Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
But there are so many basic types and specific variants, as well as imported and domestically produced brands, it’s mind-boggling. Referring to any specific type as just “fish sauce” could be quite disastrous, depending on the context (who put pla dak in the nam pla?).
Bonus shot: Ultra dope station wagon in the Costco parking lot.
At a pond full of turtles and one giant carp.
LOL!! Look at this happy boy!
Olé, krup!
To be precise, fish tacos and non-papaya tam variant.
To be even more precise, deep-fried Nile tilapia tacos with corn and bird’s eye chili salsa and long fak bean tam.
Tacos always get my inner Mike D going:
He said, “Can I get some?”
I said, you can’t get none!
Had a chance to run
He pulled out his shotgun
He was quick on the draw, I thought I’d be dead
He put the gun to my head and this is what he said
A good friend from Roi Et brought his boys over yesterday, and we had an epic dinner with smoked ribs (using a new white wine finish I read about and will now implement every time), authentic Mexican rice and beans, hastily smoked Isaan sausage and Indian corn, grilled het nang fa (literally: fairy mushrooms) from Nam’s sister’s farm resort, and several kinds of beer from my friend Gop’s bottle shop.
Among the beers, the real standout was this Snowy Weizen (obviously inspired by the huge success of Hoegaarden in Thailand in the past few years), produced by Boon Rawd Brewery (other products: Leo Beer, Singha Beer, Thai Beer). It’s a cloudy unfiltered mess in your glass, and also quite delicious.
The fairy mushrooms, lightly oiled and grilled, are simply the best I’ve had in Thailand, and despite their nickname, do not make you see fairies.
So this happened lol.
We were looking for a used table. They cost about 3,500 to 4,000 baht for a decent one. Delivery would be around 1,000 baht since there were none for sale around here.
Went shopping at our neighborhood shopping mall yesterday and found this one (Dragonfly 20mm) on sale with a set of paddles for 4,750 baht.
Ka-ching!
Well, it looks like I’m going to have to buy this boy a ping pong table (table tennis table?). Luckily, it looks like used ones go for 1/3 the price of a new one here…. but they’re mostly down in Bangkok. Wonder how much shipping will cost.
Fact: There is no space at our house for all of our stuff.
Also: Mina and Max will eventually need their own rooms, which we did not plan for when designing this house (when we didn’t yet have kids). In retrospect: Duh!
My mother-in-law gave this to us last week, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen one. The flavor is 90% lemon and 10% pomelo (grapefruity), which is surprising since it looks mostly like a pomelo. This probably means it can be used as a lemon substitute for many cooking applications , and in fact, Nam put it in a killer Tom Kha Gai last night. The pomelo flavor was not noticeable at all. Overall though, it wasn’t quite as sour or pure as a normal Thai lemon – the flavor was a bit muddled.
In the first pic, I included a few objects for size reference: A small bottle of Sriracha, an Old Spice deodorant stick, and a tube of CPU grease. You know, random things I use every day, strewn all over the kitchen counter.
