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Menopausal Chicken, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Spent Hen
I came to know about Ms. Hen, and spent hens in general, by accident. I found a ridiculously cheap whole chicken at Tesco a few weeks ago. The thick plastic bag it was packaged in read: “Ms. Hen”. Ms. Hen was only about 85 baht ($2.60 US), about one-third the price of a normal chicken, but it being a giant supermarket chain that buys in tons and pallets and truckloads and prices accordingly, I didn’t think much about it. My usual recipe for a whole chicken is a slight variation of the Hainan Chicken recipe my cousin Kris posted on YouTube ages ago (228,000 views!!! Awesome!! When I get that many hits, Google generally bans…
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So I found out why 7/11s have locks on the doors…
…it’s in case there a coup and 10 pm curfew is enforced nationwide. The last time there was a coup, there weren’t any 7/11s near my house. Alas, Thailand has returned to its seemingly default state: Military rule. Besides there being nothing on TV (the broadcasts are controlled by the military), and closing all of the schools, it hasn’t affected anyone up here much (unless they need to work outside from between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am).
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Another Coup?
All of the national TV channels are off the air… We will be fine.
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okonomiyaki
We have successfully found a local-ish substitute for yamaimo.
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Nam assembling lunch
…using precut nori patterns she found in Japan on her last trip. Max used to not like eating rice, so this was a ploy to get him interested in it. As it turned out, telling him it would make him as fast as a ninja was the best motivator. The soup at the top is similar to something we’ve had in Japan and Korea before. In Thai, it’s called “gaeng joot,” literally a plain soup.
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Baking Babies
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A Farewell to Training Wheels
Max has finally ditched the third and fourth wheels. We tried to get Mina on two wheels at the same time, but her sense of balance isn’t there yet. The moment of releasing your child to go forth on two wheels is a mix of hopeful expectation and fear of terrible crashes. Luckily, the early start of rainy season we experienced last week provided the best learning surface available – softened fields of dusty expanse.
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Ika Yaki
In both Japan and Thailand, the best seafood can often be purchased off the back of pickup trucks. The sellers bring their catch inland from the sea, and it’s often much fresher than what we can buy in stores.
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Cold soba and sliced pork rolls
A killer lunch that Nam made a while back.
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Moo (buta [pork]) Katsu
Some katsu (breaded and deep fried) pork and veggies Nam made a while ago. Eaten with Bulldog sauce, of course (licking Bulldog off the tip of your chopsticks is tasting Japanese culture).
