drawer is the land of chocolate (why aren’t my nibs up here?). We do chocolate cheesecakes once a month or so, and moles every so often, and so there’s a big demand for this from our ktichen. Plus, we just like chocolate. Now you can cover your ears. I hate rooting around in the freezer. Stuff invariably falls out and lands on my toes. It wasn’t so bad when we had a standing freezer in the garage, but it died in June, so everything has found its way in here or the pantry now. The big white bottle would be simple sugar syrup that Yoonhi caught me storing down below. The other coloured water bottles are brown chicken stocks. There’s some banana leaves, cha siao bao that are there when we need them, and more odds and ends. If we root some of this out we find Yoonhi’s stores of gochugaru (chili powder), and some stray Thai curries. Also white peppercorns. There’s some veal hoofs. I really should make more stock. And some belly meat. Our last Spring salmon is back in there. Scud’ll replenish our stocks when he returns to visit in December. With the new weight limits the airlines are using to gouge us, Yoonhi was too paranoid about going over her limits, so she didn’t bring back the usual cooler full of delights. We had to overnight one time at Heathrow with a cooler of salmon. The hotel (the Meridien, I believe) was kind enough to let us keep the fish in their kitchen fridge (this was in the less-paranoid days). The next day, as we were checking out, the chef stopped by to ask out of curiousity what was in there. When we told him it was 30kg of wild BC salmon he started banging his head and wishing he’d know, as larceny would’ve been in the offing. And, finally, the door. This is curry central, where I keep my working collection of greens, reds, sours, massamans, and whatevers on hand. You’re going to be wondering about why a lot of this stuff is in here. One concern is the heat. Even with a/c, the house runs around 25 centigrade year round. The other issue is bugs. Yoonhi is more concerned about extra protein in the food than I am. But when the weather gets hot, you get little “sugar” ants coming into the house by any which way they can, and once they find some food stores that suit their fancy, they get busy. So, if you can keep it sealed, then do so. Okay, that’s disaster area one down. Let me rest, stop cursing, and I’ll look at the next one.

It’s the weekend for us here. That means a late start for the spouse, and I can get some things taken care of (like the earlier posts). Another pot of coffee is on, and I’ve got breakfast inside of me. Serena’s at basketball, and the world is in order. It won’t last long. Pancakes today. A good thickness, enough air inside to spring, and a bit of crisp to the outside. We (okay, I mean Yoonhi) drags back maple syrup from Canada every year. This is a requirement in our house, as I won’t eat pancakes without proper maple syrup. At least, that’s what I’d told Yoonhi for years. When we were living in Cairo in the 80s, Yoonhi developed the excellent habit of doing everything from scratch. There wasn’t a lot of choice, seeing as you couldn’t buy much beyond excellent produce and hunks of water buffalo. She started making pancakes then, and I complimented her on the quality, “as good as my Mom would whip up on a weekend morning”. But then I whined about not having maple syrup, and how I wasn’t the sort of person to make do with the Aunt Jemima syrup we’d inherited at that time. All well, and good, and then my parents came for a visit a couple of years into our tour. Mom: “You make pancakes from scratch? Don’t you have a mix?” Yoonhi:”Noooo…….I thought you made all your pancakes from scratch?” Mom:”Whatever gave you that idea?” Yoonhi:”And about Peter only using maple syrup?.......” Lesson of the story: always keep your wife and mother on bad terms so they never compare notes.

An interesting option in Bangkok street dining is the late night. Real late night. Let’s look at Sukhumvit, and we’re talking lower Sukhumvit,where the sidewalk pavement lease runs in shifts. During the day there are the usual t-shirts, DVDs, hair clips, blackjacks, and tasers and such. This runs into the early evening, making the sidewalks somewhat tortuous. Once the late night kicks in they move out, and a series of casual dining and drinking spots take their places. This really gets going around 1 or 2 in the morning, when the pollice shut down the bars in the area. At that point, some of the dining venues end their shifts, and the fortune take over, and the sidewalk has completely changed from TinTin shirts and flashing lights to rattan mats on the ground and the tarot cards laid out. If I’m suffering insomnia this is a lot of fun. I mean, this is people watching to beat Cannes. The downside of this is that you are definitely not advised to be flashing a camera about. A lot of these people are somewhat leery of having their pictures taken. What do we see on hand? Hot pots are particularly popular, small crowds clustered on mats around a little charcoal brazier with a steel pot of broth atop, everyone dipping in their meats. Some of the seafood places are quite done up, with large trolleys of fish, shrimp, and lobsters under ice. They’ll wok these up or do them in a soup. Ducks and hunks of pig are hanging on display, ready to be quickly cooked and served up with rice from the big pots in the trolleys. And satays galore, with a wide range of meats and extra bits skewered on (pineapples, mushrooms, chilis). My favourite is the skewer of intestines with chilis. And there’s plenty of dried squid and other stuff, although I seldom see much in the way of bugs, at least not at this time of the night. The bug stands are there in the day (or at least I’ve seen them there in the past), but not in the wee hours. And, you can get Beer Lao at many of the spots here. Peel the foil back from a cold bottle, get a seat in the shadows, and watch the animal show. Occassionaly one of my disreputable comrades will stumble by, and I’ll wave him in for a chat if he’s coherent. Once far enough away from the wilder sections, I did pull out the camera to shoot my late night top-up. I’d wanted something simple, as I wasn’t too hungry, and ordered a dish of stir fried bean sprouts with rice. Then I noticed she was cooking something for someone else as a soup. With my mangled Thai/Lao I managed to figure out that she was cooking fish stomachs. These looked good, but I really wanted bean sprouts (I get that way at night), so passed. Somewhere in one of my cookbooks I’ve got something on the handling of fish offal. I’ll look that up later. The sprouts came the way I’d hoped. Warmed through, and the heat had acted upon the sprouts just enough to give some flexibility, without ruining the crunch too much. A bit of oyster sauce in the fry, and I added some nampla and chilis to wake me up. This with a bottle of cold Beer Lao is an interesting way to spend the pre-dawn hours. I wonder what my fortune says?

Rona, We'd love to. With Scud in boarding school in Canada now, Japan makes a sensible mid-way point for us to rendez-vous when he gets out for spring break. And food always tastes better with company. Cheers, peter

Sandy, I haven't worked out all of the details of the tool. Fatima Hal from Mansouria in Paris was out at the WGF last year, but I couldn't make her cooking class, as she only did an evening class, and I reserve that time for focussed eating. She did, however, cook a lamb tajine course during the Gala(post #19) that I really enjoyed, and since that time I'd been looking for one of these. I'd thought of asking some of my North African friends here if they could bring me back one, but then changed my mind, as the thing is quite cumbersome, and a real pain to transport. It's not the sort of thing any decent human being would ask of another. So I made Yoonhi bring me one! What I do know is that the tajine is a glazed ceramic dish with a matching hat. The nature of the dish is such that it can be used on stovetop or in the oven, so you have the flexibility of a good metal pot, browning meats first, then setting them off to roast. With the "hat" (one of my friends here didn't know what she had and gave away the hat because it was getting in the way) you have a certain weight that will act to trap in moisture, and a shape that will allow circulation of the steam. You also have enough vertical, along with the shape, that you get a condensation funnel that will "rain" juices back down on the meat. This is eGullet, though. There must be an expert out there.....aha! There's a whole thread on Moroccan tajine cooking My apologies for dropping off the radar yesterday, but Serena had serious needs for Japanese cartoons, so we took a break and watched Studio Ghibli's Tales From Earthsea. No really great food scenes, although there was one stew dish that looked good. Dessert (enjoyed while we watched the film) was a sorbet of red fruit juices (yes, I do believe red is a flavour) and simple sugar syrup. As Serena was having some I didn't want to perk it up too much. and I got to use my new martini glasses. Cheers, Peter P.S. - Sandy, please accept my belated sympathies for your bereavement over the loss of your Hamilton Beach. There's an interesting question. Is there reincarnation for kitchen appliances?

Ce'nedra, thanks! I messed up in that last post. The instructions said to cover the bottom in milk and then bring to a boil, then clean before using. Not water. I notice that I'm having to do a lot of editing of posts, too, to clean up some bonehead typos. I need this weekend. Coconut milk would've been cool, but I'm too chicken to mess up my equipment (not of messing up the equipment, but of what Yoonhi would do to me). As I understand it, the tajine acts as a self-baster (no jokes, you lot out there). Fluid evaporates and then recondenses in the "hat" to rain back down upon the meat. The results were good. I pulled the meat out of the tajine to rest for a few minutes while we finished the cous cous in the juices. Then I sliced the lamb, and laid it out on the cous cous to serve. It's only Yoonhi and I (Serena had chicken adobo earlier with her tita), but it might as well look good. Susur's recipe worked. It permeated the meat overnight, and the tajine did an excellent job of cooking through. This was a 45 minute cook, and up until the moment I cut in I was terrified it would be too rare for the wife. But like Susur's it had cooked evenly all the way through. And these Indian approaches are extremely effective at lifting the unpleasant elements of lamb (the greasiness, the odour) away from the dish. Todiwalla and I had talked about this a lot last year, his father had been a great hunter, and many of the dishes in his book dealt with cooking game. Not bad, and Yoonhi says I can do it again. A fun part of this dish is, having carved the lamb, you can bury it in the cous cous so that it doesn't dry out while you're working on your plate. Now, what should I do for dessert?

Tonight I have a new toy. Yoonhi bought me an Emile Henri tajine. I’m so happy. This was why I decided yesterday to go with Susur Lee’s lamb. Lamb just seems like the way to start this puppy off. After this I can get strange. First thing in the manual (yes, I read documentation) it says I should cover the bottom with water and bring to a boil, then cool and wash. After that’s done, I take my lamb from the marinade and brown it in a bit of oil. Then I reintroduce the marinade for the cooking. Then I go back to writing on egullet.

So, we did C&C yesterday. Today, another iconic restaurant, but one I’ve never been to before. Sarah-Jane’s. I was surprised at the location. I seemed to remember it on Wireless, but my latest Nancy Chandler map (I have the utmost respect for her. I’ve been collecting her maps over the years) showed Sarah-Jane’s down on Narathiwat. Just head past the Chong Nongsi BTS station, across Sathorn, and then keep your eyes open on your left. I’d read about her before, in James Eckardt’s Bangkok People, a collection of short pieces he’d done for The Manager, back in its heyday when they had money to pay people. People like James. That was in 1992. Right now he’s with the Nation, but he’s also gracing the editorial headings for Bayon Pearnik, my favourite Phnom Penh magazine (www.bayonpearnik.com). Warning, it’s not for the…. well……you decide. If you like dirt biking, bars, and bars, and general irreverance, it’s not bad. So, here I was at Mrs. Sarah Jane Angsuvarnsiri’s restaurant, famous for its Isaan Italian cuisine. I wasn’t here for the Italian. The room was great. Clean, tidy, and very white. And jammed with Thai on their lunch break tucking in. Steel tables, steel chairs, and big windows with lots of light. No pretension whatsoever. I felt quite out of place. (You’re going to have to figure out when I’m joking or not) Isaan food calls for two items. Som tam and laab The som tam was good, brutally spiced, and the sauce just right for the basket of khao niao (sticky rice) I’d ordered. I’d ordered it with salted crab (you can just spot the black claws in their if you squint) which gives it a neat twist. As a question for the folks out there who know more than me, though (so we’re talking a big audience here) I though that som tam Thai had tomatoes, whereas som tam Lao went more for fermented fish. Does som tam Isaan go for tomatoes? I ask as I was at a place in Udorn back in ’99 that had 11 different types of som tam that we worked our way through, and the only one with tomatoes had been the som tam Thai. Advice? Anyways, the laab was more of the standard approach of simmered meat. Maybe the meatball method in Luang Prabang was more of an innovation? Or maybe it’s just regional. (Truth be told, I kind of prefer the meatball, with the variation in texture from the outside in cooking). The pork was heaven. The sauce was almost a Heinz 57, which worked really well with this – soft strips of meat consumbed by fat, and a light caramelizing on the skin that made it more like a carnivorous candy than anything else. I’m drooling again looking at this. But I was pushing my limits. Yoonhi hadn’t joined me at this point, and I was coming down from the massive food binge of the WGF at the Four Seasons. I finished off the pork (how could I not?) struggled with the laab (but did my duty), but only managed to finish off about ¾ of the som tam. My khao niao was only about 1/3 down. I was a mere shadow of myself. I paid the bill, was laughed at for my Lao (but I don’t mind), and headed back towards Silom to see my brokers. And then I got my second wind. Sausages! Little ball molded sausages, freshly stuffed into some odd intestinal linings! How could anyone not love these! I trailed the woman to where she had her spot, helped her manouver her stand, and then waited patiently for her to cook some for me. I had one of each for 5 baht apiece. I think I scared her

"Little round stripey ones" is right up there with "purple things". I like that term.

I've strayed. I've been posting in other threads. Maybe we need an egulleters anonymous group? Still, when I saw my daughter run in terror from the box of moon cakes we brought back, I figured I had to write something.

Dean Barrett, in his travelogue Don Quixote in China goes into quite some detail on moon cakes and their traditions. We always end up with a present of them when we're in Bangkok at this time of the year. The first time my daughter, Serena, was ecstatic. It was a beautiful red box with fairies in all sorts of poses on the top. Then she bit into the durian. Now she hides when we bring them home. But, we know people who like them, so they don't go to waste (contrary to legend, moon cakes from the 1400's are not still circulating as gifts). For those lucky enough to be in Singapore, Asia ECuisine has a great round up of the big name moon cakes on offer!

I wasn't thrilled with the khao tang, I must admit. But I don't mind the sweetness, as long as there's variety in the other flavours on the table. But you're right, when things go sweet out here, they go very sweet. Have you noticed how the Coke is wayyyyyyy more sugar loaded in Thailand than it is in North America? As a mixer with Maekhong I have to add soda to get it down to the point where I'm not courting diabetes. My disappointing Thai meals are generally outside of Thailand. Blue Elephant opened a place in Bahrain that folded a little while back. Everything I tried there was sweet, relentlessly so. And Blue Elephant has a good (if expensive) reputation elsewhere. I was told afterwards the trick is to eat at the weekend buffet, and not try to order ala carte. Somehow the words "Kyoto" and "expensive" fit well together. I'm thinking of meeting Scud there next year, and my wallet is already moaning.

I’d mentioned before that I was prone to getting stuck in ruts. Some of these ruts I really enjoy. It was just after our first trip to Thailand. Yoonhi was just back to work and was immediately being asked if she’d been to this restaurant being talked about in Time magazine. “What restaurant?” Next trip, we had to go. How could you not go to a place with a name like that? At the least, we figured, the food would be safe. The food was excellent, and had me even more excited about Thailand (yes, that is always possible). If you’re not familiar with the story, Khun Meechai Viravaidya, the son of a Thai father and Scottish mother, educated in Australia, has been an extremely active (and effective) agent for change in Thailand. In particular, he’s recognized for his work in AIDS control, having earned the title of “Mr. Condom” for his role in getting the Thai people to help stop the advance of disease. He’s been an activist, a politician, and has set up one of my favourite restaurants. The Cabbages and Condoms story went back to 1978, when the Vietnamese ground offensive (which followed the earlier probe in 1977 – I remember seeing that on TV) swept the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh and into the hinterland. Breaking the Khmer Rouge had to be done, but, as the guerrilla ware settled in, the result was a situation where hundreds of thousands of Khmer refugees were seeping into Thailand as the only safe harbour. By late 1979 the situation in the camps was becoming very bad, and the international community, with the Thai government, was trying to keep things under control. One of the volunteer groups, the German Volunteer Service, had an association with Khun Mechai’s PDA (Population and community Development Associationt), and called upon him to help. To quote from Thomas D’Agnes’ autobiography “ Mechai viewed refugee relief as community development with an abbreviated time frame”. PDA’s role was to help in the distribution of supplies to the camps. One of the big problems in these situations is the sudden arrival of “middlemen” in the distribution chain, and circumventing these became crucial to getting the supplies to the camps. To do this, PDA on soi 12 Sukhumvit took up coordinating the direct purchase and distribution of produce. This was only possible due to the earlier history of PDA in working with the villages across the country, establishing a network or local connections. I’m getting awfully long-winded on this. Sorry. With all the extra produce around, soi 12 was getting to look like an open market. The local residents asked if they could buy some of the excess food that wasn’t fitting into the shipments, and Khun Mechai set up a small shop to sell the produce, along with souvenirs that the PDA already had been selling to help fund the organization (such as key chains, t-shirts, and condoms). That shop was called Cabbages & Condoms. Now, you can’t have any group of Thais in one place for long without having some place to eat, so a small outdoor café popped up with the shop. Soon the restaurant had a reputation for their som tam and laab gai (chicken laab), and started drawing people down soi 12. When we first arrived, in 1990, the restaurant had expanded to an air conditioned extended house (thank heavens for a/c). By the late 1990’s they’d extended, adding on another dining room and an upstairs open-air area. C&C has a lot of dishes I love, but,, as I often travel alone, I’ve honed into a few that I like more than the others, and that allow me to get more flavours. What I ate last week was pretty much the “single guys’ lunch” for me. First up were the chaw muang. This is one of those things I’m not going to do at home, so I wait for tha opportunity to get back here and order a plate. Glistening little purple dumplings with chicken and onion inside. Sometimes we forget the name, and then they’re just known in our family as “the purple things”. For a couple of years they changed the food colouring, and they were blue. We still called them “the purple things”. Now they’re back to being more of a purple colour. The appetizer menu here is very good. They’re the fussy little steamed and fried (tung thong) things that I’m not likely to undertake in my own kitchen. If I’m here with the family, we always come at noon grabbing a table from amidst the Japanese lunch ladies that throng the place, and work our way through the small dishes. Another favourite is the crispy duck salad. Today’s was a little too crispy, but normally it’s a good balance of succulent meat and snappy skin, all mixed into a yam (salad). I consider a perfectly good meal to be three different yams. With that I can be content. I know, I know, this goes against the Thai definition of a meal. I’m a heretic, especially as I avoid rice, which can be too filling for me, cutting down on the variety of other dishes. The third dish is the goong chaer nam plaa, “ceviched” prawns in garlic, chili, lime juice, and nam plaa, with some bitter gourd for contrast. My separate shot of this didn’t work, but you can see them here on the plate. This is the hot and fiery element of the meal. And when you leave, you don’t get an after dinner mint. Take your choice of sizes (and I won’t say which is which). Time to get to work. See you later. (note - edited for a coconut)

Water is a tricky subject. Too much in the way of minerals, and stones seem to become a problem. But rig workers from the 70's can attest that drinking only distilled water will leach the minerals from you and cause even more problems. We've always taken the path of drinking the table top distilled stuff - it actually tastes to me like what I drank from the tap in Vancouver as a child. I seem to remember that, back in the 70's and early 80's Vancouver tap water was considered pure enough for lab experiments. That, sadly, is no longer the case, with blurps of brown sludge coming out sometimes now when I'm back in town for a visit. In Houston it struck home that I could buy a case of Black Label beer for less than the cost of an equivalent volume of water. I was happy then. And for cooking we use the "sweet water" from the tap. This stuff is pretty heavy in salts and other stuff, but it's getting boiled, so it should be safe enough....just give me a moment to confer with my second head here. Bottled water on the table is another matter. We pay more per volume for San Pellegrino and Evian than we do for oil. And the waitstaff push it upon us with mercy. And at home people will stock crates of bottled water about the place (we do too - in part so we have bottles to take with us to keep hydrated, and in part so we have empties in which to store chicken and other stocks). Anyways, time for bed.

Sandy, I'll have time on Thursday, so we'll do a magical mystery tour of the fridges, freezers, and pantries. As for the kitchen, it's bigger than some, I will admit. When we first moved here they put us in a double wide trailer. Now, cooking in that was a challenge (bathing in that was a challenge!). Anyways……I figured that (as usual) I was making too much food, so we invited a pair of friends over at the last minute. As she’s having her birthday today, it seemed like the thing to do. One of many pleasant things about life here is that are friends are close at hand, always ready for an experiment (isn’t that why Stalin built The House on the Embankment?) So, where were we? Ah, yes, the meez! Yoonhi’s out with Serena at stuff (there’s a lot of “stuff” in Serena’s schedul) so I’m free to mess about to my heart’s content. What’ve we got here? Salad fixings: rocket, mint, coriander, peeled green mango, lily flowers, chopped red chilis for the dressing, grated palm sugar (it just looks like cheese), my piece of lamb for tomorrow, mashed garlic for the curry, chicken for the curry, coconut milk, chicken stock, limes for the salad dressing, chilis for garnish, eggplants for the curry, pea aubergine, green beans, green curry paste, julienned kaffir lime leaves…. oh, yeah, and the basil and green pepercorns. I share the enthusiasm that Nicole Krazinski and Stuart Brioza of Rubicon have for the fresh green peppercorns of Thailand. I like the Malagash pickled ones, too, but these are just so clean and….well…different. The chili flowers are sort of therapeutic, except when I slit open a nerve on my fingers, but that doesn’t happen too often. I’m giving a variation of Susur Lee’s lamb recipe (see the WGF thread) a try. An Indian flavoured pesto type marinade for the meat. Lots of coriander. If things don’t go too far astray I’ll get to try out my new tagine tomorrow I’ll fish the lamb out of there tomorrow. This looks someewhat wetter than Susur’s version. I’ve pulled the meat off the grill. It was seared, then slow cooked for awhile. It’s just off of rare now, and can finish in its own time. meanwhile it’s time to work up the curry, coconut, and kaffir lime leaf. cook up the chicken first, then add stock, reduce, and then add coconut milk, pea aubergines, green beans, and eggplant. throw the salad together, and then hit it with the lime, nampla, sugar, chili dressing (in the glass), and garnish with green mango, chili flowers, and lily flowers. Yoonhi figured that Serena would never survive dinner, so she had some kim bap on hand for her. There’s the salad tossed about. I think I lost sight of the meat in all the greens. I’ll change my proportions next time (I used a bigger tenderloin last I did this). The curry’s not as pretty as it could be, but tasted alright. Our friend packed all the leftovers home for herself. Serena unpacked her special “gold bar chocolates” (“it’s a limited edition, you know?”) from the fridge to share with all of us. And then we spooned out the ice cream onto some of the mangoes we keep in the kitchen. You always need a mangon on hand. I contrasted the home made Szechuan peppercorn version with the Baskin-Robbins Vanilla. Can you tell which is which? The peppercorns worked well in the ice cream. There was none of the numbing I’d expected. I think the cold surpresses the active ingredient. But there was a definite flavour on the finish, when you had done with the pure creaminess of the ice cream, and you took in a breath to clear. That’s when you caught that hint of the province of Szechuan. Not a bad little meal. Could’ve been prettier, but our friends were happy. Okay, it’s 9:41. Time to get unconscious. I’ll try to get up early tomorrow to talk about Khun Mechai Viravaidya and his restaurant.

I love the smell of fresh mint. As soon as you pick it up and stuff it into a shopping bag, your nose is just happy. What could be a better way to end your day than bouncing home, the Rover trapped in a cloud of mint? (Well....maybe basil.......) Mint (as reverently referred to), rocket, spring onion, baby eggplants, a green mango (nice and sticky to the touch, some coriander, a tenderloin, chicken breast, and a deboned leg of lamb. But the lamb’s for tomorrow. Yoonhi bought me a tagine, and I want to try that out. Oh, yeah, there’re some limes, and some green beans, too. I’ve now got the tenderloin in for a quick marinate job. Garlic, soy, sea salt, and fresh cracked black pepper. Simple. I’ll get the grill warming, and then turn my attention elsewhere. And Serena and I have some ice cream to make tonight when she’s finished with her baseball tryouts.

I agree, it can be very good. I think my cursed karma came into play and lured me to the one chicken rice stand that couldn't deliver very well just when I had Yoonhi with me. I did get to the Montien for theirs last October, and it was good (but would I rather have had a nice yam som o?)

Wheeeeee! I should go buy a lottery ticket! In Thailand, any opportunity to buy a lottery ticket is a good thing! Just remember, before you buy, consult. One of the best places for a consult is out at Wat Mae Nak (it's actually the shrine of Mae Nak, the Wat attached has a different name). Get out at Phra Khanong on the BTS, and head North (I think...I should look at a map). Anyways, just tell a taxi drive Mae Nak and stretch your arm out 10 feet and he'll know. Go on the nights just before the draw, after midnight (which sort of shoots the BTS idea, unless you go early and get a meal in the area). The place will be a swarm of people making offerings (toys for the child, dresses and other stuff for Mae Nak herself) and rubbing special bottles of oil on the burnt timbers of her house. If you get it right, the numbers for the lottery will appear in the wood. Write them down, and get a ticket. I didn't take pictures at night (I do have some qualms about intruding on someone's space), but I should have some stills or else a video capture from the daytime shoots. I'll look around for those. (Hopefully, I'm not going to far off topic here....I could talk about the eating habits of the phii kraseu.......)

Ah, another Ramadan dawn. There’ll be no decent coffee in the office, so I need to fumble about here and find another bag of beans. Fumbling about, I luck upon my last bag of Pakxong beans from the Laos trip. It’s a coffee I long for when I can’t find iit. This has a strongly roasted (but not burnt) flavour that inveigles the palate, sneaking around the edges after it’s had its way with your tongue and roof, just hanging on and not letting go. Thailand’s coffee has improved incredibly, as well. But only in pockets. The coffee coming from Doi Tung in Northern Thailand (Chiang Rai) is a good, honest bean, with a full flavour that’ll satisfy me in the morning. I’m seeing more of it in Bangkok this trip, but just a couple of years ago we could only get it in Chiang Mai. Progress is a good thing. I remember when they would proudly make a cup of Nescafe for you when you ordered a cup. (“Well, that’s the expensive imported stuff”, says Yoonhi, “They’re giving you their best”). Thai traditional coffee is another matter. Thick, thick instant coffee mixed up hot and strained through condensed milk. It’s a SouthEast Asian thing, not just Thai, as I remember this is how the Vietnamese I worked for as a child would prepare their coffee every evening. I tried it as a youth. It was…..sweet. Now that I’m older, I’d tried it again (last time in Laos) and it was…..sweet. I’m just a black coffee sort of guy. Now that I think of it, it would make an interesting sauce for some desserts that need sweetness to set them off…..I’ve got Khun Pitak’s recipe here somewhere (from the Four Seasons’ cooking school in Chiang Mai), but that was for a more direct flavouring of a jus. Hmm….and Nobu’s soup that I did up a few weeks back would be really neat with coffee in the aromatics….. That’s it, the kitchen is mine tonight (plus, I have to finish the ice cream making). Cheers, Peter

bingo ← Thanks, you two! I figured it had to be a khanom, but was lost beyond that point.