Oh my gac!

Behold the mighty Gac (Momordica cochinchinensis).
Click photos for larger version.

 

This majestic fruit is perhaps my favorite in the entire kingdom of Thailand:

In fact, the main reason I love this obscure fruit is its Thai name: It is romanized as “fak kao,” or, “fak khao,” but the truth of the matter is that it’s pronounced more or less as “FUCK COW.”

I shit you not.

The first time I saw one of these bad boys was on a tour of a fruit orchard in Chonburi during our epic 2007 Road Trip. The tour guide spotted a bright red globe in the bushes and said it was a FUCK COW. I laughed and made sure to research it further, but it was a long time before I saw one again. Once in a while, I saw locals in Sarakham carrying around these anemic-looking ones that were a waxy pale yellow, but it never occurred to me they were the same fruit. One day I asked a friend who had a couple what they were and she said FUCK COW. Suddenly excited to have been united with my favorite fruit (that was my favorite based on name alone, I’d still never tried one), I asked all about them: Where do they grow? Aren’t they usually red? Are they yummy?

But nobody knew about them, really. The general consensus was that you cooked the flesh in a pot of rice, and that it didn’t really taste like much… It was like the world was conspiring against my ever actually sampling FUCK COW.

Then, two weeks ago, one of Nam’s teachers brought some from her parent’s home in Ubon, and I had two healthy specimens on my kitchen counter – the fruit I had waited to taste for five whole years was going under my knife. I took a couple hurried photos on the floor and cut one open. Against Nam’s advice, I dug out a flesh-encapsulated seed and tried it raw – Ahhhhh…. It was, um, OK I guess. Slightly tart, with no real remarkable flavor. Like a very bland passion fruit with a hint of copper, perhaps. Talk about anticlimax.

We also tried it cooked in a pot of rice. It turned the rice bright orange, but basically tasted unremarkable. Not bad, just not remarkable at all. the kids were disappointed since the color of the rice hinted at least at a fruity taste, but no…. All bang, no bite.

So why is this still my favorite fruit, you might ask. Two words: FUCK. COW.

Unknown Thai Melon

Pictured above from the upper left: An unknown Thai melon, a katon (aka kraton, kraton priya, krathon wild mangosteen, santol, or sandorica. Scientific names: Sandoricum koetjape, Sandoricum indicum, Sandoricum nervosum or Melia koetjape. Family Meliaceae, Order Sapindales. Source.) somebody at work gave me, and an unknown species of banana that were selling for 20 baht/bunch at a local market.

The bananas were good but not exceptional, the katon got spoiled before I could eat it (I never seem to get sweet ones; people around here tend to eat it in a savory/spicy fruit salad), and I did what we do with all unknown melons* – tried a bit  to see if it was a sweet variety. When it proved to be a non-sweet variety, we used half for pork rib soup and half in a red curry. It was the bomb!

*Let me clarify: We don’t eat stuff that might not be safe. It’s not unknown because we have no idea about it, but because our housekeeper gave it to us and told us the name, but we promptly forgot it. Now our housekeeper is recovering from surgery at home, so the name of the melon will remain unknown until such time as she recovers, returns to work, and I can remember to ask her about it.

One Tablet PC Per Child Tablet PC aka “iPad10”

I got to test out a number of Tablet PCs at one of the education projects I’m helping out. My opinion is that they are complete crap and even worse than I expected at the 81 USD price mark, for several reasons:

  • Of 6 units I tested, 2 were obviously defective (one would not charge past 12% and one constantly emitted a high-pitch squeal)
  • Overall build quality is poor
  • Devices show deep scratches, bubbles under the protective film, and other physical damage as delivered
  • Most of the cases I saw (I only checked a dozen or so out of 40 units delivered) were black or white, with some hot pink thrown in. This is a horrible thing for distributing to a group of kids.
  • Battery life is the worst I’ve ever heard of for any tablet PC – under 30 minutes of normal use
  • The touch screen is unresponsive and frustrating (removing the protective film made it a bit better, but resulted in really bad smudging)
  • Even though the battery capacity is so limited, charging time from near empty is around 80 minutes
  • Even the power adapters are crap; they get very hot and the cords are too short
  • This tablet is the second slowest I’ve ever used – the first being a very similar Chinese unit I tested two years ago
  • This tablet features perhaps the only graphical user interface I’ve ever used that doesn’t support drag and drop
  • The Android OS loads so slow, it has time to show off 3 boot screens/loading sequences

On the positive side:

  • The accessories for the tablets are good. The case, USB keyboard, and USB/ethernet dongle work just fine.
  • The product markings make for a fine conversation piece (iPad5, iPad6, iPad10, 4G, 64GB)

 

Software info:

Merry-go-round

These were probably taken at Gilroy Gardens, but it’s hard to say since we rode so many carousels on our trip home. It’s definitely not the Santa Ana zoo, either of the South Coast Plaza ones, or the one that used to be at Balboa Island, since the new owners are apparently complete dumbasses who forced the 80-year-old attraction away from the iconic Fun Zone. Such is progress when shitbirds call the shots.