Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Pat Prik Gang Moo Krob Khai Dao – Red Curry Stir Fry with Crispy Pork Topped w/Fried Egg (AKA Star Egg) at a short order joint between my office at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University and the National Sports University down the street. They serve the highest form of Pad Thai in the known universe, topped with crispy pork, only available at a couple restaurants I’ve ever seen.
I want to coin this term, because it’s so real. Basically, when I watch a movie with no seek bar, I feel something is missing… It’s a big reason I don’t like watching movies in the theater anymore and hate video players that can’t easily and constantly display a seek bar. It’s also the reason I place my cursor on the volume bar in YouTube vids. I guess I just love the control it gives me over opening credits and uninspired dialogue/boring scenes.
I waited for the better part of a decade for sous vide equipment to become cheap enough for me to get into.
The verdict is that sous vide with a cast iron pan sear to finish is definitely the best way to cook chicken breasts. I’m basically trying different proteins each week. Last week was chicken, and this week is pork. The main issue I have with sous vide is the plastic waste it generates. Also, the cheapo Chinese unit I bought requires a press for each tenth of a degree or minute when setting temp/time, which means I’ve already pressed the buttons about a thousand times, as the pulled pork I did the other day had to be set for twelve hours LOLOL. The unit was around forty bucks, so I guess usability testing wasn’t a high priority for the manufacturer. It does work, it’s just unnecessarily annoying.
This pic reminds me of a photo of her mom, Donut, as a kitten.
Here, Pickle can be seen resting on the track for our front gate. She routinely sits in dangerous places, like in front of cars, and then moves only at the last second, no matter how many times she’s warned.
I’m too lazy too look it up, but Pickle must be around 5-6 years old now. She keeps the surrounding rodent population in check, so she is invaluable, but she is the most needy and meowy cat we’ve ever had… Pickle! Shut up!
It has begun.
I guess you could say this was taken at our new (side job) workplace. Mina and I have been brought on as facilitators for Chit Chat Corner, a program sponsored by the American Embassy in Bangkok aimed at providing an English language conversation space for the community at Maha Sarakham University’s American Corner.
I’ve been doing 3km walks capped with short jogs here every day recently… It’s hard for me to get out the door to exercise if I skip days, so it’s easier just to get in the habit of going every day. So considering side jobs in the evening (the only realistic time to exercise is wither before or after it gets sunny) and the weather (it’s currently thunderstorm season), I probably average 6 days/week right now. Although I did a three week stint without a day off, which felt like a big deal.
A local noodle shop came up with this killer concept of a sliced pork bowl with two eggs and nori, and it is fantastic!
The egg rolls are pretty damn good, too.
My student wore this to class and when I asked to take a photo, he asked me if I’d heard of it before. I answered truthfully. Actually, with the Thai pronunciation of this word, it doesn’t matter if that missing consonant is there or not, it sounds exactly the same.
WP says it can post automatically to IG now… People of the Gram, can you hear me?