Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Tuesday was Max’s last day of school, and he’s not going to summer school since we’re visiting the US in a couple weeks, so he’s been hanging out with daddy. So far today we’ve gone to the playground at daddy’s university and eaten a big bag of deep fried duck wings.
So we went out for a family dinner last night, to a place we used to go a lot for crusted garlic fish, but stopped visiting for no reason in particular. Mina was acting kind of funny, not scarfing down everything in sight as usual. Finally, she really stated acting up and did something that merited a spank on the bottom, so I put her over my lap and wound up for effect.
I knew something was wrong by the sound of impact: SCHLOP!!
Baby shit splattered all over my hand and a stinky mist expanded from the area of impact.
Mina looked at me in defiance.
Nam thought it was the funniest thing ever.
Max just shrugged at me.
—
Of course, I already had shit on my hand so I had to change Mina’s poopie diaper as well.
This is a highway rest stop outside of Bangkok we always stop at when headed to Rayong, Pattaya, Hua Hin, etc. It used to have just Thai food shops and a KFC, but it seems to be getting a lot more international now. I saw a Muslim restaurant and an “Indian fast food” place among others.
Breakfast of champions: Char siu and crispy pork combo plate with two cloves of industrial strength stankbreath on top.
Yesterday I bought some fresh honey at a friend’s house. I have different samples from roadside stands all over Thailand; they’re sold in recycled whiskey bottles. The prices generally range from 150 to 200 baht per bottle. Yesterday was the cheapest I’ve seen it in a long time, 120 baht.
Update: Yes, the seller is filtering out debris and drowned bees out with a fish net.
This is the best Thai street food video I’ve ever seen.
As perfect as it gets for NE Thailand, at least:
It only tasted about half as good as it looked, which was still pretty good. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the plate was flipped around the wrong way until after I took the photo. On the positive side, I’m pretty happy with the quality of the camera on my Desire HD. It pretty much replaces a pocket camera, not that I ever carried one regularly.
This is a bael or bael fruit AKA Bengal quince, wood apple, stone apple or seer phael (head-fruit). In Thai it’s known as matum.
In Thailand, bael is usually found in the form of dried slices, which are reconstituted in water to make juice. Our housekeeper brought over a few from her tree and I was surprised at how hard and heavy they were. We did as she said and boiled them, but then accidentally left them out on a hot night and the next day, they had fermented in the shell and burst, oozing a heavy syrup onto our counters. I threw them into the pond out front as an offering to Shiva, although he seems to favor the leaves instead of the fruit.
When we went to our good friend’s party last month, the kids tired out in an hour or two and we took them back home (just a 2 minute drive). Imagine my joy when I returned solo to freely flowing brew and this:
One of our friend’s father-in-law’s friends who looked like he stepped straight out of a Cometbus narrative was manning the spit for a while, then I tried my hand at it… Eventually, only the deliciously crackling neck and head remained. The thing about roast pig is that you have to eat it hot – 100x more delicious.
I bought these golf ball-sized eggplants at the fresh market after not seeing them for a few years and never having tasted them. Up here in the Isan region, some people eat them with various savory/spicy dishes, but I don’t think they’re very popular. To me they tasted very bland, with a hint of astringent tang associated with certain fruits… The green variety, which are the size of ping pong balls, have a bit more flavor and are at least crunchy. These yellow ones were unremarkable in every way flavor-wise.