Valetine’s Day Part 2

Posted on 14 February 2009 by christao408

A continuation of the tale of Valentine’s Day 2009.

After brunch, the lot of us headed up to Muangthai Ratchadalai Theatre on Ratchadapisek Road to watch “Chicago”. I mean, after that huge front-page “article” in The Nation, how could I not?

In all seriousness, though, I actually purchased tickets months ago, long before any newspapers put their integrity for sale.

The show was a lot of fun. Chicago is, in my opinion, a great example of the American musical genre. The staging is simple and there is a good balance of choreography and song. And it is quite sexy. The audience, mostly Thai, ate it up.

On the way home we stopped at the market to buy some ingredients for dinner. Instead of fighting the crowds at a restaurant (and since we had already eaten out once today), we opted to cook at home. Below, Tawn dresses up for dinner.

The centerpiece of the meal was a very nice bottle of Pommery Champagne gifted to us by Boon, a visiting Chicagoan whom we met last November. Here’s a short video we shot to thank him.

The menu was simple: mixed field greens with Italian sausage (sautéed in some leftover duck fat from last week’s duck breast dinner), Jacques Pépin’s mother’s recipe for easy cheese soufflé, a baguette with truffle oil and balsamic vinegar, and chocolate soufflé with raspberry coulis.

This soufflé recipe is great. It is from his very interesting book The Apprentice, in which he shares the stories and recipes tracing his path from childhood to career. He explains that when his mother married his father at age seventeen, she did not know how to cook, except for a few simple dishes. Pépin’s father liked cheese soufflé, which she had never cooked before. A friend had told her that it consisted of a béchamel sauce, grated cheese and eggs. So easy!

No one ever told her that the eggs should be separated – the yolks added to the base and the whites whipped and folded in. As he writes, “Ignorance is bliss, and in this case it was indeed: the soufflé rose to a golden height and became a family favorite.”

It really is an easy recipe and if you’ve been hesitant to try a soufflé, this would be the one to start with. The ingredients are simple: 6 tablespoons of butter and 6 tablespoons of flour. Melt the butter in a saucepan, whisk in the flour, and brown for ten or fifteen seconds.

To that, add 2 cups of cold whole milk, whisking constantly at a medium-high heat until it thickens, about five minutes. What results is a basic white sauce (same thing you use for making macaroni and cheese).

Season with 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. If you want, make it interesting and add a dash of cayenne pepper. Set it aside to cool for about ten minutes, stirring every so often so it doesn’t form a skin.

Meanwhile, beat together six extra-large eggs in a bowl. Grate about 6 ounces of swiss, ementhal and gruyere cheese. For interest I substituted about 2 ounces of soft chevre (goat’s cheese). You can also add a few tablespoons of chopped chives or spring onions, if you like. Another interesting addition would be some crumbled, crispy bacon.

Combine it well and then put it in a gratin or soufflé dish and then bake it in a 400° F oven for 30 to 40 minutes until the souffle is fluffy and browned. That’s it.

The nice thing about this soufflé is that you can prepare it in advance and wait to cook it without any difficulty. It is a little denser than the average soufflé (since the egg whites weren’t whipped) but it is still super-easy and really tasty.

What goes well with a soufflé? Salad. We did mixed greens with a Japanese-style soy sauce dressing, topped with some Italian sausages.

Regular readers will recognize that I really like salads with some meat on top. Truly, it can be a meal unto itself. Add a few pine nuts for texture and you’re set. And, as you can see below, we were.

While we ate and drank, I put two chocolate soufflés into the oven from the freezer, remainders from last week when Brian and Geng were over. Cook’s Illustrated Best Make-Ahead Recipes cookbook? Love it! Everyone should keep a few soufflés in the freezer.

I hope your Valentine’s Day was every bit as special as ours.

Valentine’s Day Part 1

Posted on 14 February 2009 by christao408

Yes, it is a commercial holiday, but I’ll wish you a happy Valentine’s Day nonetheless. Having a day when we put extra effort to tell those we love how special they are, is a good practice. Doesn’t need to be a dozen long-stem roses involved, nor an overpriced card. But a small gesture, a peck on the cheek, and an “I love you” goes a long way to making the world a nicer place.

Two days before Valentine’s Day Tawn and I headed to the flower market – a large wholesale district in the old city that is busiest when the sun is down and is very much worth visiting next time you are here – to buy some flowers for a media event he had scheduled. The sheer quantity and diversity of flowers available is overwhelming. Blocks and blocks of stalls and shops with the freshest and most beautiful flowers.

If you ask me to name a thing I really like about living here, one answer would be the easy availability of inexpensive flowers. Having fresh flowers in the home adds so much beauty and here the flowers are dirt cheap… no pun intended.

For Valentine’s Day we met a group of friends for brunch at Beccofino Trattoria on Soi Convent. Many thanks to blue_beau, who included a very nice write-up of the restaurant in a recent blog entry. He’s one of my dining resources here in Krungthep as he has good taste and really looks for quality, not just high prices.

Above, Tawn and Chai enjoy a glass of wine before we order.

Beccofino Trattoria is the smaller branch of a restaurant over on Soi Thong Lor near our house. They offer a daily set menu for lunch Bt 360 for a four-course meal including their antipasto buffet plus coffee or tea that is a real bargain. Set menus are a rare thing in Krungthep, a real shame in my opinion as they are one of my favorite ways to eat. You get to try the chef’s specialties in reasonably-sized portions at a nice price. What’s not to like?

The bread basket includes a homemade olive focaccia bread that is wonderful. Dip that in a bit of extra virgin olive oil and you practically have a meal right there. But don’t fill up on the bread as there is a nice antipasto buffet. About ten different platters, small enough quantities that you’re ensured freshness. Asparagus, various cured meats, melon with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella with the drab Thai tomatoes, and beef carpaccio on mixed greens.

There were two choices of soup: mushroom or pumpkin. I had the pumpkin which was very unusual. Instead of being sweet, which is often the case with roasted squash soups, this one was salty. But it was more of a sea salt sort of flavor instead of a “salty because of too much table salt” taste. Topped with a dash of olive oil, it really stimulated the appetite.

There were several main courses from which to choose. Four pastas, three or four fish dishes, and another three or four meat dishes. We ordered a variety, all of which were well prepared and beautifully arranged.

Grilled salmon with mashed potatoes. The potatoes were excellent. The salmon was cooked a bit too much for my taste, although Tawn ordered the dish and he likes his salmon dry.

Brian had the spaghetti with meat sauce and spoke highly of it.

Ken had the fried sole in a butter and herb sauce, which he really enjoyed.

I ordered the beef tenderloin cooked medium-rare, which was the tastiest steak I’ve eaten in Thailand. No kidding. It was perfectly cooked, tender, and well-seasoned.

The dessert situation is a bit lacking. A choice of ice cream or sherbet on the set menu, which is okay for a set menu. But I looked off the menu and there wasn’t much else there. A tiramisu, which I didn’t try this time, and a Sicilian dish that I did order, but just seemed to be ice cream with candied fruit mixed into it. It wasn’t anything special.

Still, for Bt 360 (about US$10) the meal was an excellent value. We brought two of our own bottles of wine, corkage at only Bt 250 each (about US$7). Brian brought a Monsoon Vineyards Shiraz which he and Geng picked up at the winery in Hua Hin. Like all Thai wines, it is very one-note. Drinkable, but not yet mature. I brought a bottle of Ridge Vineyards 2004 York Creek Zinfandel. Lovely wine. I really like Ridge Vineyards’ wines and there is a good story to tell about them that I will share with you one of these days.

When the News is For Sale

Posted on 13 February 2009 by christao408

I fired off a letter to the editor this morning when I discovered that The Nation had used a quarter of today’s front page to give free advertising for the opening of “Chicago: The Musical” in the Big Mango.

Tawn, as a PR professional, admired the success of whichever agency handles that account, but was shocked at how blatant the placement was.

You will recall that a few weeks ago, I took to task one of the paper’s columns, “Ask the Pros”, for asking the owner of a beauty clinic that performs colon hydrotherapy (enemas by another. sexier name) to play the role of unbiased expert in responding to a reader’s questions about the safety and efficacy of colonics.

But this seems to have reached new levels of journalistically unprofessional conduct. A quarter of the front page with the following caption: “BEC-TERO Entertainment paid more than Bt100 million to bring Broadway’s ‘Chicago: the Musical’ to Bangkok. The play took the stage last night at the Muangthai Rachadalai Theatre in The Esplanade shopping complex and runs until February 22. The 50-strong cast is led by Michelle DeJean and Terra C. MacLeod. Tickets cost Bt1,000 up to Bt4,000 each.”

Now, I want you to know, I am a fan of the musical Chicago. In fact, Tawn and I are joining a group of friends to watch the show on Saturday. So it isn’t that I dislike musicals or don’t believe that coverage of a new musical’s opening isn’t news. I am pretty certain, though, that we have more pressing things to report on the front page.

You may not have heard, but there is actually quite a bit of real news going on here in Thailand:

We have a police investigation into the New Year’s Day pub fire (resulting in 64 deaths) that is revealing some alarming things about public safety, tax evasion, and corruption of public officials.
We have a new Prime Minister (our fourth in a year) who is trying to steer the ship of state in rough political and economic waters.
We have a nationalized airline that is bleeding money while giving its employees large bonuses and raises.
We have an Agriculture Ministry that is requiring that tumeric, lemongrass, and ginger (among other things that farmers use as organic and safe pesticides) be listed as hazardous substances, a move that undermines organic farming and opens the doors for the large chemical companies.

Any one of these – plus a dozen more – could have provided some much-needed news reporting, investigation and analysis. But the editors felt that the biggest news in the Kingdom was the opening of an expensive show from Broadway. One of several shows that open here every year.

I’ll let you know if the editor deigns to respond to my letter.

When “is” isn’t “is”

Posted on 12 February 2009 by christao408

Moving from one culture to another is a big transition, especially if you want to make an effort to really understand the new culture. One could argue that, try though you might, you’ll never fully understand it. But over time, your understanding will at least increase.

We have a friend who moved here a few years ago. He is making a lot of effort to understand Thai culture, reading books about Thai relationships (he has dated several Thais) and has taken some Thai language classes.

Along the way, he often has questions about specific situations, general practices, and other aspects of the culture. Some questions are asked of me or other farang who have Thai partners. Other times the questions are asked to Tawn or one of the other Thai partners.

I applaud his effort to learn about the culture. It is an obligation, in my opinion, of someone who lives in another culture to make every effort to learn about, respect, and play by the rules of that culture. The world is not our playground.

The challenge I face – and I want to point out that his intentions are wonderful because he’s asking because he wants to understand – is that he is a very analytical person, someone who sees things in a logical, rational, black-and-white way. And the culture about which he is asking questions simply isn’t a logical, rational, black-and-white type of culture.

Tawn and I have discussed this a lot as we want to support his quest to learn about Thai culture. And one of the things we’ve concluded is that any question you have about a culture rarely has a definitive answer. There are no absolutes. There may be generalities, but trying to conflate a generality with a certainty results in missing the finer nuances of a culture. And it is within those nuances that the essence of the culture really lies.

It’s kind of like when you are learning a new language. You are tempted to ask, “What does this word mean?” But as Mme. Morel, the French-Vietnamese linguist who taught me several months of French at The French Class in San Francisco put it, “Words don’t mean anything. The question is, how is the word used?”

Take the Thai word เป็น (“bpen”). While it is often translated as “to be” or “is”, that really fails to capture how the word is fully used in Thai. It is also used to indicate an ability to do something, the state of being afflicted with a malady, the state of becoming one thing from another, the state of being alive, and it is also used as a qualifying conjunction.

Helen James, author of Thai Reference Grammar, goes so far as to bold the text in her explanation of the word: “bpen is not a verb ‘to be’ … [instead, it] identifies a relationship between two noun phrases or between a noun/noun phrase and an adjective/adjective phrase.”

In short, เป็น isn’t “is”. It is so much more.

In the same way, Thai culture isn’t this way or that way. It identifies the relationship between people and between individuals and the institutions that make up Thai society.

Given the unique relationship Thai society has with water – the heart of the country is essentially a flood plain, after all – the water motif is a suitable metaphor for the nature of Thai culture: a fluid thing that “is” one thing but is also so much more.

Day trip to Pattaya

Posted on 11 February 2009 by christao408

First of all, let me make this clear to those of you who might think we’re running around enjoying adventure after adventure: these blog entries are not chronological. Instead, there is a delay as I process photos and videos and then I arrange entries to provide some variety.

With that administrative tidbit out of the way, let me share a day trip we recently took to Pattaya, the beach side city of sin located less than two hours to the southeast of Krungthep. I’d never before been to Pattaya because its scuzzy reputation (although the beaches are supposedly gorgeous) kept me disinterested.

“I wonder how long it will be before we see our first fat farang on a scooter with a tiny Thai girl behind him?” Tawn asked as we pulled into town. Within two minutes, we had our answer.

We didn’t go to Pattaya to explore the town or even to try and dispel my perceptions. Instead, we went to exchange some silk that Trish had purchased from the factory in Nakhon Ratchasima province that, upon inspection once we returned to Krungthep, turned out to be 1-ply instead of the 2-ply for which she had paid.

The factory owner has a retail shop at a recently opened faux floating market in Pattaya, so we arranged to meet her there to do a swap.

While there, Tawn wanted to find a boulangerie that had opened recently and had been featured in Thai Vogue. It looked very cute in the magazine but of course we left home without noting its address and location.

Using the tiny internet browser on Tawn’s phone, I was able to find another boulangerie called, appropriately, Le Boulange. Turns out it is the cousin (or sister location?) of one on Convent Road in Krungthep, owned by a real Frenchman. The Pattaya location is just a modest storefront and is mostly a bakery, producing for stores and hotels in town.

While there, we witnessed the chef talking with a French expat and his Thai fiancée about a wedding cake. In this case, the expat was much closer in size to the Thai and they were not riding a motorbike.

The sandwiches – only available combination is baguette de jambon et de fromage (ham and cheese) were très authentique. A robust crust that fought you back when you bit into it and a wonderful textured crumb. And for only 35 baht (about $1) for a mini baguette, a real bargain.

Left, Tawn poses with his baguette as a local woman looks on. Or, at least, pretends not to.

The desserts were less spectacular, but what can you expect? At least we enjoyed a good lunch.

The chef came over after settling wedding cake decisions and asked how our lunch was. Answering him in English, he quickly apologized and explained in French that he only spoke French and Thai. So we continued the conversation in Thai, since neither Tawn nor I remember enough French.

Afterwards, with the disinterested local’s directions, we drove to the outskirts of the city to Talat Naam Si Pak – the Four Regions Floating Market. Floating markets are very much a part of central Thailand’s culture, as the myriad waterways in this flood plain made waterborne transportation the easiest way to get around until the 20th Century introduction of the traffic jam.

For the tourists – and, most noticeably, for the Thai tourists – Pattaya now boasts an entirely artificial floating market that runs from dawn till dusk, every day. Located to the south of town around an manmade lake, the shops and boardwalks connecting them are ostensibly divided to represent the four regions of the county.

Sadly, there is little to distinguish the regions as the building are identical except for tiny emblems on the roof line meant to evoke the different regions. From a central cooking area, vendors paddle their boats around the “canals”, offering authentic Thai food (and two-litre bottles of Pepsi products) for sale. The Thai tour groups we saw seemed to love it, setting up mats and eating in the shade, reveling in a near-cultural experience.

While wandering about, we located the Silk merchant’s shop. As it turns out, she changed plans and decided to come to Pattaya the following day, but had not called Tawn to tell him. When Tawn tried to call her, she didn’t answer. After explaining the situation to the clerk in the shop, the clerk called the merchant, who answered the phone promptly.

The clerk then handed the phone to Tawn as he proceeded to read her the riot act in a polite, nice way – as Thais can do so well.

She promised to bring the correct fabric to us in Krungthep the following day, so we left the single-ply fabric and a sample of what the correct fabric should be. Needless to say, she never showed up or called Tawn, and we’re now two weeks later with no resolution.

We decided not to waste any more time at the floating tourist trap, but on the way back to the car park we found something endearing: a pen of baby goats and one sheep, all three months old. They were the center of everyone’s attention, young and old alike, and for twenty baht you could feed them a bottle of milk.

Here’s a brief video showing the scene as Tawn fed them… and plotted to shear the sheep so he could make a wool coat!

We were back in Krungthep just after sunset, delayed by my exploration of the route near the airport that Peter, Stuart and I would ride the following day.

Saturday Night Chili and Games

Posted on 10 February 2009 by christao408

Saturday night we invited a few people over for a pot of turkey chili (finally finished up the leftovers from Thanksgiving!) and some games. In my mind, there’s nothing more fun than an evening spent playing board games and cards with a group of friends, supplemented by a simple and satisfying meal and a few bottles of wine.

Left to right: Tawn, Darrin, Kobfa, Si, Matt, Ken and Chris. Chai, unfortunately, was off in Cambodia so couldn’t make it.

The menu was simple: turkey chili, a loaf of “almost no knead bread” (recipe from Cooks Illustrated – I wanted to compare it to the NY Times’ recipe for “no knead bread” I made a week ago), and a large green salad.

The bread looked beautiful and wasn’t as wet and sticky as the NY Times’ recipe. But the crumb was more even and didn’t have those gorgeous large bubbles inside. Somewhere between the two lies the perfect “no knead” bread recipe. I’ll continue to experiment. Kudos, though, to Cooks Illustrated for having some helpful techniques that kept me from burning my fingers this time.

The pot of chili was good but I ran out of cumin, which I consider a key ingredient in the flavor profile of a “pot of red”.

Also, I didn’t have any masa farina – corn flour – and the handful of polenta didn’t add the same flavor or thickening that I’m used to with masa.

Most important note with chili, one I failed to heed this time: make it a day in advance. the flavors are so much better after they’ve been able to mingle.

While seven people made the seating at the table a bit tight, I completely agree with Nina Garten when she says that small tables that are a bit crowded always feel more cozy.

After dinner we broke out the Aggravation, which Si and Matt brought. Fun game but since only six could play and we were seven, we switched to Uno afterwards. Uno is a fun game in a crowd and we played seven hands before calling it a night. Right, the money is hidden so we’re not in violation of any Thai anti-gambling laws.

Along the way, we had some dessert: homemade chocolate cake (Stephanie’s recipe – the absolute moistest cake I’ve ever eaten) with raspberry coulis and some of Si’s homemade strawberry ice cream, which was utterly fantastic.

Certainly an enjoyable and inexpensive Saturday night. Next time, maybe homemade pizzas? Actually, I’ve been thinking of trying to make my own pita bread.

News of Tawn. While in the US, Tawn picked up some rubber boots for when it rains. Or maybe just for when he “gardens”.

Above, Tawn in his gardening outfit, tending to the plants in the hallways outside our front door. He looks like he should be pruning roses (or taking tea) in an English garden, no?

Delayed Chinese New Year Dinner

Posted on 8 February 2009 by christao408

On Friday, Brian and Geng invited us for a delayed Chinese New Year dinner at Jae Ngan, a nicer Chinese seafood restaurant deep down Sukhumvit Soi 20. Since it was the start of a long weekend (the Buddhist holiday Wan Macha Bucha, celebrating the Buddha’s first sermon, is Monday) the restaurant had only a few customers, resulting in a super-attentive staff.

Above, Geng, Brian, Tawn and me sitting in this funny hexagonal private room with a huge table – could have sat a dozen, easily.

We had a really fantastic meal with lots of tasty seafood. Here’s a run-down of the dishes. Sorry for the poor quality; lighting was not geared towards picture taking so I had to use a flash.

Tom Yum Goong – Spicy Thai-style prawn soup with curry and coconut milk.

Stir-fried morning glory (not the same as the morning glory flower in the west) with lots of garlic. At this restaurant, they only use the stems, peeling off the leaves. Very tender and very labor-intensive to make.

Black pepper crab with lots of fried garlic and shallots. Tasty!

Cellophane noodles fried with prawns, which are hidden in the “nest” of noodles.

Sea bass steamed with soy sauce and spring onions. Not a very pretty picture but the fish was gorgeous.

Their famous “with everything” fried rice, probably the best fried rice I’ve eaten in Thailand.

For dessert, sticky rice with mango, artfully arranged.

So nice to have a pleasant dinner with friends.

Airport Express to Open August 12

Posted on 6 February 2009 by christao408

You can take this with a grain of salt, but the local papers are reporting that the Airport Express rail line – which will link downtown Bangkok with the new (well, three years ago) Suvarnabhumi Airport – is scheduled to open on the Queen’s birthday, August 12.

There may be some truth to this as a test run was completed from the Makkasan station (main in-town terminal) and the airport, conducted at normal speed. The test was successful and the train made it the length of the route in just fifteen minutes, as planned.

Curious, I headed over to the Phayathai Skytrain station, which is where the Red Line, as the airport line is known, will connect with the Skytrain. That section of the track was not tested last week, but it does look like a lot of progress is being made, below.

The real question, of course, is why the project is so delayed in the first place. After all, the plans for the airport were on the shelf for decades, the actual construction took over five years, so it wasn’t as if the airport suddenly opened up and surprised everybody. Oh, look! An airport! We weren’t expecting that.

While at the Phayathai Station, I spotted what I think may be the root cause of the delay, below.

Yes, the construction workers look a little pampered, in my opinion. Three people catering to their every need, a comfy recliner to sit in. Just how much construction actually gets done each day?

In all seriousness, though, if this line is anything like has been promised – the ability to check in for your flight (and to check your bags, too) at the in-city terminal – then we’ll have a major advance for our visitors as well as traveling locals.

Resolution: The United Skies are Friendly After All

Posted on 5 February 2009 by christao408

As a professional management trainer, one thing I stress with my students is that you have to give at least as much feedback about things done well as you do about things that need to be improved. As such, I want to give some positive feedback about yesterday’s entry (below).

You’ll recall that I felt a bit hood-winked by United Airlines, after I had to wait 48 hours to book an award ticket because it took that long to process the purchase of the final 1,000 miles I needed for two tickets to Japan. The wait seemed unnecessarily long and, by the time the miles credited to my account, all the award seats for April were gone.

Prompted by several comments in response to the original entry, I contacted a United Airlines representative and explained the situation. Sure enough, it turns out that I should have been able to put the seats on hold while the purchase of the miles was being processed. This representative worked the necessary channels and was able to get two seats released from inventory, making things right by me.

My love afair with United, which began when I was just a month old but in recent years had soured a bit, is worth giving another chance. Credit where credit is due, the employees of United made things right. It looks like the Friendly Skies are still friendly, after all.

Tawn and I will fly to Tokyo from Bangkok on Thursday, April 9th, returning the following Thursday. If you have any suggestions of what to do or see, or where to stay inexpensively, please let me know.

Original entry, dated Thursday February 5, 2009:

April is very hot in Thailand. It is also our Songkhran holiday – the three-day traditional Thai new year. I’ve been here for three Songkhrans so far and each time, I’ve promised myself that the next year I would get out of town for the long weekend.

Browsing our options, I noticed that United Airlines actually offers very generous mileage redemption levels (about half the normal requirement for other Star Alliance flights) on the Bangkok to Tokyo route, which is an add-on leg to their San Francisco to Tokyo flight. 20,000 miles for an economy ticket and 30,000 for business class for a 6-hour flight – a good deal!

Checking online, they had a pair of seats available in the time frame we wanted to travel. Not in economy class, though, but in business. 60,000 miles total. I had 59,540 in my account. But not to worry, I could buy an additional 1,000 miles for $67. Pretty steep for miles, but it would get me where I needed to be.

Processing the purchase, I was informed that it would take up to 48 hours to complete the transaction and credit the miles to my account. This confuses me – I can buy an airplane ticket and in a matter of a minute or two, confirm the entire transaction. But to buy $67 worth of miles takes two days to process?

During the 48 hours I checked the award travel seats – still available. Then, yesterday afternoon when I received the email confirming that the purchased miles had been added to my account, I went to book the award seats and – guess what? – they were no longer available.

Now, I’m sure this is simply a coincidence, but I can’t help but think that this is part of United’s machiavellian plan. They now have $67 from me but have taken away the thing I was going to use the miles for.

What to do, what to do?

Ken, a friend who is retired from UA and is familiar with their reservation and inventory systems, suggested I could check again and see if any more seats are released for award travel. Of course, I could just as easily see other affordable options slip away as I wait for that to happen.

There are free business class seats available departing three days earlier, but this would mean that Tawn has to take an additional three vacation days and results in ten days in Japan instead of seven – a bit longer of a short getaway than I expected.

Another option is to apply the miles towards my purchase of the seats. Chase Mileage Plus Visa allows me to do this when buying United flights from the united.com website, so my 60,000 miles would equal a $600 credit towards a purchase of seats. Two economy class seats during our travel time frame would be $900 total (plus the $67 I spent on miles). A pretty good price but not nearly as nice as two business class seats for $67!

Have you ever felt like you were being manipulated by a company?

Chris the Handyperson

Posted on 3 February 2009 by christao408

A few Sunday mornings ago, I was sitting at the computer working on something, when all of the sudden a large crash! came from the kitchen. I looked over and saw nothing amiss.

It wasn’t until I opened a cabinet later in the morning to get my oatmeal pan that I saw the problem: the top anchor of the shelves had detached from the wall, right.

Under the weight of the pots and pans, the shelves were leaning away from the wall and stressing to the bottom anchor, too. I quickly removed everything from the shelves and placed it on the counter, eliciting quite a shocked look from Tawn when he woke up later in the morning and sauntered, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen.

“What happened?” he asked. “Are you cooking something?”

When our handyman installed the the Haeffle wire swing-out shelves, he behaved in the manner most familiar to Thai handymen: pure improvisation. The corner of the cabinet to which the anchors attach isn’t truly 90 degrees. Instead, it has a lip. As a result, one side of the anchors does not have a flush surface into which the screws can go.

I noticed this during the original installation, but the handyman assured me it wasn’t a problem and shooed me away. That was back in the days when I still trusted a Thai handyman’s words. No more.

His solution was to create a small piece of wood to fill the gap, gluing together several layers of the veneer used on the cabinet until they were thick enough to fill the gap.

He then screwed the anchor into that glued veneer. But the layers of veneer were never actually attached to the structure of the cabinet – just sort of clamped to the lip of the cabinet!

Left, the top anchor of the shelf, still screwed into the layers of veneer that are glued together. Notice that the holes on the left have been stripped out by the heads of the screws, as the shelf pulled away from the wall.

This left me with a bit of a dilemma: how to repair this problem? Calling the handyman back didn’t seem a very good idea, but the essence of his fix – finding something to fill the gap created by the cabinet frame’s lip – was sound. I just had to figure out what to put in there and where to find it.

Unlike life in the United States, Canada and other western nations, Thailand doesn’t have any Home Depot, Lowe’s, Orchard Supply Hardware or even Ace Hardware stores. With the exception of some completely useless “Home Pro” stores that sell lightbulbs and sinks, all of our hardware is sold from small mom-and-pop (mostly pop) stores.

The first thing I needed was some wood. Again, no obvious place to go if you need a few small lengths of wood. But I recalled that in the old city, the area surround the Golden Mount temple is a woodworking district, handcrafting teak doors. We headed there after brunch with friends.

It was already mid-afternoon. Many of the shops were closed and the few open ones looked to be closing soon. At the first shop, a grizzled old Chinese-Thai man listened as Tawn explained the problem and looked around his shop. He wanted to sell us a length of teak wood – about 3 meters long (10 feet) – when all we needed was about 15 cm ( 6 inches).

We walked down the soi to a shop where they were still out on the sidewalk, sanding a beautiful teak door. The trio of men listened as we explained the problem and one started rummaging around the shop, wonderfully crowded with pieces of wood of all sizes, and found a few small scraps. We tried them out and found a width that was a close fit, then he cut it down to the desired length, leaving us with two 15-cm pieces.

“How much?” Tawn asked the owner. He laughed with a half-toothless smile. “If I wanted to sell it, I would sell it for 10,000 baht (US$285). But I’ll just give it to you.”

We thanked him profusely and walked away with our two pieces of wood that, given the difficulty we were expecting to encounter in finding a solution, we would probably have gladly paid 10,000 baht for.

Returning to our neighborhood by canal taxi just a few minutes before 5:00, we rushed to a hardware store around the corner, just as they were pulling their wares inside from the sidewalk. We explained what we were looking for – longer screws with larger heads and maybe some washers, too – and the owner browsed the shelves lined with tattered paperboard boxes of various sized hardware until he found eight of each item we were looking for.

Back at home, I pulled out the power drill and started the fix. First, screw the piece of wood to the cabinet lip, creating a flat surface and ensuring that there is something solid for the shelf anchor to mount to.

This was a little difficult as I couldn’t face the work area head-on but had to hold the drill from the side. Not so good for my neck.

Next, with Tawn holding the anchor and the shelves in place, I screwed the anchor to the cabinet, starting with the side that had the new piece of wood. This processes worked pretty well, and although the wood split near the bottom screw, it seems to have a firm hold as the screws I used for the anchor actually sank through the stop-gap piece of wood and into the cabinet frame itself.

I decided that before loading things back into the now-secure shelf, I should reconsider just how much weight I was putting on it. This required a complete reorganization of the kitchen cabinets, moving several heavier items (especially dry goods – flour is much heavier than a skillet) to the cabinets above the countertop.

The resulting arrangement – which is more organized in real life than it appears in the photo above – places heavier pots and pans on the lower shelf and lighter items on the higher shelf, including the backup stash of vodka in the Absolut disco bottle!

Meanwhile, I used this opportunity to tidy up all my other cabinets and complete a labeling project I started when we first moved in. This is similar to how my maternal grandparents have their cabinets organized – lots of plastic storage containers, each with a printed label. This sort of anal retentiveness actually appeals to both Tawn and me. Arranged from left to right as you look at the area above the stove:

The big white thing in the center cabinet is the overhead vent for the cooking surface.

So there’s another project done by Chris the handyperson.