Food
-
Monks collecting food
Buddhist breakfast Monks come around almost every morning to receive offerings from houses in the neighborhood. Some people give, some people don’t. We give quite often so I decided I should at least get a photo out of it.
-
Mangosteens and Rambutans
…are in season! They sell for around 40 cents per pound each at the market; this is apparently a good year. Probably my favorite fruit in the world. In fact, I can’t think of a close second. Such an alien-looking fruit. Delicious, though. Fr007 pr0n! Bonus trivia (via Wikipedia): The mangosteen is known as the “Queen of Fruits” in Asia. (The “King of Fruits” is the durian. If the king and queen ever bear children, I’ll be the first in line to eat them.) The exocarp (purple outer layer) of the mangosteen is rich in both nutrients and antioxidants, however, this is generally not the edible part. The inner white…
-
My favorite breakfast joint in Sarakham
Sorry, no time for captions. Maybe no need, either! ; ) (Click on any image below to open a larger version in a pop-up window.)
-
Bear-shaped rice
yummy!
-
Thai New Years Food
Let me be honest with you: As much as I love Japanese food, I hate osechi ryori. It is – oh, how diplomatically can I put this – really boring and expensive (if you buy it rather than have it made for you by your grandmother/aunt/mother-in-law), which I’m sure you’ll agree is a horrible combination of traits for food. This is why I was so happy to wake up to what I found on our table this morning: The makings for “khanom chin” That’s a bowl of sliced pineapple in the middle (think of it as the center of a compass). To it’s West: Ground shrimp meal. NW: Limes. Further…
-
Dumplings and Roadkill
Two good links today: One for the Road: West Virginia’s Roadkill Cookoff Bitter cold spurs dumpling madness
-
The Other, Other White Meat
Go check out the Evil Sandmich’s continued writings on his adventures in Japanese cuisine last year: LINK Excerpts: One morning they had a little hit of ketchup with the Japanese omelet (which I never got tired of, the omelet or the ketchup) and I was as happy as a brain eating zombie (I was quite tired and didn’t realize it, but my wife said that I was sucking the contents out of the packet). I got the definite impression that the Japanese don’t make a habit of coating their food with anything (ketchup, BBQ sauce, gravy, or even wasabi). The relative lack of condiments is something you get used to,…
-
Kushiyaki in Shinsekai
Shinsekai means “new world”, and I can only imagine how striking this area must have been when it was new, a long, long time ago. Giant puffer fish(not called fugu in this area) lounge around a dense arrangement of lights, some street looking Japanese people hanging around, dark alleys cutting between the subdivisions on the block, and attractions reminiscent of carnivals in their heyday. Glare and inky darkness create a dystopic atmosphere in Shinsekai, bringing back snippets of Chinatown, Blade Runner, The Replacement Killers, Idoru (William Gibson), and other Noir works. I wonder how the food was in those world’s back alleys- Either Gibson or Stephenson wrote that most of…
-
Glazed Pilgrim with a side of Mawmenny, please
Check out this article on Slate today: Historical Fiction Quote: “While a Medieval Times castle seats anywhere from 900 to 1,500 people a night, and the Excalibur’s Tournament of Kings about 2,000 (a thousand at each seating), no present-day medieval feast comes even close to approaching the enormity of some of the Middle Ages’ heavy-hitters. We don’t know exactly how many people attended the marriage feast of Henry III’s daughter in 1251, but we do know that they gorged on 1,300 deer; 7,000 hens; 170 boars; 60,000 herring; and 68,500 loaves of bread. Feasters at the enthronement party for England’s Archbishop of Neville in 1465 consumed 1,000 sheep; 2,000 pigs;…
-
The Glass Is Half Empty
This isn’t a good picture, but you can clearly see why I hate ordering draft beer in Japan sometimes. Where many would argue the aesthetic value of a 70/30 (in this case 50/50) beer to head ratio, I would say that it looks good in a commercial but otherwise I want a full glass of beer. If I saw this in America, I would conclude that the bartender set the CO2 pressure on the tap too high and ask for another. Whoever poured this beer needs to learn how to tilt the glass sideways when they’re pouring, or be put in charge of working the bottle opener.
