Baked Stuffed Peppers

Posted on 13 May 2008 by christao408

An entry a few months ago by Sonny got me thinking about stuffed peppers. Stuffed peppers were a regular dinner main when I was growing up, one that I had mixed feelings about. In general, I liked them. But there was something about the taste of the green peppers after they were baked that I didn’t enjoy, finding them slightly bitter. In fact, Roka won’t eat green peppers, pointing out – rightly – that they aren’t ripe yet, so maybe there is something to that.

Tawn has been saying of late how he’d like to eat at home more. Unlike in the United States, it is actually easy to spend less money and eat more healthfully by eating out here in Thailand. This, of course, assumes that you are eating Thai food, which is inexpensive, freshly-prepared, and free of most of the bad things that eating out in the US provides you.

The two things, Sonny’s entry and Tawn’s entreaty, came together and I decided to pull together a meal of stuffed bell peppers. Since Tawn is avoiding red meats and poultry, I had to come up with a vegetarian option. The various recipes I found online were not satisfactory so I concocted my own recipe.

The main ingredient was Job’s Tears, a barley-like grain that is indigenous to parts of Southeast Asia. I added to that a sauteed mixture of celery, corn, Japanese onions (like leeks but a stronger flavor), the chopped tops of the peppers, and garlic. These were sauteed in a little olive oil, a jigger of vermouth, a few tablespoons of dark soy sauce, and a teaspoon of wocestershire sauce. After the veggies were softened, I added a teaspoon of brown sugar and some tomato sauce, cooked it for a few minutes to blend flavors, then mixed it in to the Job’s Tears and added three chopped boiled eggs. I added salt and cracked pepper to taste then chopped several handfuls of fresh basil leaves and added that with about 1/2-cup of shredded Parmesan cheese.

While the mixture cooled I parboiled the peppers for about two minutes each then cooled them under running water. Stuffing the peppers and arranging them in an oiled baking dish, I cooked them covered with foil for 40 minutes at about 350 F until the interior temperature reached 150 F. I uncovered the dish, added a dollop of ketchup on top of each pepper and another shaving of cheese, then baked for 15 more minutes until finished.

The result was delicious and beautiful. There’s still a little something missing, a meatiness that is not there yet. I think I could pan-roast some mushrooms to concentrate the flavor then chop them up and add them to the mixture. Maybe.

Out of forest fires grow new trees

Posted on 12 May 2008 by christao408

On a grey, overcast and relatively cool morning here in Khrungthep it is possible to feel depressed about the state of world affairs: Killer tornadoes have ravaged the American midwest; a 7.9-magnatiude earthquake in China has killed thousands has trapped 900 students in a collapsed secondary school; tens of thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more continue to suffer after the cyclone in Myanmar a week ago.

Each new tragedy brings with it fresh tears and worries. But each tragedy also provides another opportunity to demonstrate the resilience of humanity. We rally together to support our fellows, we provide aid, we give generously and we make sacrifices. And out of these tragedies new lives are built, lessons are learned and sometimes life even improves.

Greensburg, Kansas was wiped off the map last year by a tornado, right. Today the once-dying town is rebuilding in an economically and environmentally sustainable way with a new optimism and new opportunities that didn’t exist before.

Aceh Province in Indonesia, the hardest-hit area in the December 2004 tsunami, had suffered from twenty-nine years of war between the central government and rebels of the Free Aceh Movement before the waves devastated the province, killing nearly a quarter of a million people. While the physical reconstruction has been painful and sometimes slow, the tsunami helped bring about a peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the rebels and the first free elections in December 2006.

Hopefully, from the tragedies of this past week will bloom similar opportunities, change and rebirth.

Monk Sponsorship

Posted on 11 May 2008 by christao408

Tawn’s employer is celebrating the tenth anniversary of their office here in Thailand. As part of their anniversary celebrations, Saturday morning they held a tam boon ceremony, literally “make merit.” Tam boon ceremonies are a large part of what Buddhist monks do. You call up the temple, arrange for a certain number of monks to come over on a certain morning and then they do the ceremony. In return, you make a donation to the temple.

Tawn was in charge of arranging for the monks. Saturday morning we arrived at the temple next to Ekkamai BTS station, Wat Tat Tong at nine and met the monks. The senior monk was a kindly man in his fifties, with a friendly disposition and eager to ask me questions to see how much Thai I know. As we were waiting for the van, he grabbed my arm and, repeating “come take a picture, come take a picture”, led me to one of the main chanting halls to show me one of the Buddha images. He gave me a lecture about how the main image was from Sukkothai and was several hundred years old, made around the same time as an image at another temple down near the Hualomphong train station. It was difficult to keep up. So I took some pictures (below), agreed that it was a very pretty image, and then we went back to the van. You’ll notice that this wat is decidedly more modest than the Grand Palace and other Thai temples you’re used to seeing pictures of.

The monks each had a prominent characteristic, reminding me a little (and I mean this in a respectful way) of the Seven Dwarves. The head monk was like Doc since he was in charge. A second monk was a jolly, large fellow who upon learning I was from San Francisco was trying to remember the lyrics to a song about the city and then started singing, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”. I complimented his memory and asked him whether he liked to sing karaoke, until he explained that “no singing” is one of the 256 precepts that Buddhist monks have to obey.

Whoops! Faux pas.

As we sat in the van waiting for a third monk who wasn’t answering his phone, he came hustling over to the van still wiping his wet head with his robe. “Sorry, I just got out of the shower.” he explained. I’m not sure which dwarf he would be. Tardy?

The other two monks were junior, “Summer Monks” on break from school. They don’t get nicknames because other than one’s relatively small ears, they didn’t say or do anything that particularly distinguished them.

We headed to Tawn’s office where about the staff was waiting having already set up the mats, chairs and other necessities for the ceremony. The monks were seated and then started about twenty minutes of chanting in Pali, the Sanskrit-derived language that is the Buddhist Latin. (Or maybe Latin is the Catholic Pali?)

Afterwards the monks were fed. They have to take their last meal of day by “mid-day” which is usually described as somewhere between 11:00 am and noon. While it is usual for the monks to be served seated on the floor, in this case they were set up at the conference room, an image that I thought was very funny, below. Maybe I’ve just seen so many corporate meetings where all the participants were dressed in the same charcoal gray suits that it tickled me to see a conference table filled with people tressed truly identically.

Here’s a short video of the first two steps of the ceremony:

While the monks were eating, several of the employees went downstairs to the back of the building and presented offerings at the spirit house. This isn’t part of the Buddhist ritual as the spirit houses comes from more of an animist / Brahmanist / Hindu background. The spirit house literally houses the spirit (spirits?) of the land that were displaced when the building was constructed. Offerings included little portions of food and beverage as well as a single stick of incense per person, below.

Returning upstairs, the monks were still eating so Tawn and his colleagues messed around and took photos of each other, being playful as Thais do so well, above.

Finally, when the monks were finished, we did the second part of the ceremony which is the blessing with the holy water. There was further chanting and then the head monk used a bamboo whisk to splash water on everyone. Seeing me near the back of the group, he flicked a very experienced wrist and a large amount of water sailed over the heads of Tawn and his colleagues and gave me quite a splash, right.

With the air conditioning on high, I nearly caught a cold afterwards!

Something to notice, if you will: in the picture below the monks are chanting behind ceremonial prayer fans. The purple one on the left used by the head monk was presented to him by the Crown Princess. The one to the right, used by the happy monk, is interesting because I wasn’t aware that corporate sponsorship was a common practice in Buddhism. “This merit-making ceremony brought to you by Accenture. Accenture: High performance. Delivered.” Kind of like public radio, I guess.

The head monk then proceeded around the office, splashing holy water in each room, along the hallways, on the equipment (taking care of the computers and the photocopiers), driving away the bad fortune in much the same way that our exterminator sprayed along windows, doors, and the floor to drive away pests.

Chalk up another interesting cultural experience.

Face by Big Pharma, Body by DuPont

Posted on 8 May 2008 by christao408

(Yeah, I know you never expected to see a bunch of celebrity photos on my blog, but there’s a first time for everything.)

Do you remember the scene in the movie LA Story where Rick Moranis, playing a grave digger in an uncredited cameo, riffs on the Bard’s Hamlet? As he talks with Steve Martin’s character, he explains how it takes the bodies of Beverly Hills women so long to decompose because their skin has been tan for so long that it resists the water. That and all those unnatural implants help preserve them.

MSNBC Senior Health Editor Julia Sommerfeld has something to say about the artificial changes people make to their bodies, particularly their faces, in the online article Pursuit of Youth Isn’t Always Pretty. The title continues, “Reality check on the war on wrinkles: Looking younger or just weirder?” Which pretty much says it all.

I’m skeptical about cosmetic surgery. “To each his own,” my grandmother would say, and I fundamentally agree. I’m not about to march out and protest in front of plastic surgery clinics in the same way that anti-choice activists do. But I’m concerned when people tie their self-esteem so much to their looks. Yeah, I know that society (easy target, let’s blame “Society” for everything) bombards us with images and messages that equate looks with happiness, but aren’t we all heading to the same end? What if we spent the time, money, and mental energy on something more satisfying and more impactful?

Above: Clint Eastwood, left, and Wayne Newton, right.

This article illustrates my point rather nicely. In a slide show, Dr. Tony Youn, a Michigan-based certified plastic surgeon, reviewed before and after photos of twenty-one celebrities to evaluate who has had what done to them (or not) and with what results. Interesting and instructive. The people who haven’t had anything done really have aged nicely, wrinkles and all. No doubt they’ve followed a regimen of skincare, but no signs of any implants, injections, lifts, nips or tucks. The people who have had some work done look okay at best, frightening at worst, and oddly unnatural for the most part.

I know the pressure on women in Hollywood is greater than on men. Men get “handsome” and “dignified” as they age whereas women are perceived to just look “old”. But looking at Susan Sarandon (above left) and Joan Van Ark (above right), I think that by just about any measure, Susan has aged much more beautifully au naturel than Joan has at the hands of her doctors. And I don’t mean any disrespect to Joan or Wayne. We all make our choices and I respect your right to do that.

Makeup artist Bobbi Brown really makes the point when she says, near the conclusion of the article, that we’re confusing the issues of youth and beauty. I fully agree.

Of course should there be any doubt, we can always use Michael Jackson as the perfect example of why cosmetic surgery is a slippery and downwards slope at the bottom of which neither youth nor beauty lies.

Learning Thai Online

Posted on 5 May 2008 by christao408

When you live in a country for any length of time, I feel you are obligated both by good manners and cultural consideration to try and learn some of that country’s language. Even if you are just going to visit another country for more than two or three days, I still feel you are again obligated by good manners and cultural consideration to try and learn at least a few key phrases. “Please”, “Thank you”, “Excuse me”, “Hello” and “Goodbye” are good phrases with which to start.

My experience traveling is that I’ve enjoyed the places I’ve visited much more and received much friendlier, warmer interactions with locals when I’ve made some attempt to speak their language. This was true in Italy, France and even Australia. It has also held true when I lived in Hong Kong as well as now that I’m in Thailand.

Learning Thai can be intimidating for foreigners (especially those from Western countries), both because of the non-Roman script as well as the tonal nature of the language. There are no shortage of tools to help people learn Thai. If you are in the country, you have many schools as well as private tutors available. These can be pretty effective resources, as I’ve shown.

Outside of Thailand, there are books, CDs, and several websites to use. These are less effective, as nearly everyone who has used them can testify. Over the past year, my friend Stuart has been designing a website that takes a very different and, in my opinion, much more effective approach to teaching Thai. The website, ITS4Thai.com, has been running for a few weeks now and is getting a lot of traffic from around the world.

Not to make this sound like an advertisement, but there are a few things that I think are really effective about the website:

Its highly interactive website uses a variety of games and activities to engage the learner. As a professional trainer, I know that different people learn in different ways. Some are visual learners, some are aural learners, some are tactile learners, etc. ITS4Thai incorporates all those learning styles into the lessons. Plus each lesson is just a “bite” of learning – only about ten vocabulary words and three or four sentence patterns. By the time you’ve done the various activities, you’ll find it easy to remember because it is an easy to digest portion.

The format provides a lot of flexibility and real-life applicability. You can conduct the lessons in whatever order makes the most sense for you. It is easy to track your progress and choose the direction you want to take. If you are going to be here on holiday, then choose the lessons that are most applicable to your interests. If you are going to be here on business, make the appropriate choices. If you’re going to live here… well, you get the idea. Unlike a lot of other learning resources, that are laid out in a linear A-Z fashion, ITS4Thai gives you much more flexibility.

Finally, ITS4Thai is inexpensive. All packages are less than US$20, so you can get a lot of learning without putting down a lot of money. I truly wish that this option had been available to me in the year and a half before I moved to Thailand. Had it been, I would have arrived much better prepared.

Tawn and I have both been helping out Stuart. Tawn has been providing PR, doing his first freelance job, and I’ve been helping with the editing of more than 100 additional lesson which will build upon the 60 that are currently on the site. Needless to say, Tawn and I are both closely involved and enthusiastic about the site.

The results of the PR efforts have started to pay off. After crafting a press release in both Thai and English, Tawn pitched a story to the education reporter for the English language newspaper Daily Express. This past Friday, Stuart, Tawn and the reporter met at Starbucks Ari, above. I tagged along and wound up being used as a model in one of the photo shoots. Thankfully, those pictures were not used in the story!

Yesterday morning the story ran on page 3, a half page above the fold. This was very good coverage and a success for Tawn’s freelancing efforts. It was also, of course, a success for Stuart and ITS4Thai. In addition to other press coverage and additional PR events, I’m hoping that many people will be drawn to this resource.

And as for you, dear reader, if you are considering a trip to Thailand, I hope you’ll take a look at ITS4Thai.com. Stuart is offering ten free lessons at the site, so you can visit it, learn a little Thai, and evaluate the effectiveness of the website for yourself without having to commit any money.

Come over for breakfast, won’t you?

Posted on 4 May 2008 by christao408

The second half of our weekend was more relaxing and less do-it-yourself than the first. We had ten friends over for Sunday breakfast – a real breakfast, starting at 10:00, instead of one of those brunches. Homemade buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy; oven roasted potatoes and bell peppers; soft scrambled eggs with salsa; and assorted fruits. Mimosas and fresh-brewed coffee and tea for those who were thirsty.

What an interesting mix of guests we had. Brian made it to our house for the first time as he had been out of town on occassions when we had previously invited him. Stuart and Piyawat were both able to make it as were Ken and Chai. Of course, no party is a party without Vic there, and Doug brought two guests: One of them, Gaye, is a native of Istanbul who has been studying massage in Chiang Mai for the past several months before returning home this Wednesday. The other, Orn, works for the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand in membership and outreach. Needless to say, they both had such interesting stories to share.

Sometimes after we throw parties the question arises, “Was it worth the effort?” While I did choose to do a little extra cooking Saturday evening to prepare (I rendered the drippings from some fresh pork belly to make my own lard, which is the best fat to use when making roasted breakfast potatoes. Dinner potatoes with rosemary are better with olive oil, though.), the dishes were all very easy to make, so this time both Tawn and I were relaxed enough to really enjoy the party and the answer to the question is definitely, “Yes!”

PR and DYI

Posted on 3 May 2008 by christao408

A relaxing start to the weekend at Chez Chris and Tawn. Well, not exactly, and I’ll talk more about it in a moment. But in the meantime, efforts are being made to ensure that Tawn is well pampered, right.

You may recall that about two months ago we had a photo shoot for Elle Decoration magazine’s Thailand edition. There was a full day shoot in which the house was turned upside down while I was banished to the balcony and eventually just left home for the day.

As much as I wasn’t keen about doing the photo shoot, Tawn felt it was important both to build his image (he does PR and one day wants to work freelance so his image is important) and our designer is always looking for some free publicity.

So no sooner had the shoot finished and the story had been confirmed with Elle – the spin on the story is “A Baker’s Home” – then Tawn accepted another request for a photo shoot, this one from Daybeds.

The story this time is “A Peaceful Sanctuary” and instead of doing small, focused shots as Elle did, this time the entire house was staged beforehand and then the photographer just came through and shot rooms. This necessitated a whole truckload of different decorations to be brought in from Ble’s store and a whole balcony worth of decorations to be moved out to the balcony, left.

Needless to say, I didn’t stay at home for this photo shoot, either. Promises have been made that there will be no more photo shoots as it is really, really far outside my comfort zone.

So what did we do this Saturday? We finally tackled a home improvement project. My father, the original do-it-yourselfer whose favorite place when we were growing up in Sunnyvale, CA was Orchard Supply Hardware, is hopefully proud to see how much of a chip off the old block I have become. Who would have imagined that I possess the tinkerer’s gene?

The problem to be overcome was the drain for our washing machine. For whatever reason (narrow ceilings?) the drain does not have a u-trap. Since the hose from the washer does not fit snuggly in the drain, there has been plenty of room for unpleasant odors to leak out into the bathroom, made worse when you turn the ventilation fan on, thinking incorrectly that you’ll be drawing fresh air into the bathroom.

The challenge was how to seal the opening to the drain while still being able to use it for the washing machine. After a few trips to the hardware store and much heavy lifting to remove the 40 kg stacked dryer and the 80 kg washer, we settled on a solution:

A pipe adapter, which steps down one size pipe to another, fit perfectly into the hole and created a narrower opening through which the washer hose could be placed. I used acrylic putty around the pipe adapter, sealing it and ensuring it would stay in place. After about an hour of letting the putty dry, I reinserted the hose and then used the old MacGyver standby, duct tape, to create an airtight seal around it.

Finally, some shoving and heavy lifting saw the machines put back into place and we now have a bathroom free from the smell of mysterious drain odors. We’ve even run a couple of loads of laundry just to make sure the drain wouldn’t back up. So far, so good…

That task finished, we headed out for some lunch at our local pie shop (right) and then on to shopping errands to prepare for our breakfast gathering Sunday morning. It is time to introduce my Khrungthep friends to my homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Looking at my notes, I see that there are many other things I need to write about including some catch up from days past. Soon, soon, soon.

Taxis that match your outfit

Posted on 1 May 2008 by christao408

Just want to share this photo with you that I took last week while filling up the car at a petrol station. The taxis in this city come in a multitude of colors, so many that you’re almost guaranteed to find one that matches your outfit.

Ootoya: oishi des ne?

Posted on 29 April 2008 by christao408

I love Thai food and one of the great things about living in Thailand is – no surprise here – there is no shortage of great, inexpensive Thai food.

If Khrungthep is the Mt. Olympus of Thailand then Thai food is our ambrosia and, ignoring the obvious question of who the gods and goddesses are, blended fresh watermelon juice must be our nectar.

Even with that plethora of good Thai food, from time to time I still want to eat something else. Just as when I lived in San Francisco I didn’t eat American food all the time so, too, here in Thailand I like to travel around visiting the different huts in the global culinary village.

One of my favorite huts to stop by is the one run by Ootoya, a Japanese chain that specializes in teishoku, or set meals, comprised of a protein, bowl of rice, miso soup, and a plate of pickles. Ootoya doesn’t do sushi and is largely about grilled items. The food is fresh, portions generous but not overwhelming, and the ingredients healthy. Below: Examples of Ootoya’s teishoku, grilled hamburger with onion sauce on the left and grilled saba (mackerel) on the right.

There are plenty of locations throughout the city, especially in the mid-Sukhumvit area where there are a lot of Japanese expats.

One other nice thing is that Ootoya updates its menu regularly. There are a lot of “spring specials” on the menu, even though the seasons here don’t quite correspond with the seasons in Japan. It is just nice that we get to see a wide variety of dishes. One of their winter specials was baked then grilled slices of daikon radish served with a fermented red bean sauce. So tasty! Very simple combination but tremendously satisfying.

For spring we have fresh steamed vegetables, served in a steaming basket and sterno stove at your table. Unfortunately, it takes practically the whole meal for the veggies to get tender! Short video segment below.

In other news, we had a brief visit from our friend Tomas recently, right. Tomas and his partner Jose moved a few years ago from Houston to London and after a short return to the United States are back in London.

Tomas was here at a conference and fortunately could make the time to meet for dinner at Curries and More followed by some drinks at the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel.

Don’t think that Tawn and I aren’t interesting in accepting their invitation to stay with them on our next visit to London. Prices being what they are in the British Isles and the dollar’s value being what it is, we’ll certainly take the offer of lodging especially when it comes with a generous serving of Tomas and Jose’s warm hospitality!

Babies Galore

Posted on 28 April 2008 by christao408

As mentioned before, many of Tawn’s school friends are settling down and having children. At least the opposite-sex couples are.

The other day we hosted several of them on the occassion of Kat coming back to Khrungthep for Songkhran. Kat and her British husband Dan were married in a beautiful ceremony on the beach in Phuket back in September 2006. Last June they gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Sophie. We visited them in Hong Kong when Sophie was just a few days old.

Left: Sophie and I scratch each other’s chin.

Hard to believe it has almost been a year since then and in that year the number of children in the group has grown considerably. Ja and her husband Tuk gave birth to a lovely baby girl called Namink, a half-year ago and Sa and her husband Job recently gave birth to their son, JJ. (Which I should probably write as “Jae Jae” to translate more accurately.)

Below, two of the three new mothers: Kat and Sopie on the left and Sa and JJ on the right. Sophie’s face reminds me of the the Campbell’s Soup Kids except with dark hair.

Below: Can you see the similarity?

Maybe it is just me. Anyhow, we had a fun time with Eddy showing a maternal instinct we never knew he had… at least for a few minutes until he got bored of holding JJ, below. Ultimately, he needed Tawn’s help. Good attempt at mustering a smile at only about eight weeks old, JJ!

As time goes by, I think our gatherings are going to look more and more like the picture below. Family gatherings, with “family” defined in a variety of ways. From left to right: Mon, Chris, Tawn, Sophie, Kat, Job (holding JJ), Sa, and Eddy.