Were in Sangkha, Surin province for Nam’s grandmother’s funeral. We’ve been coming up here to visit her once or twice a year for 15 years. It’s a small town near the border with Laos known for black magic, apparently.. I never saw evidence of that, though. The funeral is going to be a totally recognized 7-day affair, and it’s going to be hot, so we are grateful they made a hotel with a pool here recently. Because of covid, we hadn’t been swimming for a couple if years… Instantly worked out a shoulder pain I’d had for a few months.
You can tell this ain’t Murica cuz there’s no booolet holes… and cuz, well, it’s a 1974 (zenki) Crown.
I found this very cool photo on FB.
The post said it was a “Kalgoorlie bush wreck.”
Google time…
Found it! This must be the coolest group on Facebook. Applied.
Note: Kalgoorlie was originally called “Hannan’s Find,” and what Hannan found was gold! So I guess Kalgoorlie is the Sutter’s Mill of Australia (both caused a gold rush in the 1800s).
My first creation for our cloud kitchen project was spicy beef noodles in soup. We used premade noodles from a reputable brand and they turned out well. My pet peeve is imperfect egg noodles, to me, their texture is more important than even Italian pasta – it makes or breaks the dish. Feast your eyes on this, and please remember to give points for the authentic light blue melamine noodle bowl and 7.5 baht Chinese spoon (yes, thicker than the 5 baht ones and thinner than the 10 baht ones).
Thai basil stir fry with crispy pork topped with a fried egg (AKA “star egg”)
A star egg makes everything better, especially when cooked to crispy bottom/gooey yolk perfection. Also, crispy pork is the way to go as far as Thai basil stir fry goes. I mean, to each their own, but some ingredients are clearly better than others for any given dish. More on this pad krapow hierarchy at a later date.
Imagine my surprise at finding a supposed source for the new super-efficient LED bulbs made exclusively by Philips for UAE royalty (“exclusive,” as in, you can’t buy them anywhere else), invented to comply with government regulations. The redundant circuitry sounds exactly like what I need for my house here in the northeast, plagued with frequent overvoltage problems, which in turn necessitates frequent bulb replacement.
I kind of doubt the seller is legit, but I’m curious enough to try and buy a few.
It had been a while since I’d seen Rusty. I didn’t know he’d changed hands, but it seems like he’ll be cared for forever now. What a legend. And yes, I always think of the Super Silhouette KDR30 when I see him.
“The Vietnamese call this insect cà cuống. It is a highly prized food and often boiled and fried whole.” LINK
Here in Thailand, it is called maeng da or malaeng da, and is mostly used ground up in chili paste called nam phrik or jaew bong. The pheromone that so famously attracts the females has a unique and powerful scent, unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. Not unpleasant in and of itself, but very strong. I can eat it, but have never tried it raw… I found the one above freshly dead, in my driveway. It did not smell. It’s the only one I’ve seen in the wild, although they sell them live at the fresh markets and deep-fried at edible insect stalls.
Incidentally, maengda is also slang for “pimp” in Thai.
New Years celebration at Phra Tat Nadun in Maha Sarakham, about 45 mins. from home
This is one of the last photos I took on an outing before COVID lockdown. I checked, but they weren’t actually serving rodents of any kind, so we can chalk this one up to interesting Asian naming.
This is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I asked the guy who posted it to Twitter for more info, and he told me it’s from Iceland. If anybody knows anything else about it, please comment on this post.
What mad genius made this beast? What engine turns those monster wheels? I need to know!!!
#monstercrown
#bigfootkujira
#monsterMS60
Well it’s probably not a fruit (although there might be a smashed banana in there or something – I didn’t check), but mosquitoes seem to suck moisture from anything, including wet napkins… Click to see the entire Mosquitoes Eating Fruit Series.
This is one of my favorite things to have for breakfast in Thailand, because the majority of Thai breakfasts is one dish: Grilled pork skewers and sticky rice – which is awesome, but gets old day after day.
There used to be an old lady who made the best version of this in town, but she closed her shop a decade ago. The one pictured above was made at a nearby restaurant owned by the mother of one of Mina’s classmates that opened pre-COVID and subsequently shut down. It was OK, but very typically made with margarine instead of butter.
An egg pan, or pan eggs, typically go for about a dollar per pan and are served with a stuffed roll called khanom pan yuan, or literally, “gook bread.” “Yuan” is kind of an ethnic slur for Vietnamese in Thai.
“gook bread” is usually a hard oblong roll; this one was actually a hot dog bun which is unforgivably inauthentic and just lame, dude
After the old lady mentioned above closed her shop, I thought about opening a breakfast place that served this only just so I could eat it whenever I wanted – because this dish is too dirt cheap to make much money on, or even to make properly with real butter. Alas, I only eat this now when I go to Khon Kaen (where they have enough customers at established shops to keep open), or just make similar breakfast at home.
These little guys probably have a survival rate of 1 in a thousand or so. They can sprint for short spurts, but are easy prey for predators like birds and cats. I let them stay in the house, but they scare Nam for some reason.
I’m currently in a state of being extremely busy juggling things like preparing for a new school term, managing a botched house extension, getting our main car repainted, moving a metric ton of dirt the workers we fired (from previously mentioned house extension job) left on the street in front of our house with the only Radio Flyer I’ve ever seen in Thailand, getting diphtheria/tetanus boosters because I gouged my leg on my rusty barbecue grill, replacing a temporary crown on my tooth with a permanent one, running around to every home improvement shop in town to find the correct angle grinder attachment/vinyl flooring sheets/ceiling hangers, etc.
Here is a shot of the best khao tom I’ve had all year, up in the mountains, on break from performing Okinawan music to Northeastern Thais.
Mountain mushroom soup rice glory!
Also, we miss Max and have decided not to bring him back on a repatriation flight to face 2 week quarantine by himself, and instead wait until we can go get him (intl flights are still not allowed into Thailand) safely.
This culture was pretty much gone when I grew up in SoCal. These photos were taken a couple years before I was born, but I feel a deep connection to them every time I see my driveway.
