Pausing to Reflect

Posted on 13 March 2011 by christao408

Sorry for a few days of no entries. Last Wednesday and Thursday I was down in Singapore on a border run. This is a technicality based on the type of work visa I have for Thailand. If you want to know more, you can read this entry about it, which includes a funny video about a typical border run.

The visit was fun, including a dinner with Singaporean friends that I’ll share pictures of soon along with a nice lunch with two Xangans, Monica (icepearlz) and Nick (beowulf222). I’ve known Nick for a few years independent of Xanga and it is always nice to see him again. This was the first time I’ve met Monica. I know many of you read her accounts of life (and motherhood) in Singapore, and let me assure you that she’s every bit as nice in person as she is on her blog.

While waiting in the lobby of my condo I noticed this butterfly perched on a beam near the ceiling. Was able to get quite close for the shot, although lighting wasn’t ideal. Beautiful creature, isn’t it?

Upon returning to Bangkok, I was engulfed by the news of the earthquake in Japan as I’m sure many of you were. Instead of sitting down to blog, I was turning my attention to reports from that nation and my thoughts to the many friends Tawn and I have there. Thankfully, they are all well and suffered no damage other than the emotional discomfort one would expect from such an experience.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and experienced countless quakes, including the Loma Prieta quake in 1989. While not as severe as this recent quake in Japan, I can sympathize with the feeling of utter helplessness as the ground shifts beneath your feet.

In the next day or two I’ll resume regular blogging, writing about food, cooking, and observations about life in Bangkok. But for today I’ll just leave it at this.

Senators Call for Bipartisan Budget Decisions

Posted on 8 March 2011 by christao408

I read an interesting NY Times article yesterday about the efforts by Senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Saxy Chambliss of Georgia to create a bipartisan conversation about the nation’s budget deficit. This as Congress makes a grand show of nipping at the budget’s heels by cutting things like Head Start early education for children.

While I may be a cock-eyed optimist and a tad naive, I think most Americans can handle straight talk. They are willing to make sacrifices if things are explained to them clearly and without a lot of added fright. I’d like my Senators to join in this bipartisan approach, so took the time to send them the following email:

Dear Senator:
I’d like to encourage you to join with Senators Chambliss and Warner in their effort to hold an honest, bipartisan dialogue about our national deficit.
The current talk in Congress focuses on cutting discretionary spending, which only makes up 12% of our budget. Much of it goes to important programs, but even if we cut it all, we still would have a long way to go to fix the deficit.
I’d like you to be a part of an honest discussion that acknowledges that cuts in spending will have to include defense, healthcare, and social security costs. I’d also like you to acknowledge that revenue increases will also be a necessary part of the solution.
Please stop playing politics with our nation’s future. Join Senators Chambliss and Warner and others who will rise above politics and find a bipartisan solution to repair our nation’s finances.
Thank you.

That’s the action I’m taking. What action will you take? How do you think the deficit should be approached?

In other news, I’m heading out this morning on an overnight border run to Singapore (previous entry). Figured that the flight is the same price if I stay overnight, I’ll have time for dinner with friends, and I don’t have to get up so early to catch my flight. Except that I went to bed early and managed to have the garbage collectors wake me up at 4:30 as they rattled the bins on the street. Thankfully, this trip will include lunch at Din Tai Fung with two other Xangans.

International Women’s Day

Posted on 8 March 2011 by christao408

Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate women worldwide and to remind ourselves of the work yet to be done to fight gender inequality. But it is sad that we need a special day for this. With two young nieces growing up, my hope is that by the time they become adults, they will know no hint of inequality or discrimination.

Baking Natural Red Velvet Cupcakes

Posted on 7 March 2011 by christao408

The red velvet cake’s entry into popular culture can probably be traced to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, in which the groom’s cake was a red velvet cake in the shape of an armadillo. There’s something seductive about the color of a red velvet cake, especially a cupcake, at least at first. But at some point, the red seems just a little too red, and it starts to seem a bit unnatural. That’s no surprise considering that a recipe will use up to several tablespoons of red food coloring.

Doing some research, I gathered that red velvet cake was originally not so red and the color came about naturally. Cocao powder, a key ingredient, didn’t used to be “Dutch process” and was less alkaline in years gone by. When combined with the buttermilk and vinegar in the recipe, the chemical reaction caused the batter to take on a muddy red hue. Unable to find cocao powder that isn’t Dutch process here in Thailand, I stumbled upon a recipe for Natural Red Velvet Cake that, supposedly based on a traditional southern recipe, uses cooked beets for the color.

Intrigued, I had to try.

The ingredients: brown and granulated sugars, eggs, flour, cocoa powder, chocolate, buttermilk, butter, vanilla, salt, baking soda, cider vinegar, and roasted beets.

The mystery ingredient. Instead of using canned beets, which the recipe called for, I roasted my own beets and then pureed them with a little bit of olive oil and water.

First step: Melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water. Chocolate doesn’t figure in most red velvet cake recipes, only cocoa powder, so I was surprised by this addition.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. One of these days I’ll have to seek out natural cocoa powder (i.e. not Dutch process) and see how that affects the outcome of the recipe.

Cream together the eggs, butter, and two types of sugars. Most cake recipes are specific about the process – for example, whip the butter and sugars before adding the eggs. No specificity here so I just dumped them all into the bowl and turned the mixer on.

The end result (after combining the dry ingredients and adding the melted chocolate and beets) had a vaguely reddish tinge to it, although that could just be a color correction issue from the light.

Cupcake liners filled and ready to bake. Lesson I’ve learned: don’t fill your cupcake liners so high because cake batter expands as it bakes.

See? I told you that cake batter expands. Now I have these muffin top cupcakes that would have been interesting if the crumb had held together better, but the structure was kind of weak.

The cupcakes pretty much crumbled when unwrapped. I’m very curious why this is. Maybe cake flour didn’t have enough protein and regular flour would have been better? Maybe just a little too much liquid in the beets? Baking is a science and something didn’t work out right here.

To frost the cupcakes, I prepared a butter-cream cheese frosting but perhaps didn’t whip it enough. That, or the opening in the frosting tip was too small. The frosting bag actually burst on me so I had to instead spread the frosting instead of piping it.

The end results looked a bit rag-tag. I really need to take a class to learn how to frost a cupcake properly. As for the taste, the cupcakes were very moist and the beet flavor wasn’t noticeable at all. As for the color, though, there really was nothing red about the red velvet cupcakes. Not in the least bit.

I guess if I want a really red, red velvet cupcake, I may need to reach for the food coloring after all.

How Well Do You Know This Region?

Posted on 6 March 2011 by christao408

There are plenty of stories written in the American media about how little Americans know about the world and how few can identify various countries on a world map. Certainly such knowledge is important to have and as of late, quite a bit has been going on in the North Africa – Middle East – Central Asia area. So it was with interest that I received an email forwarded by my father that linked to a map quiz from the RethinkingSchools.org website. The results were interesting.

First off, the quiz (which is located here) is an easy drag-and-drop style quiz where you simply drag the name of the country to the corresponding space on the map. If you are correct, the name sticks and the country color fills in. If you are incorrect, a red “X” appears. There is no timer and no score is given so there is no external pressure.

“Interesting,” I thought, resolving to try the quiz. I consider myself a bit more knowledgable about the world than the average American, although the primary arc of the Muslim world is not the corner of the globe with which I am most familiar.

I started dragging names to places, beginning with the ones with which I was most familiar and then filling in around them based on the spacial relationships I know exist. Of the 35 countries I was able to fill in 24 before I began to second guess myself.

I’ll add a few blank lines and you can scroll down if you want to see which ones I knew. Warning: If you plan on taking the test yourself, you should do so before you scroll down. No cheating!

…

Muslim World 2

This was how far I made it. The next two countries I guessed – Chad and Niger – I got correct. But after that it was a bit of hunting and pecking.

Muslim World 3

The complete results are here. A good exercise to reinforce that we rarely know as much about the world as we think we do and can always benefit from some more learning.

Posted on 5 March 2011 by christao408

So far it has been a busy weekend, so much so that I haven’t had the time to read subscriptions or to write any posts. This one wil have to be a quick one, in fact, because there’s a lot to do this Sunday.

This morning I’m trying a recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes that uses roasted beets instead of red food coloring. Actually, it uses canned beets but I went ahead and roasted my own beets since that is easy enough to do. I like the idea of not using the food coloring but I also think a beet cake should be very pleasant, in the same way that a carrot cake has a moist sweetness that comes from the carrots. We’ll see how it turns out.

I’ll leave you with a photo I took last Sunday while riding through the park near the Queen Sirikit Convention Center. In a shaded hollow there is a statue of Buddha, surrounded by trees and looking towards a large lake. Beyond the park, condominium towers have risen and the scene struck me as being an interesting combination of both the peacefulness of nature and the intrusion of modern urbanity.

Anyhow, I hope you are having a fun weekend.

Chinese Poetry

Posted on 4 March 2011 by christao408

Checking my Gmail this morning, the daughter of a high school friend and his wife sent me a message. “Hi! Stuck with Chinese homework. Have to write a poem.” I think she was using the chat feature as an excuse not do her homework. “No worries,” I replied. “I can help.”

After a few minutes of thinking, I responded with the following poem. It is Chinese. Kind of.

Chinese Poem

There once was a siu mai

All covered in sauce.

My brother didn’t want to eat it

So I said, “That’s your loss.”

Picked up by my chopsticks

and dunked in some soy,

The tasty steamed dumpling

brought my tummy lots of joy.

That’s all the creativity I can muster today. Have a good Friday.

Food in Bangkok: Goose at Chua Kim Haeng

Posted on 3 March 2011 by christao408

The final day we were showing our Singaporean guests around, we decided to pile into taxis and travel halfway across the city for some famous Chinese five-spice goose from Chua Kim Haeng restaurant.

This restaurant has been around for decades with two adjacent dining rooms on Pattanakan Road, which is what Petchaburi Road turns into as it heads east of Ramkhamhaeng. They have recently opened another branch.

Jasmine rice.

Gaeng joot gradook muu – Slow-cooked clear soup with pork ribs and daikon radish.

Gapow plaa pad haeng – fried fish maw stir fried dry with green onions served with a sweet chili dipping sauce on the side.

The main course: braised goose, known as han paloh. “Paloh” refers to the cooking a dish with Chinese five spice, but this is a general term in Thai. Each restaurant has its own specific recipe for what those spices are and in what combination.

Chua Kim Haeng is famous especially for its dipping sauce, a combination of vinegar, garlic, and yellow chili instead of the usual green or red chilies. The sauce has a flavor almost of pickling spice and contrasts well with the rich flesh of the goose.

Goose innards. Can you name the parts? Liver, heart, gizzard… yummy!

The Singaporeans loved it. Of course, this is a Chinese style restaurant so they must of felt right at home. In fact, one of our friends ran into someone he knows, another Singaporean who was traveling with his family, sitting at the table next to ours. Small culinary world, isn’t it?

Seafood in Yaowarat

Posted on 1 March 2011 by christao408

While our Singaporean friends were in town a week ago, I went with a couple of them to Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, for a nighttime seafood dinner.

The streets are no less busy once the sun sets as impromptu restaurants – movable feasts, really – open up on the sidewalks. Seafood is the specialty of the neighborhood, with several well-known sidewalk vendors offering the freshest seafood available in town.

A dozen river prawns, simply grilled. The flesh was sweet, the only thing needed was some spicy homemade sauce of chilies, fish sauce, and lime juice.

A plate full of crabs, steamed and cracked for our easy eating. The prawns, crab, and a plate of fried rice were all the three of us needed for a tasty and surprisingly affordable dinner.

As we finished dinner and headed back to the friends’ hotel, I noticed the moon, just a day or two past full, lost amidst the bright lanterns of Yaowarat.

Baking with a Banneton

Posted on 28 February 2011 by christao408

On my trip to the US in early December, my friend Mabel gave me a gift she had been holding for some time: a pair of banneton. These wicker baskets are used by the French when proofing bread dough – after it is shaped and is undergoing its final rise before baking. At some point in the past I had mentioned that I’d like to find some banneton and when she saw them, she purchased them for me. Since December I’ve had the opportunity to use them a few time and thought I’d share the results.

The video is here, a nice, succinct two-and-a-half minute piece. If you cannot view, pictures are below. Link to the video is here.

The banneton is traditionally made of wicker, although some modern ones are made of plastic. The purpose of the wicker, though, is that it wicks moisture away from the surface of the dough, making for a better crust.

Proper flouring is essential, otherwise the dough may not want to leave the cozy nest of the banneton once it is finished proofing. After reading a few online baking sites, I decided to go with the suggested mix of all-purpose wheat flour and rice flour. This worked very nicely and I’ve had minimal troubles with sticking. It was also a neat way to use up some leftover rice flour.

After removing the dough from the banneton, you can see the lines left by the wicker. A few slashes to help the loaf expand and then slide it into the hot oven and onto a baking stone.

The end result is very beautiful and, I must say, rustic-looking. Not sure to what extent I can tell if the crust is really any better. I create a steam bath in the oven with a small tray of boiling water, so the environment is going to be about as conducive to a good crust as this home-use oven will allow. Nonetheless, Tawn and I have been enjoying the results, especially when it is time for panini! Thanks for the thoughtful gift, Mabel!