Food
-
smell my armpit
I forgot to post my instructional photo on how to harvest bananas, caveman style: Unable to hold the clump with one hand while chopping with the other (the clump was hanging over into the neighbor’s yard in an awkward position – don’t worry they got their cut!), I instead used E. Honda power to rip it off. This was taken a couple months ago in our backyard. We pretty much have the best tasting bananas in the world, and they are the perfect food for babies. We even sun-dried some and made chips. Yum! P.S. That’s an empty bird’s nest constructed in between the fruit. We’d spotted it before but…
-
ribs and drums
Just chilling at home eating leftovers and watching geckos climb the wall..
-
The Story of Sriracha
Sriracha sauce that is: A Chili Sauce to Crow About My parents had a bottle of Sriracha on the table ever since I was about ten, so I literally grew up with it. Last year when a university van drove us back home from Pattaya through the actual town of Sriracha, I was all jazzed about buying local sauces there, but that wasn’t their specialty – their specialty was marble mortar and pestles, and we did buy a good set of those. The equivalent chili sauces in Thailand are horridly sweet except for a few brands, which are decent but not nearly as good as Sriracha. When you go to…
-
taco bell folk song
Is it me or do they sound a bit like the D?
-
Pond Scum Soup
It doesn’t sound or look appetizing, but it was actually pretty good. On Sunday we went to an outdoor market in a park downtown where many fresh produce vendors gather. It’s an excellent place to find strange new (to me anyway) fruits and veggies, and sometimes even plants for our garden. This day proved to be no exception and we found a lady selling what looked like Japanese aojiru powder (green juice powder made from barley and other healthy crap) from a bucket. Upon closer inspection the granules were too large to be aojiru and were also quite damp. The old lady didn’t really explain what it was that well…
-
Cake Wreck
This is perhaps my favorite entry on the whole Cake Wrecks blog:
-
It’s Mango Season
Around these parts, mango season comes at the hottest time of the year. This year, luckily, we have been blessed with rain almost every week, which brings down the temperature and gives everybody a nice respite from the dry heat. The first five months or so when I first came, it didn’t really rain at all, so it’s been nice having a cooler hot season last year and an even cooler one this year. Back to mangoes, though – everybody seems to have mango trees growing in their yard and a single mature tree can produce perhaps hundreds of fruit every season. So visitors over the past few weeks have…
-
No escape from the barbie
Monster freshwater shrimp trying to get away on Max’s birthday a couple weeks ago. They were delicious, especially the ones rich with roe. Nam made a traditional nam chim dip with lime, chili, vinegar, fish sauce, and sugar. I secretly added pork bouillon for the hell of it, and it turned out very well.
-
near wild heaven
An old woman came by my table at an outdoor restaurant, selling this (plus another similarly-sized chunk) out of a basket. It was the last of her merchandise so she let me have it for 50 Baht ($1.50 US); about 30% off the going rate. There is nothing more delicious than wild honey, even just a very small amount (It’s the reason Pooh bear is such a fat ass, after all.).
-
Steamed Beetles
BEFORE: Not sure what kind of beetles these are, but they need to be soaked (drowned?) to induce excretion before cooking. AFTER: Steamed with lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. This preparation is typical of Thai/Laos peasant cooking, and very healthy, AND very delicious.
