Cooking for Khun Vic’s Party

Posted on 5 June 2008 by christao408

Every so often, Khun Vic invites friends over for a get-together at his apartment. Sometimes it is a poker party, but seeing as how so few of us actually play poker, more often than not it is a simple get-together. Most people contribute by bringing something snacky or a bottle of something alcoholic. No surprise, I contribute something cooked.

Last time we attended a party that I didn’t host, there was too much of the salty, snacky, sweet stuff and nothing substantial. By the end of the evening, Tawn and I were feeling yucky and not because of the drinking. If you invite people over pretty early in the evening, there should be at least something quasi-substantial (cheese and crackers with fruit, for example) to fill your stomach.

Taking matters in my own hand, I bowled over Vic’s objections (“I didn’t want to have to put out utensils or plates…”) and insisted that I would bring some salads. I’m kidding, of course, about the “bowling over” thing. Vic and I talked a couple of times and, ultimately, I wore him down and he agreed that some substantial food would improve his party.

Turning to Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Parties, I found some perfect recipes. Ina believes that parties should be as much fun for a host as for the host’s guests, so she emphasizes recipes that are either easy to prepare or that can be prepared in advance. Since this wasn’t my party and I was a guest, not a host, “prepared in advance” was critical but “easy” wasn’t.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Sure, I know it isn’t politically correct because the Chinese just don’t eat chicken salad like this. But that’s the ubiquitous name of the salad that is dressed with a soy sauce – peanut better – sesame seed oil dressing, which makes it sound more like satay dipping sauce than anything else.

Step 1: Cook the chicken. Ina suggests thighs, which have more fat and, therefore, more flavor. She also suggests roasting the thighs in the oven with the skin on. I like thighs, too, but went with breasts as they were less expensive and I tried poaching just for a change of pace. Below left.

Step 2: Prepare the other ingredients. The body of the salad contains scallions, red bell peppers, and blanched asparagus spears. I blanched the asparagus in the liquid I had used to poach the chicken breasts. Water chestnuts would have been a lovely addition, too, but I didn’t have any. Above right

The sauce was a mixture of the aforementioned soy sauce, peanut butter, and sesame oil, with cider vinegar, honey, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper to taste, and some good-quality vegetable oil to smooth the whole thing out.

Step 3: Combine. Afterwards, I’d recommending refrigerating for a few hours to let the flavors mix and develop.

The second dish was Pasta, Pesto and Peas. For her recipe Ina suggests that you can “cheat” and use store-bought pesto to save time. But with a large bunch of fresh sweet basil selling for only 7 baht – about $.023 – how can I not make fresh pesto? Plus a little extra for the freezer!

Step 1: Prepare all the ingredients. This includes your basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and walnuts, and Parmesan cheese for the pesto. Wash the basil leaves and remove them from the stems as the stems will add a rather chunky texture to your pesto.

Step 2: Make the pesto. This is super-easy. The hardest part is washing, drying, and removing the basil leaves from the stems. You start with a small amount of olive oil in the base of the blender and then grind the pine nuts, walnuts and garlic into a paste. From there you start to add the leaves a small amount at a time, adding a little olive oil as necessary to maintain consistency. At the end you can season with some lemon juice (to keep the bright green color) and salt and pepper to taste.

Below, the finished pesto. Lovely, isn’t it?

Step 3: Gather your remaining ingredients. You’ll need lemon juice, mayonnaise, frozen peas and spinach, and of course cooked pasta for the rest of the salad.

You take your pesto and put it back into a blender or food processor (if you made it from scratch, no need to have taken it out in the first place) and add the spinach, making sure to squeeze excess water out of the spinach.

Puree it to blend the spinach into the pesto then add some lemon juice and some mayonnaise. Blend until mixed. This is the sauce for your pasta salad.

Step 4: Mix together. Your pasta is mixed with the pesto-mayonnaise mixture and then add the peas, grated Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper to taste. You can also throw in a few handfuls of toasted pine nuts for garnish and texture.

Those two salads took me about two hours to make, but I wasn’t entirely focused on the cooking and was multi-tasking. The results were lovely and perfect for any party.

What’s especially good is that the pasta dish is entirely vegan so it is good for any crowd. And it tastes great, too. Now, if you wanted to add some grilled chicken to it then you’d really have something going. But then the vegans would be unhappy. So would the vegetarians. And the chicken.

Left, Tawn is ready to go to the party in his “school boy” outfit.

We headed out on Saturday evening and arrived just a few minutes late, what we would describe as “fashionable”. Since Vic lives in the Asoke Place complex where we lived until this past December, the guards still recognized us and gave us a resident parking pass instead of the usual guest parking ticket. No waiting to have our host come down to get us as the clerk working the front desk wai’d us and buzzed us in. So nice to be known!

Vic is from San Francisco and is a man who defies stereotypes. There is nothing more demonstrative of this than his big-ass toolbox that he keeps on his balcony, padlocked so his maid won’t steal a monkey wrench. Would you believe that he had this shipped over from the United States when he moved here? It must have weighed as much as everything else he shipped, combined. Next time I need a tool, I know who I’m invited over for lunch.

Above, the party-goers. Sadly, we’re lacking in diversity when it comes to gender and sexual orientation. I’m trying to work on that, but it is a slow process. Since some of these people may not be familiar to you, I’ll let you know who they are. Back row, standing from left: Russ, Jay, Markus, Vic, Brian, Piyawat and Stuart. Middle section, seated from left: Francois, Chairat, Ken and Mark. Front group from left: Tam, Darrin (visiting from SF), Tawn, Kobfa, and Suchai (standing on right).

Starting some starter of my own

Posted on 4 June 2008 by christao408

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who engaged in the exchange of ideas and friendly debate in my last entry. My blog normally doesn’t head into political topics but on occasion I like to express my idea. I find that when people take a deep breath and exchange their ideas on a civil level, there’s an opportunity to learn much more from each other and to be more open to different ideas.

Let’s all keep that spirit of open-minded dialogue as we head into November. Heck, let’s try to keep that all the time.

Let’s turn away from topical things and get back to the subject that is no less partisan and divisive, food!

I’ve been experimenting with sourdough bread as of late, not so much to recreate the sourdough I know and love from San Francisco (funny story, the first time Tawn visited me in SF and he tried the bread, he looked at me with this odd face and told me he thought the bread had gone bad), but just as a way to leaven and make more flavorful whole wheat bread.

The whole wheat bread I buy here in Thailand is just awful. Even some of the hotel bakeries, which cater to Europeans, still make pretty cardboard-ish whole grain bread.

A great website I found – www.sourdoughhome.com – is literally the home of everything sourdough. Some much information and helpful descriptions and explanations from a former bakery owner and baking instructor!

I created my own sourdough starter, basically a jar of water and flour that is allowed to catch its own yeast spores from the air. Over time it begins to ferment a bit and a sour air become more noticeable, picture on the left.

Every twelve hours I remove half the starter and replace is with a 2:3 mixture of water and flower. Then I let it sit for twelve hours or so, during which time it should double in height (picture on the right). Now that it has matured a bit I’ll send it to the refrigerator to hibernate for a few days at a time but I am sure to bring it out and start feeding it again a day or two before I want to make another loaf.

Below, close up of the starter.

My first few loaves had some problems. One just never rose at all. I think I used the started too far along in the 12-hour cycle after the activity had died down. Another loaf looked pretty good but when I pulled the plastic wrap off the top of the loaf before placing it in the oven, I realized I hadn’t oiled the plastic. The dough caught on it, ripped open, and the loaf deflated into a dense brick.

My most recent loaf turned out quite nicely. It still isn’t as tall as I’d like, but since it had a very nice, light crumb inside I think the issue is that the recipe isn’t large enough for the pan. I’ll try again next week and increase the recipe by about a third.

Below, a nice loaf but still a bit short.

There is nothing like the smell of fresh-baked bread in a house, even when the loaf turns out to be a doorstop. My maternal grandmother used to bake quite often and I recall the smell and taste of fresh-baked bread at her house.

Senator Clinton didn’t win. Who will we blame?

Posted on 4 June 2008 by christao408

After an exhausting primary season – perhaps more exhausting for the general public than the candidates – the race to be the Democratic Presidential candidate has come to a close.

The race has been a hard one and has opened a tremendous number of wounds within the Democratic party, wounds that must be healed if there is any chance for the Democrats to retake the White House this November. This is the battle that must be won for the good of the country.

One of the biggest concerns I have is how the supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton will react to this conclusion to the primary season. Some polls have reported that many of her supporters claim that they will stay home on election day or will vote for Senator John McCain instead. Neither of these would be in their rational best interest, of course, but people have a tremendous capacity to cut off their own noses to spite their face.

I’m sure that as the wounds heal and the general campaign gets under way, most of Senator Clinton’s supporters will rally behind Senator Barack Obama. In the meantime, though, I suspect the Blame Game will begin.

“Who was at fault? Who caused Senator Clinton’s loss?” they will ask. Someone must be blamed.

As Ron Elving, National Public Radio’s “Watching Washington” columnist, writes rather astutely, there are many reasons for the Senator’s loss but the ultimate fault lies with her campaign. They made a fundamental and strategic miscalculation at the beginning of the campaign: that the nomination was already theirs and that the real fight was for the general election.

You can read Mr. Elving’s full comments here, but I think he is spot-on in recognizing that even though Senator Clinton’s campaign made a strong comeback after Super Tuesday, that initial arrogance cost her the nomination.

As we turn our attention to the question of Vice Presidential candidates, many people are talking about the potential of a “dream ticket” with Senator Clinton taking the Veep role. Part of me thinks that this is a wonderful idea. Part of me has three specific concerns:

How does Senator Clinton’s presence on the ticket square with Senator Obama’s “change” theme? She’s reminiscent of Washington politics and partisan bickering we’ve seen before under President Clinton’s two terms in office.
Speaking of Bill, how would he fit into the equation? He seemed eerily prone to making statements that undermined his wife’s campaign and more interested in keeping the spotlight on himself. I’m not sure there’s room in the White House for all three of them.
Finally, Senator Clinton spent a lot of time (even in her Tuesday night speech after the conclusion of the primaries) explaining why she was the better candidate and why Senator Obama wasn’t well-qualified to be President. How does she take back all of those remarks without seeming untruthful or self-serving?

I’m interested in hearing your ideas and comments. The most important thing to me is ensuring that Senator Obama beats Senator McCain this November. America deserves that.

My response to the author of the “Message to China” boycott

Posted on 2 June 2008 by christao408

This morning I received the following email. It is so sinophobic as to remind me of the “yellow peril” scare of the laste 1800s and early 1900s. It left me fuming and so I spent two hours composing a response, which is printed following it. Please note that I added the images to this post; they were not part of the original email message.

MESSAGE TO CHINA

Do you want to send a message to China? Are we Americans as dumb as we appear or is it that we just do not think? While the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets, the media wrings its hands and criticizes the Bush Administration for perceived errors. Yet 70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended. Well, duh..why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges?

DO IT YOURSELF!!

Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says ‘Made in China’ or ‘PRC’ (and that now includes Hong Kong), simply choose another product or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, however you will be equally amazed at what you can do without. Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter?

If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example, the point is.. do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.

If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that’s a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor…fast!! The downside? Some American businesses will feel a temporary pinch from having foreign stockpiles of inventory. ** Downside??

The solution ? Let’s give them fair warning and send our own message. We will not implement this UNTIL June 4, and we will only continue it until July 4. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they will at least have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.

Remember, June 4 to July 4.

Here’s is my response:

A response to the anonymous author of the “Message to China”

I was forwarded an email (I’m sure it has been forwarded many times before I received it) that suggested that we should engage in a month-long boycott of $20 each of Chinese-made products in order to “send a message” about their “arrogance and illegality”. Here is my response:

Painting with a broad brush

For starters, the original author talks about “China” and “the Chinese” and their “arrogance and illegality” as if they were one monolithic group, much in the same way that Islamic fundamentalists talk about “America” and “Americans” as if they were of one single mind. It is a bit of mental laziness to confuse the actions of individual companies or oversight by specific corrupt government officials with the entire nation or populace.

As an American living overseas, am I personally to be blamed for George Bush’s blundered war in Iraq just because I’m American? Does every computer running Microsoft Windows around the world represent “America” monopolistically flooding foreign markets just because it is an American-based company? Does the spread of McDonald’s around the globe and the ensuing obesity epidemic that seems to follow in its footsteps represent America “knowingly and intentionally exporting inferior products” and unhealthy goods? Of course the answer is no, because individual people and individual companies should not be conflated with a country as a whole.

(Speaking of corruption, did you know that the Chinese government actually executes government officials who are implicated in bribe-taking and corruption scandals? I’d argue that that sends a much stronger message to their leaders to crack down on problems like lead in paint than anything the American government does. Two years in a country club prison for a corrupt politician or a bullet in the back of the head? Which is the real deterrent?)

Pennies on the dollar

Second, the premise that boycotting Chinese-produced goods has a direct effect on the trade imbalance and only on “the Chinese” is detached from reality. Let’s use the example of plastic Easter eggs that the original author used. Discounting the only valid point that the author made, which is asking why you need to buy plastic eggs in the first place, let’s say the batch of plastic eggs cost you $5 at your local Wal-Mart.

What percentage of that $5 do you think actually is paid to the Chinese company that produced the eggs? At best, maybe $0.05.

Consider the entire production chain: there are costs of the raw materials, packaging costs, costs for employees and transportation costs, and that’s before the eggs even reach the US. Once they are here, there are further transportation costs, the fixed costs associated with building and maintaining the store itself, property and sales taxes associated with the store and this sale, and wages and benefits (minimal, in Wal-Mart’s case). The dollars you boycott aren’t going to magically drop to the bottom line of the trade imbalance. At best, a few pennies on each dollar might.

The global employment chain

Consider also that the entire chain described above results in people having jobs at each step. Value is added at each step, infusing each local and national economy with more money and creating jobs. From the employees in the petroleum industry extracting and processing oil (plastic is a petroleum product), to those at the manufacturing facility that makes the plastic pellets that are sold to the plastic egg factory, to the workers at the plastic egg factory to the truckers, port workers, cargo ship crew, port workers and truckers in the US, and the Wal-Mart employees (not to mention government employees such as customs workers, highway patrol officers staffing truck weigh stations, and workers processing corporate tax payments), there is an entire chain of employment across the globe created by global trade.

Finally, the author’s suggestion that buying real eggs instead of plastic ones will “benefit some American farmer” largely ignores the realities of American agribusiness. The eggs you buy from your local chain grocery store (or the grocery section of your Wal-Mart) are most likely not raised by “Farmer John” who has the large red barn about two miles outside of town. Most likely, they are raised by one of the large conglomerates that control most of America’s food production, the same ones that are receiving the vast majority and a disproportionate share of the government subsidies that were just approved in the Farm Bill. If only your Easter egg purchase actually helped some independent family farmer!

Possible solutions

So what can we do, then? It is understandable to be frustrated by the trade deficit and to be upset about dangerous products being imported into the country. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to buy American and if you’re serious about the idea, then by all means do it. Don’t wait for a boycott and don’t limit yourself to $20 a month. Beyond that, though, how can we have a real impact? Here are a few thoughts:

First, consider why you’re buying at all. To his or her credit, the original author did make the briefest of suggestions (“…or none at all.”) to this effect. Whether those plastic Easter eggs were made in China or the US, are they something you really need to have? In the past several generations we’ve become a population that is tremendously consumerist, buying things that we don’t need and building up large personal and national debts. For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans as a whole have a negative savings rate. On top of it, our government has a national debt of $9.39 trillion dollars! If you really want to start making an impact, take that $20 you were going to boycott Chinese-made products with, don’t spend it at all and instead put it in a savings account or invest it.

Second, if you are going to buy, buy quality instead of quantity. We buy more and more things of lower and lower quality. The things we buy aren’t necessarily very good for the environment (plastic won’t biodegrade anytime this millennium) and are increasingly designed to be disposed of instead of lasting. Somewhere in your parents’ attic there are probably toys from your childhood that are still in working order. How many of your children’s toys will last that long? You can lower the trade imbalance (and have a positive benefit on the world as a whole and your pocket book) by buying fewer things but things that will last a long time.

Third, consider the impact of where you buy. Tens of millions of Americans do their shopping at stores like Wal-Mart, that pay low wages and provide minimal benefits. Sure, they provide low prices but they do so on the backs of their employees, not just because they are selling a lot of inexpensive foreign-made goods. In addition to buying less and buying things of higher quality, spend your money with stores that pay their employees a living wage and provide them with reasonable healthcare benefits. Remember, these “employees” are our fellow citizens, our friends, neighbors, and even family members.

Finally, let’s turn off the TV. Not only is excess TV watching contributing to record levels of obesity, but the “news” we’re watching isn’t news at all, it is punditry. Whether Karl Rove on Fox or Lou Dobbs on CNN, we’re watching talking heads spout nonsense that is lowering (or eliminating) any intelligent, thoughtful discourse on important issues such as global trade and foreign relations. It is the same sort of mind-numbing spin that the original author of the email engages in, proposing an ineffectual and transparently xenophobic boycott to address a nuanced and complex issue.

Zoe: 2000-2008

Posted on 1 June 2008 by christao408

We received the sad news that my sister and brother in law’s yellow labrador, Zoe, who had been diagnosed with liver cancer just two weeks ago, was put to rest on Saturday morning.

In the course of those two weeks, her health declined precipitously and within just the final few days she went from somewhat normal levels of energy, activity and appetite to being unable to eat or drink anything, let alone get up from the floor or move on her own.

Zoe was Jenn and Kevin’s first “child”, giving them a trio of years of experience caring for another living being before my oldest niece was born.

Emily wasn’t as close to Zoe as my younger niece, Ava, has been. But for both of them, the loss of a permanent part of their life will bring about all sorts of questions and worries and sadness.

Emily, who is old enough to remember her great-grandmother (my father’s mother), stated that now Zoe would be in heaven and would take walks with Grandma Schultz. While Grandma was always a bit overwhelmed by Zoe (she was very demonstrative of her affections when she was younger, jumping all over you and sharing her very fur with you), I’m sure that image will provide the whole family with comfort.

Above: Ava and Zoe, best of friends, watch an endless summer afternoon pass by.

If the nature of things is that life is given and taken away on a whim, it seems that our clinging onto memories in an earnest, if futile, attempt to resist that capriciousness.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Monthly Archives: June 2008